stratofortress
Bluelighter
- Joined
- May 16, 2012
- Messages
- 119
I'm willing to bet I'm not the first person to start a thread in this forum whilst high on amphetamine.
I wrote three stories yesterday; one described the events leading to John Waters adopting his trademark 'pencil line' moustache; one was a silly little stream of consciousness piece of nonsense; one was about an adolescent boy discovering an appreciation for physical strength after having always regarded intelligence as the only mark of a man's worth.
I've no literary pretensions and won't be upset if I'm criticized for being a fool. Unless the speed starts to wear off. Actually, any harsh responses posted then would probably make me die of dysphoria
I'll only include one of the three stories or you'll die of boredom.
THE DAY JOHN WATERS GREW HIS PENCIL-LINE MOUSTACHE
At around four in the morning, Baltimore, Maryland can seem both very lonely and yet already too busy. Those flat fronted houses crest the horizon like tombstones, whilst down to the south and east the huge raw iron cranes are lumbering into life, like reluctant mules, mastered by grit-teethed men too raw with the early morning damp to display any signal of friendship upon their bowed faces.
He usually left the Pearly Queen at regulation-hours closing time, two in the morning, managing to drift unseen towards the Four Mills trailer park and slip, unnoticed, into his trailer and into his bed, sometimes with company, sometimes alone.
Walking now with shoulders hunched towards the rows of waiting stevedores he damned bitterly that silly Sylvie declaring this Tuesday night a lock-in. He'd only once had to walk home before this critical working man parade, and thank god he'd not gone as Joan that night. Even dressed straight, his slim build and silky blonde shoulder-length hair drew wolf-whistles and filthy obscenities.
About twenty metres ahead the cobbled street forked off to the right, avoiding the short waterfront walk he usually took to get back home. The longshore men nudged and turned as he approached, their sallow skinned faces slicing up into great rictuses of ridicule at the sight of the effeminate dirty stop out skulking back to whatever den of iniquity he called home.
He'd have to make his decision quickly. His hangover begged him turn right, walk the extra mile or so back to Four Mills, avoiding the titillated mob of men. The moment this thought entered his head he found himself already approaching the stevedores along the cracked concrete of the waterfront. “Treacherous little bitch!” he reprimanded himself. Like a circuit being flicked, anxiety lit up his daiquiri filled stomach, spinning it in quick twists, threatening to eject its contents over a nearby storage container. His slender hands turned numb to the tips of his manicured nails. He reached a hand to his slim, colourless lower lip to find it equally dry with fear.
Nervously brushing back the stray strands of peroxide blonde that had fallen over his very white face, he channeled all his energy into walking calmly along the concrete road amongst the fish heads and guts. Every single solitary one of the stevedores was now staring. Good god there must have been at least twenty of the brutes. Had he dared glance up, he would have recognised at least one secretly terrified face from Sylvie's amongst those laughing men.
He had approached the main gang now, and as they made exaggeratedly demure little sidesteps for him to pass, he found himself struggling to keep one foot in front of the other. He had become such a spectacle, even the simple act of walking felt like a very artificial performance; his legs felt like stilts, wobbling beneath him as he trod with the exact and measured step of a tightrope walker. 'Christ, don't let me slip now...' he thought.
The trip wasn't intentional. No really, it was a genuine accident, not one man amongst them would say a word to the contrary. Just a high-heeled poufter wearing the wrong sort of shoe for a slippery working waterfront. Nobody could blame them if he fell.
His delicate roman nose narrowly missed making first contact with the brine slimed concrete, catching himself instead against the sharpened point of a kneeling stevedore's hook, which tore so easily through the cold-numbed skin of his lip.
All about him the confusion of sounds grew and grew in volume and intensity, but as if he was hearing them with his head held under water. Feeling his upper lip sticky with blood with one hand, he propped himself up against a huge Hessian sack of North Carolina potatoes, using the offending stevedore's hook to gain adequate grip.
Like a low-energy light bulb glowing into life so the situation amongst the dock workers became clearer to him. A riot was on the brink of breaking out amongst the men; there had been lay offs earlier that day, and now some fucking fairy prances along and takes the hook right outta some poor guy's hand.
