the story of the lost crotch

This chapter introduces the main character, Okon, and his two friends Pringle and Marx.

The lost crotch

            She sat on my face for half an hour,” Marx says and for an instant humility is forced upon him.

            I can’t react to this craft that Marx performs with such skill. Don’t get me wrong, it is an art form; but it is too asinine to move me, too absurd to inspire desire, too grotesque for me to critique. I use to consider myself a religious man before the military, but when my spirit amalgamates with the likes of soldiers like Marx I begin to question myself.

 heart and a*s eating pro of his life.

            “You remember Amanda right?” he asks. He’s not intense, but chipper and a rapid speaker. He’s not forceful, but animated and touchy when he talks to people. After a year his overly anxious personality has worn down my patience. Now our relationship has been reduced to nasty sex stories and mind games. He is a respected Officer with aviation wings that he uses as a weapon to win over females in Fayetteville. His body is so thin that it hunches over slightly as though it can’t support his unusually large head. His a metrosexual, the type that goes to the tanning salon, shaves his armpit hair, showers three times a day, puts little cucumbers over his eyelids to prevent the formation of bags, and practices his smile and wave in the mirror every night before he goes to bed.   

            I don’t react to his lusty punch lines on purpose. My blank stare is like a move on a chess board. No matter how deep and vile he attempts to be I simply stand in red and black checkered boxers and sip coffee from my novelty Star Trek mug.

            He talks about an Asian girl named Yen, like the currency. “She’s for ethnic purposes,” he says. “I don’t want anyone to call me racist.”

            “What’s it like with an Asian?” I ask without making eye contact.

            “She has a flat face and a flat rear end,” he says laughing.

            He tells me about his sugar Mama who lives in Spring Lake. “Her name is Wendy and I need her to gain wisdom,” he says with a cerebral squint in his eyes and a highbrow stroke of his faint blond chin hair. “Tomorrow I am going to Coffee Plantation with Selina,” his grin transforms from mental to malicious in a split second. “We are going to practice Spanish.” When he informs me of this he rubs his hands together like a fly does when it lands on feces.

            To me it is all pointless, the search for sexual harmony must be millennial. Marriage phobia and unprotected sex always lead to plan B with young bucks like Marx. The self-righteous and the sober look down and ask questions. The best answer is to label them generation Y. Their promises are dressed in love, their emotions are cloaked in favor and fake smiles, but based on bragging rights, finding yourself and becoming legends. To officers like Marx silk Victoria’s Secret Panties on the bed post are like putting the American flag on the moon before the Soviets.

            “I love Spanish women,” he says. “I will control a Spanish chick someday.”

            “Why do you want to control a woman?”

            “Because a part of human nature is crazy,” he says. “I want my woman to applaud every time I walk in the room, I want my bed made with hospital corners, I want rose petals on the sheets, and when I leave I want to see tears in her eyes.”

            “You don’t see anything wrong with what you’re saying?” I ask attempting to sound as serious as possible. My profession in the military makes it natural for me to ask too many questions, but I am becoming more skilled at not judging.

            “Only that it’s every man’s dream to be God,” he says with a fist pumping confidence. “It’s sad that everybody wants to do the impossible, but I will do it someday.”     

            “The only thinkg impossible about your dream is that slavery is illegal,” I say.

            “It’s not slavery. It’s marriage,” Marx responds with a smile. “I will marry the one female that obsesses over me the most and I will rule the world that she lives in.”

            “What will that accomplish?”

            “I want to know what glory feels like.”

            What Marx wants is not evil or against any regulation, but what drives him is more profound than a minor infraction. I cannot judge because I have recently discovered I am equally as perverse, I too want to rule the world. A big part of my job is saying prayers for soldiers before they leave to the wars in the Middle East, but for the past two weeks I have been unable to pray. I use to stand in a desk and speak to God without effort, I could stand in line at a grocery store and have an entire conversation, sit at a red light and direct questions to the heavens, but now it is becoming impossible. Every man commits sins, but mine have severed my relationship with those I hold closest. I didn’t know I was a sex addict until I met Marx.  

            “You should do it,” I say. “But I think you have a serious problem if you want to get married. You’re an addict.”

