May’s Take – Acceptable Levels of Us
Caution was not taken, and I did not adhere to the warning. The starry night, glow-in-the-dark pajamas were a lovely flannel, and after the morning and day and night and morning of work, they were oh so enticing. I slipped the three-quarter-sleeve top over my slender frame, and grabbed the matching bottoms. Tops and bottoms, what an interesting phrase. “Due to the intensity of this coloration and the nature of the dye process, WASH GARMENT BEFORE WEARING,” the tag read. I had torn it off and thrown it on the floor. Flopping into bed, I dreamt of blue skin and toxic poisons. The food I consumed today was pumped with hormones, injected with steroids and juiced with high fructose corn, what did I care about a little dye on my skin? We all have these smart ideas about public school lunch reform, replacing the sloppy joes, chalupa boats and corndogs with chicken breast green salads, fresh fish on whole-wheat buns and fruit compotes of wild berries and exotic melons. That’s a fantastic idea. I love it. I’m on board. What’s that, you say? Raise my taxes another percent? Nah, let those spitball fatties munch their sloppies and soda pop. Pop! Another artery busted, another triple bypass, another implosion of cells. Replace your soda pop with water to hydrate your system and burn fat. Only problem is, the water is poisoned too. So where do we go? The FDA issued an “acceptable level of strychnine” measure. Is there an acceptable level of strychnine? I’ll take a strych parent, strych teacher or strych coach, but I can’t readily accept strychnine in my freakin’ water. Pesticides and insecticides on my corn, it is what it is. Your tortillas at El Tico Taco would be ten dollars extra if everything was grown organically and properly and not mass produced and without the crop dustin’ tactics that we all love. You ever fixate on the reddest apple in the crew, a marvel of medicine, a miraculous bulb that escaped Eden and landed in your fruit bowl, plucked from a tree of divinity? Washed and shined and slightly dried with your favorite cloth, polished and tapped lightly with your fingertips so you could detect the crisp, hollow-sounding hardness that you were about to enjoy. Your teeth break the skin, and you become frisked with desire. It was just as crisp and juicy as you had hoped, and no longer could you wait to take the plunge, so you pucker your lips to envelop the white flesh for your first bite. But as your tongue meets the skin, a foul sensation erupts. Your arm hair is now erect for a different reason. The apple was indeed from serpentine Eden, as it had been dusted and poisoned by our rancid farmland. It had passed FDA inspection, because the FDA inspection consisted of bribe money and cheeks turned with mouths full of injected filets. Sentences injected with hormones, I hear a lot of those. Words complete with toxins, no shortage that I can see. Deceit and degeneracy of food and mind.
Embroiled in my first career game of Truth and Dare, my buddy Val was already an hour deep by the time I entered the room. He was one of those “early experimenter” types, a guy who had already fooled around with girls and smoked weed, drank beer and driven a couple motorcycles. We were fourteen. There were a number of participants in the game, probably five girls and six boys, with me being the sixth. Odd man in as it were, because as I sat down, I was immediately the first one picked. “Truth,” I exclaimed. I was then catapulted into a shamefully embarrassing series of “what ifs” and “have you evers,” to which I circumvented and mumbled and talked around for about five minutes. No dare could be that bad, not with the questions these hyper horny, far-too-accelerated fourteen year-old girls unleashed on my innocence. The next hour was nervous yet pleasant, as I sat there watching various acts of fondling and foolishness, not being forced to partake…yet. “Bryan, truth or dare,” she asked. “Ummm….dare.”
“I dare you to start right here, and lick all the way up to Tara’s lips, where you guys kiss.” The “right here” was the base of Tara’s massive bosoms; her dark-skinned cleavage was the ninth wonder of the universe amongst us ninth grade juveniles. Only they were so big, and I was so not attracted to her, that they never posed any real interest to me. I guess that had to change, because no way could I rank out on a dare, especially after my poor performance I exhibited with my truth. My nervousness was approaching the point of trembling hands as I approached the seated Tara. Her chest and neck were glistening and appeared a sticky mess, but I had to ignore. I also had to try my damndest to ignore the course black hair between her breasts. My quivering tongue showed itself as I kneeled before her and went in. An assassination of my taste buds began as my tip touched the monstrously befouled skin. I don’t know what the hell had gone on, but it was a war zone. A paralysis occurred where I was too stunned to move my tongue upward. The taste was tooawful. Too horrific to be natural, and too disgusting to be synthetic. Nathetic. A frightening combination. Sweaty breasts sprayed with RAID and dipped in sour milk, vomited upon and sprinkled with waste from a junkyard; that was the taste in my mouth. GET IT OVER WITH, my brain screamed at me. This had to be over with, because I was starting to salivate and gag, seconds away from throwing up in her face. So I darted my tongue upward, bristling hairs along the way. There was nothing I wanted to do less that French kiss those giant lips, but no chance her mouth could taste worse. So we plunged into a furious tussle that lasted long enough to rid myself of at least some of the raunch. After falling backward and stepping away, I raced to the bathroom to scrub my tongue with every liquid, solvent, paste and brush I could muster. Upon returning from the heaving nightmare that had become my evening, I met Val and Randy in the hallway, where they stood, laughing hysterically. “Shit, man,” Val managed through his laughter. “How’d that taste down there? Like two hours ago, I drenched her in guacamole and licked it off, and before that, Randy had a go at her with whipped cream. She never even washed it, so that was like some gwawky, old cream, Randy Valfest that you were lickin’. Must’ve been pretty fun.”
