If I Were A Woman

If I were a woman, I wouldn’t feel paranoid or uncomfortable in Victoria’s Secret.

Instead of popping in once a year at Christmastime and running straight to the counter to buy a gift card for my sister, I could mosey and maybe even buy something for myself. Because I could. Because I’d be a woman. I would be nice to the sales girl with the pink measuring tape, and I might even ask her to take my bust size, because What Not To Wear taught me that many adult women are wearing the wrong bra. 

I’d go to mani-pedi parties, even though pedicures give me anxiety. As a man, I recoil when the aesthetician files down my little toenail, and I feel like I’d react the same way if I were a woman. But maybe the shared experience of a mani-pedi party might curb my anxiety because I’d be too distracted by dishing and mimosas to notice the girl with the paring knife jabbing into the gutters of my toenails. In nice restaurants, I’d excuse myself to the bathroom with two or three friends where I’d sit on the sink, reapplying my eyeliner and talking about everyone who isn’t in the bathroom with us, but I’d try not to say anything catty because there’s enough of that going around, anyway.

If I were a woman, I’d have grace and fucked up arches because I’d have been a dancer my entire life. I would’ve asked my parents to put me in ballet classes as soon as I could speak, and I would’ve dedicated lots of free time to perfecting my art. As a teenage girl, I would’ve stayed away from the boys my parents didn’t approve of, and when they set boundaries for me, I would’ve played ball and compromised. As a grown woman, I’d ensure that my relationship with my mother was not only intact, but also fruitful. I’d hope that she’d see the best parts of herself in me, and wordlessly congratulate herself on a job well done.

If I were a woman, I’d wear rompers, and jumpers, and slingbacks, and racerbacks, and halter jumpsuits, and harem pants, and hot pants, and headscarves, and bangles, and cuffs, and wedges, and hoops, and boots, and pearls, and lace, and crushed velvet, and sheer skirts, and leggings, and Mary Janes, and things with keyholes, and things with empire waists, and things with fringe, and things with beading, and things with red soles, and things that flare, and things that plunge, and things that billow, and things that sparkle, and things that zip up the back, and things that reveal other things, and maybe even a turban. I’d emulate the style choices of my sister, and Amber Champion, and my friend Kim, and this girl I follow on Instagram named Hope, and Rooney Mara, and Chloë Moretz, and Chloë Sevigny.

And I’d own a kimono. And I’d have bangs. And I’d cut them blunt.

If I were a woman, I’d be a feminist. I’d believe in the power of my sex and I would do everything that men told me I couldn’t. I would love my breasts, no matter their size, and I would never use my sexuality as a weapon. I would never say, “I get along with guys more than girls” because all women say that, and it always sounds like something to make men feel comfortable, but to me, it just sounds like gender betrayal. Speaking of which, I wouldn’t hate Anne Hathaway or Taylor Swift because all women hate Anne Hathaway and Taylor Swift, and that’s never made any sense to me. But, I’d listen to the same music and I’d read the same books that I do now, as a man, because I have awesome taste in music and books, and I don’t see why any of that would change if I were a woman.

If I were a woman, I would never cry over a boy because when I was young, my father pointed at the front door of our house and asked me if I knew how many boys lived outside that door. When I shook my head, he told me there were billions, and that one boy was never worth crying over. And although that happened in this life, the one in which I am a man, I hope that I would believe the same thing if I were a woman.

I would get married. I would get married in the same church in which I received First Communion and Confirmation. And the wedding would be Catholic, and my dad would walk me down the aisle, and my mom would cry, and I would make eye contact with her throughout the ceremony just for the reassurance that she was there. Later, I’d have kids. I’d have kids with the person who loves me, and I would feel privileged for the opportunity. I would have more than one, and I would pack their lunches, and read to them at night, and I would find a way to pay for soccer uniforms, and art supplies, and ballet lessons. And they would never want for love.

If I were a woman, I would want men to know how hard it is to be a woman, but I would never give anyone, male or female, a glimpse of the hardship in me.

But that's only if I were a woman.