            “Addiction,” he says. “I’ve never done drugs in my life besides Coke.”

            “I’m not talking about Cocaine; I think you’re an elitist, I think you’re addicted to yourself.”  

            “That’s impossible, I just want sex. You can’t be addicted to sex, it’s a natural act.” Marx has made it explicitly clear that he does not care that I am a Chaplain; he think the religious branch of the Army is a ploy by timid soldiers who don’t want to die in war. Every chance he gets he invites me to the strip club, he smokes a joint and blows it in my nostrils, he drinks to excess and has a threesome with bartenders while I sit back and watch. Corrupting me has become his hobby and unfortunately a small part of me enjoys it.  

            “You can be addicted to anything Marx, but I’m not talking about sex. Your problem is you want to own people.”

            “My females don’t complain,” Marx says with a fake smile. I can see his confidence is bruised and I am proud that I delivered a moral blow to his mind.

            “Even if I don’t get the Sexy latina Selina, I still have the wealthy Sierra,” Marx says smiling at his clever rhyme.

            “Who’s Sierra,” I ask.

            “She’s the nice girl in my life,” he reminds me. “Her father ignored her, her maid touched her, and her mother taught her to submit to every command of a man.”

            “Sounds like the language of a slave master.”

            “You don’t understand; I really want to build a moral foundation with this one.”

            “You’re a hypocrite,” I say. “You just put your finger in the high school sweetheart’s meat grinder, now you want to build a moral foundation.”

            “But she’s a TV dinner goldmine,” he says in a pleading way. He wants desperately for me to envy his mastery of Sierra. I can tell by the way the words clip from his mouth and his animated widened eyes that this Sierra female is little more than conquered land in his mind. “Her father invested millions in Hungry man,” he continues. “Every time she comes over she brings boxes of TV dinners and feeds me with my plastic silver wear as I lay in bed. Her only deficiency is when I do her from behind she doesn’t arch her back well enough. She is going to have to work on her flexibility if she wants to be with me. She also brings condoms when she comes over which is a big no no in my book.”

            “I wish you had more of a moral sense like Pringle,” I say. “Pringle hasn’t had a drink in a full year.”

            Marx glares at me whenever I compare him to Pringle. He doesn’t want me to know that Pringle is his thumbscrew, but they are natural enemies. They are both in their mid 20’s, both blond, blue eyed, and sexually obsessive. Pringle is my roommate and is currently engrossed in a new website he discovered called 8^th street Latinos. He refuses to answer any questions about the website, but he claims it helps him with his Spanish. His door is currently locked and he has been inside for hours without making a sound.

            “Don’t say his name,” Marx whispers with a serious strain in his eyes.

            “Why not?”

            “Because then he’ll come out.”

            “Are you guys talking about me,” Pringle asks from inside his room. I can hear him move from his bed to behind the door and stop.    

            “Yes,” I say.

            “No,” Marx says in protest.

            Pringle opens the door and he is sweating heavily, his shirt is off, he smells like cocoa butter, and he is wearing tan boxers and black flip flops.

            “Why are you sweating,” Marx asks. He is never hesitant or polite when asking a question; he’s more like an interrogator trying to force a confession. Marx is a pilot and Pringle is an airtraffic controller; somehow this makes them natural enemies.  

            “I was practicing my Spanish on this new website called 8^th street Latinos,” he answers.

            “The most amazing thing happened today,” Pringle says. “The Army announced that it is no longer testing for steroids since it is not an illegal narcotic. So you already know what I’m going to do.”

            “What’s that,” I ask.

            “I’m obviously getting on steroids, I’m getting ripped without even trying, and then I’m going to marry a Cuban girl with a thick Spanish accent, who makes thick enchiladas, and has thick hips.”

            “Don’t let the Army brainwash you,” Marx says drawing out his words in a nagging tone.

            “You can’t marry a Cuban girl,” Marx says.

            “Why not?” Pringle asks. His shoulders slouch as if his heart is broken and he talks with his hands in his pockets. Hands in the pocket are a faux pas in the Army, but this simply gives Marx a reason to act the part of a rebel.  

            “It is Castro territory; that will put you on a terrorist watch list.”

            “What if she is second generation Cuban?” Pringle asks with hope in his eyes.

