Month: April 2003

The other day at the gym I was in the locker room, changing after my shower. Depending on the hour and other incalculable factors, the little section of the locker room I usually gravitate towards can either be very quiet or very crowded. Murphy’s Law: if there are only two men in the locker room, they will have unknowingly chosen adjoining lockers.

So there were only three of us in the section, one guy was using the locker right above mine (which reminds me of the time this couple was leaving the locker room as I entered. One of the guys pointed to the locker he had just vacated and said “There’s a top, if you want.”)

Now I had noticed the guy on top of me plenty of times before. That thick-muscled, scruffy-faced type I like, he was usually alone and rather quiet, a selling point in a gym full of Chatty Cathys. A little mystery always helps. As he reached over me, spinning the dial on his combination lock, he accidentally closed my locker. “Oh, sorry about that,” he said.

“No problem,” I said.

He opened his locker and dug around in his bag. He then walked over to the only other guy in our area, another cute boy with muscles and a tribal tattoo etched across his lower back

“Hey there,” Guy #1 said to him.

“Hey,” the Tattoo Guy said.

“Here, I brought something for you.” He held out his hand, his fingers wrapped around something metal. For a moment I thought it was a combination lock, but then he dropped it into the Tattooed Guy’s outstretched hand and I saw it was actually a shiny cock ring. The Tattooed Guy blushed a little.

“James found it at home and was like ‘whose is this’?” Guy #1 said. “I was like ‘it’s not mine.’ It took us awhile to figure out it was yours. So I thought I’d bring it in.”

“Thanks.”

I finished dressing and left. I realized that Guy #1 had suddenly become a lot less interesting to me. The mystery had vanished. I certainly don’t think open relationships or group sex are wrong, (I’m not innocent when it comes to either) just wrong for me.

Lately I often feel like I’m out of step with big-city gay culture when it comes to sex. Or rather, I’ve always been this way but youth and drugs obscured my instincts and let me do things with a lot of different men when all along I’ve only wanted one man. I mean, I’m no prude. I can be a total pig. But only with someone I trust. I could certainly bore you to tears trying to analyze my need to be special at all costs. Maybe my parents didn’t shower me with enough love, who the hell knows.

I cheated on my Ex until I got sober, and I don’t have a good excuse, aside from the boring alcoholic fear that there were never enough drugs, sex and love for me.

Until last year I logged more than my fair share of hours in chat rooms. But most of those hours were a complete waste of time because my raging hormones were battling my dislike of fleeting encounters, leaving me paralyzed, which wasn’t very hot. I would actually sit there looking at some guy’s photo, thinking “My God, he’s really hot. But will he respect me as a person?”

I haven’t had sex since November. I realized back then that the space monkey deserved my complete attention. I decided I would wait. Not because he asked, but because I wanted to do things differently this time. I wanted my actions to fall in line with my desires. I wanted to see if I could do it, and if I could, what it felt like. Even more importantly, how that colored the sex we would hopefully have together.

I have rather bizarre thoughts. Namely, that if something comes too easily I won’t appreciate it. Maybe it’s my Midwestern work ethic. I think the harder I have to fight, the sweeter the reward. Good things come to those who wait.

Hopefully in seventeen days the space monkey won’t be disappointed when I meet him at the airport. God knows we’ve waited long enough. I’m only hoping that when he tells me he’s actually a 300-lb Korean woman, he’s only joking. No offense to 300 lb. Korean women or anything.

Last night I dreamt my father had died. I arrived at the funeral service in an enormous church that was packed and rather boisterous, considering the circumstances. I wound my way up the center aisle around clusters of people talking, the sanctuary humming with energy and chatter. Being his son I figured I should sit up front. I pushed my way past the revelers till I reached the front row. I sat down in the last spot. I glanced over to my left, across the aisle, and there was my mother, sitting with her partner. She was beautiful, brimming with her own barely-contained energy, the way she looked before the disease. They smiled and waved at me and suddenly I realized that I should be sitting on their side of the aisle, as if we were at a wedding. Unfortunately, as my mother indicated with a shrug of her shoulders, there wasn’t any room.

used to be a time when you would pimp for me

With headphones on I’m safe. No one can tell I’m listening to Janet Jackson. 18-year old boys don’t listen to Janet Jackson. They don’t fantasize about being her back-up dancer.

used to brag about it all the time

I’m walking along the edge of Lake Harriet after school. I’ve started walking everywhere lately. Can’t seem to stand still for anything, not even a bus. I need to move. I walk the mile and a half every morning and afternoon.

