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8. MIDNIGHT SLAMMER: Rounder. Sunday, July 23, 2023.

She's bumping bodily against me, gently, waking me. I open my eyes. She's right there, head bent back, looking. If I wasn't so tired I'd look at that face.
"I have to go to church," she says, adds, "with my mother."

I muster a grunt. There's daylight outside. The idea that she has to go and I can go back to sleep is delicious!

"You wanna go with me?" I'm awake, laughing. I roll on my right side, away from her. She snuggles close on my back. My shirt is twisted. I still have my boots on. My mouth feels like all my teeth have little sweaters on! I passed out here without brushing.

"I'd like to," I mumble, "but I have to get these cows in the barn. And then... there's... the milking." She laughs. I... like her laugh.

I picture myself sitting in a church pew, just as I am, tufts of hair at right angles, bleary eyed, sweater-toothed, shirt twisted, boots making black marks on the floor.

And there, leaning forward, looking at my boots, the marks, peering at me from across the aisle, The Wicked Witch of All-Knowing.
She sits back and there behind her is a flying monkey! Lettering on its hat says, "The Exorcist". I may not be fully awake yet.

"Yeah," I murmur. "You go ahead. I'll get cleaned up and meet you there." She laughs. She settles in against me. I'm going back to sleep.

"You should go," I tell her. "Your Mother needs to know where you are, that I didn't sell you to a passing caravan of Gypsies, like the others."

"My mother's not a bad person," she says, her voice muffled in my back. "She's just..."

Pull-down Menu:
Option 1: crazy
Option 2: crazy
Option 3: bat-s--t crazy
Option 4: nuts
Option 5: nuts
Almost as soon as I conceive Option 6, Ileace speaks it aloud,

"...mentally ill."

I'm quiet. She's quiet. I'm awake. I'm thinking.

"Everybody is," I say. I start to imagine her Mother, less as Witch; more as just a Mother, with a beautiful daughter... who would hook up with a guitar player out on the damned street, stay out all night, a break from a norm of long-standing, talk about him a lot, and scare Mom about the dangers a young girl... she thinks of her as a young girl... can get herself into... overnight... Bang! Her baby girl is in crisis, and she's known crisis, seen her daughter go through it, and knows she can't do anything about it, can't help her daughter, just watch and suffer and try to counsel... can't stop trying... even to the point of annoyance.
Then there's the 'companion' factor. If your daughter, who has been with you a long time, every day...

"Do you live with your Mother?" I ask.

"Yes," the answer.

"How long have you lived with her?" Question.

"All my life," she says.

"You went away to college, came home. How long have you been home?" Question.

"Since...," she starts, goes on, "three years." Companion, three years. Three years, her baby in the house. Confidante. Friend. Companion. You know where she is almost constantly. I'll bet they wear each other's clothes, go shopping, watch tv, have sit-down-at-the-table meals.

"Do you and your Mother borrow clothes from each other?" I ask. She draws away from my back. I can tell she's looking at the back of my head. I wonder if she's examining my thoughts or determining where to stab with the butcher knife. You can't just stab people in the back of the head anywhere. You have to pick a spot. I'm just thinking about that... companion factor. It figures in on Mom's protective instincts.

"Did my Mother tell you that? She buys clothes, tries them on, looks in the mirror and gives them to me. She bought this top!" she bleats.

"Mom has great taste! I love that top. No!" I laugh. "She didn't tell me." I want to see that top. I roll over. She ducks under my arm, makes room, snuggles against me. I imagine raising up the fuzzy, having a look, don't do it, just enjoy that shoulder. Damn! Girl! "Think about it. You meet some guy on the street. All Mom sees is 'Danger! Danger! Danger!' My little girl! You tell her all about me. Right?"

"Right," she says. "I... I was excited. I... I'd met someone... who wasn't... ordinary. You weren't... rude, rude, crude and socially unacceptable, which is what my Mother pronounces people we run into. At the grocery store, after we run into people from her church even, she'll let them get out of earshot and mutter, "Rude, crude and socially unacceptable." I call her a hypocrite! "Love thy neighbor," I tell her and she says, "If they become my neighbor we'll have to move."

