>>> The Lady's Shave
By staff writer NG Hatfield
February 13, 2008
David was absolutely revolted by vaginas. He slumped in the dinerâs bright red leather seat and scooped scrambled eggs to his mouth with a soup spoon while he repeated his thoughts: âI am seriously, seriously disgusted by pussy,â and, âVaginas make me so queasy,â and, âI canât imagine what gross stuff is up there.â
âI thought youâd at least be moderate about them,â I finally said, emphasizing the word moderate as a little joke to myself. âThey donât mean anything to you one way or the other. Right?â
It seemed only logical that a gay man be neutral to the feminine composition. I figured he saw pussy like I saw a glass of water. Or, at the very least, the gracefully sexless features of a Barbie doll. Like sitting in a diner with a gay man and a beautiful woman who doesnât want to have sex. Like feeling nothing, I guess, is what I mean.
âNo. Thatâs not how it goes, boy.â David threw a palm in the air and made some dramatic, diva-looking face. I didnât ask for any more explanation, but he decided to enlighten me anyway. âYou know,â he asked, âhow sick you feel when you think of gay men?â
âNo. Not really.â I said.
David put a finger to the side of his lip and squinted, âGay men having sex.â
âI donât think about that.â
âThink about it now.â
“I tried to bring desire back to my libido: Personally, Iâm a fan of the vagina. I winked at her. Hard.”
âNope,â I said.
Tiffany laughed and took a sip of her coffee. I felt it odd that she had remained so silent for the conversationâconsidering, as David put it, she possessed and maintained a vaginaâbut her laugh was pleasant, courteous, ebullient. Tiffany was a well-behaved woman; she had been paying attention enough to laugh.
David frowned and went back to his eggs. âThese are cold.â
âAt least you have food,â I said, then immediately felt rude for it. It wasnât his fault I didnât have anything in front of me.
âEggs always get cold so quickly,â Tiffany said.
I thought, So do you, bitch and continued to listen to their nebulous conversation on chicken ovum.
I didnât notice it immediately, but as I began to hear the echoes of consciousness again, I came to appreciate just how fat our waitress was. I mean, she was obese. She waddled over to our table and I noticed that her ankles poured over her shoes and her double chin swayed like a tire swing of skin.
She asked, âYou kids need anything else?â
She wore this bright orange frock, the color of road cones or warning signs. If she had a more pleasant disposition, she might have reminded me of the sun.
âCan I please, please have a coffee?â It was the third time I asked and I was desperate for something to drink. I had terrible dry-mouth, the result of drinking way too much alcohol. It was the third try; I considered it something begged for. The second time I demanded the coffee. The first, I just fucking asked politely.
She shook her withered head at me, âNo. Youâre too damned drunk.â Her jowls jiggled and her face puffed out in folds of wrinkles. âI shouldnât even let you sit in here. Drunk as all hell, like you are.â
I appreciated the truth. Finally.
I realized that my crudeness wouldnât get me the coffee, but I figured that since the waitressâa paid employeeâcussed, I sure as hell had the right give it back to her: âWouldnât it make more goddamned sense to get me some fucking coffee so I wouldnât be quite as fucking drunk?â
Her mouth remained the same unguarded glob of fat that had insulted me as I ranted. She was not impressed with my âfucking drunkâ and something about that made her feel more like a mother. Maybe a grandmotherâŚwho smokes cigarettes and keeps the long ashes while she fries up a pancake or something. Maybe not. Still, I could tell by her reaction that the lady had produced offspring.
âNo. Now if I hear from you again,â she pointed a finger close to my nose.
I noticed her nametag. Her name was Hope.
âYouâll be out in the parking lot,â she said. And to David and Tiffany, âHereâs your checks, kids. Thanks for coming to the great city of Athens. The great state of Ohio. And I hope you two enjoyed the biggest Halloween party in the country.â
She slipped the little papers under Tiffanyâs plate and winked at David who said, âYes. Oh yes we did.â
I watched Hope walk back to the kitchen. Through a porthole-sized window on this ugly black swinging door, I could see that she poured herself a cup of coffee.
Goddamnit, I thought.
The door beat open. I could see our fat-ass waitress whispering something to the cooks, these two men with mullets and grease-soaked aprons, who nodded and said nothing as they were instructed to watch me. Tackle me if I fucking stole something. Whatever.
Hope was then out of sight and the cooks stared at me from a pair of dirty, flat grills. Prisoners dressed like slovenly milkmen, I thought, in a court room named Kevinâs Diner, waiting for my crime.
Or, my verdict.
I really donât know.
