Eulogy for a Lost Cowboy

Please note: The following piece is my first-ever attempt at writing humorous short fiction. I submitted it to my agent for consideration for a collection of humorous short stories, but she felt it was "too dark". I welcome your thoughts...be gentle.

What can I share about our dear Harry, here? Well, it goes without saying he didn’t make it, or we wouldn’t all be here this morning. Heaven knows we’d never risk such close proximity unless Grim Death drew up the guest list. Not after the last family reunion, anyway. Speaking of which, is Uncle Norm with us today? Where? Oh, there you are. Funny thing—just the other day, I bet my Mary you were dead as Harry.

I have to tell you, Norm, those skin grafts stuck like a charm. Reminds me of how one edge of the cling wrap insists on marrying the other. We all learned a valuable lesson about silly string and Zippos that day, though, didn’t we? You more than most. Still, aside from a stray crevice here and there—oh, and that big lump next to your ear—it seems the worst of Black Saturday’s behind you.

Oh, that’s Aunt Lucy? Well, of course it is—there’s Norm right next to her. Welcome. Well, you both look just super. A heck of a lot better than Harry, am I right? Thank goodness for sturdy casket lids.

I suppose the silver lining for Harry, no pun intended, is that he shipped off to eternity with all his teeth and most of his hair. Well, certainly more hair than Norm. And a great deal more than Grandpa. Now that’s silly—Gramps had to be at least forty years older. The Harry I knew… Ma’am, there’s a space right there on the end, next to that energetic young man. Son, could you stop swinging the Good Book for just a moment, or at least flap it in another direction, so our late arrival won’t leave with elbib yloh stamped into her forehead? Good lad. Our friend Harry never liked to be kept waiting, you know. He sure as heck showed up early today.

Harry also arrived early the first summer he spent with us. We didn’t expect him for weeks, but there he was, in my bedroom, two weeks before school let out. Once I got over hating him for slobbering off the bottom bunk while I trudged off to Mrs. Hanrahan’s chamber of horrors—my God, the stench of lavender on that ghoul—I actually grew rather fond of Harry. A good thing, too. Harry stuck around for four straight years, not enough to be a real brother but enough to be the best sort of friend.

As I recall, Mom said Harry’s parents were having “differences”. We were too little then to understand the sticking point was the ten-spots Uncle Mark liked to tuck into g-strings at the Twin Nuggets, especially since it’s no secret among this group that Auntie Marcia was a bit of a cold fish. Groan if you must, but you’ll fool nobody. Hell, I bit my lip until it bled the time I overheard Dad chuckle about how Mark watched angels dance before kneeling before the Almighty Cod. Dad almost never joked about fishing, so that was something. Uncle Mark was humorless, I guess, and that’s why we found ourselves at Marcia’s wake and Mark’s sendoff to Pine Ridge Correctional in the space of a single week.

The Harry I knew loved to live on the edge. I remember when we were no taller than this. We practically lived in that ancient willow in my parent’s yard. Roots so ample you couldn’t get a lawnmower close without sealing the deal on a rush trip to Doctor Bedard’s. We imagined that old tree as a huge beanstalk with a giant and a spry cartoon mouse doing battle above us. Uneasy, we stayed closer to earth. Harry was no coward, but he was no fan of mice.

“Light the alcohol burner, Dan,” he’d said to me, and I did. I flicked the lighter over and over before I realized the flame was invisible. We danced around our signal fire, and around the tree, until the gods demanded a sacrifice of root beer and Slim Jims. And we’d dance again, with cautious steps.

Harry loved Cowboys and Indians. I despised the game. Harry always insisted I play the Indian, because I tanned darker. In those days, the Indians always died in a hail of lead and a “You’ve bested me, kemo sabe.” Today, if you’re one of those bleeding-heart types, you’d insist the cowboy lose at least half the time. Nonsense. Harry would tell you that, too, if he could.

