Jerking Off: The Self-Publishing Trap

They were wild times lived in a sort of bored desperation. Starved for excitement, driven by apathy, we hunted for diversion in the trickle-down environment of suburban pop culture.

It was a time before collection agencies and before bad credit ratings. When a cheap used car could break down and not lose me a job, and me and my friends would withstand the shit and grief we gave each other; I knew, from all the bad movies and worn-out Coming of Age novels, that I'd "start missing everybody" as soon as I told anybody anything. Old J.D. sure was right.

••

It was 1986 and we smoked dope in a semi-corporate parking lot across town, stuck behind a thin row of pines and a drab concrete building. One night, Laurie was high and knew there were police in the bushes. We all ran. Laurie first. Ed and I fell over each other, Tom disappeared, no one knew where Jason went.

There were no cops. We walked back to the lot and kept smoking. Jeff and Joe were also there, but they didn't smoke. After the police scare, Laurie sat with Jeff and Joe, deciding she wasn't all that high.

Another time, the same parking lot, we didn't have any pot but had beer and vodka. I was a cashier at a liquor store, so booze was cheap or free, never expensive. It was me, Tom, Ed and Jason. Tom had the tape player he took from someone's car down the shore, but it was a little fucked up.

We got pretty drunk and after a few hours walked to Pathmark. On the way, it was all-around pitch black except for sporadic bursts of music from Tom's broken radio. Over Route 80, Tom threw the player off the bridge onto the Westbound lane. Traffic was sparse. He'd forgotten to take out his Replacements tape. It was his second copy--he'd lost the first copy in a similar incident.

At Pathmark, we shoplifted Hostess cakes and Ed & I drank cooking sherry in aisle 12. Cooking sherry is very salty, to prevent people from trying to get drunk on it. We spit it out on the floor.

Tom was close to home, so he left us at Pathmark. Ed, Jason and I had been closer to home before we came to Pathmark, but it was too late. We asked a trucker for a lift back into the developments, but "No can do, I'd never be able to turn around back there." No money for a cab. We walked home.

My drab, white duplex had never before looked so comfortable. I woke up the next morning at 8 and met Tom and Ed at work where we hung old women's polyester clothing on ten foot high racks. We were hungover, dizzy, miserable.

••

Summer of 1986. We took the bus into NYC to see some bands at the old Ritz. I stole six ready-mixed cocktails from work for the bus ride. My liquor store was in the Pathmark shopping plaza, which included a K-Mart and Drug Fair, plus the usual card shop, florist, pizza shop, et cetera. The bus stop for New York was at the far end of the parking lot, so Tom met me at work and we rode In from there. I figured on sleeping at Tom's apartment that night.

The bus cost $7.20 round-trip. I'd won the tickets to the show on some local college radio station. At the Ritz, Tom and I talked our way into the back room where the opening bands drank before and after the show. There was a sink filled with bottles of Rolling Rock so Tom and I helped ourselves and got drunk.

Coming out of the band's lounge, two girls, Joy and Kris from Long Island, nailed us for suckers and picked us up. Horny and drunk, we bought them overpriced white wine. We spent too much on the drinks, but we fucked around with the girls in the middle of the bar. I was grabbing Joy's tits and Tom had his hand down Kris' pants. It was quite a scene. If you'd been there that night, you'd remember it.

The last bus out was some time around 1:30am, so at 1:15 we left the club. Outside, Joy vomited up the wine in the gutter and Kris wrote her phone number on Tom's hand. Then we kissed them goodbye and hopped a cab to Port Authority.

We missed the last bus Out. It didn't matter, though, because the cab fare from the club had been our last 4 bucks. We were broke. And drunk. In NYC. Fuck.

Ed's summer job took him into New York every morning at 7. We could wait 'til morning, find him at work and get bus fare. That left us for 51/2 hours on the streets. Instead we found a stupid cabbie to take us to the suburbs with my driver's license as collateral. "C'mon, man, we're desperate. Shit, you've got my license--what am I gonna do?"

In the cab on the way back, we stopped on Route 10 to help two young women whose car was broken down. They asked for a lift, but changed their minds when we told them what we'd be doing. Sorry.

In Parsippany, Tom directed the cab into the dark maze of a random development. Turn here, Turn there, That's my house, Stop here, Be right back.