âBut back to vaginas,â David said. Maybe to break the tension caused by the argument with the waitress, maybe to draw attention back to himself. âArenât they just totally awful?â
I hadnât forgotten about vaginas; I silently disagreed.
As Tiffany chewed the last of her English Muffin, she giggled and faked her disapproval of Davidâs hatred. âHey now,â she said, âdonât say such mean things.â She licked some butter from her lip and watched me. I canât explain it fully, but whatever sexual tension between us existed before that moment was erased by the gleaming, asexual swash of spit and breadcrumbs on her upper lip.
I tried to clear my head with a joke. I tried to bring desire back to my libido: âPersonally, Iâm a fan of the vagina.â I winked at her. Hard, like I had earlier in the night. Some maculated glimmer of hope.
She smiled across the weird brown ceramic of the dinerâs table and prodded David with her elbow. âAwwâŚLittle BearâŚnever even seen a vagina.â
Little Bear. It was a nickname I had gotten earlier that night. I hated it and the circumstances of its creation. And though the process was a difficult one, I hated her âLittle Bearâ enough to ignore it.
âAww,â David repeated, âLittle Bear.â
âShut the fuck up, both of you,â I demanded. I hadnât even thought of saying the words. Or perhaps, I hadnât even thought of preventing myself from saying it. However, the cruelty in my voice must have created some generic air of hostility, because the entire diner went quiet and looked over at me.
David and Tiffany nodded at each other, smiled and continued talking of vaginas.
I, now completely ignored by everyone, had plenty of time to remember the hours before.
Nine oâclock. Tiffany and I were in the backseat of a buddyâs car and I was all the better for it.
âYou know, sex is like Chinese food. Itâs not over until you both get your cookie.â She leaned over and winked at me.
âOh, really? Iâll keep that in mind,â I winked back.
âYou should.â She lit a cigarette, sighed and started talking to my buddy Tim, who was driving.
I couldnât quite hear their conversation; the wind from the open windows rushed in and deafened me. Usually, something like that would annoy me. But it was Halloween and I was sure as hell happy enough to ignore the sound of an air stream. Something about the appreciation of evil excited me. Something about Tiffany.
She was pressed tight against me and the window, raising her arm near a windy gap so her smoke could escape. I only glancedâa tachyon of skinâbut I saw all of her.
Her legs. On each a white stalking, a garter belt. Her hips. The silky, loose end of a white negligee. Her tits, a fucking pagan miracle. I returned my eyes to the road ahead. If I hadnât, at that moment, my night would have been ruined by a raging erection.
In the front of the hood, a few headlights passed and revealed the top of Timâs costume. There wasnât much thought involved in it; he had a navy blue towel over his head and a white T-shirt that had âTerroristâ in permanent marker across the chest.
I pointed this out to him.
âI donât need a fucking good costume,â he said, âI just want to see some tits.â
I agreed with a shrug.
David, who was in the passenger seat, scoffed.
âWhat?â Tim asked him.
âNothing,â David said.
âOkay, then shut the fuck up.â
I laughed, tossed a half-smoked cigarette out and rolled up my window; Tiffany did the same and the car silenced until Tim spoke again, âI canât wait to get drunk and see women dressed like sluts.â
This statement pretty much summed up Tim: a proud pervert and an active participant in voyeurism since I had known him. And probably before that. He was leaning over the steering wheel looking anticipatory as hell; his hand was inches away from smashing his chin as he turned the wheel; his eyes, for what I could tell, hadnât blinked since we left. I didnât know much about what Iâd experience in Athens, but I knew that Tim really did want to see women dressed like sluts. And unlike most nights, he had good reason to believe heâd actually see them.
When we got to Athens, it was late. But thankfully, October hadnât yet caught up with the idea that it was almost November. The wind came in smooth. A Southern breeze. The moon was bright, full, appropriate for Halloween. I could feel the power of occult eroticism. Like witches must when they masturbate.
âSo what do you want to do now?â Tim asked. We were leaning on his carâs hood in the parking lot of a Burger King.
âUh, get some alcohol,â I said.
Tiffany nodded and lit a cigarette, âYeah, me too.â
David scoffed, as he did only when we talked about tits or getting drunk.
âShut the fuck up,â Tim said again.
David folded his arms. He was dressed up like a cherub, he said earlier, and I figured that, as soon as I met him (the same second he explained that he was a cherub and not âjust a regular angelâ), he was just the typified âdifficult homosexual.â Tim and Tiffany had warned me about this, asked me to keep my mouth shut. So, I did. Sort of.
âI want to listen to some music,â I said. I hoped that Tiffany bought the idea that I was relaxed, carefree, ready and willing to satisfy all of her sexual needs.
