Joey Cloudy online

TRAMP: Keeping It Real

“The greatest gift is a potion of thyself.” 

-Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Erika was the image that popped into your mind when you heard the words radical lesbian feminist. She looked like a cliché of a dyke. The type that took women’s studies courses seriously. Memorized the S. C. U. M. Manifesto and smoked Lucky’s. She was a thickset, swarthy girl, built like a burrito with small tits and a sturdy waist. Short cropped thick black hair, baggy jeans, the prerequisite oversized flannel shirt and Doc Martins. She might as well as been wearing a neon sign over that uni-brow of hers that flashed the word DYKE. With her deep set grey eyes, squared chin, cinder block of a jawline and perpetual scowl of an expression that she always wore on her face and skin tone that made it look as if her face had been carved from a large block of spam, generally handsome facial features, no amount of makeup was going to make her look like a powder puff.

Erika was comfortable with herself she didn’t want to be a fembot. She was happy with her life right now, she had an athletic scholarship to a Brigham Young. An excellent relationship with her parents and friends enough. These girls sitting at the table were not her friends. They were Laurels friends, Laurel was sitting in the center of the half moon shaped booth with her new entourage as if she were holding court over her fat chick camouflage. This was pathetic and she was pathetic for being here. How could she have ever allowed herself to be hung up on someone so vapid, petty and self-absorbed. They were divided about whether or not Laurel should be dating Aaron. Half of her Denny’s Brats friends thought she was stupid for dating a guy she knew was in love with another girl. Others were of a mind that somehow her love for him would one day magically bring him around to feeling about her the way that she felt about him. Some thought that the longer that this relationship lasted the worse it was going to be on her when it ended. She was singing summer love but to him she was just a winter love.

This isn’t how it was supposed to be dating him. It wasn’t what she imagined having a boyfriend who was a poet would be like. She’d imagined him writing copious volumes of fêted love poems; inspired by, dedicated to, and the titled after Laurel. But the only poem he had mentioned her in was the one titled ‘Drinking Morgan’s Margaritas’ about Morgan pouring margaritas into their mouths while they were screwing. When she complained about his having never writing a poem for her, he paused for a moment as he feigned sincerely searching his memory for the nonexistent poem before he defensively claimed the margarita poem was about her. They both knew that she wasn’t talking about a poem and that he knew what they were both truly thinking. This was about the pink elephant, gorilla in the room that everybody pretends they don’t see. This was about Laurels weight. They had never discussed it. Although they had discussed just about every other topic of conversation imaginable. However, the fact that she was at eighteen years of age quickly approaching two hundred pounds was never a topic of discussion.

Then of course there was the lingering issue of uneven levels of emotional commitment. They both knew that she was really into him and that he wasn’t into her. You look at people with the right kind of eyes and you see this sort of situation playing out all of the time. You saw them together and you knew immediately that he wouldn’t give it a second thought if she left him tomorrow. None of the pride or swagger was evident in his eyes when he was with her that was there when he was with Mona, Jen, Tavah, Desiree, Victoria, Ashlee, Stevie or any other of the numerous beautiful women that were his friends. Although he would be loathed to admit it, he was in fact one of the beautiful people and they were at their best when they basked in each others light.

At this moment he had ripened into a great writer while she was merely good. Still, no one knew what another person was capable of when properly inspired. But, if she tried to build a relationship with a guy who was settling for her, would she be settling for less than she disserved when she accepted what he was prepared to offer. She would have let the boyfriend girlfriend status develop and been satisfied with what they shared if she hadn’t seen his eyes when Mona walked into the room. He played the role of the loyal and compassionate boyfriend well. He didn’t give her a second look after he saw her walk into the room. He didn’t have to. What wasn’t there when he looked at her was a halogen light in his eyes the he looked at Mona. In a flash of the eyes she knew that she couldn’t go on pretending that they were a real couple any longer. In that moment she knew that she could never settle for less than the fire behind the eyes.