The High Point

“Are you afraid of heights?” he asks.

“No,” I say. “I’m afraid of falling off of something really high.” He points to the nine-year-old in front of us and says, “It’s a baby ride. Look at her. She’s doing it.” “She doesn’t understand what she’s doing,” I say, biting my lip and maintaining an eye-level stare.

Above us, pairs of riders swing from suspended links of chain. They whoop and scream from their basket seats as the anchoring pole whips them through the hot Texas air like a cowboy and his lasso. “You can do it,” he says. “But if you really don’t want to, we don’t have to. We can ride something else, instead.” “Nah,” I say. “I can do it.”

The riders are lowered to the ground and released back to safety. Then, we, the line-occupiers, are ushered through the turnstile by a teenager in a blue polo with the words Pleasure Pier embroidered over his heart. His palm rests on a piece of PVC pipe with an orange ring of duct tape near the top that serves as his measuring stick for upholding the ride’s height requirement. “Can you take the outside seat, please James?” I ask. “Of course,” he says. He sits next to me, pulls the metal bar across his lap, and clicks the buckle between his thighs. I do the same, but my buckle doesn’t click. I panic. “This fucking thing won’t buckle,” I yelp, prying the buckle into the latch without any luck. “Fuck,” he says. “Calm down. I have you.” He reaches between his legs to unrelease his buckle, but it doesn’t click back. “Oh shit. It’s locked in,” he says. I squeal and bounce my knees up and down, shaking the both of us. Just then, another boy in a blue polo walks up to us, and upon noticing my unsecured buckle, reaches under my armpit and pulls out another buckle that stretches across my chest and into a latch under my other armpit. “This crotch buckle is broken!” I say. “This seat isn’t safe!” “We perform pre-test today,” he says from beneath a razor-thin mustache in a Pedro Sanchez accent. “You have fun. High-five.”

My eyebrows are so furrowed that my forehead feels like it’s being crushed. Next to me, James is trying not to laugh, but he’s not doing a very good job. Defeated, I high-five Pedro and he leaves. “He came to this country on a floating tire,” I say. “He doesn’t understand American safety.” James smiles and asks me if I want to hold his hand. I reach for it and the canopy above us jerks. My feet leave the ground and I’m ascending up into the air. I squeeze my eyes shut and I grip the metal bars on either side of me. Everyone around me is screaming. I can feel us being pulled higher. “It’s okay, babe!” James screams. “Just look!” I open my eyes. Between my feet and the pier is a 200-foot drop, and around me are panoramic views of Galveston. My muscles feel tight and cold, and the skin on my face is stinging with chilly waves of fear. The canopy rotates and we’re suddenly spinning out. Everything above my waist contracts into a tense ball. “I fucking hate this!” I yell. “This isn’t fun!” James screams back, “It’s not that bad! You’re being very brave!” We are falling horizontally through the sky in revolutions and then we are slowly lowed to the ground where my toes connect with the metal grating and I finally open my eyes.

For the rest of the day, we subject ourselves to jostling by way of carnival rides and bloating by way of beach food. James is a vegetarian, so we don't share anything besides hushpuppies at a restaurant where the waitstaff wear tuxedo shirts. He and I are wearing tanktops, but after walking half a mile along the shore, I pull mine off and twist it around my head into a turban. He looks at me when I speak, and he looks at me when I'm not saying anything. When I look at him, my eyes bounce from the tattoo of Max from Where The Wild Things Are on his right bicep to the clear, blue gauges in his earlobes. I study the tattoo of the mermaid on his left bicep and his eyes, which are wide and brown and wild. We talk about our parents, and our exes, and our shared taste in Fiona Apple and hushpuppies. We talk about the events that led to us here. I confess that our first date followed a blueprint by which all of my first dates are designed: dinner at Tsunami, a detour home for me to "change my shoes," then sex, then off to somewhere loud for drinks. He doesn't care. He tells me I'm handsome. I kiss him in front of a family of Mexicans who are barbecuing three chicken wings on the smallest grill I've ever seen.

