father and son
i was driving with my dad in his chevrolet chevet, down walton blvd when he decided to have the sex talk with me. i didn’t want to have the sex talk with him. i already knew about sex from health class and from stealing dirty mags from richard my downstairs neighbor on harding ave. he was on welfare, read sci-fi novels, collected porn and he lived below our flat. his mom owned the house, so he didn’t pay rent and he got welfare, so he didn’t work. he’d just lie in his bed all day looking at the tv and smoking weed, he’d jerk off every now and then but that’s it. he didn’t even get out of his bed to change the channel, he had a long stick for that, he’d just poke at the tv with it when he wanted to see something different. every now and then he’d have to run up to the gas station for smokes, that’s when i’d break into his crib and steal the playboys and hustlers and oui magazines and take ‘em back upstairs to beat off. i knew all about sex, where the dick went, how babies were made, all that. my dad, he didn’t know that shit. he was taking me to my mom’s apartment in countryside. that’s where i grew up, countryside circle, auburn hills michigan. i lived a week at a time between there and with my dad in rochester, i went to school in rochester, but i never felt like i belonged there, so countryside was home and that’s where he was taking me and that’s when he decided to have the talk.
it was tight quarters in the chevet, me and my pop were both big dudes. my shoulder touched his shoulder and both our shoulders touched the window. i was 5’10, weighed 230, and had dreadlocks and tits. my pop was big too. he’s a big ass italian from Leominster, Mass, over there by Wooster. he says cah instead of car and bah instead of bar and he claims he knows people in the mob. maybe he does but they aren’t super cool, i never met ‘em. he’s always tellin stories about porky valeri getting his had smashed to bits with a ball-peen hammer and how his buddies took some puerto rican into the mountains, stripped him naked and poured battery acid in his butt hole, then threw him down the hill. i don’t believe that last story and if it is true it don’t mean shit cuz the PR’s run leominster now, i guess all the italians moved to some nicer spot. he said he coulda been in the mob but he decided to go straight. so that’s why we were wedged into his piece of shit, rusted out chevet. and he was taking me from his shitty one bedroom apartment where he, my sister and myself lived, to another piece of shit subsidized apt, where we lived with my ma, because he decided to go straight. thanks for going straight.
i remember right where i was when the talk started. we just drove past old perch road when he turns down the radio, looks over at me and he says all serious like, “Jude.”
i look at him back, our arms touching and i say, “Yeah?”
he says, “Do you know what cunnilingus is?” and he’s doing this shit with his face that he does when he tries to look somber, with this half frown and these puppy dog eyes and he repeats himself, “Do you know what cunnilingus is?”
i think i do but i figure he wants to tell me so say, “naw, what’s cunnilingus?”
so he says, “when a man loves a woman very much, he takes her into the bedroom and puts his mouth on her vagina and he licks it with his tongue.”
i look at him disgusted, i’m like, “oh hell naw!! that’s fucking gross, i’m not putting my face where some fucking bitch pees out of and bleeds out of once a month. you gotta be fuckin’ crazy!”
at the time i really felt like this, one: because i never even touched a pussy so the idea of eating one seemed a bit daunting and two: because i grew up with black kids, i had adopted some of there morals and folkways and not eating pussy was one of them.
my dad keeps pressing, he’s goes, “no, Jude, listen to me. the ladies, love when you go down on them. you lick their clitoris till they go crazy and cum.” and he sticks out his tongue and he touches his nose.
i tell him, “i ain’t eating no pussy.”
he says, “you will.”
i say, ‘i’m not.”
he says, “oh you’re gonna eat pussy.”
i scream, “I’m not eatin’ no mother fuckin’ pussy, chill out with that shit!”
and he stares at me in silence and i stare back at him in silence, mean mugging him, and he turns his head and he’s staring ahead at the street. we sit there, it’s quiet and i’m grateful for that.
we drive about half mile in silence when he breaks it. he says, looking at the road, “Do you know what analingus is?”
i say, “don’t even tell me.”
“that’s when you love a women very much, like how i loved your mother, you take her in the bathroom, wash her up and get her squeaky clean and you lick her asshole. like i used to do your mom. make sure you get her squeaky clean cuz they shit out of there and you could get sick. get her nice and squeaky clean, you don’t wanna get shit in your mouth because you can sick off the feces, that’s what the Vietcong did in nam, dipped spikes in shit to kill soldiers….”
i tried to protest but he just went on about licking my moms ass and nam and saying squeaky clean over and over again till i just gave up and took it. took it on the chin, crammed in that chevet with my pop while he told me about the birds and the bees. i can’t hear the phrase squeaky clean without thinking of my dad touching his nose with his tongue and licking ass.
looking back when he was telling me about tossing my moms salad, inappropriate as it was. he wasn’t trying to disgust me. he was just tryin’ to tell me about a time when my mom and dad actually loved each other. and in showing his love for her, he licked butt. my pop never got over losing my ma. probably because it was mostly his fault. it must be tough to live with a regret that big for so long.
as for me. my dad was right. i’m a grimy dude. i eat pussy and i eat ass and i dont even make em get squeaky clean before i do it either.