Of course the poem wasn’t about her, she was little more than a cock ornament in it. How that gothic mute little retard Mona had every guy in the place dedicating their poems to her infuriated her especially since she couldn’t get her own alleged boyfriend to write a single poem dedicated to herself. Laurel, who had been talking loudly gesturing with her hands as she spoke was quiet now. She shrank down into her seat in the middle of the booth with her arms folded across her chest pouting. She had been feeling like shit lately every since she had taken her little brother to Insomnia to hear her poetry and show off her new boyfriend, the poet, who emceed the open mic in Deep Ellum. That turned out to be a disaster. How was she supposed to know that he would choose that night to read that piece of pornography he’d written ‘BEW’ as a duet with that Tavah.

Erika thought that she was lucky to have any guy. As far as she was concerned Laurel was an idiot. Most of the girls sitting here had never dated anyone before. Everything they knew about men, love and relationships they had learned from reading Jane Austen and watching Sex in the City. Erika looked at the five women sitting around the table at Denny’s, all of them single, two of them still, not by choice, virgins and at least one of them, besides herself, secretly in love with her. Making her the lone token lesbian, and every one of them weighed over two hundred pounds. five manless, loveless, Rubenesque, women giving advice about how she should deal with her boyfriend. Free advice. These were her oldest friends, they had known each other since grade school but Laurel Pennington had hardly spoken to any of them since she’d started dating Aaron.

She hadn’t really had much time to hang out with them since she moved in with Kelley. Between school and the two jobs she didn’t have much free time. That’s what she told herself, she’d said it to herself so many times that she was starting to believe it. Erika sipped her coffee between taking drags off of her Lucky Strike as she looked at her friend Laurel surrounded by her old crew wondering why she couldn’t just relax and enjoy it for what it was, a hot guy with a hard dick, giving out a friendly fuck. It was so obviously just a pity fuck, but none of them would ever admit it. The need for illusion ran too deep but that is what was going on while they sat around listening to Laurel complain about her sex life. It seemed that she wasn’t so much as complaining about having to suck his dick every morning before she drove him to work as bragging. They all sat around eating their blueberry pancakes swimming in butter and maple syrup nodding their heads in agreement with her.

Erika flipped through the stack of pictures that Laurel had brought of what was apparently going to end in an orgy. A Brad Pitt looking guy she recognized from her job at the beauty shop with Morgan slobbering all over him. Melody was saying something about how she shouldn’t let Aaron fuck her up the ass anymore if she wasn’t into it. Amber just kept going on about how filthy anal sex was and Courtney was going on about how degrading oral sex was for a woman to perform on a man. They all sat around talking trash about two subjects most of them knew next to nothing about men and sex. What was with all of this third wave fem-Nazi bullshit anyways. Talking shit about men when you had one was acceptable. Talking shit about men when you could have one but didn’t want one at the moment was expected. But a bunch of envious, overweight virgins babbling about something they never had and weren’t likely to ever have was unacceptable. Thank the Gods I leave for school in the fall. I can’t believe that I ever hung out with these silly twats. What a bunch of fucking hypocrites they all were, if they ever found a guy that would pay them the least bit of attention they’d be grateful to let him gouge out an eyeball and skull fuck them.

Sure, it was easy to play the role of the angry feminist but the only thing more pathetic than a horny fat chick was a militant fat horny chick. Men treated them with the same indifferent manner they reserved for old ladies, retards and cripples, as if there was nothing of any use between their chaffing thighs. Obesity made you invisible to men. Here she was showing off her guy passing around photographs of them together with her new girlfriend Morgan. Morgan was the biggest whore on the planet and they all knew this, they had grown up making fun of her and her mega-slut posse, now her and Laurel were supposed to be best friends. Erika felt a wave of anger surge through her like a heat wave when she got to the pictures of Laurel and Morgan topless kissing each other while they squeezed one another’s tits. Now she had an idea about how she’d gotten a guy like this for a boyfriend. Well, goody for her. But, it was as if she could see their little wheels turning invisible gears spinning in their head their secret unarticulated thoughts that if they couldn’t have a man then why should she have one. What kind of friends were these any ways. Here she was flushed with jealousy because she had seen a picture of Laurel kissing another girl. What must the others be thinking of the pictures of her kissing her boyfriend? The same feelings of jealousy, this mocking envy that heightened ones sense of loneliness?