"Can we walk down there?" he asks, pointing down Seawall Road. "Are my shoulders red?" I ask, turning my back to him and shimmying. "Kindof," he says. "Then we can drive," I say. "I have some aloe in my bag, but I don't want to blister." "I use aloe when I run out of lube," he says. "I used to do the same thing before I started buying lube," I say. "I don't really venture outside of the lotion section when I'm in a pinch," he says. "I don't use lube when I'm by myself at all, really," I say.

In last month's Birchbox, I received a pair of foldable shades that I've been wearing every day since. They broke in my hand while we were departing Pirate's Plunge, so James gave me his sunglasses and bought another pair for himself at a gift shop that mostly sold hermit crabs and t-shirts with Galveston written across the chest in Papyrus or Brush Script. "You don't have to do that," I say. "Keep them," he says, handing me his wayfarers. "I have new sunglasses now." He smiles and winks, and I suddenly have the compulsion to grab him by his big, tanned shoulders and screaming, "You're fantastic! Let's go on a hundred more dates!" But instead, I wink back and say, "Thanks, stud."

We have to take the ferry back to Crystal Beach and that's just the first part of our long ride home. We're salty, and sticky, and sunkissed, and tired, but I don't want to leave him, just yet. He plays Iggy Azalea's mixtape and then a best-of Aretha Frank album. "Come here," he says, and I unbuckle my seatbelt and lay my head in his lap. The bottle of Vitamin Water in the cupholder jabs me in the ribs, so I toss it into the back-back and curse at it before resttling. "This was one of the best dates ever," I say. He looks down at me from behind his cheap, but valiantly acquired gift shop sunglasses and says, "Yep."

"I'm going to write about this," I say. "Oh yeah?" he says. "What about?" "The high points," I say, dreamily. "I'll let you read it first, though." He looks at the road and pats my head. "So where does the story begin?" he asks. I look up at him and he meets my gaze halfway.

"The high point," I say.

Kiss & Tell

My first kiss took place in the Botanical Gardens of City Park, during Christmas time, surrounded by a galaxy of twinkling lights and my own movable atmosphere of Ralph Lauren Polo Green cologne, which I borrowed from my dad.

Her name was Kristen Dove, and she would grow up to be a lesbian of female prison guard or inmate caliber. But before that, before I kissed her, before high school, she was a small girl with a round face and eyes the size of coasters. On the bus ride to City Park, the other members of St. Andrew Catholic Youth Organization (SANYO) covered their mouths with their hands and whispered to one another about my plan to kiss her. When the girl behind me on the bus, a pretty dark-skinned girl with blunt bangs named Brynne, asked if it were true, I acted annoyed and told her to mind her business before turning around and congratulating myself on the piece of gossip I’d planted myself. I didn’t want an audience, but I wanted the attention. Plus, I wanted the information to reach Kristen so she wasn’t completely blindsided when I tried to stick my tongue in her mouth.

Like all first kisses, it crackled and flashed — burning open a tunnel in me through which I would later fall into the unforeseen lassitude of kissing and kisses yet to come. It was euphonic in the way that only a new experience can be, but this was symphony of new things. The sound of our collective spit churning from mouth to mouth. The feeling of another person’s lips against mine — compelling us into a tango of embraces and releases and an intimate dialogue without words. And then, there were the tastes of powdered sugar, and Sprite, and sweat, and insecurity, and plastic.

I used to keep journals when I was young, making entries occasionally and often haphazardly. I would also lie, which felt like disownership of my own life — causing me to eventually give up journaling all together. But on the night of my first kiss, I wrote about the flavors I tasted in Kristen’s mouth. Everything else surrounding the kiss; riding the Ferris wheel, fidgeting with my puka shell necklace, finding just the right spot in the garden; felt trivial to the story compared to the fact that the kiss had molested my senses. Sure, the scenery was beautiful, but the experience within was the only thing worth reporting.

Years later, I would kiss a girl whose mouth tasted like apple juice, crabmeat, and the honor roll. We dated for more than two years, and every so often, I’d pick up a new flavor like spearmint or suspicion, but the three base flavors were constant. After her, I mostly kissed members of the same sex, which offered a completely different internal experience and sometimes even boners.

