100% Fleshlight

story segment

Madame Python says: Well, Wicket, another unpublishable story crossed my desk this week that I thought you might like.

Miss Cricket says: Py, I thought we agreed that today’s segment would be about how mango puree is not an aphrodisiac unless you are counting the studies that discovered that if you smeared...

Madame Python: That’ll have to be another day, Wicky.  No fruity frolicking today. Today’s story is right up your alley. It’s long, so I’m going to start right in. And this one has a title:

Zero T-Shirt, 100% Fleshlight

     I’ve been sleeping with my t-shirt on for about 3 months now, two pairs of socks, underwear, and two knit hats one on top of the other.  I look like a cross between a guy from GQ magazine and a homeless person.  Most of us are on a second deployment and we look like it.

     I got a package from Anne’s mom today.  My mother-in-law can cook and she likes to send me these large chocolate covered stick pretzel things.

     “Cep’s got dog shit again!” someone yelled when I opened the box.  Five other GQ/homeless sorry asses took almost all of my dog shit and ate it within 5 minutes.  I still got mine though.  I always keep a secret stash.

     Anyway, today my mind’s focused on going to Shandaiz’s restaurant - not on Saran wrapped homemade snacks.  Not my usual hang out, but today is the day I’m going to tell the girl in there my name. She’s a state-side 10 and a desert 15.

     It started when I stopped in the Shandaiz’s restaurant to duck out of the path of a sudden dirt devil.  When I was paying up, she said that I seemed to have a southern accent.  Yes, I said I was from Iowa (which isn’t really south, but close enough for making small talk).  She was from Kentucky.  Horse country.  She had been on a State Department internship but had stayed a bit longer and was working.  She said she had been on the volleyball team at school and just couldn’t find anyone to get a team together.  She fumbled my change when she was giving it to me.  Flustered.  Eyes demurely looking down.

     “We’ll have to find you that volleyball team,” I said stupidly.

     I didn’t go back for several weeks, but when I did she remembered me.  Her face lit up like I was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen walking tall in a uniform.  It was like whisky warming me up from the inside out.

     “I still haven’t found people for my volleyball team,” she said.  We talked a little.  I went home and couldn’t sleep for 2 nights in a row.

     “You don’t even know her name,” I would say to myself.  “It’s ridiculous.  You don’t know her.  She doesn’t know you.  You’re married.  All you did was talk about a volleyball team.  You’re an idiot.  You know for a fact that if you could have Anne’s company for one hour – no, one minute – you would forget you ever even saw this girl.  That’s a fact.”  But a part of me that had been asleep for a long time had woken up.  And it felt good.  And I just wanted to hold onto that - all night if possible.

     In the couple of weeks that followed, my distraction was noted.  I have great hearing.  I picked up things like:

     “Bicep’s gone all quiet,” and

     “Pounded his Fleshlight so many times it rotted his head,” and

     “Oye gilipollas, me robó tu mierda secreta.”  That would be Toe thinking that I didn’t know Spanish - as in: "Hey, asshole, I stole your secret shit." Later that day was when Toe lost track of his lucky playing cards – which was a bummer for Toe because he plays a lot of Texas holdem and is superstitious.

     During a morning PT, I didn’t need any special hearing skills to hear, “Get your mind in the game you jack ass!”  I had been floating through another run and almost broke my ankle stepping on a big rock.  Also, no problem hearing, “You’re going to fucking get us killed.”

     So no more dereliction for me.  No more volleyball team, daydream, jack off, southern accent bull shit for me.  I had a job to do.  That is, until I saw her on the street a couple days later and she embraced me like a long lost friend.  The smell of her hair, the touch of her breasts on my chest, the fact that she held me a little too long.  It only took a moment and then she was gone, but I was going to learn her name.  And she was going to know my name.  Somehow I was going to know this woman.

     And she was a woman.  Long brown legs that must have looked best in those short shorts volleyball players wear.  Jet black hair sometimes tossed onto the top of her head showing off her dangling earrings.  A silver ring on almost every finger and heels that had to have been magic to have propelled her around the mean streets of our metropolis.

     “I deserve to be happy,” I reasoned.  “I don’t know how long I have on this earth.  And I deserve some happiness.  And this girl makes me happy.  No one has to know about it.  And it doesn’t even have to be anything.  I just want to know her.  I just want to see her smile at me.  She makes me feel like I was numb and am coming back to life.  And I want to be alive.  It’s like water to the desert.  Like food to a starving man.  I need this.  And anyway, I’ll be less distracted if I actually get to know her.  That’ll be good.  Better focus.”  At this point, my every waking moment’s focus was consumed by this beautiful creature.  “I have to think about how to see her.  Have to think about how to tell her my name.  Maybe she’ll ask me for my name.”

     Three days in a row I drove past the Shandaiz’s restaurant trying to look in without being noticed.  Three days I tried to get my courage up.  Three days I kept twirling my wedding ring.  Now, no more waiting.

      “Where are my fuckin’ lucky cards pajeros?  I’m going to kill whoever has them,” Toe was saying.

      “Sierra Tango Foxtrot Uniform,” someone told him from across the B-hut, “Shut The Fuck Up.”

     “Got a game tonight, maricón?” I said.  I knew he did and normally I would be in, but tonight I was skipping the DFAC and was going to see her.  There was a bright moon helping light my way as I headed toward the restaurant.  I was 100% GQ as I stepped through the door.  When her eyes caught mine, her face lit up like I was somebody.  She came across to me like we were already lovers. I wanted to take care of her. I wanted to caress that long black hair.

     “You know,” the southern bell looked up at me, “I don’t know your name.”  She blinked slowly twice.  “What is your name?”  She put the tips of her fingers on my arm. She blinked again.