A cool breeze cuts through the spring sun. Dark April water lapping at the edges of the thin, stubborn sheets of ice in the center of the lake. I walk to Janet’s beat, exhaling my pent-up winter breath. I made it, my last winter before I get the hell out of Minnesota. I tug on the straps of my backpack and smile at the dogs passing by.

I pass the concession stand. It’s still boarded up for the season. Soon on warm summer nights I’ll walk down here and share a cigarette with Emily and Tanya on their breaks. They’ll open the back screen door and hand me a dripping cone of strawberry ice cream, telling me to wait up. After closing time the two Jennies will join us, maybe Amber if she can ditch her asshole boyfriend. We’ll take one of the pontoons out. We’ll split a case of Leinenkugel under the night sky and they’ll sing all the lyrics to the Replacements. Our laughter carrying over the water.

I cut across the empty parking lot towards the woods. There’s a shortcut home through the Bird Sanctuary, between the boulevard and the sprawling acres of Lakewood Cemetery. I push through the rusting metal turnstile, into the dark and quiet woods.

I like the solitude, the dirt path under my feet, the trees sprouting pale green buds overhead. The woods open to a small marsh where red-wing blackbirds cling to waving stalks of cattail. Patches of snow in the shade.

soap opera says you got one life to live who’s right who’s wrong

Sometime in the last few months I’ve figured out that men cruise each other here. I’m always walking past some guy feigning interest in the wildlife, sauntering slowly down the darker trails. The bolder ones lean up against tree trunks and watch me pass. They all make me nervous. But not enough to stay away. It’s an honest shortcut, I tell myself.

I wouldn’t know what to do with them, anyway. Never touched another guy, though my raging hormones don’t want to wait any longer. I’m too scared to stop, to give them more than a glance. Sometimes I wish I could.

who’s jamming to my nasty groove

I hide behind my headphones and my purposeful gait. I pass them, as though I have someplace better to be. I don’t really know what men can do to each other. My fantasies are vague and shadowy. I imagine what another man’s body would feel like, how I could merge with him. A flash of underarm hair, sweat, Fruit of the Looms. A heavy weight against me.

A thin path diverges from the trail. It points towards home. I follow, ducking under a low branch, into the shaded woods. The path runs along the edge of the cemetery, skirting a tall chain-link fence. I look out at the lines of pale headstones curving over the green, manicured hills. Up ahead there’s a gap in the fence. Sometimes at night I’ll squeeze through, walking with my headphones and smoking cigarettes, hiding from the patrol cars that crawl the curving roads. Every night I climb out of my bedroom window and I walk with my music and I smoke. I can’t fall asleep until I’ve walked. All year long, for miles. In the summer I lay on the hill above the rose gardens, looking up at the stars. In the winter I navigate the icy sidewalks, following my clouded breath. My parents don’t know. Someday they’ll bust me, but until then I walk.

I see someone ahead on the path, shrouded by the trees. A man, broad-shouldered, looking out at the cemetery. He hears me approach and turns. Weathered and handsome, something about him reminds me of a football coach. Not the fat ones who teach at my high school, more like the ones in the NFL. He’s even got a windbreaker on. Solid build, dark hair graying at the temples. A little rough around the edges.

He watches me walk past. The path is secluded, thick woods separate us from the road. We’re barely a hundred yards from my house. I walk past him but for the first time I allow myself a glance back. He’s watching. I look away but slow my pace. My body’s in conflict, wanting to flee, my hormones surging. I stop a few yards away from him. I look dumbly out at the cemetery’s hillside and the rows of headstones. I can feel him watching me, and again I glance back, blood screaming in my ears. I take a few steps and sit down on the peeling trunk of a fallen oak. Remnants of a campfire underfoot. I pull off my backpack and set it against the tree. I look back at the cemetery as if studying a particularly beautiful landscape. Out of the corner of my eye I can see him walking towards me. He stops a couple of feet away and I look up at him. He smiles. “Hi there.”

“Hi,” I answer, giving him a brief smile. I pull my headphones down around my neck. I can’t seem to look him in the eye.

“Nice uh afternoon we’re having.”

“Yeah.”

“Mind if I sit next to you?”

I shake my head and scoot over a couple of inches. He sits down heavily next to me. I can smell tobacco and aftershave. “You live around here?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“It’s nice over here.”

I look down at the sooty remains of the fire. I kick at a charred log and it splits in two. Ashes rise in the air between us. Someone has thrown a crumpled can of Miller into the underbrush nearby.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

“Mike.”