The adolescent kiss is different from the adult kiss in one way: the expectations that motivate them. I used to kiss and expect only the simple spark that comes from kissing someone for the first time. Now, there are expectations of fulfillment, discovery, sex, compatibility, adventure, love, reassurance, gratification, envy, happiness, comfort, and sometimes, revenge. Even drunk kisses with strangers in nightclubs are fueled by the prospect of a short-term future, which may include sex within hours of the first kiss. These kisses all taste the same to me, though: cigarette smoke, lime, carelessness, cover charge, and whatever he's drinking.

The first time I kissed my exboyfriend, McBougie, we were standing in the doorway of his friend's apartment on his birthday in June of 2008. Because he towered over me, I had to raise myself onto my tiptoes before wrapping my arms around his neck and collapsing into his frame. There were hallways in that kiss. There were caves. There was solitude enough for the two of us. And here, I wanted to arrange furniture, and hang light fixtures, and nestle into a long life where we could be content and unbothered. He tasted like true love and doom. While we were dating, I kissed a political science major who tasted like amusement park pretzels and everything I hated about myself. After McBougie and I broke up, in-part due to my kiss with the political science major, I kissed a guy from Hitchcock, Texas whose kiss and dick tasted metallic all the time, even nine months after our first kiss.

I've kissed people and fallen through trap doors. I've choked on sea water. One time, I was kissing this guy who had a boyfriend with whom he'd been with for six years and I swear to God I tasted funeral-quality grief. Every time I kissed this guy who worked for CenturyLink, and heard "It's Not" by Aimee Mann. And just this weekend, I kissed a guy who had "Saint" tattooed across the side of his torso and I had the feeling I was boarding an airplane without saying goodbye to anyone.

On the ride home from City Park, I held Kristen's hand and stared out the window, watching New Orleans come and go. The following weekend, my SANYO group went to a Catholic youth conference where I witnessed other children speak in tongues and faint before the monstrance. On Monday morning, before first period, I went to the SANYO building where I resigned from my position as Vice President of the organization, citing religious differences with the charismatic movement.

The Chase Ends

Chasing Austin - Part III

It’s just after midnight and the amateur strip contest is finally underway.

The first guy looks like Ben Foster with half-inch spaces between each tooth, and he’s dressed the way I assume someone from the Mid-West dresses. Persana Shoulders stands to his left in a red, sequined pillbox hat with a long peacock feather sticking out from the top and six-inch eyelashes — looking at him the way I look at Taco Bell. Fulfilling her role as the Effie Trinket of the New Orleans gay club circuit, Persana leads him by the hand to the front of the stage where she slaps him on the ass and commands him to dance. The music roars and he immediately wrenches his faded t-shirt over his head and chucks it onto the floor before tearing at his belt buckle. Then he lunges from foot to foot, grinning and bouncing, while the rest of us stare with our mouths open. He suddenly stomps his legs together and pulls his carpenter pants to his ankles. When he stands upright again, one of his balls pops out from around the band of his Hanes briefs and jiggles like car keys on one of those elastic, coiled key chains. I almost drop my drink in shock and John doubles at the waist in hysterical laughter, quickly snapping back up to finish the Vine video he’s been filming. Oblivious, the guy throws himself around the runway like one of those little kids you see at wedding receptions. Then, his song ends and everyone is disappointed. Persana relegates him to the upper platform where he will stand and wait while his competitors take the runway. He is followed by a professional go-go boy, a middle-aged Brazilian man, a barely legal black boy who clearly performs in drag based on his posing skills, a heterosexual construction worker, and a twink with the same haircut and facial composition as Julia Roberts in Hook, who I refer to as Twinkerbell for the rest of the night.

