Constance Blows Her Top
Creative Writing - Prose - Fears and Phobias
People thought I was stupid because I was blonde, and because I walked into furniture, and because of the obvious pleasure I took in hoarding office supplies.
I didn't mind people thinking I was stupid. What I minded was the fact that the very same people who thought I was a flaming idiot expected me to do things that only a smart girl could do. Things like interviewing horny old men without getting mauled. Things like finding a "suitable" man friend for my insane gay hillbilly cousin, Edwin.
The old horny men I could handle, because I was mean. I once returned to the office of The Advance (the magazine where I worked) with the heel broken off of one of my shoes and an aging pianist's blood all down my best shirt. (I made my editor pay for the clothes out of petty cash. I made him pay for the emotional trauma by making as many spelling mistakes as I possibly could for the next six weeks.) But I couldn't have found Edwin a suitable boyfriend if I had been Einstein's daughter.
Edwin already had a steady boyfriend, sort of. His name was Fred. The trouble with Fred was that he was thirty-five years old. Edwin was twenty. This, to me, was creepy. Edwin's mother, my Aunt Rose, found it absolutely disgusting. Every time Edwin and Fred had one of their breakups, she would beg me through her tears to find Edwin a nice boy his own age to go out with.
Because I was a chump if not a flaming idiot, I would usually say, "Okay. I'll try."
"I can't believe you'd send an innocent, unsuspecting man into Edwin's clutches," my friend François said to me reproachfully one evening as I sat poring over my address book.
François was named after his French grandfather. He hated his name, so I addressed him by a long list of nicknames, such as Doofus and Baby Chicken and Boxcar Pete.
"I wouldn't, Boxcar Pete," I sighed, throwing my address book melodramatically to the floor. "That's just the problem. I've been through this address book twice now, and there's not a single not-indifferent-to-men man in there that I would willingly sacrifice to Edwin."
François giggled, his blue eyes lighting up wickedly. "You make him sound like a volcano," he remarked. "You know, it's too bad you don't know a guy who's just as horrible as Edwin is. They might actually be happy together, two horrible guys being horrible."
"They could scream and cuss at each other all the live-long day," I said reflectively. "Hey!" I cried suddenly, sitting up very straight. "What about--oh, what was his name? Mike or George or Richard or something. The guy who stole your boyfriend. He'd only be, like, twenty-four now."
"He didn't steal my boyfriend," François said. "He was going to let me have him back. I just didn't want him any more after that. Richard White was his name," He looked thoughtful. "He and Edwin do have in common the fact that they like to exploit insecure bisexual men."
"See?" I said. "They could get together and discuss men whose lives they've ruined. Then they could make out. Do you think this Richard character would do a favor for a friend of yours?"
"Probably not," François frowned, "but I’ll bet he can be bought, the trashy little clotheshorse."
I opened the phone book and started leafing through it in search of Richard's name. "White - White, Julie – White, Matthew – okay, White, Richard Douglas."
"That's the guy." François said.
I scribbled the number down on the back of an envelope and went over to the telephone.
Richard White answered on the first ring, sounding stoned. "Look, Tanya, if this is you, I don't have your money," he mumbled.
"This isn't Tanya," I said curtly. "This is a friend of François Darwin's."
"Man, okay, that was a long time ago," Richard White whined, "and that guy was all ugly anyway."
I replied, "That's not what I called you to talk about. I called to talk to you about my gay hillbilly cousin, Edwin."
Eventually, I was able to persuade Richard to go on at least one date with my cousin, for the price of twenty dollars and one jar of my grandmother's homemade apricot preserves. I told him which scary gay redneck bar Edwin usually hung out in (with a fake ID), provided him with a fairly comprehensive physical description, and sat back to let the magic happen.
Two days later, I got a phone call at my desk at The Advance. It was my cousin Edwin.
"What have you done to me, Constance?" he wailed.
"I don't know," I said. "Why don’t you tell me?"
"I think you're homophobic," Edwin informed me. "Otherwise you wouldn't do these things to me."
"Edwin, I'm not homophobic. Why don't you tell me what you’re talking about?"
"That guy! That guy you paid to go out with me!" Edwin bellowed. "While I was going with him, Fred went back to his ex-fiancée!"
I started laughing. I couldn't help it.
"Oh, that's right, it's funny," Edwin said. "Heterosexuality steps in and saves the day, and the gay cousin is left all alone."
"The fiancée was left all alone when you stole her man," I pointed out.
"That's different. You don't understand anything about love," Edwin said accusingly.
He was right, of course. I didn't understand anything about modern romance, anyway. Unlike most of the people I seemed to meet, all I needed in the way of physical affection was the occasional kiss and cuddle. The average person's sex drive seemed to involve the need to hump something at least once a week.