Pushing his way through the bustle of men in a flurry of foul words the foreman folded his arms and firmly grounded his feet either side of John's drooping legs. The heavy jowls relaxed in an instant from menace to a look that spoke both of compassion for the man and anger at the treatment dealt him by the men under his charge. Of course only John amongst the men could see the look of fearful recognition upon the foreman's face. The screech of Seagulls won't allow for such intimate encounters to last for long of course, and with a thup thup thup of a big white one legged bird taking flight the stillness of the moment was gone.
The foreman broke from his trance. “Get the fuck outta here you fucking hyenas!” said the foreman. Barely a mutter of complaint was heard as all but one of the stevedores wandered back towards the ships as if they'd completely forgotten why they were even there in the first place. “Deaf, ya fuckin' goose?” said the foreman. The man closed his eyelids lightly and slowly exhaled as some men do when they're trying to prepare themselves for something particularly difficult.
“You OK John?” he said.
The foreman turned pale like a seasick grandmother. The two men helped John to his feet, holding him steady against the potato sack. “Come on,” said the foreman, and they carried John to the foreman's office. The foreman and the stevedore stood, whilst John fell into the chair with such delicacy it was like watching a downy feather fall to ground.
The foreman got a bottle of scotch from a khaki metal cabinet. “Jeffers there's some gauze in the first aid draw. No, the other one, ajax the bin.” The foreman passed the bottle to John after first taking a deep draught for himself. The smell of alcohol fuels turned his stomach worse than the anxiety of the stevedore crowd.
“Just dab it up Butch boy,” John said, handing back the untouched bottle.
Jeffers had cut a few wads of appropriately sized gauze, which he handed to the foreman.
“Gorgeous ends,” he said, glancing as demurely as he could manage towards John, whose lip was now being vigorously rubbed with handfuls of whisky which spilt down his chin and into his mouth and made him want to vomit.
“Jesus Butch a little less with the rough luppers if you don't very well mind,” he said.
“Enough of the Polari bullshit.”
The foreman had the scotch soaked wads of gauze pressed tight against John's cut upper lip. “Lucky he got you where he did,” said the stevedore, “or you could've lost that pretty little Romanesque ecaf of yours.”
The foreman glanced at Jeffers with a menacing look that nevertheless suggested he was resigned to the humour of the men's slang.“What's an ecaf?” the foreman asked.
“My nose, darling; the affected little queen is saying I'm lucky,” he spat a mouthful of whisky onto his tie-less yet top-buttoned shirt, “that I didn't lose my nose.”
With John holding the stinging press of gauze against his lip, the foreman and Jeffers backed off a step to lean against the edge of the desk facing John. The foreman smiled sadly. “The fuck did you expect, prancing along in sight of those mopes?”
John shrugged, not wishing to analyse his decision to take the dangerous route.
The foreman turned the heat up a couple of notches on the electric thermostat, then got out three crystal clean glasses. The glasses, and the bottles, were about the only thing in that office not buried beneath a pile of dust. The foreman poured three generous drinks of scotch whisky, whilst John watched on, his face growing paler the stronger the scent of alcohol in the hot room.
Jeffers and the foreman held their glasses as if unsure whether a tinkle of cheers was fitting for the occasion. Picking the third glass up with exaggerated theatricality, Jeffers daintily handed the full glass of viscous golden liquid to John, who kept his hands pressed firmly to his face.
“What, you're gonna turn down a free drink? That's not the Joan Withers I know,” said the foreman.
“Butchy baby, have you remembered not a solitary nishta of last night's Bacchanalian festivities? If I ever see a cocktail umbrella again I think I'll start going to straight bars.”
“Fucken nancy boy,” the foreman said, laughing, before throwing the contents of his own glass down his throat, then picking up John's to do the same.
The men remained silent for some time. Jeffers was swirling the last few syrupy drips of scotch around the bottom of his glass. “Well if you're not going to have a drink you've got to do a forfeit,” Jeffers said, still swirling his glass.
The foreman grunted in appreciation and agreement.
“Oh please, don't be so absurd you silly children,” said John, doing his best practised sullen face.
The foreman put his glass down heavily to show he was serious. Jeffers laughed maliciously as John hung his head in resignation.
“Well then?” said John, cocking an eyebrow just as he had seen Little Richard do on TV.
The foreman spoke immediately. “Remember those tiny moustaches all the homo Prussiaan aristo's used to wear?” Jeffers made a little twirl of glee.
“Oh! Bono, bono,” he said, limply clapping his hands.