I laugh. She laughs. I like her laugh.

"Your Mother's perspective is that her little girl is taking life chances, and, that her companion, constant companion of three years might start spending less time with her. Are they still married?" I ask, eyes closed, wanting sleep.

"My Mom and Dad? They separated while I was away at college," she says. "I'd come home some weekends and Dad would be there for dinner, sometimes for breakfast. He'd work different shifts so it wasn't unusual for him to be there... on a... an irregular schedule. It wasn't until I graduated and came home that I noticed he wasn't living there. She told me they'd been separated for a long time, like most of the years I'd been gone. She says he went crazy. He says she went crazy. I think they both went crazy."

"Most people have been crazy a long time before we notice, before they notice. She was worried about you. You told her all about your boyfriend didn't you?" I ask. No answer. I don't need one. She tells her Mother everything. "She told me you... 'got tangled up' is how she put it, with 'that boy' in high school, hooked up with him again in Athens. She told me he graduated and dumped you."

She sits up, leans on her right hand, her left on the middle of my chest! I'm scared. She lays back down.

"My Mother talks too much!" Ileace murmurs into my chest.

"Her daughter tells her too much," I say, quietly, hugging her a bit closer. "TMI; Too Much Information." Damn! I wanna bite her. Would it be appropriate to stop this conversation and...

"She's my Mother! I need to tell my Mother things!" Ileace says, petulantly. There's genuine emotion, distress in her voice. I tighten my hug, gentle, let her settle down. She does.

"Now you're a woman. Your Mother's daughter is a woman. A woman can't tell her Mother everything. Especially... boy things... some good things... some bad things," I say, searching my way through the philosophy. "You told her about your sex life didn't you." Silence, then,

"Yes."

"And it wasn't pretty for a Mom to hear. Sex, a couple's intimate... moments... activities... specifics... are not what we want to imagine, about our parents, or have them imagining about us. It's private stuff. We don't want... we don't tell our buddies stuff if we're serious about the person, the girl. It's too good between a man and a woman to sully by... telling other people about it. And if we're giving them, our buddies, your girlfriends, your parents, details, they're over-imagining. It's TMI; Too Much Information! For some it's juicy gossip! It's sex! There are... body parts! They can't wait to gossip about it. They look at you, imagining, look at your girlfriend, boyfriend, imagining. Thoughts can be pornographic, addictively so.

For Mom or Dad, 'That's the little baby I put a thousand diapers on, looked at their little naked bodies, thought about them growing up and being... sexually... active. Worried from day one about their sex because I know, as a man, as a woman, what my own sex life has been like.'

I only met one couple in my life who planned to have a baby! Everybody else was a... a... 'Guess What! I'm Pregnant! baby'. An accident, a surprise. Unplanned pregnancy, they call it. They get married, form a family around the baby human being they've created. Or they don't. Sometimes the family stays together. Sometimes they don't even get started. Sometimes it's for the best. Sometimes it's a recurring tragedy. Moms worry. Dads worry. 'Will they make the same mistakes we did?'

Did... did I hear your Mother say, "A condom won't protect your heart!"?

"You heard that?" she asks.

"I did. How did that... come into the conversation? It was the last thing she said before she yelled 'Bonsai!' and jumped off the curb," I say.

Ileace laughs; she sniffles, cries. I hug, release.

"You have good ears," she says, laughs. She wipes her tears on my shirt.

"She was... saying you were a drinker, you'd end up beating me! Don't come running to her when you did! 'He's a schemer, a scammer,' a midnight slammer!" she says.

Now I'm laughing! "What... is a midnight slammer?" I roll out from under her. She lays back against the back of the couch, head on the pillow. I lay my head up on the arm of the couch, lean it on my hand, elbow. We're looking at each other.