Tom left the car door open, ran up to a dark house and searched his pockets for keys. In the cab, I thanked the driver and made small talk. At the right chance, I leaned over the seat and snatched my driver's license, dove out the car door and dashed into someone's back yard. As I was grabbing my license, I saw the meter: $62.80. "Thanks for the ride, pal." Don't forget a generous tip.

The cabbie chased us through two yards. Tom and I lost him behind tool sheds and air conditioner stacks. We ran into two fences and set off one house alarm. Between the house alarm and the cabbie's CB, cops flooded the neighborhood in 10 minutes.

It took us over an hour to fight our way through the yards across town to Tom's apartment complex. We stumbled in, exhausted and sobered. We were pretty miserable, but we knew there was one fuck of a story in that night.

••

One of my most fond memories of childhood is standing in front of the bowl, urinating, trying to break a discarded cigarette in half with the force of my urine. When my bladder was just about evacuated, at that last moment, the butt broke, sending wet shreds of tobacco swirling around the water, floating in and under the foam of my piss. Triumph.

Every time there's a cigarette in the toilet when I'm pissing, I try to break the butt. Most guys do, I figure. Ask your boyfriend or spouse.

••

My next-door neighbor, and best friend for the first 10 years of my life, was Dave. He and I were chums and all that shit from the start. When I was in high school, I used to buy dime bags from him.

My sister would buy me booze and I'd buy her dope. A very close relationship. She first bought me liquor when I was in eighth grade. Andy R., Jon C., Jeff and I were going sledding at the hill behind St. Clare's hospital. Jon got a pint of rum, I brought a pint of blackberry brandy. The four of us got drunk and when my mother picked us up, she knew.

We dropped Andy & Jeff at Jon's house. Mom took me home and told me it was o.k.: "I'd go into your sisters' rooms and it would smell like the Napa Valley. Just don't let it become a problem." No problem.

••

Will didn't drink, but he was a great host. His parents often went on vacation, and when they left, we arrived.

The first party at Will's house was around Mother's Day 1986. We all drank too much. Ed held Tom's head over the toilet. I passed out somewhere.

Will's house, New Year's 1986/7--we all drank too much and I fucked Jason's ex-girlfriend, Jen. I was so drunk I was blacking out, and when I snapped awake, my cock was raw and my balls ached. It was still early, so I started drinking again. Jen had left; I never saw her after that.

That same night, I met Laura from Randolph and began dating her the next day. We never had sex because she was absolutely terrified of getting pregnant. That kind of terror isn't worth the lay.

It was to Laura that I wrote my first cheesy love poem. For Valentine's Day. I threw it out years and years ago, but I think of it every once in a while. I was a sincere young man, if not a good poet.

••

We worked at a shit warehouse in North Jersey. Jason got a job there through an outside friend. He got Jeff a job. Jeff got me, Tom, Ed and Joe jobs. $5.50 an hour part-time after school and weekends. Good money for high school kids in 1986.

Warehouses are interesting places, and they remain a place of comfort for me. Office buildings and corporate environments hold death and boredom --the people are stale, fake and narrow.

Oscar, Jerry and Goody were our supervisors. They seemed so old at the time, but were only 25 or so.

We climbed racks of clothing 10 feet high in order to move, pick, pack and count units of women's clothing--Alfred Dunner, Sportswear for Mature Women. Polyester. Rayon. Nylon. The warehouse needed us to keep distribution flowing. We knew they needed us.

We were young and we didn't like being inside when the nice weather came. And the bosses--like most bosses--were cocksuckers. But we found satisfaction. It started with changing garment labels. It quickly progressed to wrinkling, tearing and soiling them. Tom finished by pissing on them one day.

None of us ever jerked off or shit on a garment. Not that I know of. If I had, I'd tell you, right?

••

Michelle was a very attractive blonde woman who worked on the picking and packing line. She took a liking to me and asked me out. She was 23 to my 17. I'd sneak away from my assigned rack, hide in a rack near her line, and steal snatches of conversation. It felt good to have someone you didn't grow up with enjoy your company.

Michelle and I never had sex and I guess I know why. She was very shy and I was very nervous. We talked on the phone for hours and sat in her car fooling around a few nights a week. She'd drive 20 minutes to see me. As I said, it was nice to be accepted by someone outside the group you went to elementary and middle school with.

