1. You will feel the punch.
2. One of your nostrils will trickle with blood.
3. He will be staring at you in a way he’s never stared at you before.
4. He will tell you to get the hell out of his house.
5. You will get the hell out of his house
6. He will forgive you only if you kneel before your mother and beg her forgiveness.

Your mother will tell your father not to make you do that. But your father will insist. You will kneel and ask her forgiveness.

     You will ask.

     She will ask you to stand up. She will hug you. Your father will not.

     All will be well. Because you are a young man.

How to enjoy your torrid affair with the boss, when you already are having a torrid affair with the boss.

But before you weren’t. You were just you. A temp. Data Entry. The lowest of the low. And top it all off, you were almost forty. And worse. You were a man, with a degree in art history.

He’s fifty or was at the time. He was bald and really liked himself and you liked him for it.

So there he was passing you by the front desk where you entered data and he’d stop by and say things like “Boy are you cranking.” And “Have a good night.” and “I’m expecting the VP of sales to come in around noon. Can you show him to the boardroom?”

1. Grab a CEO’s mundane phrases, wrestle them to the ground and kill them and then bring them back to life with your superhero sense of hope.
2. Hope. You’ve heard of hope. That thing with the nostrils at the end of it that sucks in air, attempts to enliven you, with just enough oxygen for your brain to seed thoughts of What-if? And Could it be?
3. Bake hope. At a low temperature. Let it rise and crust. Peek in and observe its crumb. Then for a few seconds, crank up the heat.  Watch the tan spread, the crust harden.
4. Pull it out. Slice into it. Watch the steam rise
5. Enjoy the smell.
6. But don’t taste.
7. Not just yet.

Because you didn’t know where the boardroom was. But you certainly knew where your attention was.

The office manager was tall woman named Rae who looked down at me for being so flirtatious at the CEO. Not “with” the CEO, “at” the CEO

What? I’d say with my eyes. What am I doing wrong?

Her eyes spoke back. Silver gray slits of enmity. She was so frustrated with me she called the Temp Agency and complained.

They called me on my cell phone. I had to explain myself.

I’ve fallen in love, I told them.

With the office manager?

With the CEO.

That was it. I was let go.

I started to grab my things, feeling so light-hearted at being fired, for the very first time, for having a crush. Just a crush. Without eating the bread of hope I’d baked.

I walked into a church that smelled like ass.

I’d smelled worse at other churches.  

Wafers gone bad;  sepulchres soured by petty the squabblings over direship

A vestibule gone to the vaginas.

Religion can kiss my ass

But when my father told me to repent, I did.

He said he would disown me–Which, for a second felt like blessed parole.

But which five minutes later felt like a long, lost Michael Jackson song.

Daddy the Ditty, produced by the gloved one. A sacred song of

Street smarts and guitar riffs–rife with lawsuits and mayhem.

Daddy don’t disown me me. I’ll go to church.

I’ll repent.

But please: first give the altar an enema. Clear it of shenanigans.

Sweeten it with Gummy Bears and Sticky Faggots

I am your Son. I will be saved.

No matter what holy shit abounds.

I called her.

And I could tell, even though she never said it, that she was saying no. She even went so far as to say she’d be free in late April.

But I wanted September. And I told her so.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter what you say. You can be successful in business, drive a nice car, be good-looking, have all the confidence and power in the world.

Yet even then you just cannot win a woman’s heart.

But I wasn’t going to give up.

And neither will she.

“You’re gay, Jeremy,” she says.

“I’m bisexual,” I say.

“That’s even worse,” she says. She hangs up.

It’s July 31, 2016.  A couple of months to go.

Geez Julie, I had no idea that what I told you last night would have such an impact on you.

Anytime I’d thought of telling you before, I felt shame.

But last night I felt anything but.

I didn’t even think twice about doing it. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.

And I’ve done it.

Now what?

She did not respond to him.

So.

I want to make love to you.  I want to watch Amazon Prime with you. I want to us to share a pizza. I want to it all. And as far as I know it will turn out to be an unmitigated disaster. I pretty sure I won’t even be able to get hard. But I want it no other way. I cannot imagine being happier getting things more wrong and inappropriate than with you.

You make it all feel so right.

I want you. I’m coming for you. I’m going to New York on September 19th. 

Be ready.

Pro-prologue

A very brief history of puffousness, staughtfulness and a dash of perfidy

It started off like any typical Sunday morning in a small Nebraska town.