"My... boyfriend," she says. "We had sex in high school. Not 'in' the high school, but while we were still in high school. I told her about it. We didn't tell my Dad. But... I needed to get on birth control pills. I... knew we'd do it again. It was too... exciting... not to expect to do again. And I thought it was normal. This is how everyone starts their sex lives and then they get married and raise a family. Or girls raise their children without the Baby Daddies. So I told her. She took me to the doctor. And that made it... okay. He... my... he wanted to... screw every chance we got. So I let him. Don't... think... I didn't like it too. I thought we were so in love. I didn't have anything to compare it to. I assumed everyone... lived like that. Other girls told me about their sex. It seemed like the ultimate expression of love. I assumed Mom and Dad had me and my brother because they did the same thing. I know she was pregnant with Natan when they got married. I saw his birth certificate and their marriage license and did the calendar math.
I've seen MY birth certificate too!" she declares, defiantly, "and I am NOT adopted!" She goes on, "Then he graduated..."

"Natan?" I ask.

"Natan's my brother. My... boyfriend," she clarifies. "He graduated. I... I saw it coming. We settled into a routine there in college. I'd stop by his dorm room. He'd lock the door, screw me, and I'd go home to study. He got an apartment with some other guys that last year. Then I stayed overnight sometimes. I thought that was normal too. Then, he... he started... some nights he'd get cleaned up to go out... after... and I didn't want to just go home. So I'd go out with him. He'd... get really drunk, whoop it up with friends, talk to other girls, and I'd just be there, like someone tagging along. I quit going out when he did. It got to be routine. Screw. Clean up. Go out. I'd go home. I had to study.

That's what Mom called a 'Midnight Slam'. It fit the concept. Tonight... last night... she was telling me I was going to have sex with you! And I wasn't! Maybe... some day... but... not... right now."

The cheerleading squad in my head are chanting, 'Right - Now! Right - Now!' They're all men! I add some girls for Equal Opportunity, try to get them to cheer again. 'Right - Now!' They just look at me.

"But I wanted... to have a good argument, you know, so I said, "Well we'll use a condom!" She came up with that on the spot! Pretty good slogan, huh? 'A condom won't protect your heart!'

She's quiet. I'm quiet. My eyes are closed. I can't...

"I had plenty to take my mind off him. I... I think I was using him too. I... learned to enjoy that... hit it and quit it sex! It was... okay... It became normal, our... normal. I thought it was a normal relationship, that... we were in a... committed... relationship. That it was normal. I... I knew better. But..."

"I'm available to hit and quit!" I joke. She bumps against me! My leg falls off the couch, boot hits the floor.

"Well don't be!" she says, kind of loud. 'Chill baby, chill!'

"That would make you a slut!" she goes on. I'm thinking, 'I'm okay with being a slut...'

"I'm okay being a slut for you," I laugh. She doesn't. 'Shut up!' I tell myself.

She draws away from me, separates our torsos, our legs.

"Now I'm telling YOU too much!" she observes.

"Yeah," I say. "But... we're... in it now... and... I don't see any way through it... and out the other side where I can flirt with the girl down by the convenience store again. She's really cute and I really wanna flirt with her."

"Shut up!" she whispers. She whispers it. She whispers.

"Then he graduated. I went to his graduation. His family were there. He just introduced me by my name not as 'My girlfriend'. Certainly not 'My fiance'.' They went out to dinner. I just shuffled off to Buffalo.
He came to my apartment that night. I shared with this other girl. She let him in and he knocked and came into my room. I was happy to see him, happy for him graduating. He began making out with me and was passionate and we got naked and did it. He got up, got dressed, went out of the room. I thought, 'Well, he's going to the bathroom' or 'He's going to get a drink.'
When he didn't come back I went out and my roommate was sitting on the couch. She saw me looking around and pointed at the door, said, "He left... a long time ago!"
I never saw him again.
I went to his apartment. The landlord had a big old armchair stuck in the doorway. I'm standing outside talking to him inside, over this big armchair and it's just hanging there and he tells me everybody's gone, and the armchair comes loose and clunks down on the threshhold! He and his roommates were gone. They had a big party and, apparently, everyone started jumping up and down in the living room and broke the floor down! Landlord was piiisssed! I helped him get the chair out. I walked in, looked at the broken floor, went upstairs, bare rooms. Nothing. No rugs. No posters. No furniture. A sweet candle smell in his room. No candles.
It was summer break for me. I came home, cried for days. Mom couldn't handle it. She'd get mad. She'd get sad. We'd fall asleep crying together. I'd fall asleep crying alone. She made me get a job, get some money together to go back to school. That helped, helped us both I think. Routines. Busyness.