“Mike, nice to meet you. My name is Carl.”

I nod mutely, nearly offering my hand as an introduction. I feel strangely paralyzed. I want to run, but I can’t. Suddenly his hand’s on my shoulder and I jump. He laughs. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” His hand is warm, rubbing clumsy circles. My skin tingles under his uncertain movements. “You sure are cute.”

I smile weakly. “Thanks.” I glance up at him and he leans towards me and at the last second I close my eyes. He kisses me and he tastes like stale cigarettes. I wonder if I taste like that, too. His wet tongue searches my mouth. I can feel the coarse stubble of his chin. I open my eyes while his mouth moves awkwardly against mine. Suddenly he doesn’t seem as handsome. Suddenly he seems much older than before. Up close his windbreaker is cheap. He’s wearing polyester slacks. I pull away. He kisses my forehead then takes my hand. “C’mon,” he says. I grab my backpack and he pulls me further down the trail, closer to my house. He stops and turns to face me. He reaches out and grabs my belt, unfastening me. He gets down on his haunches and he pulls my jeans down my thighs then lowers my briefs. I’m not very hard. I worry about this for a split second and then I feel the warmth of his mouth, the surprising wet softness around my cock. I can feel the cool spring air on my legs and ass, and I worry that someone can see us through the trees. I look out again over the cemetery and rows of headstones. An angel carved from marble stands over a grave, her head down as if grieving. His hands clutch the back of my knees and his head bobs up and down. I’m not getting very hard. Suddenly he rises back to his feet and he wraps his arms around me, his hands traveling up and down my back. “I’d love to take you home, Mike, I could just eat you up.” I stand awkwardly in his embrace. He lowers his head and speaks softly in my ear. “You just want someone to love you, don’t you?”

I’m too startled to answer.

He squeezes me once and then steps back. “Take care, babe,” he says. Then he turns and walks away, back into the bird sanctuary.

I watch him until he disappears among the trees, my jeans around my thighs. The cold metal of my belt buckle against my leg. I pull my jeans up and refasten them. I smooth out my clothes and pull on my backpack. Then I walk in the other direction, towards home.

I feel both sick and aroused, and strangely empty. I trudge up the hill, past the neighboring houses. I wonder what people are doing now, this moment, in their houses.

I unlock the door and step into the dark, cool living room. Nobody’s home. I walk through the quiet house and into my room. I dump my backpack on the floor and close the door behind me. I wonder what I should do. I think of movies I’ve seen, where women sob in the shower after being raped. But I haven’t been raped. I don’t take a shower. I take off my shoes and turn on the stereo. I think of skin and the hot wetness of his tongue. A weight holding me down.

funny how time flies when you’re having fun

I lay on the floor, listening to Janet, watching the afternoon light fade from the room.

I’m having one of those demoralizing weeks at work (actually, they’re all pretty demoralizing) where I wake up later each day, go in later each day, and flee a little earlier, each day. Where people hang up on me when I make myself answer the phone. Where people who don’t work in the office consider the office a free doggie day care for their neurotic canines, many of whom would make great case studies in separation anxiety. And to top it off, someone has just stolen my lunch from the office mini-fridge. We keep our office locked, so this narrows the field of suspects to the ten people with keys. This does not make me feel any better. This has pushed me over the edge, and I am so demoralized and completely bereft of blood sugar that I can barely type. Human beings are overrated.

Last night I told my therapist about the daily inner battle between my higher self and my lower self. My higher self knows that certain activities are almost guaranteed to bring me serenity: writing, reading, going to the gym, going to an AA meeting, talking with friends. The lower self, however, prefers lying in bed in front of the television, computer solitaire, Internet surfing, and screening phone calls. These activities are almost guaranteed to make me feel worse, but the lower self doesn’t care. The lower self is all about “let’s just do these things for an hour and relax”, knowing full well that four hours will pass and then it’s bedtime. After demoralizing workdays it’s a toss-up over who will win the evening; higher self certainly plans on winning, but lower self is a sneaky little cheat.

Okay, yes, I am Sybil. But you knew that by now. Cut me some slack.

I told my therapist that I didn’t think I could work another year at this job, assuming it will be at least that long before grad school. She gently suggested that I focus instead on getting through the next month, and letting a week with the space monkey give me a little perspective. She said it’s hard sometimes, to do all the things I do, alone. Two years ago today I moved out of the apartment I shared with the Ex. And I haven’t touched another man with anything resembling love in my heart since. It’s not like I need anyone to feel complete. But sometimes it helps. And why not? Don’t we all want someone? Someone who will smile when we enter the room? Ah, don’t answer. It doesn’t matter. I know what I want.

