Joey Cloudy online

TRAMP: Maybe it was hubris

Maybe it was hubris that made him date her, he thought to himself. His wanting to be certain that she was well fucked after the disastrous first night together. Maybe if he hadn’t blacked out mid-coitus, he wouldn’t have felt somehow obligated to hang out with her and her horny-assed friends. I mean, she lives in the suburbs, and he hated the fucking burbs. He had spent enough of his childhood out there to know it was a place he never wanted to return.

She was the first woman to ever write him a poem—at least since he had begun writing poetry seriously in December of ’99. But she used the word *Elysium* in it, and when he asked her whose heaven it was, she didn’t know; she had simply used the thesaurus to find another word for paradise. He was disappointed that she didn’t know whose heaven it was, and he probably should have been more grateful that she had bothered to write a poem at all. Most of the women who showed up at poetry readings only wrote poems after a relationship was over, never about a guy they wanted or were having a good relationship with. He didn’t know why—that was just how it was then with them.

So, the next week, he found himself sitting with her at the coffee shop. She’d emailed all of her friends about their little secret rendezvous. A week later, when everyone saw him at the coffee shop, they were dating. They were an item. So he rationalized it: fuck it, right? She was smart, funny, terrific in bed. Play your cards right, and maybe he could swing a three-way with her and her girlfriend. Who knew what could happen if he showed up at her apartment full of all her little girl friends with a few tabs and some luck?

One thing you have to know about Laurel, in order to have any perspective on their relationship, is that the first time he ever fucked her, he fell asleep mid-coitus. Why she ever dated him was a mystery. It probably had something to do with her being overweight—at least, that was the consensus of most of his female friends, who were all horrified when they found out he was dating her. Not that they wanted to date him, why would they? He was poor, Black, with a raggedy grill. But he wasn’t that pathetic negro, you see, so desperate to put his penis in a white woman that he’d fuck even a fat, ugly hag if she were white. He finished her off when he came to, but he blacked out right in the middle of it. Poor kid, nineteen years old, only the second time anybody had ever gotten into her little pussy, and this old nigga falls asleep on the job.

It was only her second time having sex. The first time had been two days earlier, with a Mexican boy she had dated before they met. Laurel had volunteered to give him a ride to his room after a reading when he asked if anybody was headed north. He thought all she wanted was to give him a ride home. Besides, she was too fat for him to be fucking around with. He didn’t even have any fat female friends, because he didn’t want to be seen in public with some fat bitch. I mean, the only thing more cliché than a nigga fucking a white bitch is a nigga fucking a fat white bitch.

So he figured she’d drop him off and that would be that. She was with her best girlfriend, Morgan, so being polite, he asked if they smoked, as a way of saying thanks for the ride. He asked if they wanted to smoke a joint with him before they left. It had been a long day, and he was fucking exhausted, so he figured after they blazed up, they would bounce and he could get some sleep.

He remembered her friend calling another girl to come pick her up, or maybe Laurel dropped her off. The details were a little fuzzy. It was nothing spectacular about the evening. He wasn’t attracted to Laurel, so he didn’t feel any great pressure to be on his ‘A’ game. Her friend wasn’t a dog; she might even have been cute in a flattering light with a few beers, but she wasn’t anything to write home about—probably something to do with that stagnating Mormon gene pool.

They were sitting around drinking beer, and she seemed to have decided she wanted to hook up. He decided to lay some pipe, figuring she deserved at least one decent fuck in her life. Fat ho’s need love too. Then he remembered her telling him that she wasn’t there to have sex. OK, it was what, two or three in the morning? She’d ditched her friend and was sitting in a hotel room with a heterosexual male getting trashed. He guessed they could be friends, but not really. He was only friends with attractive women that way if and when they hooked up, he wouldn’t be embarrassed about their appearance.

