The Wee Democracy

you'll be the first one to know

if you work in a place like i do, you're most likely going to run across (and this is said in an air of accuracy with no intention of offense, though some may be taken) the types of people who are not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

a perfect example would be a guy named marcus who got fired several months ago for slacking on the job. seriously, he got fired for "time fraud"; they had him on tape sitting outside and smoking for half an hour or so, and then disappearing into the mall for a sizeable percentage of his shift. he didn't even try to argue against it, he told me. he came downstairs and just shrugged, saying "i got fired", like he'd almost gotten off light. i suppose he'd probably known his was a life on borrowed time, and every day he got paid to watch football or smoke cigarettes was a blessing, so who was he to argue against them for finally cutting off the gravy train? it'd be like being pissed at your parents for cutting off your allowance when you're 24.

perhaps it's not fair to classify marcus as unintelligent simply for getting caught on tape, so much as just non-chalant. does not giving a shit automatically make you stupid? i certainly hope not. but make no mistake, there are a share of dummies running around in the place.

really this story starts earlier in the day, sitting on the train, reading some david sedaris book. i began to contemplate what life would be like as a gay man. i've often wondered if i was, what with my not-so-healthy obsession with fat my body is, or my overabundance of facial cleaning supplies and colognes. i'm very vain about my hair, and i generally try to dress in a fashionable, though not mainstream manner. i tend to be overly sensitive and a teeny bit of a crier at times. i think we could all use one in some circumstances. certainly, it would end questions at family gatherings about my chronic lack of girlfriend, or those odd glances that wonder is he? isn't he?

i am simply not attracted to men, and i've given it some thought. i don't find it gross, but i look at men as being as sexually arousing as tree stumps, or weather balloons. i can see a man as being handsome (young robert redford maybe) but i can't see myself waking up in bed next to him and thinking "this is right", for reasons other than the whole time travel paradox.

well, why don't you have a girlfriend, they ask? cause i'm an introverted emotionally crippled narcissist? that's too complicated for this clan. and it sounds far too grandiose and pompous and stupid, too. so i just usually go with the old standard, "because girls seem to find my rampant crack abuse and genital herpes somewhat unappealing." this response fails to amuse anyone besides myself, but i'll keep using it until that even stops.

david and his boyfriend certainly have an off kilter, though highly enviable romance, and the principles behind it seem fairly appealing to me, even if the body hair and anal sex do not. so once again, i find myself peering to the east at the rising sun and considering my options.

back at my old job, at the call center i knew another marcus, who was really like the negative of this marcus. he was a human dynamo who worked hard, yet played harder, and still got at least three jobs in the time it's taken my to find and maintain one, that i don't even like. marcus was gay, and i think i've mentioned this before, that the moment one met this marcus, the mystery was over. marcus and i got along famously, and i was sad to leave austin cause it would mean no more shitty horror movies that i'd be embarassed to ask any of my other movie-going friends to see, or even to take a date to. no more dinners at chili's and nights of heavy drinking. ah well.

at work, i hang out mostly with troy, another gay fella who was the one who got me reading david sedaris, and talk of tv and things. a while back, this woman who works with his, sandy, we'll call her, pulled me aside and said, "you like girls right?"

i paused, considering whether or not to fuck with her, but answered truthfully instead. "yeah, i like girls."

"maybe you should not be hanging around troy."

"whatthefuckever" it's true, i'm not known for my diplomacy at work. i curse alot to other associates, but the way i figure, i've got enough on everyone there to take them down with me, should they decide to rat me out. (already, i imagine myself throwing down on the HR lady's desk all my notes and documents (none of which i actually have) on the comings and goings and dirty laundry of everyone i work with, and even the upper ups, which causes her to freeze and then gasp out how did you get these terribly compromising photos?" i scoff and demand a huge severance package, which she almost immediately accepts, just to get me and my illicit pictures, of which, i inform her, i've made dozens of copies, out of her office and back to hide in the recess of my now rich abode).

so today, as troy and i finished one of many time wasting brief chats, she waves me over to her, like she's got a secret. arm ar0und my shoulder, she starts "you still like girls, right?"

"yes, i like girls" i say, wondering if my theories about some secret female psychic abilities are in fact true, and that she's discerned my consideration that life as a gay man may be frought with less complications than life as a failed heterosexual.

i stop paying attention for a bit as i consider this secret psychic coven. she's rambling on about some gay friend named derek, but all i can imagine is a miniature version of this woman standing before me approaching her mother on that first day when she's discovered she can hear boys' thoughts and it's kind of scary. "we all can hear dear, but they don't know about it. don't you EVER tell ANYONE about it." she scares the little girl into submission to this diabolical plan, and we're left out in the dark, mental cavemen still flinging our crap at enemies.

"so you do like girls?" she asks again.

"yes!"

"ok, will you tell me when you stop?" she asks.

i'm at first considering whether she's assuming i'm a closet case just waiting for the right time to drop the subterfuge, or perhaps that she's just waiting to set me up with her gay friend, who seh thinks would be so good for me.

i don't see it happening, i think. i couldn't date a guy named derek.



beck - everybody's gotta learn sometime