Persana introduces and fondles them, and they dance terribly, except for the go-go dancer and the out-of-drag black boy who are each bringing it, respectively. John and I leave before a winner is crowned — walking across the street to The Pub where we will sit for hours, together captivated by clips of musical performances edited together from famous movies and TV shows including: The Sound of Music, Glee, Beauty and the Beast, The Wiz, Chicago, Smash, Dreamgirls, Grey’s Anatomy, Cabaret, The Brady Bunch Movie, Behind the Candelabra, Rent, and Pitch Perfect. John returned home from his scouting trip to New York yesterday, which means it’s been 12 days since we left Austin. And speaking for both of us, what we're chasing has changed considerably.

In New York, John would FaceTime me throughout the day to show off rooftop views of Hell’s Kitchen or to consult on which shirt he should buy off the sale rack at H&M. He was on a seven-day mission to secure a job, or at least con his way into an interview before moving there permanently in August. I’d be sitting at my desk when my phone would ring and he’d appear on the bow of a ferry ripping across the Hudson River. We’d chat, hang up, and then text one another about what we were doing later that night. He would be headed to some party in Brooklyn and I would go over to that guy with the foot fetish’s house to cringe and maybe ejaculate somewhere. Later, I’d wipe my stomach with a damp washcloth and think, adventure is where you make it, I guess.

Even then, Austin seemed far-removed and trivial. I needed to finish writing the story for my blog, but so much had happened since, and I just wanted to write about other things. This guy I used to date sent me an invitation to connect on LinkedIn and I’m severely conflicted about how to handle it. Also, I recently had sex with a guy who demanded I call him “daddy” in bed, but who is only nine months older than me, which didn’t seem logical or fair in my opinion. The Austin experience spins away from me — no longer something from which I can draw lyrical prose about transformation and transcendence. Life is happening right now, and other things are molding me, and my best friend is leaving, and I’ll be fine, and I’ll go to Austin again, and I’ll see rooftop views of Hell’s Kitchen for myself. I’ll chase guys, and I’ll chase different versions of myself, and I’ll chase dreams of my own. And not every story will end neatly, or teach a lesson, or have a hero.

The guy on the bar stool next to me is rubbing my elbow with his and asking me what I do. I pretend like he's not there because he might not actually be there. On the TV screens above us, “Take Me Or Leave Me” from Rent is playing out. John turns to me and asks, “Do you think it would be funny to make shirts that say AIDS SHMAIDS?”

“What?!” I yell over the music. “H. Maids?”

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s funny, right?”

“I don’t get it,” I say. “What does the H. stand for? The name of the show is Devious Maids. Wouldn’t the shirt say D. Maids?”

“What?!” he says, “What the fuck is DEEM AIDS?”

“I can’t fucking hear you,” I say.

He shrugs and we both shotgun whatever’s in our plastic cups before dismounting our bar stools and leaving through the front door and into the sticky, Bourbon Street ether. On Royal, we find my Fiesta right where we left her. I take us down Canal and then to Tchoupitoulas before ascending the Crescent City Connection towards home. I flip my visor open to look at myself in the mirror and a cream-colored envelope floats down onto my lap. Inside the envelope is the card I bought at Whole Foods on the last morning in Austin. John was asleep and I snuck out to buy our hosts a bottle of wine, and while I was there, I bought a card with a black and white photograph of Hippie Hollow on the front and a blank interior. I didn't write a long, maudlin message in the card, just something short that'll make him cry. I meant to give it to him before he left the first time, but I'd forgotten. I stick it back into the visor and remind myself to give it to him before he leaves again. 

In the passenger’s seat, he’s snoring, and I’m lost in a river of memories that stretches across Texas and Louisiana before carving its way up the East Coast and emptying into the Hudson River.

All The Dicks In Hippie Hollow

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The Velvet Bullfighter

Chasing Austin - Part I

I’m scanning the black marker board behind the bar because I need to look at something besides gay Mexicans, and because I don’t have anything to say to John at the moment.