We broke up when I went to live down the shore for the summer of 1986. It wasn't particularly sad; we'd had fun. During that summer, I bought a ‘68 Mustang for $600, lost my virginity, met and said goodbye to Laura from Florida, and missed my friends.

••

I don't remember much about middle school. The memories that do stand out are vague, cartoonish images of a cut kneecap, nervous school dances, playing trumpet in the band, starting to smell when I sweat, and waiting for pubic hair. I realized in 7th grade that middle school was the place where young men and women jockeyed for social position. It is there that boys become masculine and girls become desirable. I found I wasn't interested in sports and wasn't seen by the girls I desired.

But I was cute, I suppose, in a girlish kind of way. I was the kid who always seemed to be friends with the attractive girls. I was a mascot.

My first love was a girl named Ay. Spring, 7th grade. Our relationship was written in notes in class and spoken over the phone each night. On occasion, we'd walk to class and I'd hold her hand. I soon discovered the problems of getting hard in public.

Rob Pellino lived down the block from me. We'd grown up together, though he was more Dave's friend than mine. Rob and I always had some sort of tension between us, because I didn't follow his neighborhood leadership. I was too selfish to follow anyone other than myself. Rob was a year older and went to a private middle school; he always told us about the girls he was screwing and what they did to him. I was, secretly, in awe.

April: It was nice weather, so I'd ride my bike across town to Ay's house. I once made the mistake of bringing Dave and Rob along. Ay fell for Rob and dumped me a week later. I hated him.When Ay dumped me I was so upset I cried in school, in the middle of classes. It was a turning point. Full of emotional weakness, unable to keep it hidden like the tough guys. I was ashamed. I'd become attached to a fleeting relationship. Start of a bad habit.

Ay got pregnant during her senior year of high school and might or might not have gotten married. I don't remember. I might not have ever known.

Rob's brother, Danny, died in a car accident on his honeymoon in the Bahamas five years ago. Fuck my condolences; I couldn't've been happier.

I am, on the whole, a bitter man who takes pleasure in the appropriate misery other people receive.

••

Mary Beth was a friend of Janet, Jason's little sister. I met Mary Beth when I was 15 and she was 13; she was young and awkward, but cute. When Marybeth was 17, she was no longer awkward.

Ed's house, 1988: His parents took the camper and left for a week every summer. Usually Memorial Day. We were 19, drinking from a keg of cheap beer and smoking Tom's pot. Tom usually got the best pot.

We were having a picnic, and Janet and her friends were old enough to drink with us, mainly because they were suddenly old enough to be sexual.

It was the first time I'd seen Marybeth in a couple years. She was a very beautiful young woman. Probably still is, I suppose. Tall, dark hair, very nice breasts and long legs. Fucking American wet dream.

During the night, Marybeth and I flirted, while I drank. Ed drank, flirted and got bent out of shape. Marybeth and I walked around the neighborhood and made out in the bushes next to Ed's house. Someone drove Janet and Marybeth home to Janet's house; I took the ride with them, and Marybeth and I molested each other for a few minutes in the backseat.

I took her out a week later. Conversation was dull. I was dull. She was dull. She probably still is. I am.

It was my own fault that we were both disappointed. I should've known, even then, that the best and worst aspects of my personality come out when I'm drunk. I'm a very bland person sober; whatever passions I have come out through the crutch of booze.

Problem is, people interpret the same good and bad qualities as attractive or repulsive, depending on my relationship with them. In the times of Marybeth and the rest of them, I exhibited my passions physically when I was drunk; this tended to attract. Fortunately, I stopped getting drunk and fucking a few years ago. Too many lost friendships. Too many regrets. Now I wake up and regret saying things too loudly or too frankly. I am often uninvited to people's apartments.

I don't have many friends anymore. Back then, though, the friends were the unassailable network of trust and love. I guess it's still that way for most people. I wouldn't know. Really.

••

I still think about the few women I fooled around with that first year at school, before I transferred. Pam, a pretty blonde punk who never wore a bra; we'd get drunk and dance at parties. Eilleen, Pam's friend with a cute little ass. And some girl with bad breath at a hardcore show in Philadelphia.