The space monkey gave me a date to circle on the calendar. I’d prefer something a little sooner (like, this afternoon maybe) but it gives me one of those short-term goals that are so helpful at the gym. All this lifting makes me hungry. I’ve started making myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every morning to eat at work mid-morning. Louie waits patiently by the front door. Yesterday the sandwich was particularly messy, and there were no napkins around. So this morning I find myself taking a paper towell and folding it in the bag next to my sandwich.

I don’t know if I’m getting older, or if I’ve always been this big of a dork.

The swimming trunks cling wet and cold to my legs as I lift my right foot and step onto the first metal rung. Three short steps to the pale green board that stretches ahead over the diving pool. I want to get this over with as soon as possible. I hoist myself up the last two steps. I can feel the oddly pebbled surface of the diving board beneath my feet. Drops of water fall from the legs of my trunks onto my feet. I cross my arms over my chest and shiver uncontrollably. My anxiety has heightened during the ten-minute wait in line with my sixth-grade classmates. Off to the side of the pool our gym teacher, Mr. Banning waits. He holds a clipboard in front of him, its edge pressing into the soft folds of his stomach. A silver whistle on a chain hangs from his neck. The rest of the class waits behind me. Every single one of them must be staring at my back.

I cannot imagine a worse scenario than this. Wet and half-naked before my peers, attempting to dive. I am comfortable under the water, a sleek otter. But I’m afraid to dive head-first into the water. I cannot get past this unreasonable fear. Complicating matters is my fear of the diving pool itself. The pool is twelve feet deep and the water grows darker at the bottom. On the floor of the pool there is a grate, two feet by two feet. I do not know what is in the darkness beneath the grate, but sometime in the last few months I have convinced myself that there is a shark circling beneath, waiting hungrily for release. I have seen “Jaws” and I am scarred for life. No amount of reasoning can quell my panic when I have plunged into the water, each time imagining the shark squeezing past the grate and rushing towards me.

I inhale the thick smell of chlorinated water. My classmates chatter behind me, their voices echoing oddly over the pool. Water is sucked into the drains at the edge of the pool. The high ceiling’s vents whine far above. A large clock hangs on the opposite wall, and the red second hand sweeps across its face. I have to get through this. Mr. Banning taps his pencil against the clipboard. I’m about to take my first step when behind me I hear a boy laugh and say “Toothpick”, and the entire class giggles.

///

I was teased constantly for my scrawniness as a kid. Even strangers, upon meeting me for the first time, would tell me I needed to “eat more”. It’s rude to call someone “fat” to their face, but “skinny” is acceptable. My younger brother was just as scrawny. We had inherited our father’s genes, and a part of me hated him for it.

One summer when I was nine my mother convinced me to sign up for a two-week soccer camp. Although I had played for three years, I never really loved soccer. I played right wing but never scored a goal, forever choking up and passing the ball to one of the bolder boys who would kick it sailing into the net. But I was a good kid, afraid to rock the boat, forever obedient. I did what my parents wanted.

She made a car pool arrangement with another parent. The woman and her thirteen-year old daughter would pick me up each morning. The girl would smile weakly at me then stare out the window while her mother tried to engage me in conversation. She’d drop us off at the park and the girl would dash off to join her friends in the older league. I was the youngest kid in the entire program, by at least a year or two. My shyness and my skinniness and my age set me apart from the other boys. On the second day one of the boys looked at my scrawny legs poking out from my shorts and nicknamed me “Bones”. Unfortunately it stuck.

It was humiliating and infuriating. Over the years I had perfected the skill of flying under most people’s radar, but for those two weeks I was the reject, and no one would befriend me. I grew to hate the summer sun and the manicured fields, the smell of freshly cut grass. I wanted cool weather and jeans and long sleeves.

My car pool partner did everything possible to distance herself from me, then one day as her mother was pulling up in the station wagon, she called me “Bones” in front of her girlfriends and they all burst out in nasty seventh-grade laughter. I sank into the backseat and held it together until I got home. When my mother opened the door I burst into tears and ran inside. When she followed me I slammed my bedroom door closed. I hated her for making me go to that stupid camp.