It... it was stupid. I finally realized I didn't love him! I didn't want to spend the rest of my life with him anyway. He wasn't my friend, not even my boyfriend. It was just... I don't know... like a sudden... change... the old... jerk-the-rug-out-from-under-you change. You know what I mean? And... I was over it. But I'd told Mom everything. She'd... we'd be laying on the bed, just like this, you and me right now, and... I needed to talk about it. When I told her about the... hit-it-and-quit-it sex she called him a 'Midnight Slammer'.

Mom says you'll be a Midnight Slammer too!" She's laughing. I'm not.

"Sounds like fun," I say. "I'm willing to try if that's what your Mother wants. Hit! Quit! Slam! Bam! Thank ya Ma'am!"

I'm laughing; she's laughing, but the imagery in my head has much appeal!

"I'm more your kind of 'hang-around-and-do-it-again' type. But if that's what your Mother wants I'm willing to try it! Can we slam at your place so I can come home and get some sleep? I really like my sleep!?"

She's laughing, says, "I live with my Mom. Are you sure you're up for that?"

I close my eyes, put my right hand on her waist. She snuggles under my chin, hooks her left knee over my left kneecap. She smells good. She's warm. I bring my left forearm up her back. My left hand finds a spot on her neck and left shoulder to rest. My hand doesn't want to rest, wants to rub and squeeze. I pinch the flesh under my hand, relax. We're quiet.
I'm figuring out this Mother-Daughter dynamic. Being 'open' with each other seems like a good idea. But not everyone can handle knowing the... intimacies and intricacies of each others' lives. Especially parents. They don't want to know you're hurting. They don't want to know details about the risks you're taking, even after you're through them, the tragedies you've been through, are going through. They really don't really want to know your sexual experience. That's scary. They want to vaguely know you've figured it out, you're okay, you're handling it. Maybe they didn't have experiences like that. Maybe they did, and they don't want you to learn the hard way, like they did.
Maybe Mom's not... irretrievably nuts. "Irretrievably Nuts", 'copyright July 23, 2023, by Gary E. Andrews and the Brass Balls Band!' 'Yo Momma! Yo Momma! Yo Momma's Irretrievably Nuts!' We're not getting the band back together.

Her brash questioning at Cubby's made a bad first impression. I want Ileace. I think... I want... Ileace. This is tricky. I'm... getting seduced. She's... practically offering herself into... whatever this is... a... relationship. Sex is on the table. I like things on the table. To 'get' her, to... have Ileace, I have to be prepared to sign for the whole package, to... Mollify Momma. I wonder how crazy her Dad is.

I'm not sure what I want. She's... unobtainable. What makes me think I can have her? She's not... easy. I don't mean... sexually 'easy'. I mean... psychologically. It seemed easy. We went from a conversation on the street to her sleeping on my couch, to... now... a couple weeks later... laying here with me. She's with me, like a woman with a man. I haven't even kissed her. I still don't know her last effin' name! A series of nights and... Uncle Lonnie. Crazy old effer. His advice was, "You get one titty in your mouse (he meant mouth) and next thing you know you got the whole woman in your house!" To his credit, he went on to explain that might be a good thing, depending on the woman, depending on the man. "Some folks rise to the occasion," he'd say. "Some cain't!" Uncle Lonnie's wife left him before I was born. He never found another one. He must have been a 'rounder'. LOL