Albuquerque 1984 (Excerpt)

5:12 PM

Oct 12, 2006

It was an attempt to emigrate to "New" Mexico. My cousin told me that the couple in this scene had an open marriage.

Wendy needed to do homework for a summer class she was taking and wanted the house quiet. She said it would be a good time for Paul (her husband) to take me over to meet their friends, Kathy and Jon. We both knew an order when we heard one, and neither of us threw out a better idea. So Paul fished his Gold Wing out of the garage. I grabbed up the battered old guest helmet, and we started out South on 4th Street toward our diversion's neighborhood.

There is nothing I hate more than riding on the back of a motorcycle. I want to be the pilot. It's too homoerotic. I'm not in control, and I don't like being forced to trust someone. It's a bad combination. To cope, I reminded myself that the Jack Nicholson character did it in Easy Rider and started looking as stoned as possible. I don't know if anyone noticed my expression, but it helped pass the time.

Kathy was an RN, and Jon worked construction, drove delivery trucks, and may have cultivated controlled substances under grow lights. They owned an extremely modest adobe house in a decidedly un-exclusive neighborhood. Paul and I rolled up on the dingy, yellow block of a building that sat a little tall on the lot, and imposed over a small front yard made of bare dirt and sporadic weeds. Paul gingerly crept the Gold Wing over the curb and parked on the dirt patch to the right of the short sidewalk. We dismounted and de-helmeted and Paul rapped sharply on the flaky, wood-frame screen door. I heard no signs of life stirring inside. Maybe they were still asleep. Paul nailed on the door again—even sharper. It was really sharp, and a little too much, just like Paul.

Just as Paul was about to reign thunder for a third time, the faded-white, steel door creaked open. Jon had a sleepy, wide smile on his face. He had the stringy, shoulder length hair, untrimmed-desert-island beard, wire rimmed glasses at mid-nose, curved spinal posture, and the blue work shirt of a proud, unapologetic, unreformed hippie. He was a throwback. I liked him immediately, and I wondered if he still had a Microbus out behind the house.

"Come in, come in. We got coffee goin'," Jon wheezed and backed over a cat or two as he swung the door open.

Paul said in his slow, Oklahoma drawl (that often ended with a stab wound), "Weeee werrrre beeeeginninnnng toooo thiiiink yooooou.... diiiiiied."

"Not yet. Not yet. Not quite," rasped John.

Kathy had her big ass to the room. It was one of those lumpy, unwieldy asses that had the general shape of a broad v. She was over a sink full of dishes, ensuring that there would be enough coffee cups for all of the parties involved in our little soiree.

Paul said, "Kaaathy... Jonnn.... this izzz Wendy's cousinnn, Jeff."

Kathy turned away from the sink. "Hi. Hi. Glad to meet you," shot around the kitchen and living room, which were delineated by the edge of the ready-to-give-up-and-die yellowgreen linoleum. Kathy said, "I hope you don't mind cats." I noticed that the room was littered with preening, pawing, investigating cats. There were five or six of them romping on the secondhand furniture. In one corner of the room there was a prototypical entertainment center made of planks and cinder blocks. It supported a large television and two Betamax videocassette recorders. They were the large, early versions that cost a lot of money at the time. There were about three hundred video tapes with neat, hand lettered labels stacked tidily in every available nook and cranny.

Paul said, "Kaaathy and Jonnnn.... have quiiiiiiite aaaaaa collection of fiiiiiilms."

Kathy chimed, "Oh, yeah! We copy everything we rent, and the rest of it's erotica."

Jon clarified, "About half of it is porn."

I noticed a title, Tongue Tied, and wracked my brain over which kind of film it was. Kathy started to set us up with coffee and offered us orange juice too. She was on the exact dividing line between short and tall. She had straight, flat brown hair that sort of gathered in a hair clip at the back of her head. She was wearing her loose fitting nurses uniform; scrub pants, and a smock-top imprinted with tiny, brightly colored flowers. She wore gold, wire rimmed glasses on top of one of those broad, almost pug noses that seem to favor the faces of certain Irish women.  Her jolly face was pudgy and feminine. She looked liked Santa's daughter. Her saddlebag breasts hung precariously over her bowl full of jelly belly. It seemed that a hard rain would cause them to mudslide into oblivion, spelling disaster for the stupid families who chose to risk living in her nipples. She was cute-ish and nurturing. She was friendly and wanted to be judged alluring. Just look at her eyes and lips. Listen to her voice. She will take care of you if you can tolerate the rolling countryside of her body.

Jon sat on the couch near me. Paul sat on the other, overstuffed end of the couch. Wendy was right. He did resemble John Denver—an anorexic, needle-nosed, thin lipped version of him. With his elbows out, his big head on skinny body, and knees spread, he looked like a five foot, eight inch mini-mantis. I took up residence on a battered, somewhat easy chair. Jon leaned toward the cluttered coffee table and picked up an open double album to clean some marijuana. It was the Klaatu album. We talked about how everybody thought they were The Beatles making a surreptitious recording in Canada. All was jovial and anticipatory. The smoke soon burned my throat, and left me speechless, disembodied, and thoroughly ripped.

I sipped at the orange juice and coffee. The orange juice tasted like aluminum foil, but it felt cool and soothing. I lit a cigarette. Besides being the only non-feline who wasn't wearing wire-rimmed glasses, I was the only smoker in the group. It irritated Paul to be around smokers, but he had to tolerate it because Kathy and Jon accommodated their guests to a fault, and they insisted that I smoke heavily to enjoy myself.