            “If the Army wanted you to have a Cuban wife they would issue you one,” Marx says. “You don’t need steroids to get a Spanish girl anyway.”

            “I need bicepts, my lats need definition, my stomach needs a six pack, my shoulders need size, and steroids can bless us all with this.”

            “Don’t tell me you’re brainwashed too,” Marx says looking at me.

            “He wants sex,” I say. “I don’t think you’re allowed in the Army without being brainwashed by that.”

            “Even a man with your responsibility is brainwashed by it,” Pringle asked.

            “Yes, but I am like Spok. I suppress those feelings and act like a robot.”

            “These steroids are a way to get us ready to die,” Marx says. “We will be paid to die in Syria within the next year. Those wars are going to replace Iraq and Afghanistan. We are getting the Hitler treatment. The steroids are going to make us Angry so that we fight without contemplating the possibility of death. You know what? I think we will all die in Syria. That is why I need a life time of women before the end of the year.”

            “Why would we go to war with Syria?” I ask.

            “The new war is in Syria, 25 thousand people have died during a rebel uprising. Now President Asaad is asking for Western AID.”

            “Guerra,” Pringle says randomly. “That’s war in Spanish, 8^th street latinos.com taught me that.”

            Marx rolls his eyes at Pringle and says, “We’re going to all die in war again, so the only hope we have is reproduction.”

            “That’s why we should all use steroids,” Pringle says. “Sergeant major Kemp is in support of steroid use, he says we should get roids and tattoos to intimidate the enemy.”

            “You’re brainwashed,” Marx says.

            “You’re afraid,” Pringle says.

            “They’re drugging us up like Hitler did the Nazi’s,” Marx says raising his voice.

            “So what, I like drugs and I like tattoos.”

            “You’re a sacrificial pon.”

            “I’m going to fill my body with steroids and cover it in tattoos. I’ll be a work of art.”

            Marx holds up his IPhone two inches from my face. It hits my coffee mug and Kenyan black coffee spills on the white floor. We ignore the mess and focus on the screen. It is a CNN photo of Syrian president Asaad posing with the twenty eight year old heir to the North Korean dictatorship.

            “This is proof that the Syrians are in bed with the North Koreans,” Marx says. “We are all going to die again.”

            “Tatwahay,” Pringle says haphazardly. “8^th street latinos taught me that too.”

            Marx smacks his lips at the ugly accent and shakes his head in frustration with Pringle’s aimlessness. “Did you learn that from your porn site,” he asks.

            “It’s not a porn site,” Pringle says. His eyes are sharpened and defensive. “It’s 8^th street Latinos, it teaches you how to pick up girls in Spanish and survive on 8^th street in Miami.”

            “It teaches you how to masturbate,” Marx says with a suger-enduced rise in his voice.     

            “That’s why you smell like cocoa butter lotion,” I say pointing at his glossy fingertips.

            It’s been my guilty pleasure to put flame on the fire of the rivalry between Marx and Pringle. One day the first punch will be launched and I will get to sit back and enjoy. I can’t really feel like I’ve sinned since I never directly tell them to fight. They both have built up angst from a combination of sexual frustration and not achieving their teenage dreams.

            Marx walks to my cabinet and pulls out jalapeno chees, spicy bean chili, and Frito scoop chips. He dumps the full bag in a highlight green plastic bowl and covers the chips in chees and chili. Pringle opens the fridge and pulls out a pack of Marlboro reds.

            “Why do you smoke,” Marx asks with contempt in his voice. “You’re going to die of cancer.”

            “I’m fine with that as long as I enjoy a pack a day. Did you guys know I have not had a drink in a year,” he asks as he smacks the red pack in the palm of his strong hand. “That’s another reason I want a tattoo, to celebrate my sobriety.”

            “Do you want to get a tattoo,” I ask Marx.

            “I don’t need a tattoo to know who I am,” he answers in a grumpy old man tone. He licks the chili and cheese from his finger tips and dumps a full bag of Ranch flavored flower seeds on a glass plate. “That’s the type of idiotic thinking smokers do.”  

            “You don’t want to be artsy,” Pringle asks.