I think you’d be a fool to break off your relationship with Aaron because he’s not as into it as you are. You’re so full of shit I can’t even fucking believe you Laurel. I mean Jesus, you’re still fucking your ex-boyfriend plus whoever else you want. Wasn’t it you who called me last week after you boned some stranger you picked up on your way to Aarons? For Christ sake Laurel you fucked him right here in the goddamned parking lot. So, I really don’t see how you’ve got any reason to be bitching about anything. Unlike the rest of our gang here I’ve actually met him and I think he’s great. The only thing I don’t understand about him is what he sees in your dumb ass.

He’s still in love with Mona and fucking that little bitch Tavah.

Aarons not hooking up with Tavah, they’re just friends.

And how do you know so much, did he tell you that?

No, she did when we were smoking out behind Insomnia last Tuesday night.

She was asking me about Houston.

Houston!

Yeah, she was disappointed to learn he was only nineteen.

She wanted to hook up with Houston?

Yeah, I guess you beat her to the punch on that one eh. He and Mona only see each other at Insomnia did you know that she’s going out with that Trevor Dickson dip shit.

I thought Trevor was a fag. I would have sworn that he was packing Brandon’s fudge.

Is that what we’re really here for because your jealous of every woman that says so much as hello to him. Well, guess what!? It’s going to be like that as long as your with any cute guy so you might as well get used to it, that or get yourself an ugly guy. You can’t see beyond your happily ever after chic lit fantasy can you. Who do you think he is? He’s a great writer but you can’t see it can you, you and your little sewing circle here don’t get it at all. What?! You think because he hasn’t written ‘Ode to a Fat Ho’s Choochie’, a crown of stretch mark sonnets or the ballad of your cellulite cratered ass that he ain’t a real poet. But that’s what makes him such a great writer, his refusal to lie to us, his refusal to play all the bullshit PC games that we’ve been programmed to believe by Jane Austen, that somewhere out there, there’s a rich, muscular someone for us. A man with a huge…bank account. A soul mate endowed with a magic wand between his legs that only gets erections when he’s looking at you of course it has multiple orgasm tattooed on it. This perfect man, who for no good reason has fallen totally and completely in love with you. Stop watching Muriel’s goddamned Wedding. Men love with their eyes. No guy in america is sitting around fantasizing about walking down the street with a girl that looks like you. That Bozo the clown red hair, freckles, that pug nose, that thick neck, the cancles, the flabby triceps, the rolling gut, those blubbery thighs, those sagging breast, stretch marked buttocks, the ideal of a true love.

No one was eating anymore. No one was talking in the entire restaurant. The waitresses stopped waiting tables, the cooks had come out of the kitchen, all the rest of the diners customers conversations had come to a stop. Erika went on pitilessly tearing into her friends ideas of themselves.

If you stopped to think about it you would realize it’s a load of bullshit. A ludicrous concept that woman accept because it’s safer to believe “the bewtiful lie than to face the ugly truth” the truth is that most of us will live our entire lives and never have anyone ever look at us twice. The best that you can hope for is to nab some loser who’ll settle for a fat chick. Seriously, all of you sitting here telling her to ditch this guy because of this fantastical idea you have that there’s magically someone for everyone is a delusional fairy tale. I’m something of an expert on unrequited love, so let me be the first to inform you, just because you love someone is no guarantee that love will be returned.

She looked hard at Laurel then at everyone at the table. Everyone lowered their head unable to make eye contact with her. They all knew that Erika had had a crush on Laurel since they were in grade school but everyone pretended that they didn’t notice. While she was the only openly lesbian she wasn’t the only dyke at the table and the others didn’t want to be outted. So they sat there quietly hoping when this was over that no one would wonder about their status as roommates.