Once we were all settled and contemplative, Jon popped in an erotic tape of a Swedish couple copulating. Actually, it was better than that. There was no contrived, stupid dialogue—no ersatz plot. They just met on a bed, engaged in some tender foreplay—kissing, fondling, licking and then sucking. When they were sufficiently aroused they engaged in coitus. There were camera angle changes, close-ups, and editing. It was cute, thoughtful, basic and oh so Aryan. I just can't get motivated by seeing two people who are that blond and perfect go at it. I expect it to conclude with the birthing of golden retriever puppies. It's too white bread.

After the tape concluded Jon said, "Now for something completely indulgent." He juggled tapes and returned to the couch. He fumbled for the correct remote control and pressed play. An approximately eighteen year-old girl, in a plain white tank top and cotton panties, walked into a teenage boy's bedroom. There was no boy though—just a lot of boy stuff. She wandered through her brother's room and considered things. She ran her hands over stuff. She wandered over to the closet and opened the door. We couldn't see into the closet. She reached in and pulled out a hockey stick. She fondled it. She tossed it on the bed. She reached in again and pulled out a catcher's mask. She put it on over her long, straight, dirty-blond hair. She took it off and threw it onto the bed. Then she disappeared into the closet and reappeared with a basketball. I was stoned and dumbfounded. I was horrified too. Where was this going?

She bounced the basketball a couple of times and tried to spin it on her finger and failed. She retrieved the wayward basketball and placed it on the floor in front of her feet. She took off her tank top and stepped out of her panties. She squatted down to the rough textured basketball and began to rub herself against it. The sound was incredible. It started out as a scritcha sound flavored with the echoey air of the basketball. Then—as she became stimulated—it got wetter sounding. You could hear how aroused she was. We could see her Susan Dey face edging toward ecstasy. We could see her hair flailing. We witnessed the bobbing of her nymphet—slightly pointy, nipples erect—breasts. Her hands would periodically re-grip the ball. The tempo increased; scritcha to scrishta to squisha squisha squisha, and finally her knees shuddered to a climax. She slid backwards off of the ball and leaned back on her elbows with one of those incredible "I'm spent" looks on her face.

I was in love. My mouth hung open. I was erect. I leaned forward on my chair about twenty seconds into the vagina dribble to mask the swelling. I was swooning and feverish. Then I recognized the plot. I was going to turn to Jon and say, "What now? Am I supposed to fuck Kathy while you and Paul watch?"

I turned to Jon and attempted an utterance, but all that came out of my mouth was, "eeep." I was cotton mouthed down to my vocal chords, and speaking caused a pain so sharp that it melted my erection into despondency. I looked at the beverage containers before me and found them void. I picked up my empty coffee cup and showed it to Kathy who sat beside me on a chair repositioned from the motley dinette set. I smiled. She smiled. She took the cup and returned with relief.

Jon said, "That was pretty intense. Wasn't it?"

I said, "Well... I'm in love."

Paul may have been too wound up. He changed the topic. "Maaaybeee Jeff woooould liiike tooooo seee yooooour guiitarrr."

Jon bounced his head as if a little surprised. He stroked at his kinky chin whiskers and mused, "Oh yeah... the Martin." One of the reasons that it was important for me to meet these two was that they owned this incredible guitar.

For some reason, both Jon and Kathy disappeared into the bedroom to retrieve the guitar. They made some explanation regarding security and the predators who stalked the neighborhood. Kathy emerged first from the bedroom while Jon rustled at something. She carried it over to me, and I received it and opened the case. It was a beautiful D-28 Dreadnought. I lifted it out and strummed it. It felt wonderful, but wanted a tuning. I found an old-style pitch pipe and went to work while Jon rolled another joint.

We chatted about guitars and music and general aspirations. Neither Jon nor Kathy knew how to play. They acquired the thing through odd circumstances and considered it to be something of an investment, or an heirloom.

I had a hit or two off of the joint, and then I jammed. It was one of those times of perfect confluence where I could speak a kind of language through my fingers and the instrument. I found a groove. The others passed the rest of the joint while I mined it.

I played the azure New Mexican sky. I played the desert sun. I played a roadrunner darting down the arroyo when I went on a bicycle ride. I played the freezing mountains where we always rode motorcycles whenever we needed someplace to go. I played the petroglyphs, and the red skinned drunkard passed out on the shoulder of the road. I played the warnings and the rewards. I played inquisitive and searching. I ran my finger over the contour of the tawny lioness whose outline made up the Western horizon. I rode up and down on the tram gondola to Sandia Crest. I climbed the guard towers along the highway around Los Alamos. I went nuclear. I went subdued. I went underground. I soared. I went with one of the cats winding around my own leg. I went different colors, and I toyed with sanity. I concluded with the phrase "I'm so alone" over a Chicago blues rhythm.

Jon said, "Wow."

Kathy said, "That was really beautiful."

Paul nodded.

I didn't play another note. I wanted to preserve the moment  I placed the Dreadnought back in its case and resealed the clasps. We murmured about the price of tea in China, and local attractions that ought to be on my must do list. I backed out of the house with nervous smiles, handshakes, and hugs.

The bike ride home was hot and uncomfortable. When we got to their house, Paul told Wendy about the visit. He didn't say a word about my performance. Wendy asked me how I liked the guitar. I said it was great. After the debriefing, I went to my room and found sleep for the rest of the day.