So I was more than a little surprised this particular afternoon. I was ready to don my gull’s feather when Harry whooped and yelled, danced and hopped, just as you’d expect of bloodthirsty savages scouting fresh scalps. More surprise followed as I watched a lick of blue flame sweep up his leg. Still, Harry knew how to put on a show, so I waited for the fire to die down before I stepped in. Skin dripped off his kneecap like syrup from a flapjack. I was sure that was about as bad as it could get for a lucky guy like Harry. That ice cream truck sure made a liar of me.

Until last week, Harry really was a fortunate sort. His first love became my first love unrequited, and that didn’t sit well with me, because Harry knew how to attract the prettiest girls. Even the dogs—I count both homely girls and Miss Collin’s lhasa aspo—cut me a wide berth. I did all the things boys did to win a girl’s affections—I penned love notes on gum wrappers, I carved a whole damned forest, and I didn’t cry when Annie (the Angel) dug her thumbnail deep into the flesh inside my elbow. Love works in mysterious ways, I thought. These ways differed for Harry. He took Annie to see Star Wars in Trenton, smuggled in the bottle of cherry brandy she asked for, and came back smiling. He looked like a man.

I can still hear just what he said, in that mellow voice of his; he said, “Dan, smell my fingers.” And I'll tell you, there are porterhouse steaks that don't smell as nice as...

I’m sorry? Oh, dear, I forgot kids came to these things. Let’s just say envy consumed me, and we’ll leave it at that. I loved Harry too much not to forgive him.

Harry never went to college, and he never left Calder’s Mill. His Daddy died up in Pine Ridge the very day Harry turned eighteen. The papers claimed “suspicious circumstances”. The handcrafted ice pick in his ribcage agreed, I’d say. I’d never seen Harry cry, and he held it in then, a roughshod cowboy through and through.

To honor his father’s legacy, Harry sold his Dad’s double-wide and bought the Twin Nuggets for a few notes less than a song. I’d drop in from time to time—just to catch up on current events, you understand—and I have to say Harry ran a clean operation. You’ve never seen a nicer shower, I promise. Harry always knew how to make a girl feel special.

Harry’s first wife Juggs—I only recall her stage name—didn’t last long, and Harry was okay with that. She ran off with the first guy to peddle a vacuum on her front porch. When Harry asked, “Didn’t I tell you she was a hosebag”, I didn’t know whether to laugh or just nod. He fared little better with Tammy Tots, Jane of the Apes or Molly McGee—let me just say that girl was a contortionist. As Harry warned, “Never fall for a showgirl, no matter how you can bend her. They lack stick-to-it-tiveness.” Since I see no latex in the room, I presume none have come to pay respects. As he was so often, Harry was right.

The last time I saw my dear friend, he was as vibrant as ever, radiant sunshine in size 11 loafers. Nothing in this world—not even losing the Nugget for unpaid liquor taxes, or those rumors about the girls doing more than dance—could rattle him. I was pretty sure he was immortal, and not in a vampire or zombie sort of way. We planned lunch for just next week, at Bosoms’.

As I’ve said, Harry lived on the edge. It’s almost ironic, then, that Tuesday found my best friend standing at the rim of Nelson’s Quarry, the best vantage point to map his next great adventure. I wonder what great dream took shape as Jimmy—you know, from Jimmy’s Treats—took the corner too tight and lost control of his truck. As Jimmy nudged poor Harry into a whole new journey, did that scream of tires sound to our Harry like the screech of a great eagle? I like to think at the last second Harry knew he won yet again. Thanks for being here, Jim—it can’t be easy. Watch your back on the way out. I kid you, of course.

Dear friends, I ask you now to bow your heads in a moment of prayer. Pray not with sadness, because frowns ran headlong from Harry. Somewhere, he’s still that precocious lad he always was. Not unlike you, son, but now’s not the time to fling the sacramental wafers around the chapel. Sit down.

So, Harry, my friend and almost-brother, safe journeys. I, for one, will miss you always.