The chances of anyone ever falling in love with you is so slim as to be ridiculous. It’s only going to get worse statistically as we get older. Do you know that within a few decades that we’ll all have a better chance of being struck by lightning twice than of ever finding a husband. Do you know how slim your chances are of being struck by lightning even once or let alone twice. The best thing you can do is deal honestly with any relationship you’re in at the moment. Accept it for what it is, rather than lament it for what it isn’t. What?! We’re supposed to feel sorry for you because your man isn’t perfect. When we have nothing but vibrating dildos to keep us company when we go to bed alone each night. Christ, Laurel I let my cat sleep in the bed with me just to feel something warm on the pillow next to mine. Happiness isn’t a right. It’s a matter of luck, not need, because god knows everyone of us needs a little of what you’ve got. But if you want to throw away the guy, I say fine, go ahead and kick his ass to the curb. Just don’t act surprised when you see him dating one of your so called friends, because I can guarantee you that’s exactly what’ll happen. Hell, if I wasn’t a dyke, I’d fuck him my damned self.

Laurel was in tears as her world felt like it was ending she whimpered.

I just can’t believe that he read that disgusting poem in front of my fourteen year old brother. Oh, please spare us the puritanical melodrama. You’re not Laura Engels and he wasn’t raised in a monastery. You know he’s seen his share of triple X flicks and cyber porn? You’re such a hypocritical self righteous cunt. Jesus, you were just showing us pictures of you at an orgy. Next year you’ll be off to Brigham Young to find a nice Mormon boy to settle down with, but in the mean time, I think you should count yourself lucky to have hooked up with this guy. You’re upset because the real world doesn’t line up with your fantasy. Look who you’re talking to four lonely, overweight, aspiring breeders with nothing in their past, present or foreseeable futures that could help you with what’s going on in your life. What do you really want from him?

I want him to love me the way that he loves her.

Well, that ain’t ever going to happen. I want you to do me a favor when you get home. Strip down to your bare ass and look at your body in the mirror. Then ask yourself if you wasn’t you what would you say when you saw somebody that looked like you. Have any of you ever thought for a minute that any fat, ugly guy was sexy because he had a great personality? Hell no, you all had the same Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Beatle posters on your walls growing up as everybody else. Why no John Goodman, John Belushi, John Candy or Chris Farley. Why no Meat Loaf or Jack Black posters on your wall you wanna know why because those guys are all fat. Has it ever dawned on a one of you that even in the novels you read and movies that you watch all the time that the men and women are all slender and gorgeous people. None of us is ever going to be mistaken for one of the beautiful people. Not without ingesting a lethal quantity of hallucinogenic, a serious dose of revisionist history and an unhealthy amount of self-delusion. So, if your boyfriend’s poetry bothers you then I suggest that you find another boyfriend cause this one’s not going to start writing ‘Ode to a Fat Bitch from the Burbs’ anytime soon or maybe he will. Just don’t try to rationalize your behavior by pretending it has anything to do with how Aaron is treating you because it doesn’t. It has everything to do with your new slutty assed friends and you trying to be like them in order to be cool.

This has nothing to do with my friends!

The fuck it don’t. Wasn’t it you who called Morgan the queen of the mega-sluts and I quote “that if she even smells an erection she falls over with her legs in the air” end quote.

Well.

Well nothing and what about Kelley, wasn’t it you who referred to her as “a pipe cleaner with a vagina” and my personal favorite that “platinum penis pump.” So, how do you go from being one of the nerds, to being one of the popular girls. Mmmm? ‘I’m Audi.

Erika got up from her seat at the booth. Laurel sat watching in a teary eyed silence as her oldest friend walked away. Standing in the door to the kitchen the by several of the waitresses began to clap, a fat Mexican in soiled mess-whites joined them, soon many of the customers began to clap, some even rose to their feet applauding. Men and women, many with tears in their eyes, clapped. Erika smiled through her tears as she walked across the restaurant, it felt as if she were moving in slow motion. When she got to the register the teary eyed grey haired middle aged cashier refused to take her money.

Go get’em girlfriend! This ones on me. Erika walked out the glass door into the morning sun. She touched the tiny silver pentagram that hung around her neck on a short leather string. Aaron had taken it from around his own neck and given it to her after she read her poem coming out as a Pagan. She felt so many thing right now but mainly she felt a sense of relief, unburdened by all of the emotional baggage that she had carried around for so many years. Well, that was cathartic. She said smiling as she climbed into the cab of her Dodge Duelly pick-up. She started the engine pulled out the parking lot into the light traffic on I-75 service road and drove away from the Denny’s brats for the last time.

-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.