Release

This next tale is tiny but deserves note, for it was a moment which could mean something later on, being that I’m so focused on the building of my courage, which in this instance shot right up and out of me, just like I’ve been looking for: the me existing within myself as myself; that sturdy part of me nestled in my weiner, coming higher up… through the heart… and out my throat.

I mean, that’s the goal at this point: through the heart and out the throat. So much energy getting wedged down in these nether regions, the same way people get colon cancer and heart attacks: unexpressed emotion. Letting those feeling translate into action is the only prescription: God’s prescription; how the world works without drugs and alcohol and loud music drowning out the truth; pure unadulterated stream, making everything ok. But it’s the kind of ok that’s within yourself. That is something I need you to understand: it’s not about what anybody else thinks, because they are stepping stones to your personal bliss: handholds and footholds; they cannot tell you what is right.

Hitler went to Heaven and so do the Jehovah’s witnesses. Those kids who shot the school up were pump, pump, pumping with emotion. Joan of arc was blissing all the way up her pyre. Even the poop scooting boogies, watching their boob tubes till the fat comes home, are just dreaming like dogs all day, swimming in the collective thought pool.

But this is all explanation; background information. Because what I’m about to say might seem so small and insignificant to you, and you will probably read it and say, ‘How is what you’re explaining heroic?’

 

Here’s what happened: I’m walking Charlo. We’re going around the park. It was the second time I’d done so today. Musette and I had agreed that he should get as much exercise as possible, without going to the dog park, because we didn’t want him to get sexually excited or abused, because tomorrow is the day he gets neutered.

I’m going round the bend and Charlo’s acting more a fool than he knows he can get away with. I have to put him in ‘time out’, which is what the dog whisperer refers to as the ultimate form of discipline.

You have to separate your discipline into stages for it to be effective. The first stage is either a ‘shushing’ noise, or a slight tug; the second stage is more forceful tugging; the last stage involves grabbing your pup by the neck and pushing him into the ground – this is ‘time out’. It’s nothing hard: no slamming, skull smashing, or rib pulverising; in fact it’s necessary to remain calm during this stage. The goal is to be the pack leader. It is what dogs to do when their subordinates are acting up. It resets energy and displays authority.

Anyways, I’m going around the bend, Charlo’s acting up, I grab him by the neck and slowly push him to the sidewalk.

I’m holding him there, monitoring his breath, watching his body, waiting for the obsessive thoughts to disappear from his mind when this dumb girl, sun tanning on the park lawn, wearing some bra which makes me want to jump her and pump her full of sperm, calls out to me, “You aren’t hurting your dog are you?”

“No, I’m not.” I reply, answering her honestly.

She’s quiet for a bit. I have to stay firm for the discipline to take hold.

“It’s just that the cement is hot, on his paws, and…”

That’s her piping up again.

The energy leaps from my dick, which is already jazzed thanks to her bra, up round my heart, which hates her type of intrusive, Samaritan personality, and out my throat, releasing a gorgeous slug of reprimand, saying, “Stop talking. I don’t want to hear from you again. Ok?”

 

I told you it wasn’t much. But to me it felt like light penetrating the walls of my self. It was something true, aimed against this oppressive world which annoys me so much sometimes; and it felt good.

I held Charlo against the ground, still for a few seconds longer. My body was vibrating. The girl was staring at me, dumbfounded I guess. I had given her a pretty wrathful stare along with my reprimand.

And then I got up. I didn’t look at her again. Charlo felt lighter, calmer. I knew it was because of what had been released within myself, like the change in me was transferring through the leash between us, both of us having been changed by this breath of relief.

 

The incident stuck in my mind for the rest of the day. I felt something similar to guilt, but I knew it wasn’t guilt, because I was proud of myself.

I touched my bare foot to the cement on the way home. It was cooler than warm bath water.

 

Summoning Courage

So I turn myself around, deciding I don’t want to wait for my sins to cook. Back to the dog park, to face fear. Like two mermaid summoning swimmers treading within an empty dust bowl, we wait for another dog to enter. Electricity hangs around my groin, a sacral swirl. It is a common occurrence, during times of nervousness, giving me something to play with, a bulge to tug at, masturbating when able.

I pull, stretching this sacral energy like taffy through my entire being, parading like something taller than my actuality, fragile with tensile unreliability, knowing that a snap in the right place will send my entire artifice crumbling to piss in my pants.

A curly brown dog finally enters. The owner seems hesitant. That is never a good sign. I try to play fetch with the dog, tossing the ball; but neither she nor Charlo will retrieve it. I do my best to take this dog as my own, having the notion that the only way for me to win this battle against fear is for me to raise my energy to the top of my skull and hit the alpha bell crown, ringing as pack leader for the entire world to hear. The woman chuckles, watching me. That’s good. It’s a sign of good rapport. She is letting me play my wacky game. If Musette were here she’d probably tell me I’m acting a fool. But she’s not. So I have the experimental freedom of my own solitude.