Not a phone person

You know you’ve achieved middle-aged insignificance when reviewing the day’s collected voice mail qualifies as cheap entertainment. In this economy, what are our options?

First are the calls from my sister-in-law, who has a real name but to me is just “Kiddo”. I call her this even though she’s ancient compared to me. The nickname stemmed from the fact she’s roughly the height of your average coffee table. It stuck because her husband hates it.

Kiddo calls our home phone between one and four hundred times each day. I don’t answer most personal calls during the day, since to do so would provide me a handy excuse to say I’m exhausted from talking and then do anything but work. As a result, Kiddo’s call often ends up as a voice message.

“Hi, it’s Kiddo. I’m just calling to say hello. It’s nothing important. Call me when you can.”

This “unimportant” attempt to reach us is then followed by a call to my cell phone, a call to my wife’s cell phone, another call to our home phone and, on occasion, a second round of calls to all phones. If none of this works, our cell phones vibrate with a text-based variation on the voice message—“What r u doing pls call me.”

I suppose I shouldn’t be so cavalier about Kiddo’s calls—she is, after all, being ravaged by metastatic cancer and in near-constant pain. But answering the phone is painful to me, even if the calls are placed by the critically ill. By the time I get around to telling Patty that she needs to call back, Kiddo’s usually asleep, and the cycle begins anew the next morning.

My brother-in-law calls a few times each week. I call him a few times each week. He’s also not a phone person, and he’s not riddled with an incurable disease (that we’re aware of), so we wait until we both feel like talking at the same time before we ever connect. Hence, more than a dozen messages (“Call if you want”) translate into roughly three minutes of conversation each month. This is enough.

A friend in Canada loves to reach me when he’s drunk. As a non-phone-person, I don’t like talking even to the non-altered. He enjoys drinking as much as he enjoys having a phone, so he calls at least three times a month; I, in turn, return his calls once every three months. He doesn’t mind, because with few exceptions he doesn’t remember calling.

My Mom calls. If she doesn’t reach us, she says, “Oh, you’re out? I thought you had no money.”

Our favorite, though, is a close friend of ours. We will try to call her, and she rarely answers. She doesn’t answer her home phone; she doesn’t answer her cell phone. If she does answer, she usually says, "Let me call you right back," and then our phone sits silent for the rest of the night (unless Kiddo calls).

Our friend has her cell with her at all times—we’ve seen and heard it when she’s sitting in the room with us and it rings and she doesn’t answer. When we call, we’re not in the room with her, so we don’t hear her phone ring and ring before she doesn’t answer. We just know.

What makes the experience all the more joyous, especially for a non-phone-person, is getting a message that says, “Mailbox full” at the end of all the ringing you know is being ignored. Good times. So, when this close friend finally decides to call us, and doesn’t reach us because we’re out, she gets to leave this message:

“Hehhhh-looooo there, strangers. Are you even alive? Have you forgotten me? I guess you don’t want to talk to me, since you never call me anymore. If you ever feel like talking, and I guess you don’t, give me a cahhh-ulllll.”

When we come home and call back fifteen minutes later, the phone rings and rings.

Mailbox full.

If I knew you were coming I'd have baked a (placenta) cake

Okay, I’m on board with the romantic notion that childbirth can be a beautiful expression of love—or, at least, a beautiful expression of I-don’t-think-I-can-get-pregnant-because-I’m-on-my-period passion at its very best.

In my more gentle moments, I’ll even acknowledge that babies aren’t wholly repugnant. The constant geyser of shit is no great treat, really, and the incessant wailing in the middle of the night is at best selfish and at worst pretty fucking annoying—but at least infants aren’t old enough yet to demolish the family car or dip into your stash of Captain Morgan. We call this a silver lining, folks.

I can almost understand why people would celebrate the birth with cigars and such. If friends and family are expected to coo and gush over even the ugliest of babies (and there are plenty out there), the parents pretty much owe the cooers and gushers a smoke break to recover. At least this affords the opportunity to vent, “Jesus, that kid looks like it came from a blender,” or, "I can't believe the baby already has his Mom's fat ass," without hurting anyone’s feelings.