I was dating Laura from Florida, and I thought that I loved her. But I was still lonely; Laura was in Florida for a few months and I was rotting in Pennsylvania, surrounded by men and women my age who had nothing but fucking on their minds. I was also drinking and smoking a lot. I also dropped acid every once in a while. So it's no surprise that I couldn't keep the loneliness at bay.

Sandy was a friend who wanted to fuck me; we talked about it. She was the sophomore who had slit her wrists in the dorm the year before. Thank god she survived; she was a great person: intelligent, attractive, without inhibition. After all, when everyone around you knows you as That Suicide Attempt, what place does inhibition have in your life?

I don't understand how or why I never had sex with Sandy, but I did regret it, sometimes. Laura dumped me in May after she fucked some guy in Florida. For all my flirting and the occasional kiss, at least I kept my dick dry. The year after I left that school, I heard that Sandy was pregnant and married during her junior year.

It was too late to go back, of course. Sandy was dating someone, Pam was dating someone, and I was left alone, still. Would it have been better if I'd fucked Sandy? Laura would've still fucked her guy in Florida. I probably would've stayed at that school and kept the friends I'd made. Sandy wouldn't be pregnant and I wouldn't be so bitter.

But, then I wouldn't have what I have now…true fucking love. And ain't True Love worth a world of shit?

I miss them, sometimes, those friends for a year. But I don't want to see them ever again; I don't want to see what life has done to them. And I don't want them to see what life has done to me.

••

When I was 14, mom & dad gave me the option to buy a moped or a computer with the money I'd saved from working. When I was 15--legal moped age--they gave me the option to buy a computer.

Sold.

I hit the computer age when 300 baud modems were top dollar and my Atari 800 came with (I think) 8K of Ram. It was the time of "War Games" and "Cloak and Dagger," when computer hacks were heroes for a new suburban revolution.

On the computer bulletin boards, I found a new world of intelligent, anonymous people inhabiting islands of intersection on the phone lines. It was beautiful: everyone used aliases. I found a place to express myself without giving my name. I found an audience for my ranting and raving. I made a lot of enemies, for someone without an identity.

An older woman started leaving dirty messages for me on some of the bulletin boards. Horny, confident and anonymous, I answered them.

A month later, one Thursday afternoon, I met her in the Pathmark parking lot, a short walk from school. She had straight black hair and a yellow VW bug. Mid-thirties, a little overweight. I can still smell her perfume; I don't know what it was.

We went to the Willowbrook Mall and walked around. She bought me a drink in the Irish restaurant at the far end of the mall. She held my hand. She bought me a box of discs in the computer store. I was beyond fucking terrified.

She wanted to fuck me, only because I was 15. She was a freak for young boys. And I was a young boy.

Of course, I really wanted to lose my virginity; and I knew I wouldn't be screwing the head cheerleader anytime soon. I just wanted to fuck fuck fuck.

I didn't do it. I was too scared. She kissed me goodbye and dropped me off at home.

We still talked through the BBS's for a few weeks. She got me and my friends tickets for a concert once, and I saw her at the show, getting high with a friend. After that, I never saw her again.

I can't remember her name. Just her perfume. And the taste of mature sexual terror she gave me that Thursday afternoon.

••

I had my first fuck on a bed in my grandparents house, down the shore, summer 1986. Dana was a little whore--though I didn't realize it at the time--who was fooling around with half the guys on the boardwalk. We hung out together for a week or so.

One afternoon, before I had to work, we were petting on the couch. Out of nowhere, she says "I like it on the bottom" and slides underneath me. I didn't know what to do. Instinctively (?) I led her to the nearest bedroom and closed the door.

On the bed, she dropped her pants. I dropped mine. She wouldn't take off her shirt--I don't know why. I felt her up a little, stuck a finger or two inside her, got on top, and got it in. "Don't come inside me, ok?" "Sure, fine," says Mr. Cool.

I couldn't feel a thing. I don't know if it was the fear or if she was really loose. Probably both. And just like a bad movie, I pumped away and her head smacked into the headboard a few times. We did that for a couple minutes and I rolled off.

I hadn't come. I hadn't felt a fucking thing, in fact, the whole time. She rolled halfway on me and kissed me tenderly. I guess it wasn't that bad for her; not painful, if nothing else. Maybe she'd actually felt something good? How the fuck would I know? It sure as shit couldn't have been too good.