“I still have no idea what you're prattling on about,” said John, “and how come it was only queers who wore these?” He'd dropped the gauze now, and was leaning forward in the chair towards the two men at the desk.
“They were all faggots, those inbred royals,” explained the foreman, “and they wore these teensy little moustaches to mark each other out for a bit of trade.”
“Like a line of mascara across the top lip,” added Jeffers.
John sat for a minute contemplating the idea of such a style. He seemed to remember a Little Richard LP cover showing a similar style of facial hair.
“Fuck it,” he said, reaching into the back pocket of a pair of YSL trousers; a match with the Smoking he was still wearing, to pull out a lovingly stropped pearl-handled open blade razor.
“What in the name of Gloria do you intend to do with that?” said Jeffers.
“Some sisters play it dirty,” he replied, “so a bit of a slapping is sometimes required.”
None of the men spoke whilst the foreman heated a pan of water over the office's little electric cooker. Jefferson busied himself by slicing off flakes of hand soap with a letter opener he had found on the foreman's desk, John amusing himself watching the foreman becoming visibly more and more annoyed at Jeffers peeling his soap with his letter opener.
“Gimme that!” he said and snatched back the soap smeared letter opener. “STEVEDORE BROTHERHOOD LOCAL 46” read the engraving on the ivory handle.
Jeffers tried to persuade the men that removing John's shirt was a necessity for the operation, but quickly lost interest in the idea after catching a glance from the foreman. Having soaked the hand towel in the now hot water, the foreman applied it across John's lower face.
“So...” said John after another moment of silent waiting. The foreman grew impatient.
“Right, that's long enough,” he said as he ripped the towel from John's face. Jeffers eagerly stepped forward and began to apply delicate daubs of the foam he'd whisked up with a touch of hot water. The razor had been sitting in the hot water and was in an ideal state for giving a good shave. Jeffers reached out to grab it, only to immediately hand it over to the foreman who stood with his palm open looking impatient.
John sat with his head rolled back, his face composed into a look of incredulity. “Neither of you two meshigeners have a clue what you're doing, do you?” he said accusingly. The challenge to the foreman's competence fired him into life, and with a few deft strokes of the blade shaved the top three quarters of John Water's moustache clean off.
THE END
I wrote three stories yesterday; one described the events leading to John Waters adopting his trademark 'pencil line' moustache; one was a silly little stream of consciousness piece of nonsense; one was about an adolescent boy discovering an appreciation for physical strength after having always regarded intelligence as the only mark of a man's worth.
I've no literary pretensions and won't be upset if I'm criticized for being a fool. Unless the speed starts to wear off. Actually, any harsh responses posted then would probably make me die of dysphoria
I'll only include one of the three stories or you'll die of boredom.
THE DAY JOHN WATERS GREW HIS PENCIL-LINE MOUSTACHE
At around four in the morning, Baltimore, Maryland can seem both very lonely and yet already too busy. Those flat fronted houses crest the horizon like tombstones, whilst down to the south and east the huge raw iron cranes are lumbering into life, like reluctant mules, mastered by grit-teethed men too raw with the early morning damp to display any signal of friendship upon their bowed faces.
He usually left the Pearly Queen at regulation-hours closing time, two in the morning, managing to drift unseen towards the Four Mills trailer park and slip, unnoticed, into his trailer and into his bed, sometimes with company, sometimes alone.
Walking now with shoulders hunched towards the rows of waiting stevedores he damned bitterly that silly Sylvie declaring this Tuesday night a lock-in. He'd only once had to walk home before this critical working man parade, and thank god he'd not gone as Joan that night. Even dressed straight, his slim build and silky blonde shoulder-length hair drew wolf-whistles and filthy obscenities.
About twenty metres ahead the cobbled street forked off to the right, avoiding the short waterfront walk he usually took to get back home. The longshore men nudged and turned as he approached, their sallow skinned faces slicing up into great rictuses of ridicule at the sight of the effeminate dirty stop out skulking back to whatever den of iniquity he called home.
He'd have to make his decision quickly. His hangover begged him turn right, walk the extra mile or so back to Four Mills, avoiding the titillated mob of men. The moment this thought entered his head he found himself already approaching the stevedores along the cracked concrete of the waterfront. “Treacherous little bitch!” he reprimanded himself. Like a circuit being flicked, anxiety lit up his daiquiri filled stomach, spinning it in quick twists, threatening to eject its contents over a nearby storage container. His slender hands turned numb to the tips of his manicured nails. He reached a hand to his slim, colourless lower lip to find it equally dry with fear.