     I looked down at her innocent face. I was all warrior, honor, respect, band of brothers, mud and grit and fidelity.  You could hear the slamming of a car door. The scrape on a skillet in the kitchen. I took her fingers off my arm, looked her straight in the eyes and lied.  I said, “It’s DH.”

     “DH?  What a funny name.  What does that stand for?”

     “Devoted Husband.”

     My eyes must have said it all: not now, not ever, sorry, wish I could help you, someone else is going to have to be your friend, someone else is going to have to help you with the volleyball team, someone else is going to have to protect you in this strange place, I’m done.

     She looked at me as if I had backhanded a puppy.  The blue heels clicked around the corner into the kitchen.  I heard the faint scratch of a cigarette lighter and a murmured, “Prick,” and then, “Damn it,” with less Kentucky horse country than Brooklyn deli shop accent.  She was composing herself and coming up with Plan B.  Didn’t know I had dog hearing.

     A chair scraped on the tiled floor and I realized I could see the moon shining through the thin curtains.

     “Prick. Damn it,” I thought to myself, “Prick-damn-it.  Well, I’ll be God damned.  I’m a Prick-Damn-It.  I’ve always wanted to be a Prick-Damn-It.  I bet I’m the very best Prick-Damn-It in this whole God damned town.  I got an Eagle Scout based on a Prick-Damn-It project.  Future interview:  ‘Tell us about yourself.’  Well, first of all, I’m a born and bred Prick-Damn-It.”

     I walked out.

     When I showed up at the compound, I whipped Toe’s lucky playing cards at him hard.  He caught them mid-air and only shot me his famous toothy smile.  Later, I discovered the rest of my mother-in-law’s care package had been raided.  Son of a bitch.  But I was in time for the game and was up when I got out.

     That night, I took off my t-shirt.  I’ve got some scars front and back.  The largest scar is across the bottom of my bicep – like a tattoo showing off my guns.  Doesn’t matter.  The guys that gave me these scars got way worse.

     I put Anne’s t-shirt across my pillow.  It has long since lost her scent, but it’s soft and it’s hers.  And I got into bed letting the sheet touch my skin so that I could imagine that it was Anne touching me.  I was cold.  I didn’t care.

     “Hi, Anne.  This is your Prick-Damn-It husband checking in,” I said silently to her t-shirt.  “You always said I was an asshole.  Turns out you were right.  I got your mom’s care package today.  I told you that she’d come to love me.  Thanks for your letter.  Things are okay.  I gotta tell you, honey, that sometimes I can’t miss you because it hurts too much.  I gotta shut that down for a while so I can survive.  I can’t be thinking about you 24/7 because I’ve got to focus on what’s in front of me – for my sake and the unit’s sake.  But I’m gonna tell you right now, I miss you.  I need you and you aren’t here.  And that pisses me off.”

     I put my hand across her t-shirt.

     “Thanks for holding down the home front for me.  I know you’re doing a great job and I know it is hard.  Do me a favor and eat one of Sonny’s onion burgers for me.  I know you hate them, but I’m about to die over here if I don’t get some real food.  Send a picture like you did when you and Mom went downtown.  Listen, there’s a big moon out tonight.  Like I always do I sent my love up to the moon so that when you see the moon tonight, my love can come back down to you.  You look at the moon tonight, baby, and know that I’m sending my love down.  Good night, Anne.  I love you, baby.  And baby, I’ve got all the Prick-Damn-It you’re ever going to want, right here.”

And then

                A mortar screamed overhead and smashed a huge whole in half of Disney spewing chunks of asphalt 300 feet into the air. Bicep stayed with Anne’s t-shirt. A goat took a wrong turn in the old mine field and bits of goat and mud rained down on the B-hut. Bicep stayed with Anne’s t-shirt. Someone with a grudge overturned a porta-john with a Sargent Major still inside, the DFAC alarm went off and the Big Voice said, “Anyone in a bunk right now, get up!” Bicep stayed with Anne’s t-shirt. Then an MRV wrecker backed into the water tower and it buckled to the ground. As a wall of water rocked the B-hut, Bicep’s roommates poured inside.

     “What the fuck! We usually get sniper fire, too. We gettin’ gypped,” complained Riley.

     “No, we ain’t,” corrected Cobb, “Toe’s about to have Skype sex with his girlfriend and we all gonna watch.”

     “Move over, Riley,” said Bicep, “I get my usual spot.”

Miss Cricket:

Madame Python: What?

Miss Cricket: It was a very sweet story until you ruined it with the goat bits and water tower and things, Py.

Madame Python: It was so sappy, Wicket, I could hardly stand it. Ack! Ack! I don’t want to read about people doing the right thing. I want to read about people doing the wrong thing. I want to read about people making bigger mistakes than I’ve ever made.

Miss Cricket: [pause] Yes, well, thank you, Py for bringing us this sweet story. Any last words, Py?

Madame Python: Thanks, Wicky! I just want to tell all you servicemen that you just chuck your Fleshlight in the stewardess’ garbage cart when you get on board in Frankfort. You come and see Madame Python and, if I’m not in Mumbai, I’m gonna show you how you don’t need no stinkin’ Fleshlight.

Miss Cricket: [cough] We support all our service men and women both here and overseas.

Madame Python: Yes, we do.

Miss Cricket: Py, get the back of your finger out from between your teeth.

Madame Python: Wicky, which is your favorite branch of service? I like…

Miss Cricket: God save the Queen.

Madame Python: Yeah, her, too.

Copyright 2013, Elizabeth Cricken, All Rights Reserved

image credit: http://www.peocscss.army.mil/PMMRAP.html