Then, the front door opened. I don't know what the fuck I'd been thinking; my grandparents were rarely away from the house for more than half an hour.

So we jumped up and put on our clothes. I cracked open the door and saw Dana's friend, Lisa.

I stuffed my underwear in my pocket, smoothed out the bed, and we joined Lisa in the living room. Dana was chatty, I was embarrassed.

It was 4:50 and I was due at work by 5:00. So Dana and Lisa walked me there, I kissed Dana goodbye, and went to work, befuddled by the whole experience.

We never fucked again. She must've lost interest in me, because I heard she was fucking around with some guy who worked further down the boardwalk. I guess maybe he knew what a clitoris was. If someone had told ME, then maybe I would've gotten a second chance. And, maybe I would've gotten off.

••

Diamonds and rubies, her father used to tell her. He drove for a living, and, you know, late night highways get real fucking boring. So you think. Or you talk, or sing. Or you watch other cars. And it became diamonds coming at you, rubies running away in front of you. When you drive the highway at night, it's all diamonds in the headlights and rubies in the tail lights. That's what he told her as a child.

I met Jennifer at school. It was my first year at Rutgers, a sophomore transfer. She was a freshman; very outgoing, pretty, enchanting. It was great, when I was nineteen. When I was twenty, I hated her. And I still do, at 25.

But I still find myself driving at night and my mind's rushing around in boredom, I see the rubies of the tail lights and the diamonds of the headlights and I think of the year that I (once again) thought I was in love.

I was no great fuck when I was 19, mind you, but I'd dated Laura for almost a year and we'd screwed when we had the chance. So when Jen and I got into it one Friday night, I was better than most of the boys she'd been with in high school. Unfortunately, the booze gets most of the credit; I was able to last pretty long because I was pretty drunk. The next night we had sex sober and I was done in 30 seconds. But being young, I got hard again right away and did a better job of it the second time.

Sex was ok. She'd had a good bit of experience; simple, normal high school sex. Eventually, she'd get on top, all that. I'd guide her around a little; we had fun playing around. It never became phenomenal, but it was the best I'd ever had. Hell, it was regular.

After 6 months, she dumped me for Tony, a guy I drank, smoked dope and played cards with. It sucked shit; I had to see this guy at least twice a week--I couldn't avoid him.

Aside from the emotional collapse, the decline into apathy, harder drinking, afternoon dope and the occasional cocaine--all that break-up/breakdown crap--what really sucked was that all my investment was sleeping in his bed. She told me I'd done wonders for her sexual ambition. So now my investment was riding someone else's cock, pulling him around in ways he'd only seen in videos and cheap magazines. She probably scared him, she was so sexed-up. Teach her how to have fun fucking and then watch someone else get my profits. Man, life is unfair sometimes.

So, like that little boy in 7th grade, I was destroyed.

But six years later I'm not going to waste your time with bullshit love-saga trash. I'm talking about sex, about how fucking affects the simple routine of life.

Hello? Is this Jeff? Oh, hi, it's [FILL IN NAME]. Just calling to say "fuck you." Gotta go! Bye!

Do I have to be blunt? Diamonds and rubies; expensive, pretty, petty pieces of stone. If that's the only thing that reminds me of her, then why not remember the utility of the relationship? I don't think of her when I see diamond earrings or a ruby ring; only the red and white lights of cars on a fucking highway. It's not real. See? It's not the real thing. Just an excuse. And so the memory of fucking her isn't really all that's left of her in my mind. It's just the only thing I feel like talking about.

So, anyway, I guess the diamonds and rubies will always be with me. At least once a month, like it or not, they come to mind when I'm driving the highway alone, late at night. Ironically, her father hated me, and all I remember about his little girl is fucking her.

But, as I said, that's not entirely true.

••

"Liquor! Girls!" the sign reads.

If I could have both, 24 hours a day--or at least every hour that I'm awake--then I just KNOW I'd be happy. But if I had to choose one, I'd choose booze. Because when I have any amount of liquor, I can always imagine the girls. But when I've got my girlfriend in bed, but no liquor to speak of, I always seem to feel half empty.

••

Hey, I'm a fucking human being, ain't I?

••

It ain't much, but it's mine. Thanks for your time.