Nervously brushing back the stray strands of peroxide blonde that had fallen over his very white face, he channeled all his energy into walking calmly along the concrete road amongst the fish heads and guts. Every single solitary one of the stevedores was now staring. Good god there must have been at least twenty of the brutes. Had he dared glance up, he would have recognised at least one secretly terrified face from Sylvie's amongst those laughing men.
He had approached the main gang now, and as they made exaggeratedly demure little sidesteps for him to pass, he found himself struggling to keep one foot in front of the other. He had become such a spectacle, even the simple act of walking felt like a very artificial performance; his legs felt like stilts, wobbling beneath him as he trod with the exact and measured step of a tightrope walker. 'Christ, don't let me slip now...' he thought.
The trip wasn't intentional. No really, it was a genuine accident, not one man amongst them would say a word to the contrary. Just a high-heeled poufter wearing the wrong sort of shoe for a slippery working waterfront. Nobody could blame them if he fell.
His delicate roman nose narrowly missed making first contact with the brine slimed concrete, catching himself instead against the sharpened point of a kneeling stevedore's hook, which tore so easily through the cold-numbed skin of his lip.
All about him the confusion of sounds grew and grew in volume and intensity, but as if he was hearing them with his head held under water. Feeling his upper lip sticky with blood with one hand, he propped himself up against a huge Hessian sack of North Carolina potatoes, using the offending stevedore's hook to gain adequate grip.
Like a low-energy light bulb glowing into life so the situation amongst the dock workers became clearer to him. A riot was on the brink of breaking out amongst the men; there had been lay offs earlier that day, and now some fucking fairy prances along and takes the hook right outta some poor guy's hand.
Pushing his way through the bustle of men in a flurry of foul words the foreman folded his arms and firmly grounded his feet either side of John's drooping legs. The heavy jowls relaxed in an instant from menace to a look that spoke both of compassion for the man and anger at the treatment dealt him by the men under his charge. Of course only John amongst the men could see the look of fearful recognition upon the foreman's face. The screech of Seagulls won't allow for such intimate encounters to last for long of course, and with a thup thup thup of a big white one legged bird taking flight the stillness of the moment was gone.
The foreman broke from his trance. “Get the fuck outta here you fucking hyenas!” said the foreman. Barely a mutter of complaint was heard as all but one of the stevedores wandered back towards the ships as if they'd completely forgotten why they were even there in the first place. “Deaf, ya fuckin' goose?” said the foreman. The man closed his eyelids lightly and slowly exhaled as some men do when they're trying to prepare themselves for something particularly difficult.
“You OK John?” he said.
The foreman turned pale like a seasick grandmother. The two men helped John to his feet, holding him steady against the potato sack. “Come on,” said the foreman, and they carried John to the foreman's office. The foreman and the stevedore stood, whilst John fell into the chair with such delicacy it was like watching a downy feather fall to ground.
The foreman got a bottle of scotch from a khaki metal cabinet. “Jeffers there's some gauze in the first aid draw. No, the other one, ajax the bin.” The foreman passed the bottle to John after first taking a deep draught for himself. The smell of alcohol fuels turned his stomach worse than the anxiety of the stevedore crowd.
“Just dab it up Butch boy,” John said, handing back the untouched bottle.
Jeffers had cut a few wads of appropriately sized gauze, which he handed to the foreman.
“Gorgeous ends,” he said, glancing as demurely as he could manage towards John, whose lip was now being vigorously rubbed with handfuls of whisky which spilt down his chin and into his mouth and made him want to vomit.
“Jesus Butch a little less with the rough luppers if you don't very well mind,” he said.
“Enough of the Polari bullshit.”
The foreman had the scotch soaked wads of gauze pressed tight against John's cut upper lip. “Lucky he got you where he did,” said the stevedore, “or you could've lost that pretty little Romanesque ecaf of yours.”
The foreman glanced at Jeffers with a menacing look that nevertheless suggested he was resigned to the humour of the men's slang.“What's an ecaf?” the foreman asked.