Another dog enters. This dog is wearing a harness around his body which looks like a jacket. A real sporty guy. He will fetch the ball.

“What’s wrong with you Charlo!? You jealous?” I yell, playing ball with this new kid.

I can tell he is. He’s chosen to sit in the corner. He’s got this look on his face like, ‘I’ve been replaced.’

I’ve let my energy go too much to my head. So I decide to cool it, because I realize I’ve been being a real douchebag.

But the energy doesn’t just disappear; it gets translated into the other dogs. The jacket wearing sport keeps playing fetch, now delivering the ball to his true master instead of me. But the brown poodle doesn’t want to play. She hasn’t from the start. She’s more interested in Charlo.

She starts nipping at him. Her master is timid, not taking enough initiative. Things are progressing into the danger zone. It’s palpable. My energy has returned to my weiner, but watching this dog take advantage of sweet Charlo sends it shooting, naturally, not like taffy, back up to the tip of my head, sending a ringing ‘Shush!’ from my lips, halting the curly brown dog in its tracks, reflecting the warm comfort of personal power back into my heart.

The situation cools. The dogs timid owner steps in and leashes her dog.

“Sorry.” she says. “She can get a little bitchy sometimes.”

I give her a good riddance. The sporty chap is enthralled by his fetching. It’s just Charlo and him in here now.

I consider the mission a success and take Charlo home.

Macbeth

A phantom of bad luck haunts me. Little curses sprinkle my path. I challenged the monster the other day, walking beneath a ladder impassibly spread over the sidewalk, and now I find the coffee jar unlatched and the dish sponge floating in the saucepan.

Bad luck is a powerful god, bigger than silly foibles, as there is only one god in the end, spread through the allegiances of demigods. Here I am taunting that which has no moral restraint, figuring it some part of my life mission, as if it isn’t really just another quick and painful avenue to death.

All of these attachments cling by such frail clasps, strung together by fishing line, keeping us connected. Tragedy wrapped tight within the anomaly of our existence, living in food; how can you expect to be more than a coward? Thinking, as the brain being the thinking vessel, what protection it must warrant.

This is why when a man loitering outside my apartment follows me through my key swipe all I can do is look at him silently, wondering where the old woman from last time found the strength.

And then at the dog park, some feisty fella decided to take a few nips at Charlo’s neck. I realized that something had to be done… Because when you’re part of a family you have more heads than one. And sometimes you’re the only person who can hold the heads together. Everybody else is out to get you and yours. And it becomes your job to stand in front of the door. Because there are things which need your protection.

Charlo needs my protection. He’s my pet. And Musette needs my protection. She will be my wife.

I tell myself that I must stand up! Before it’s too late! Before a life is lost! Before tragedy strikes!

The Strength of Women

Another visit to planned parenthood results in an hour long walk: thirty minutes there, thirty minutes back; with the first half of our journey being plagued by a case of diarrhea, which popped out of nowhere, and resulted in my having to ask a gas station attendant for a key to their back-door bathroom.

“I feel much better…” she says, exiting the private little room, wondering if I could hear all of the noises she had been making.

“I couldn’t hear anything.” I say.

“I flushed three times.” she says. “Just trying to get all of the smell away.”

“That’s a good idea.” I say.

…

We were twenty minutes late to our appointment, but our names were called right when we entered. Musette went into the doctor’s office. I read Bukowski while she was given options regarding which IUD should go into her vagina.

“One of them is hormone based, and the other is copper.” said the doctor.

Musette chooses the hormone based one because it eradicates her periods. It prevents pregnancies for up to five years. It floods her body with less hormones than the shot she is currently taking, and she wasn’t even supposed to be on the shot for as long as she has been, because it thins bones, and should only be taken for a year and a half at most. She has been taking it for two years. She asks me if I think that’s why her teeth are in such a problematic state. I tell her I don’t know. My face floods with guilt. She tells me not to worry; her teeth have always been bad. But I don’t know what I would do if she decided she didn’t want to be on birth control anymore.

She had told me about male birth control once. It freaked me out. It seems the natural way birth control should be administered, but I don’t know what a dose of sexually tampering drugs would do to my creative mind.

“The IUD has less hormones than the shot.” she says.

“That’s good.” I reply.

…

We go to Subway on the way home. It is located on the ground floor of our apartment. As we exit a man follows us into our building. An old woman with a cane says, “You can’t go in there, sir!” The man turns around:

“My girlfriend lives in this building.” he says.

I’m holding the door open, standing in front of him. He is standing in the doorway.

“I don’t care.” says the woman with the cane. “You have to call her from the main entrance, and she can buzz you in.”

He argues with her.

“Come on!” says Musette, “Don’t get involved.”

The old woman looks at me. I shrug my shoulders.

“My commander commands.” I say, letting the door fall into the hands of the offender.

…

The man looked like a criminal. I feel guilty. I know that I am in less trouble than I would have been had I stayed, but I just hope the old woman is okay. She was in the right. I know that. But I was scared.

The old woman becomes the hero of my thoughts.

“How do I be like that?” I wonder.