I stayed scrawny all the way through high school. My first year of college I weighed 128 pounds. I started working out and by the following summer I weighed 140 pounds. I stayed disciplined at the gym for the next ten years, but was always a hard gainer. It wasn’t until I hit thirty that my metabolism changed. Between that and quitting crystal meth I began to gain more weight.

If I had rubbed a bottle and conjured a genie as a kid, my first wish would have been to “look normal”. I didn’t need big muscles, I just wanted to look like everyone else.

Wishes are ephemeral. Years at the gym have changed my goals. Two years ago I thought if I was 170 pounds I’d be perfect. Today at 173 pounds I keep throwing weights around, hoping for bigger arms. A 45” chest isn’t enough.

If we only knew then what we know now. If “Bones” could see me now, maybe he wouldn’t need to cry.

///

I can hear the word “toothpick” and their giggling echo over the pool. I need to disappear. I step closer to the edge of the board, dipping closer to the surface of the water. I take a breath and launch myself off the board. My clumsy arc falters and I pull my legs up at the last second, and there is the loud smack of my skin against the water before I plunge beneath the surface. I know they’re all laughing again, but I can’t hear them down here. I sink lower, the skin of my belly stinging. I want to stay down here forever. I kick my legs and swim even lower, towards the grate at the center of the pool. My heart beats wildly as I wait for it to burst open. I hold my breath, waiting for the beast, hoping it will eat me alive.

A few months after I moved to San Francisco, I had lunch with a friend of mine who had also moved here from Minneapolis. We had worked together at the Walker Art Center, and he had moved on to an even more prestigious position with a San Francisco art institution. He had been here perhaps a year before I moved, and we caught up over lunch in the museum’s cafe.

“How do you like it here?” I asked.

“I hate it here,” he said, without the slightest hesitation. I looked up at him quickly, the coffee cup in my hand frozen in its path from the table to my mouth.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear any criticism about my new home, but I asked anyway. “Why?”

“It’s so conservative here.”

“Conservative?” I blinked at him. Were we talking about the same city?

“Everyone here supports the traditional institutions; the ballet, the opera, the symphony. Nobody here will give money to new art. Even Minneapolis was more progressive.”

I stayed quiet. I knew he spent the majority of his working hours raising money for the institution.

“And the local art itself isn’t very strong. I don’t know. I think…” he paused, his eyes scanning the traffic passing outside. “It’s so beautiful here. I think artists get lazy, it’s just so easy, it’s easy to go outside and enjoy the sun and the weather. I think artists need winter, they need those long periods of hibernation to create art that’s, well, deep. For lack of a better word.”

I looked out at the traffic, too. I wasn’t sure I agreed. Even more, I didn’t really want to believe him. This was my new home.

I believe, more or less, that if you look for something, you’ll find it. If you look for all the ugliness and shortcomings of a city, you’ll find them. If you look for the beauty, you’ll find that too.

But five years later, I can still hear his words.

I haven’t talked to him for awhile; I know he’s still in San Francisco, working for another organization now. I don’t know if he still hates it here, or if he’s simply adjusted his expectations. But I’ve been thinking a lot about what he said that day.

When I was living in Minneapolis, restless for a bigger city, I had begun saving my money to move. I hadn’t yet decided between San Francisco or New York, but I was leaning towards the latter. I wanted to be in the center of it, the art world and the literary world and the excitement. I wasn’t sure I had it in me to live there, but I wanted to try.

Then I met the man who would eventually become my Ex, and the moving plans were put on hold. After a couple of years he too became restless. But he didn’t want to move to New York. He preferred San Francisco, and so on Halloween of 1997 we pulled into town in a Ryder truck, towing our pick-up on a trailer behind us.

When I decided last week to apply to grad school, I looked around for a local program. I didn’t have much luck. UC-Berkeley doesn’t offer an MFA in writing. SF State doesn’t focus on creative nonfiction. I haven’t heard great things about either New College or USF.

But really, their reputations are beside the point.

There are more and more schools offering low residency programs, where students come to campus for 7-10 days each semester for workshops, seminars, and meetings, then they write at home the next few months, sending work to their advisors for feedback. The advantage to these programs is that you can do them from anywhere. I could stay in SF. After five years here I have a beautiful, affordable apartment, a new car, an okay job. Great friends.

But my gut says no. If I love classroom learning and dialogue, if I feel energized by working with other writers, then a low residency program doesn’t make any sense. I want immersion, I want to squeeze every drop out of this.

The writing is on the wall. So to speak.