Scribbled across the board in florescent pinks and greens are the house specialty drinks. The Velvet Bullfighter costs seven dollars and 50 cents. The Fat Cobra is five dollars. I try to come up with faggier-sounding cocktail names and I’m stumped. They’ve done good work. John isn’t looking in my direction, either. So far, this road trip has been one of the greatest shared experiences of our friendship, but we’ve basically only had one another to talk to since we left Lafayette Wednesday afternoon and the need for some alone time is becoming necessary. Our annoyance is compounded by the Texas-size mass of truth between us: John is leaving for New York next month and this is probably the last time we'll be spending time together like this.

We decided Tuesday that we could cut our drive to Austin in half by spending the night in Houston. So, after work, I pick John up at his apartment, we take a few selfies, and we head west. We arrive at my exboyfriend’s house in the Museum District before sunset. Nick meets us in the driveway where he introduces us to his new boyfriend. I engage him and I begin drawing parallels between him and myself because we both have romantic history with the same person, and therefore, we must have some personality traits in common. After careful observation, I note that we are the same height. Other than that, we share nothing — besides a working knowledge of Nick’s thrust.

That night, we get drunk and I meet a guy named Reece. He talks like Drew Barrymore, or at least Kristen Wiig doing a Drew Barrymore impression. We go back to Nick’s place, and we take everyone else from F Bar with us. Outside the bathroom, I see Reece. In the bathroom, he talks about his car, and I ask if I can see it. In his car, he talks about his apartment, and I ask if I can see it.

I wake up in Reece’s apartment. He drives me home. John is moaning on the couch, so I head up to Nick’s room where he and his boyfriend are sitting on the bed, watching The Avengers. Nick says someone gave John ecstasy last night, which made him violently ill. We spend the entire day indoors and only go outside at twilight to watch the fireworks from the rooftop.


Crashed. Burned.

On the drive to Austin, I listen to the June 28 episode of This American Life while John sleeps. The program is about the American government’s unmanageable process of immigrating Iraqi allies into the U.S., and by the time John wakes up, I have my own opinion on the issue.

"Can you fucking believe this?" I ask, disgustedly. "Injustice for all, right?"

"I want jerky and I have to dump out eventually," says John, waking up. "Next exit?"

In Austin, we spend the day eating, shopping, and sweating. After dinner, we head home to get ready for the night. On 4th Street, there are three gay bars in a row: Oil Can Harry’s, Castro’s Warehouse, and Rain. Oil Can Harry’s is busted and so is the crowd, so we walk next door to Castro’s. Here, I scan the black marker board behind the bar because I need to look at something besides gay Mexicans, and because I don’t have anything to say to John at the moment. But still, I have everything to say to him. I'm about to tell him I'm glad we took this trip together and it's going to be painful to say goodbye. I don't want to have a full-blown moment, but I want to reach him in the way I can with our brotherly bond. I'm about to say something to him and then the only attractive guy in the bar walks over and stands to my left. John touches my arm and performs the international signal for "Cigarette?" We walk to the patio and I turn my head to see the hot guy staring back at me.

Outside, we smoke and develop a really impressive thread of passive aggressive comments about the patrons of Castro's Warehouse. I'm laughing at something John says when the hot guy steps onto the patio and begins walking in our direction. I'm immediately aware of the way I'm holding my cigarette — like Olivia Newton John at the end of Grease — so I impulsively flick it. It lands on a nearby bench where a beige-skinned man in a pink American Eagle polo and jeans with holes in the knees pick it up and takes a drag. "Fucking seriously," I whisper to myself, just as the hot guy enters my bubble. With him is a tall, skinny guy with glasses who bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Bobby Jindal, or at least what I imagine young Bobby Jindal to look like.

"Can I bum a cigarette?" the hot guy asks.

"Yeah, yeah," I stammer, fumbling for John's Parliaments.

"Sorry to be those guys," says Young Bobby Jindal (YBJ). "But can I have one, too."

"No worries," I say. "It's our first night in Austin. Everyone seems super cool."

"Where are you from?" asks YBJ.

"New Orleans," says John. "We work in advertising."

"That's so cool," says the hot guy, inching closer to John.

"Yeah," I say, my voice loud and bombastic. "It's pretty sexy."