            “I don’t want to be brainwashed, so I’m doing the opposite of whatever you do,” Marx says. He grabs the salt shaker and adds salt to his flower seeds.

            “Blaaack girls love tattoos,” Pringle says annoyingly drawing out the ‘a’ and deepening his voice.

            “Yuck,” Marx says and dumps a handful of salted seeds in his mouth. He doesn’t crack the seeds open with his teeth; he chews them until they are little splinters and swallows the seeds and shells whole.

            “I want to be cultured, so I am going to start dating black girls,” Pringle says shaking his head and looking at me as if we have suddenly become closer.

            “I hope you like weaves and the smell of grease,” I say.

            Five minutes later we are riding in Pringle’s filthy 07 Honda Civic. Half of his closet and a can full of garbage is scattered throughout the back of the vehicle. There is a baby seat full of banana peels that forces me to lean against the window. On top of the banana peels are small Sponge Bob blankets, a blond Barbie and toy hand-cuffs. Pringle is notorious for keeping a baby seat in the back of his car because he believes that single fathers attract females. This philosophy is born from the fact that his last girl he obsessed over left him for a single father. On the other side of the car seat is a brown pot with soil and a baby cactus inside. I pick up water bottles filled halfway with Copenhagen spit and throw them on the side with the cactus.

            “I see you cleaned a little since I last saw you,” Marx says sarcastically.

            “I cleaned up a little bit,” Pringle responds honestly.

            “What are you going to get a tattoo of?” I ask Pringle.

            “I want thorny roses wrapped around a bottle of Patron with a shark swimming inside,” he says. “It will represent how dangerous alcohol is.”

              “Is that even possible,” Marx asks.

            “Anything is possible in art,” Pringle answers. “I’m also going to cover my ex-girlfriends name on my ribcage with small hearts and veins.”

            We pull into the tattoo parlor which is next door to a bar named Blue moon Bobo’s.

            “A year ago my mouth would be watering at the sight of a bar,” Pringle says proudly. “It has been so hard not to drink this past year. It enhanced everything; I use to rush through meals just to get to the liquor, it made cigarettes better, it helped me talk to girls, it became my wingman.”

            “I’m happy for you,” I say and pat him on the shoulder.

            “Thanks man, I miss the taste so much, but it almost took my life.”

            The tattoo parlor has the set-up of a barber shop with waiting chairs and three different artist doing work on a propped up wooden floor. The walls are covered from top to bottom with the past work of the artist. The different pictures of their customers range from falcon wings to golden butterfly’s, there is a masculine skull on a man’s shoulder and the overused ‘laugh now cry later’ tattoo. There are curvaceous purple mermaids with Sombreros riding killer whales, there are bearded Anacondas with human legs hanging in the jungle, and facial tattoos of vomiting skulls.

            Pringle interrupts the artist in the center. The tattoo artist has the full Zeus beard of a gentleman, one inch black gages in his ear lobes, and one arm covered in a sleeve of tattoos.

            “You have more than an hour wait my friend,” he tells Pringle with a barely noticeable Spanish accent. “There is a bar next door if you want to wait there.”

            “I don’t drink, but we will hang out over there for a while,” Pringle says.

            “What tattoo did you want,” he asks as Pringle and I walk away.

            “The patron bottle and the one to cover my ex’s name.”

            Once we get to the bar Marx is already there and bragging that he found a flare gun.

            “I’m going to give this to the drunkest guy I can find and convince him to fire it,” he says with his sucrose induced jittery smile. “What do you two want to drink?” he asks and points the gun at each of us.

            “Coke,” I say.

            “Coke?” Marx says rolling his eyes.  

            “O’doul’s,” Pringle says.

            “Why don’t you just get water if you don’t want drink,” I ask him.

            He shrugs his shoulders and looks around. “I miss the taste I guess.”

            My Coke is dark and boring when it arrives. The ice is a minute away from totally dissolving and the kick of the Coke is already flat.

            “I told them to put a triple shot,” Marx says and nudges me with his elbow.

            I rush the first glass down and notice Pringle is smelling the rim of his green non-alcoholic O’doul’s bottle.

            “What’s wrong Pringle,” Marx asks pointing the flare gun at him.

