I didn’t respond only because I couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t include words like fuck and shit and cunt. If I had responded, it would have been something equally stupid. But who speaks eloquently when their wife says she wants a divorce? I believe I deserve a little slack.
Unfortunately, we talked some more. As expected, I eventually said more dumb shit, but she was still in charge of the exchange, which just pissed me off even more. She had come ready, too. She slid the divorce papers across the table to me. Yes, I was still standing, and no, I did not take them. She even had little sticky arrows pointing to all the spots I was supposed to sign, like I couldn’t have figured it out myself.
I didn’t sign them. I left and went to work.
I got there late. I picked a bad day to show up late.
I got fired.
This was a bad time for me.
I didn’t see or talk to Carrie for a week. I went to stay at my brother’s house in Muncie, about two hours north of home. Changed my cell phone number. Hid from the world in a cocoon of self-pity. One day, my divorce papers showed up in my brother’s mailbox. I thought about burning them and then pissing on the ashes and sending them back to her, but I didn’t do that.
I signed them. I let them sit for almost a month, but eventually I did sign them. Once I had initialed the final spot and scribbled my autograph on the last line, I immediately wished I wouldn’t have waited so long. Putting pen to those papers and signing off on the failure of my marriage turned out to be the most liberating experience of my life. I instantly felt free. I felt like I could smile again. I didn’t smile, but at least I felt like I could, and that was big for me.
I also realized how childish and silly I was refusing to accept the reality of the situation and just get it over with, because it really was what both of us needed. I even felt better about her, thinking she was in the same bad situation as me, that she had been having the same feelings of depression and anxiety, feeling like an animal stuck in a cage. As soon as those papers were signed, I felt like I was on my way to becoming a new man, maybe the man I thought I would grow up to be. I had the opportunity to restart my life.
Then Carrie informed me that, oh by the way, in five months, she’d be giving birth to my baby.
The Alligator Fuckhouse Part 1
I’m dozing, the boredom of sitting in a motel in Muncie, Indiana, in the middle of a weekday with nothing but soap operas and talk shows to occupy my time finally winning the battle for my soul.
Then I’m suddenly not dozing. Mongo punches me in the shoulder. It’s a light pop to him, I’m sure, but the guy doesn’t seem to know his canned ham of a fist weighs roughly the equivalent of a cinder block when hurled through the air into my tender arm.
“Shit, dude, what the fuck?”
He shoves a laptop into my hands. “Message time.”
“OK, but maybe just gently tap me, or even just simply tell me. You don’t have to break my arm in the process.”
Mongo smiles his creepy Mongo smile. “Pussy.”
“Whatever.” I turn my attention to the laptop and click the Play button on the video player window open and waiting for me. It takes a minute to load and I rub my shoulder in time with the spinning circle on the video player showing me it’s chugging away. When it’s ready, Peter Oh’Tool’s large, chiseled face fills up the screen.
“Congratulations, contestant, you’ve done it! You’ve achieved your first goal, the golden shower! Now you’re ready to move on and tackle your next challenge.”
Peter Oh’Tool makes stupid air quotes with his fingers when he says, ‘tackle’. I wonder why he does that but figure he’ll go on to explain, which he does.
“Your next challenge is…”
A pause, for dramatic effect, I suppose, then large block letters flash on the screen at the same time Peter Oh’Tool yells, “The alligator fuckhouse!”
The canned sound of studio audience applause crackles, overwhelming the laptop’s shitty little speakers. Once it finally dies down, Mr. Oh’Tool continues.
“This is one of my favorites. The alligator fuckhouse goes like this: while fucking your woman from behind, you bite her neck, flip onto your back in an alligator ‘death roll’ and continue to pleasure her while she flails and struggles to break free. Sounds simple enough, right? Maybe so, but in reality, this maneuver is much more complicated if you plan on doing it correctly. Let’s refer to this clip from my 2001 classic, Creature from Slut Lagoon, for a proper demonstration.”
The screen fades out and is replaced by a poor quality shot of Peter Oh’Tool, looking much younger and covered in weird, green body paint, perched astride some blond chick, plump with silicone and probably cocaine by the looks of her weathered face and dilated pupils. She’s screaming and feigning distress, and doing so quite poorly. I’m instantly embarrassed for both of them and start to sweat. This is really bad shit, even for low budget porn from a decade ago.
The camera zooms in on Oh’Tool, who is pumping said blond chick from behind, and we see just how truly awful his makeup is. I guess it’s supposed to make him look like some kind of swamp creature, come up from a Louisiana bog to fuck all the backwoods whores who wile away their days running around in cutoff shorts, cooking meth, and sucking random dicks. But he looks more like a geek at a comic convention dressed as Green Lantern than he does a monster.
The girl is giving it her best (read: worst) fake moan, and says in a screeching, abrasive attempt at a Southern accent, “Oh mah, you really are a monstah!”
Yeah, it’s that bad.
The camera tightens on Peter again and his upper lip curls in a snarl. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, bitch.”
With animal quickness, Peter bares white teeth encased in cheesy prop fangs, which look like they belong in a straight-to-VHS vampire flick from the ’80s rather than a swamp monster, and plunges into the babe’s neck.
This time, the girl’s scream sounds real, just like the look of surprise on her face. We get a tight shot of both of them and it’s pretty clear Peter Oh’Tool is not faking it here — he’s really biting this chick on the neck. The shot pulls back again and then we see Peter really go to work — he wraps his arms around the girl’s chest, pinning her arms to her sides. At the same time, he kicks his legs out and in front of her thighs and, in an impressive show of balance and dexterity, flips over on his back. His ankles are on top of her thighs, clamping down, and his muscular forearms pinch the girl’s midsection, pushing her wobbling, gravity-defying tits up toward her face.
The girl seriously looks scared for a second and begins to struggle, but she’s not going anywhere, and Peter Oh’Tool begins to thrust. Somehow, he’s managed to flip this girl over in one move and maintain their special connection, if you follow me. And now he’s hammering the hell out of her like a piston in an engine block. He’s moving so fast his dick becomes a blur. Her face changes from fear to ecstasy and it’s clear she’s still not acting. Peter Oh’Tool gnaws away at her neck, pounds away at her pussy and, within minutes, she begins to scream, no longer struggling like prey in the clutches of a predator. She writhes and undulates with Peter, bucking her hips in time with his, and comes hard and long. If she faked that orgasm, then she deserves an Oscar. Based on her previous display of acting, I can only deduce that it was real.
I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until the video pauses and Peter Oh’Tool appears in front of the screen again like a weatherman in front of a map. Mongo reaches out and pushes my chin up and my teeth clunk together.