What seems to me to be a bit of overkill, though—and I’m guessing I’m not alone in this sentiment—is getting all whoot-whoot excited about the afterbirth.

You’ve got the baby. You’ve got the torn-up, stretched-out vagina. You can cut way back on your milk budget. You have a convenient excuse to avoid future sex. Congratulations. You’ve done well. So why hold on to the leftovers?

It would seem that placentas have moved out of the delivery room and into the mainstream. How could we not all be excited?

Stressing about fine lines and pores on your face? Get a placenta facial. Battling split ends? Pick up a bottle of placenta conditioner. Need something to fill that span of bare wall over the mantelpiece? How about hanging a limited edition placenta print?

Or, if you’re struggling to come up with a quick, no-fuss weekday meal, why not dig into the treasure trove of placenta recipes on the Web?

You need not look far to learn how to whip up everything from a hearty placenta stew to a spicy placenta sausage-garlic-and-fennel pizza. I’m a pepperoni man myself. Call me closed-minded, but I’ll go on record as saying that anyone who brings placenta-anything as an appetizer to my parties won’t be asked back. My apologies in advance.

My favorite new entry in the placenta market, though, is the latest in “sustainable toy designs”—the Placenta Teddy Bear. Designer Alex Green—who I’m guessing is pretty creepy—cut a human placenta in half, cured it with sea salt, treated it with an emulsifying blend of tannin and egg yolk, and then stitched it around some stuffing. Voila! The most disgusting gift you could ever give!

To the end of my days, I will never think of "sex toys" the same way again. A shame, really.

"The Very Best in Robot Sex"

At the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas this past weekend, the many guests (most of whom, I would wager, would not be welcome in our home) were introduced to Roxxxy, a full-size, lingerie-clad and anatomically correct robotic “girlfriend” with a connected laptop that enables “her” to respond to simple conversation through an internal speaker.

For a mere seven to nine grand, Roxxxy's creators promise the “best in robot sex”—which, for some men, is exactly what they claim to be experiencing in their marriages today (albeit at a much greater long-term cost).

The key difference, if I understand correctly, is that Roxxxy is "Always Turned On and Ready to Talk or Play," which no men I know have ever claimed (well, maybe the "talk" part, but few brag about that.)

Roxxxy’s greatest promise is that she responds to your conversation according to how you program her. So, if you're an idiot, and you want a robot-with-a-vagina to say things like, "I like to hold hands," Roxxxy's your rubber gal. Or, if you're anti-idiot, and you want to talk about sex or sports, the doll will not only respond to your comments, but will also let you know how horny she gets when you dissect every play in the hockey game.

I have yet to say to Patty, "Wow, did you see how he deked out that goalie?", only to have her respond, "Really? Take me... NOW!" I keep hoping.

Don't get me wrong. I like to hold hands, I like to hear about my wife's day (no, I'm not lying), and I have zero complaints about anything that goes on in the boudoir. So the idea of bumping uglies with a robot seems a little impersonal and more than a little desperate. It could also be potentially embarrassing were the kids and their friends to walk in while Dad's going to town on a moaning rubber slab. And I think it's downright creepy that you can "swap" the personality of your Roxxxy with other guy-friends online. I guess I'm conservative.

And yet there's something quite compelling in the idea of being able to say, “Who cares if the dishes are piling up?” or “Wow, it sounds like you’re PMSing” without receiving a less-than-sexy response (say, a paring knife in the face.) Just once, I'd like to offer, "Hey, there's two minutes 'til my show comes back on...you wanna?"and hear back, “That gets me so hot!” I'm just not sure the thrill's worth four mortgage payments.

Next up for Roxxxy's creators: Rocky, the male robot. I couldn't find details, but I'm guessing one option will be to buy it without a penis—since, for women, it might be a refreshing change to actually speak and be listened to without the expectation the conversation will lead to sex. Just guessing...