âYeah,â she said, âMusic is nice.â
Tim spun off of the hood, âBut women dressedââ
âLike sluts. We know,â David said. Before Tim got a chance to scold him for talking out of line, the gay man got up and ran like he was flying. Flying on the ground into a swarm of people. Some watched him and a few welcomed him into the crowd with an irregular round of applause.
I saw children in devil suits walking down the road followed by a few college girls in lingerie. A father, dressed as Batman and his son as Robin were sitting on a street corner near a yellow fire hydrant looking more homosexual than David did in his angelâI mean cherubâsuit. A girl was crying and the painted whiskers of her cat costume ran down like a diluted black mudslide from her cheeks. She was taking sanctuary under a boutiqueâs plastic awning and screaming, âYou bastard!â into her cell phone. A Christian youth organization was scampering around like small dogs, trying to recruit people to join a root beer party. They kept shouting in my direction, âWeâve got a frickinâ keg of root beer!â
A frickinâ keg of root beer? How deliciously futile, I thought and smiled.
One of the girls from the youth group sauntered up to Tiffany, David and I. Evidently, she figured that my smile was directed at her. This made her pleasantly confident.
âHi, Iâm Yvonne.â
She was a good-looking Christian girl. Brunette. Dressed conservatively from head to foot. A buttoned-up white blouse covered all the right areas and something about the contrast to the other women made her pretty fucking sexy.
âIâm doing a survey,â she said.
âOkay. How can I assist you,â I said, winked.
Tiffany looked away.
âAre you in college?â
âYep.â
âDo you plan on drinking tonight?â
âYep.â
âOkay, just one more thing,â she said, âgive me your life in three words.â
Three words, I thought and once I got the answer, I couldnât keep the grin from my face.
âTotally,â I said.
âMhm,â she wrote it down on a little, fat, pink notebook.
âFucking. Awesome.â
As Yvonne left us, I knew that I had scored major points with Tiffany. She laughed and grabbed my arm very firmly as we marched forward, through the multitudes of plastic, lace and skin.
Though at first the crowd was immenseâthrongs of people swaggering shoulder to shoulder in the man-made valleys of flat-faced buildings and shitty streets of Athens, Ohioâby one in the morning the girls dressed like sluts had headed into the frat houses and/or barricaded parties.
Two straight men, a girl and a gay dude, was not a beneficial guy-to-girl ratio for them, so, none of the partiesâ owners let us join their celebrations. We gave it another try. And then another. Then another. Finally one dude, this middle-aged guy dressed up like a Roman Gladiator, let us into his place.
Tim and I paired off, drank hard from a keg for about an hour, got a decent buzz, and started fraternizing with some girls from Michigan. These two blondes from Detroit.
I figured that if I wanted to get in with Tiffany later that night, my best chance would be to appear as attractive as possible when other women were around. I was to ignore her, basically.
I had picked my blonde and Tim had picked his and there seemed to be an agreement as to who got who in the potential scenario of us getting laid. I felt brazen and started making jokes. Drunk jokes, of course. But they were working. I saw a pothos on the Gladiatorâs coffee table and commented on it, âWhat the fuck is a plant doing here?â
My girl giggled, so I figured Iâd keep going with the plant jokes. âYeah, if I had a plantâŚI think Iâd name it Robert.â
âRobert?â she asked.
âYeah, Robert Plant.â
I could tell by her scowl that she didnât get the joke. But Tim enjoyed it. He coughed up some beer and gave me an emphatic high five. He screamed, âTANGERINE! TANGERINE!â
I figured Iâd cut my losses with the girls from Michigan; I moved to another group of girls, near a different set of plants.
Tim kept screaming Zeppelin lyrics.
After ten minutes or so, I heard a shout from across the place. Tim had spilled a pitcher of beer on the Gladiatorâs floor and proceeded to mop it up with his Terrorist towel.
âWhat the fuck are you doing?â I heard the Roman thug ask Tim.
Tim looked up from his knees and stayed in character, âJihad!â then, âNobodyâs fault but mine!â And he laughed like hell.
âWhat are you on?â Gladiator asked him.
âIâm just a fool in the rain.â
âGet out of my house.â
âI guess we should hit a bar.â Tim looked in the rearview for a place to back out of our spot. He had calmed down considerably since our walk back to the car and I think everybody was happier for it. Though, now our car was stuck. It was about three in the morning and the Burger King was fucking packed.
âIâm down for a bar,â I said.
Outside, a chubby girl in a white bikiniâwhich translates into a fat girlâwas licking mayonnaise off her knuckles and raising a Double Whooper over her head, like a trophy, to her friends.
âWhere can we go?â Tim asked.
âAnywhââ I stopped, realized we were much more limited than that.