    Two families carpooling to church.   A dubious carburetor was to blame for the blue Oldsmobile stalling on the railroad tracks.  No time for proper prayer.  True to any crash it followed the laws of physics perfectly, taking the occupants of the car into a swirling cauldron of friction, velocity and gravity.  One of the little girls was thrown on impact. In mid air she somersaulted several times before landing smack dab on her beetle-black mary janes.  She’d landed completely unscathed.  

    Until the smoke gave way, like a curtain drawn, to reveal the twist of steel, and the licks of flames, about fifty yards away.  By then he was standing next to her.  

    It was a shock to see someone, beside herself, alive, after what had just happened. He hadn’t been a passenger in their car. He was a complete stranger.  A skinny young boy who just sort of dissolved into being, from the smoke.  

    White T-shirt, jeans.  Well-worn sneakers. The face of pure innocence.  “Did you fall from the train?” she asked.

    “Train?” he asked.

    She pointed at the dragon along the railroad tracks that continued to disgorge fire and steel and rubber and dirt. “Oh no,” he said. “I’m not from there.”

    “I can’t find anyone,” she said. The smoke grew thicker. It was hard to breathe. “I need to find them.”

    “I’ll find them for you,” he said.  He was not Superman. Not even a Clark Kent during his early, rural days. But he was helpful.  He leapt into the smoke. Above the screech of trains and roaring explosions she could hear him tearing through the wrecking, working, digging, freeing.  She could feel his good works.

    Maybe it was a few minutes, maybe ten, when he emerged from the smoke.  In his arms he carried the trunk lid of the car that now looked like a giant Fruit Roll up.  A tiny leg stuck out from it.  With a mary jane shoe attached to it.

    Can’t be, she thought.

    He provided an apology without words, with a sincerity that came more from the sight and sound of his skin sizzling on the metal.  And what she supposed to do with that?

    Be polite, she’d been taught.  “Thank you,” she said. “But I’d like everyone to be…” She searched for the right word. A grown up word. “Better,” she started to say.  Then  “Alive,” she concluded.

    “They are alive,” he said.  His face was sooty and smeared and, above all, serious.  

    “They are?”
     He smiled, his bright teeth aglow with warmth. “Yes. And they always will be.”

     “Oh,” she said. And then, after a moment she said again “Oh.” And then “Oh,”a third time.

     And finally “Oh!”

     And then she peed on herself. And then threw up. And then the paramedics came. And by that time, the boy was gone. But before leaving, she’d asked him to come back. He promised he would. Because this was his first gig, with a little girl (he usually fared much better at these things with kittens, whales and old men).

    He asked her, When should I come back? And because she was only five years old and had no concept of time, she replied Come back in twenty-five years.

    And so it was agreed.

July 1, 1976

    Dear Mister Rogers,

    I’m writing this letter because I’m desperate. I have only a few months to live and it would mean a great deal to me if you could lend me your puppet, Henrietta Pussycat. I would have done it the easier way by just finding something to blackmail you with. And Lord knows I’ve tried. But you are just as squeaky clean as everyone says you are. And I’ve talked with lots of people who know you.  So I must now then appeal to your plain goodness on this one. There’s nothing you can do about my disease.  It’s a rare blood disease that runs in the Thrope family. My nasty brother Lanford had it but got cured by his long-lost daughter Windra.  And now that I have the very same disease, Windra is nowhere to be found.  He’s kidnapped her, I suspect, just to get keep her from donating some of her bone marrow to me. For surely she would, being the good girl she is.

    And rather than use the little time I have trying to find her, I’ve decided I will die with some dignity by making a soap opera.

    Yes. You heard me. A soap opera. My very own, of my creation. Cast by me, directed by me, produced and written by me. I have the money and the means. All the actors have been cast. And blackmailed. Including a cat named Starry Knight.

    That’s where Henrietta comes in. I’d like to have Starry embark on a lesbian storyline I’m developing for Cada Manana Soy Yo–that’s the name of my show. It translates to Every Morning I’m Me. Don’t get the wrong idea: The show is hardly about homosexuals. But I would like a slight dyke bent to the story.

    I know it’s practically inconceivable for you to loan out one of your puppets for such a daring storyline. But that’s my whole point for making this show. I want to leave my mark. I want to go out with a bang. I want this show to sear itself indelibly into the American public. America is most certainly ready for the interwoven story I am about to tell.  Filming starts in a week.  I’m wasting no time.

Sincerely,

Guesty Anne Thrope

Whoever thought that Alcohol would be the POLR, on my way to More.

That is the most fascinating thing I know. Alcohol is temporary, because it’s on my way to more.

I will NOT stay up partying until 4 a.m.

Unless there is promise of Pussy.

And by Pussy, I mean Dick.

You’d better mess around.