"You weren't supposed to know that I paid Richard to go out with you," I told him apologetically. "I thought you guys might hit it off. I mean, you're both into infidelity, smoking pot, and violent arguments and all."
"I don't want to date somebody like that!" Edwin cried.
"Well, little cousin, did it ever occur to you that nobody wants to date someone like that?" I asked him.
There was a dead silence on the other end of the line. Either Edwin was pondering, or he had stopped talking in order to better concentrate on making a list of ways to kill me.
"Are you still there?" I said.
"Yeah, I'm still here," Edwin replied. "I'm thinking. I hate you, Constance." With these tender parting words, he slammed the receiver down as hard as he could, to judge from the ringing report it made in my ears.
I was so confused and depressed over this turn of events that I turned up late for my afternoon interview and got screamed at by a temperamental lady musician who tried to poke me in the eye with her mascara wand.
It wasn't that I cared what happened to Edwin. I knew, however, that it would only be a matter of hours before Rose started ringing my home telephone off the hook and demanding to know why I had ruined her boy's life. I didn't look forward to that. My aunt fought dirty, with lots of tears.
When I got home from work, however, there was something far more frightening than my Aunt Rose sitting on my porch steps. It was Richard White. I recognized him from all the times François had seized my arm downtown or at a gas station, pointed to him, and hissed, "That's Richard White!"
Richard White was red-eyed, and, by all appearances, stinking drunk. I wasn't close enough to actually smell him, having frozen in my tracks halfway down my front walk. "What on earth is the matter with you?" I asked.
"I'm in LOVE!" Richard bellowed, frightening the small birds in my shrubbery into flight. "This guy – your cousin – Edwin – I've never met anyone like him before. Look. He slapped me." He stood up, swaying uncertainly, and pointed to a swollen place on his lip. "Nobody's ever had the nerve to slap me before."
"So why are you sitting on my front porch instead of holding hands and plucking daisies with my insane cousin?"
"He's not interested in me anymore. He wants his switch-hitting ex-boyfriend back," he answered contemptuously.
"Do you think maybe the fact that you let slip you were paid to go out with him might have influenced his feelings in the matter?"
"That reminds me," Richard slurred, "I'm here to collect my twenty dollars."
"No way!" I shouted, blowing my top, which I didn't do very often. "You don't get the twenty dollars if you tell him you were paid to go out with him!"
Richard poked his tongue out and called me "Mama Cass," which wasn’t very nice. I was more than aware that my once rail-thin body had expanded since I had given up coffee and hard liquor and started eating square meals once in a while. Then he turned around, bent double, and threw up in my shrubbery. I couldn't help noticing that he had a nice butt.
I was finally able to get rid of him by giving him one pair of seventy-dollar jeans and one pair of faux-leather pants that were still in my closet, left over from my skinny-as-a-boy days, on the condition that he go away.
A few days after this, I met François for a cheap meal so we could discuss the Edwin and Richard situation. I wanted to know the local gay-boy gossip, so I could plan around my aunt's next attack.
"What I heard," François said, shoveling waffles into his long, peaky face, is that they went out, they quit going out, and now they're going out again."
"That’s all?" I asked, disappointed. "No word on whether they're happy or sad or the most obnoxious couple in town?"
François shook his head. "Sorry," he said. "I don't get around like I used to."
"It's okay, Doofus. As long as they're together, my work is done. Well, for the time being, anyway."
Later, as we were paying our bill, a large group of men came in the door. "Aw, no," said François. "I forgot all about Pride Weekend."
"Is it that time again already?" I asked.
"Yes," François said disgustedly. "I want to get off the streets before these queens start marching." Seeing my look of surprise, he explained, "They all want me to be proud. I don't want to be proud. I just want a good-looking guy to--oh, look!"
I turned and looked in the direction of his pointing finger as he attempted to hide behind me. Settling into a corner booth with their buddies were Edwin and Richard. Edwin had a Band-Aid over one eye. Richard still had a fat lip--or, more likely, he had another fat lip. They were holding hands and beaming at each other.
"Wow," I said, "they look like they've been fighting."
"They also look happy," François observed timidly.
I was amazed. Had my cock-eyed plan actually worked? In bringing two miserable young men together, had I actually managed to diminish their collective misery? Stranger things had happened.
"I know," François whispered, plucking at my sleeve. "Come on, let's go back to your house. We can talk about it in peace, while we put on mascara and drink beer."
"If I've told you once, Baby Chicken, I've told you a thousand times," I reminded him, "I'm an alcoholic."
"Fine. Then I can watch you put on the mascara, and you can watch me drink the beer."
It sounded like a good plan to me.
This story is dedicated to MJ Hammes and Mandy Mastrovita.