The hot guy bites his bottom lips and runs his right hand through John's hair. "Fuck," he says. "I love your hair. It's beautiful."

"I'm Ryan," I say, sticking out my hand awkwardly.

The hot guy pulls the cigarette from his mouth, looks into my eyes, blows a stream of smoke into the breeze, and says, "I'm Austin."

I smile with teeth, shake his hand, and then turn to YBJ who introduces himself as someone named Harvey. Austin turns back to John and wraps his arms around his lower back. He whispers something into his ear and John smiles coyly. I pretend like I don't see what's happening, and I ask Harvey what he does for a living. "Well, I'm working on my Masters in Sociology and Austin is a nutritionist," he says. Austin finally looks back at me and says, "Yeah I measure peoples' caloric intake and make recommendations and stuff."

"That's so weird," I say. "Caloric Intake used to be my drag name!"

No one laughs and I fucking hate them for it.

Later, our new friends will take us to Rain where I'll dance, and take shots, and try to keep Austin interested in me. Then, we'll all go back to Castro's where I'll shotgun one Velvet Bullfighter after another, and let Harvey breathe onto my neck, and try to leave on my own. I'll see John with his legs wrapped around Austin and I'll perform the international signal for "I'm bailing." Next, I'll wander down the street and try to hail a cab on my own. John will run up behind me and demand to come with me. I'll say, "Whatever." In the cab, the driver will laugh at his own jokes and I'll glare out the window. At home, we'll undress and flop onto the air mattress. Minutes will pass, and finally, I'll say into the darkness, "I wish you would've stayed."

And he won't say anything.

The Bounty

The entire house smells like shrimp creole, which is great because I love shrimp creole.

Mom calls my name from downstairs, so I climb off my futon and trot down to the kitchen. She's sitting at the round, wooden table with two plastic bags from Rouse's in front of her. She's peeling from one bag and discarding the shells into the other. On the stove, she's got a red roux going, and the rich aroma of butter and seasoning makes my jaw sore.

"That smells incredible," I say.

"Are you going to hang around and eat with us, or do you have somewhere to go?" she asks, rhythmically tearing shrimp from shell and sorting accordingly.

"I plan on it," I say.

"Going out?" she asks.

"Probably. This guy wanted to take me to dinner, and I don't think I'm going to like him, so I said I'd meet him for drinks," I say. I can tell she's trying to figure out what to say next.

"You don't think you're going to like him?" she says. "How do you know him in the first place?"

I sit down, pick up a shrimp, and say without looking at her, "From my blog."

"You're meeting someone for the first time who found you through your blog?" she asks. "Please tell me you haven't done this before."

I tell her I haven't, but I'm lying.

Without looking at me, she sighs and says, "Don't write about us, please."

"I already do," I say. "It's nothing bad, though."

She's still fixated on the shrimp. "Just please don't use our real names."

"What if I just call y'all 'mom' and 'dad?'" I say. "That way, no one with know who you really are."

It’s not surprising that some people (guys I’m trying to bang, in particular) find my blog threatening. Maybe threatening isn’t the word, but definitely repellent. One time, I was introduced to my friend’s friend from Dallas or Tampa or whatever and his immediate response to my handshake was “You’re not going to write about me, are you?” His tone was serious and he had genuine fear in his eyes. “I’m just meeting you,” I said. “My name is Ryan Rogers, by the way. And no, I don’t think I’m going to write about you. Unless you want to do mouth stuff in the DJ booth.” He did not.

But I get it. I write about people, change some details, and then put it on the Internet. I completely understand why you wouldn’t want to get involved with me. Which is why I’m pleasantly surprised when people (guys I’ve never met before, in particular) read my blog and then want to meet me. Most of the time, I say thank you and chat a while, but sometimes, the guy is too hot to pass up, and I invite him to dinner. I’ve met quite a few guys through exboyfriendmaterial.com, and many of them turn out to by nice, well-meaning gentlemen who just think I’m funny, or insightful, or smart. They compliment my writing and ask me if it’s all true. And I blush and squirm because I really hate discussing my writing without a computer monitor to hide behind.