âBut how old are you?â
Tiffany looked at me from the rigid corner of Timâs car. The fat girl tapped on the window.
âEighteen.â
âYouâre only eighteen?â Tiffany asked. She seemed insulted.
âYes?â
âWell, Iâm hitting a bar,â Tim said, âIâll take you kids to a motel.â
I figured Tim knew about my age. Through his pursuit of pussy, I was genuinely fucked for the evening. Nevertheless, I remained hopeful for the possibility of touching the places that were covered on Tiffanyâs body.
Four in the morning. She was spread-eagle on the motelâs dirty bed, said, âCome over here,â and winked at me as she had before.
I realized then that I was lucky enough to get by the age difference: she was 24, I was a young adult, too. What did it matter? Raw sexual energy knows no boundaries!
I walked as suavely as I could up to the edge of the bed and stared up her long legs. I removed my shirt. Maybe, a bit too emphatically. I donât know. Because once it was off, I could see that Tiffany was laughing.
âAww, Little Bear!â she laughed like hell.
âGoddamnit!â I said.
âLittle Bear!â she repeated.
I heard David, in the room adjacent to Tiffanyâs, screaming it too, âLittle Bear! Little Bear!â
Infuriated. Incensed. I felt an anger well up in my gut and through my arms. I couldâve punched her, the wall. I donât know.
I put my shirt back on and started ripping the plastic caps from the little bottles of liquor that Tiffany kept in her overnight bag. She didnât protest; she was too busy laughing.
I looked out the dinerâs window into a parking lot. I couldnât feel shittier than I did at that moment. And I only know this now because I have yet to feel that shitty.
Little Bear.
Aside from the Buick that would get me home, two Fords and a Sunfire were sitting in the early morning dark looking strangely attentive. A thin layer of frost glazed their bodies and windshields.
Little Bear.
I looked away from Tiffany and David and began tapping a pepper shaker on the counter to the rhythm of some old Civil War hymn.
âHey,â I said, âare you going to pay those fucking checks or what?â I realized that I was now obviously angry; I was openly trying to drown out the stupid conversation, to get out of Kevinâs Diner. I was embarrassed, but pissed enough to drown it out.
They kept going on about how strange it was that David didnât like pussy and how funny it was that Tiffany was getting âdefensiveâ about it. It was exhausting, if only because they were doing it to spite me.
I got tired of the taps and the hymn and sat thinking about the nickname itself. I had made it a pretty long time without confronting the issue.
Little Bear.
Little Bear.
I thought about sleeping in my car before I headed back to Morgantown. But just then, I wanted to drive home. I wanted to sleep in my own bed, forget about the night, the nickname.
Little Bear.
I decided that if I drove home, I wouldnât be able to sober up in time. I just needed a caffeine buzz first.
For kicks, I thought about asking Hope again. But she was sittingâI might even call it layingâin a booth across the place, talking to some old guy who was equally fat, sweaty, and angry. Maybe, I thought, her boss. Maybe, her husband. Maybe, as Iâve been told, there is little difference.
I donât want to risk it, I thought. Then, Little Bear.
I got up from the red leather booth.
âWhere are you going, LB?â Tiffany asked, laughing at her clever twist on the moniker.
I didnât answer. I only walked through the dinerâs swinging door, grabbed a black porcelain mug from this silver rack that held them all by their handles and started pouring coffee from a squatty glass pitcher.
The cooks disobeyed their orders just then. I donât know why, but when I saw them watching me from above the dull luster of the grills, they seemed genuinely impressed.
The cook on the left tossed a country fried steak, sizzling, on a plate. The other dumped some mashed potatoes beside it. They didnât say anything until I had finished pouring and set the pitcher back on its hot plate. Then, the skinnier of the pair came up to me as a father or a funeral home attendant might and patted my shoulder. He asked me, âSugar or cream with it?â
I said, âNo thanks. Just need this.â
The other guy gave me a saucer from a stack on the counter. He smiled and told me, âSend my regards to that angel. Suckinâ face with that hottie in lingerie out there.â
I looked back through the porthole. Tiffany and David were kissing like drunken high school kids. His effeminate hands smoothed over her back and tits. Her hands grabbed the gelled locks of his hair, rubbed the stubble that had grown in below his halo. Their lips touched, not quite right at all.
Hope shared the moment with her husband. Or boss.
The scullions, with smiles and hard-ons, fried up eggs and wiped the grease from the skillets on their aprons.
I looked down. My right hand, a fist around the grip of the mug, began to feel as if it was shrinking. The tired humidity rising up from the grills pressed on my face and arms. I knew it then: the gradual impact of grief is a charming introduction to manhood.