“My nose, darling; the affected little queen is saying I'm lucky,” he spat a mouthful of whisky onto his tie-less yet top-buttoned shirt, “that I didn't lose my nose.”
With John holding the stinging press of gauze against his lip, the foreman and Jeffers backed off a step to lean against the edge of the desk facing John. The foreman smiled sadly. “The fuck did you expect, prancing along in sight of those mopes?”
John shrugged, not wishing to analyse his decision to take the dangerous route.
The foreman turned the heat up a couple of notches on the electric thermostat, then got out three crystal clean glasses. The glasses, and the bottles, were about the only thing in that office not buried beneath a pile of dust. The foreman poured three generous drinks of scotch whisky, whilst John watched on, his face growing paler the stronger the scent of alcohol in the hot room.
Jeffers and the foreman held their glasses as if unsure whether a tinkle of cheers was fitting for the occasion. Picking the third glass up with exaggerated theatricality, Jeffers daintily handed the full glass of viscous golden liquid to John, who kept his hands pressed firmly to his face.
“What, you're gonna turn down a free drink? That's not the Joan Withers I know,” said the foreman.
“Butchy baby, have you remembered not a solitary nishta of last night's Bacchanalian festivities? If I ever see a cocktail umbrella again I think I'll start going to straight bars.”
“Fucken nancy boy,” the foreman said, laughing, before throwing the contents of his own glass down his throat, then picking up John's to do the same.
The men remained silent for some time. Jeffers was swirling the last few syrupy drips of scotch around the bottom of his glass. “Well if you're not going to have a drink you've got to do a forfeit,” Jeffers said, still swirling his glass.
The foreman grunted in appreciation and agreement.
“Oh please, don't be so absurd you silly children,” said John, doing his best practised sullen face.
The foreman put his glass down heavily to show he was serious. Jeffers laughed maliciously as John hung his head in resignation.
“Well then?” said John, cocking an eyebrow just as he had seen Little Richard do on TV.
The foreman spoke immediately. “Remember those tiny moustaches all the homo Prussiaan aristo's used to wear?” Jeffers made a little twirl of glee.
“Oh! Bono, bono,” he said, limply clapping his hands.
“I still have no idea what you're prattling on about,” said John, “and how come it was only queers who wore these?” He'd dropped the gauze now, and was leaning forward in the chair towards the two men at the desk.
“They were all faggots, those inbred royals,” explained the foreman, “and they wore these teensy little moustaches to mark each other out for a bit of trade.”
“Like a line of mascara across the top lip,” added Jeffers.
John sat for a minute contemplating the idea of such a style. He seemed to remember a Little Richard LP cover showing a similar style of facial hair.
“Fuck it,” he said, reaching into the back pocket of a pair of YSL trousers; a match with the Smoking he was still wearing, to pull out a lovingly stropped pearl-handled open blade razor.
“What in the name of Gloria do you intend to do with that?” said Jeffers.
“Some sisters play it dirty,” he replied, “so a bit of a slapping is sometimes required.”
None of the men spoke whilst the foreman heated a pan of water over the office's little electric cooker. Jefferson busied himself by slicing off flakes of hand soap with a letter opener he had found on the foreman's desk, John amusing himself watching the foreman becoming visibly more and more annoyed at Jeffers peeling his soap with his letter opener.
“Gimme that!” he said and snatched back the soap smeared letter opener. “STEVEDORE BROTHERHOOD LOCAL 46” read the engraving on the ivory handle.
Jeffers tried to persuade the men that removing John's shirt was a necessity for the operation, but quickly lost interest in the idea after catching a glance from the foreman. Having soaked the hand towel in the now hot water, the foreman applied it across John's lower face.
“So...” said John after another moment of silent waiting. The foreman grew impatient.
“Right, that's long enough,” he said as he ripped the towel from John's face. Jeffers eagerly stepped forward and began to apply delicate daubs of the foam he'd whisked up with a touch of hot water. The razor had been sitting in the hot water and was in an ideal state for giving a good shave. Jeffers reached out to grab it, only to immediately hand it over to the foreman who stood with his palm open looking impatient.
John sat with his head rolled back, his face composed into a look of incredulity. “Neither of you two meshigeners have a clue what you're doing, do you?” he said accusingly. The challenge to the foreman's competence fired him into life, and with a few deft strokes of the blade shaved the top three quarters of John Water's moustache clean off.
THE END