I’ve been looking at the websites of schools all over the country. But I keep coming back to one particular city.

I don’t want to be one of those people who sit around wondering what life might have been like if-only. If only I had jumped, if only I had taken a risk.

I really don’t know where I’ll be in a year. I thought San Francisco was home. But maybe it was just a stop along the way.

I miss you, but I haven’t met you yet…you are gorgeous, but I haven’t met you yet

When your life has become a Bjork song, you know you’re blessed, just in a peculiar way. You are the misfit wearing a swan dress to the Oscars while everyone else is dressed in Dior. You know you’ve got something pretty fucking rare and beautiful but everyone still thinks you’re a dork. You’ll end up on everyone’s worst-dressed list, but you don’t care because you just know. You know, and they never will.

Writing is how I reconcile myself to the world, how I pay tribute to beauty and pain. How I honor the past, how I tell myself what certain moments meant. I write, as a good friend once said, because I can’t shut up.

I’ve honored that past time and again here, little stories from my life, from the past. But what about the present, what about the future? After enduring the twelve labors of Hercules, my life is opening outwards, and suddenly I’m afraid to say anything, lest the gifts of the present disappear. The stakes are raised. I place my bets and suddenly, because I care, the possibility of losing constrains my breath. It was easy when everything just happened to me, I just held on, I took it. Now I am happening, I am happening upon the world. I want to tell you, because you’ve stuck by me through the hard shit. I want to show you what happens if you keep fighting, if you stay in the game.

I want to write on and on about the space monkey. I want to replay every sweet word, every kindness, every moment where I’ve thought “I’ve been looking for this. I’ve been looking a long time.” I want the world to bear witness to this falling in, falling towards. Against all odds, even misfits get loved.

But to say it out loud. I don’t want to hear a word of warning or cynicism, I don’t want caution or well-meaning sabotage. Haven’t you figured it out yet? I’m a pitbull when I know what I want. I bite down and I won’t let go. See that fighter above, see the man with the boxing gloves? That fighter is me. I’m strong and I’m patient. I’ll swing my fists and then I’ll wait, for the next opening, for the cynics of the world to show me their chin.

Bearbait recently returned from a trip to Honolulu, where on the last day he met a hunky cop who came up and introduced himself on the beach, and thus began a steamy little affair (I told him the nickname worked). Bearbait and I now exchange updates about our individual long-distance love monkeys. The cop called today while Bearbait was running errands in the car. My apologies to them for any creative license I take.

Cop: Hi, honey.

BB: Well, hello there.

Cop: What are you doing?

BB: Actually I’m driving, what are you doing?

Cop: I’m directing traffic.

BB: What?

Cop: I’m directing traffic. Hang on. (whistle)

BB: You’re directing traffic?

Cop: Yes, how is your day?

BB: Um, fine.

Cop: It’s 82 degrees and sunny here. Hey Buddy!

BB: Excuse me?

Cop: You think I’m standing here so you can drive over me? You gotta turn, buddy!

BB: Who are you talking to?

Cop: Sorry, dumb driver.

BB: That’s okay.

Cop: So what are you up to?

BB: Um, I’m turning left on Market.

Cop: (unintelligible static noises)

BB: What’s that?

Cop: That’s my radio. Sorry, the mouthpiece is on my shoulder. (whistle) I said STOP! STOP! That’s right, YOU!

BB: How many conversations are you holding right now?

Cop: Um, about three, I’d say. (radio garble)

BB: Did you get my package?

Cop: What?

BB: Did you get my package?

Cop: Oh, not yet. I got those pics you e-mailed me though.

BB: Yeah, what did you think?

Cop: Tell me about the dog, that’s a beautiful dog!

BB: Um…

Cop: I didn’t know you had a dog.

BB: I don’t. That’s Louie, he belongs to my friend Michael, who took the picture.

Cop: I love dogs.

BB: Yeah, but did you like the picture of ME?

Cop: Sure I did. Hey, when we live together can we get a bunch of dogs? Like 12?

BB: Twelve?!? No, one.

Cop: Seven?

BB: One.

Cop: Four?

BB: One.

Cop: Two?

BB: Only if one of them fits inside a shoulder bag and doesn’t shed.

Cop: Okay, then. (radio garble, static, “10-4”) Well, I better let you go.

BB: Yeah, that’s probably the smart thing to do.

Cop: Have a good day, I’ll talk to you later? (whistle)

BB: Sounds good.

Cop: Move it, move it, move it!

BB: Yes, sir.

Cop: Bye!