            “I miss the smell,” Pringle says quietly. “Glass bottles have a certain smell when alcohol has been inside, this bottle has it. I just miss it that’s all.”

            “I’m getting you another,” Marx says pointing the flare gun at Pringle’s head. He points the gun in front of him and walks to the bar as if he is clearing a house in Afghanistan.

            After two more triple shots of jack, a four horseman, and a white Russian Marx starts seeing double. At some point I switch from Coke to water and Pringle switches from O’Doul’s to colorful strawberry drinks that he says are not that dangerous.

            Marx is talking about he love the joyous feeling where he no longer cares that the world is spinning around his head. Pringle eventually switches from red strawberry drinks with umbrellas to tequila shots and white Russians. He is soon on the table singing ‘Jumpin Jack’ as the crowd claps along.

            Marx puts the flare gun in Pringles hand and goes to the bar. Pringle is pumping his fist to the beat of the song; he points the flare gun to the ground and fires off a shot. The flare fires harmlessly to the ground, bounces up and goes inside the cargo short leg of Marx.

            Marx screams and falls on the ground smacking himself in the crotch. He is screaming “Oh my God, Oh my God,” until the entire bar is surrounded around him screaming to call the ambulance. The bartender dumps a bucket of ice water on top of him. Flare’s burn magnesium at several thousand degrees and are designed to burn through water. Marx rolls around on the ground and begins to seizure from the shock. His mouth drools and his cargo pants are completely gone when the fire burns out. His skin is completely non-existent down the thighs and his crotch areas is twisted and smoked with the resemblance of a meaty pasta dish. The ambulance pulls up and a medical technician jumps out the back and shakes her head when she see’s Marx. I can tell he is breathing because his lungs are rising up and down.

Marx is still motionless when the tech lifts the sheet that was placed over his crotch by the bartender.

“Oh my God he is going to lose ev

Reviews

[tremainiator]

I've read both your stories, this and the one in first person narrated by a journalist with AIDS. The two crossover in places, Marx and his counterpart in the other story have things in common as well as differences. I thought perhaps this story was an early version of 'The Devil you know'. Why did you end this one as you did? Was it intentional?
Having served in the army myself, its reputation as a hub of straight and gay sexual action is vastly overstated and only sometimes true. In my three short stateside postings in Georgia, California, and Hawaii I didn't find it so. In fact, high school was more so. On the other hand, I'm sure it is in some instances. It depends on the people and who sets the pace. Testosterone levels are another thing, always high and manifest in many ways besides sexual.
The way you wrote your story was believable. Unlike the other reviewer, I can't say I picked up on racial references but I see you and he are black and I'm not. Nor am I attuned to those things so that's probably why I may have missed them if they were there. Perhaps if you intend them to be explicit you might give some thought to making it more so.
I found your dialogue believable. I didn't stumble over any of it - in either story.
I liked the way you introduced the Syrian conflict into it, and the likelihood of 'everybody dying' there. Timely and to the point. Kudos to you for that. It's the first fiction I've read so far that includes Syria in any significant and personal way.
I don't personally mind at all that both stories are gritty and grim and have shocking endings. That's life - gritty, grim, shocking. Happy endings are for fools and extremely hard to make anyone intelligent believe.
The other reviewer, Everett DeValle, raises a valid question: what you will do with Max now that his crotch has been scorched right off? Is he going to die? Will he have to live with the aftermath of his stupidity?

Good work. Give us some more.

Tremainiator.

[Everett DeValle]

This is really an interesting premise...the thing I'm wondering about...is how is a crotch going to hold for a novel...I do see some redeeming comedic value...I don't know if there was any reference of the males being referred as African American...I knew from the inflection of the American colloquialism and dialogue, however, I knew there was a stronger description of objectifying the females of interest, such as, Asian girl and a strong interest for Hispanic Woman...for the most part it seems believable, I was of that age once, I knew guys that were horn toads that thought of sex 24/7 which preoccupied their mind most of the time...I had family members that served in the military and um they told me it was a locker room environment full of testosterone and braggadocio...my question is, where are you taking the readers? It read to me of men over sexed, interested in porn, and ended in a physical type comedy situation(normally which makes me laugh in a sadistic way)...what are you trying to convey?