First, there was the guy who picked me up outside of F&M’s for dinner that one night. In pictures, he was handsome and chiseled, but in person, he was lanky and reminded me of a praying mantis. In the morning, he drove me from his place in Mid-City to my parents’ house on the Westbank, and we didn’t speak throughout the duration of the ride. I saw him a few weeks ago and he made me laugh a few times when he talked about the way I amplify my sexuality when I’m drunk. “You wiggle,” he said. “Like you’re listening to music.”

Next, there is the guy who came from Monroe on a Friday and stayed at my house in Lafayette until Sunday. I really liked this last guy, but I didn’t watch his car drive away because I knew it would make me sad. He drove back to Monroe, patched things up with his boyfriend, and I haven’t heard from him since. I’ve written two blog posts about him, and he didn’t deserve either. And I won't give him another sentence after this one.

In April, there was the Jewish guy with the beautiful apartment and the stellar taste in music. He liked The Weepies and I did, too. We draped ourselves across his bed and he played songs I’d never heard before by Foals, Husky Rescue, Deb Talan, Blackmill, and Timmy Curran. He had a lovable face; which made me think he had a lot of friends. We showered together and I split my focus between trying to identify the colored flecks in the bar of soap and sucking in my stomach. Even though this guy had just seen me naked from multiple angles, standing upright in the shower with a thin veil of steam between us made me feel overwhelmingly aware of every imperfection. My marshmallow fluff chest, the birthmark on my pelvis, and my thin, skeletal wrists were all exposed under the pale glow above us. He didn't try to kiss me in the shower, but I preferred it that way. If he were someone I loved, I would've wanted him to kiss me. And maybe we’d even slow dance. It would've felt natural with the music playing; an Alice Smith song I recognized from when I used to bartend. But instead of kissing or dancing like people with tomorrows, we passed the speckled soap and traded places when it was time to rinse off.

Then, there was Mr. Talented; a 19-year-old gymnast/singer/cheerleader from Shreveport. I was ambivalent about meeting him until he actually showed up at my house, and then I started tripping over my dick trying to impress him. Mr. Talented was sunshine personified; extremely handsome and radiating confidence. We ate together and then met my friends at Art Walk. Outside one of the galleries, I talked to a Production Assistant from Malibu while he took a phone call. Mr. Talented interrupted our conversation and said that his grandmother had suffered a heart attack. He looked genuinely disoriented, like someone had just struck him in the head with something heavy. I drove him back to my house and forcibly put him into his car to begin the long ride back to Shreveport. After he left, I got drunk with my friends and we voted on whether granny really had a heart attack or if Mr. Talented was just having a bad time and needed an escape. In the end, it didn't work out, but I don't remember why.

Tonight, I'm meeting a guy who has the same name as my dad, but I can't say the name because my mother forbid me from doing so. He plays softball and he's twice my size. He thinks I'm funny, or insightful, or smart, and I think he's too hot to pass up.

In the kitchen, my mom finally looks up at me, stands, and brushes the errands shell scraps onto the floor where the chihuahua and the pomaranian tear into them. "The ladies I work with have daughters. They follow you on Facebook. I don't want to hear about myself in one of your gay sex stories, understand?" "I swear," I say. "I won't use your real name and I won't talk about you having gay sex."

There used to be a seafood restaurant in Belle Chasse called The Bounty. It was known for serving huge portions of fried catfish, oysters, crawfish, and shrimp, and even though it's been closed for nearly 15 years, I have vivid memories of stuffing myself until I had to be carried out. I really hated fried oysters, but I ate them anyway because they were there; mixed in with the catfish and the shrimp. It was difficult for me to pass up the oysters, even though I didn't have a taste for them, simply because they were in front of me. "Maybe I'll like them this time," I'd think. "And there's so much other stuff on the table that I can always get the taste out of my mouth with something different. But who knows when I'm going to have the opportunity to eat oysters again? And maybe one day, the oyster will be extinct and I'll always wonder if I ate enough while I could. But right now, there's an abundance. So I'm going to give them another shot."