Personally, he didn’t see how women did it go out with unattractive men. He had tried, but he couldn’t handle it. Fine. He wasn’t in any hurry to get into those big girl panties anyway, so he dropped a Vicodin, chased it with a shot of beer, and fired up another joint, figuring she’d bounce soon.

Before long, they were naked on the bed. He was sucking on one of her big old titties and pounding her pretty good. Then the drugs, the booze, and the chronic kicked in. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like to be in the middle of getting laid, and then have the mother just zonk out on you like he was a narcoleptic or something. If a guy was with a woman and that shit happened, he would be humiliated and embarrassed and never want to see the woman again. Women are so much nicer than men—that’s why he liked being around them more than men. It felt good to be around people who are genuinely compassionate, and there is a chance—no matter how remote—that they’ll be attracted to him and that he’ll have increased his chances of hooking up.

Really, nothing’s gayer than the behavior of most allegedly straight men. The ability to deal with the reality of the disparity between what they desire and what is available, without agonizing, always wondering if they could have done better, the way a woman will accept a multitude of physical and psychological flaws without complaint, is what makes them so much more beautiful as companions than men.

He had a hard time getting an erection for a woman he wasn’t physically attracted to. He could have intercourse with anyone, aroused or not. But it was more pleasant to have sex with someone with a nice body and a pretty face. A tight, wet little cunt was a joy too. The list of things people put on their checklist is long and ridiculous, but there is no substitute for blood-pounding lust for another human’s body. Mutual desire for human bodies that is penetration poetry at its most primal.

Is it just some humongous weakness in his own personality that he liked being seen with attractive women, whether friends or lovers? Everyone says writers are supposed to tell the truth, but that’s not the truth. Everybody who knows anybody wants them to think they’re cool, even if they are doing them a favor by acknowledging their existence.

He was curious: why did it feel good to be around nice, good-looking people? If you weren’t one of the beautiful people, it was okay—you were probably one of the smart people, which is infinitely better. What is the biochemistry of attraction? How often is it mutual versus unrequited? One-sided? About as much fun as watching retards eat or old people fuck.

Getting raped as a child wasn’t the worst thing that ever happened. As a matter of fact, it seemed like no big deal at all. He was confused for a while—he didn’t really have a vocabulary for it. He sort of forgot about it. When he got old enough to start being interested in girls, he was afraid he was homosexual. After he found out what a fag was, he thought that was the worst thing that could happen to a guy.

Of course, he lived long enough to realize that there were worse things than pedophiles roaming the earth. Things could have been far worse. If the worst thing had happened to him as a kid, he wouldn’t have anything to complain about, really.

He learned how to cook cocaine by watching public television. He was a closeted musical watcher. If Bob Hope and Bing Crosby were back on Road to… on public television this weekend, forget seeing him anywhere he didn’t have to be.

Moulin Rouge made its way immediately into his list of the most romantic movies ever made, along with Annie Hall, The Princess Bride, Natural Born Killers, and Love and a Forty-Five. He remembered the year 1998. It was the year he began drinking venti caramel lattes instead of large hot chocolates, Starbucks espressos instead of 7-Eleven coffee. The year he started watching films instead of movies. Before then, he hadn’t known the difference. It was the year he stopped cutting his hair and started trying to figure out how to dread it.

Most days, he didn’t even know what day it was until the weekend came. He stopped wearing a watch because he no longer wanted to be shackled to eternity. If he needed to know the time while out, he would ask someone wearing a timepiece. Besides, when you’re waiting for the bus, it doesn’t really matter what time it is; you’re still going to have to wait.

No, you don’t say, “It’s an hour until the next bus, so fuck that noise, I’m calling a cab.” You sit with the knowledge born of waiting.

About the author

JD Cloudy’s poetry has disappeared in the literary journals: Fatfizz, Mad Swirl, Texas Beat Anthology, Danse Macabre, Du Jour, and Death List Five. He has won no literary awards, entered no slam competitions, and never completed college. He lives to write in Dallas, TX.