Prayer Flags in Tibet

On the streets of Lhasa

I WAS YOUNG and NEEDED MONEY and FOR A FEW BUCKS I LET STRANGERS FINGER MY BUTT

"I WAS YOUNG and NEEDED MONEY and
FOR A FEW BUCKS I LET STRANGERS FINGER MY BUTT" by Doc Sigerson

The late eighties fell on me hard. After being fired from a gas station job for assaulting a customer, I scrounged for odd jobs to supplement the unemployment benefits, preferably those jobs in which the compensation would be “unreported”. To get by, I sold books culled from my own library, and I did get a part-time gig working for a retired rare book dealer who needed a dog’s body as he was limited in mobility, but the gig petered out when he started paying me in books instead of cash. I endured a one day affair as a walking chocolate chip cookie which involved a huge foam costume and handing out coupons for a free sample. A direct mail advertising venture failed to pan out. Then I saw an ad in the local alternative weekly newspaper for a medical school that needed nude models. They offered $15 per hour, which hitherto had been more than I had ever been paid. Hoping that they would work with any and all body types, I sent them a letter.

The Bastyr College, later to become Bastyr University, offered a four year course in naturopathic medicine. They hired a half dozen guys, five who worked frequently as artist’s models for life drawing classes at the nearby University of Washington - and me. Our purpose was to teach second year medical students to perform the male pelvic exam, mostly by being the body upon which they could take some practice pokes. We had a three hour orientation class followed by an physical examination where a doctor showed two guys at a time what a proper exam would feel like. He put extra pressure on my prostate gland so that I would be certain, unequivocally certain, mortally certain, through the fucking roof certain, that I would know exactly when the student’s forefinger would be pressing through the rectal wall upon my gland and not taking the spelunker’s tour. On the day of the live labs we sat in on the anatomy class with the students and found out that not every med student is the sharpest knife in the drawer, judging by some of the questions they asked.

I was concerned about the size of the audience I would entertain with my debut. The worst case scenario would have me standing mother naked on the stage of a vast lecture hall, seats filled to capacity with what passed for college students, the professor a white-haired man of advanced years welding a long tallywhacker of a pointer, intoning, “and this (thwack!) is the male genitalia!” Sure, I have had the usual young man’s share of exposure. The years spent in the public school system where communal showers are the norm for both gym classes and after school sports were spent without mishap, except for one hapless classmate who became aroused in the locker room surrounded by naked boys thereby becoming an object lesson for those uncertain of their own orientation. Interestingly, he is now a member of the so-called Tea Party, though I am not asserting a cause-and-effect relationship. In the army I was spared the notorious, and by then obsolete, “short arm inspection” whereby soldiers fell into formation on the parade ground wearing only boots and a raincoat which would be flung open when the medical officer passed by as he sought signs of dreaded venereal disease. The induction center, however, was the scene for a mass examination of fifty-or-so young men foolish enough to enlist. We queued up in two parallel lines facing each other, wearing nothing but skivvies and socks. On command, one line did an about face, while the doctor in center aisle went down the other line. Each recruit dropped his drawers while the doctor checked for hernia. Then that line did an about face, the doctor retracing his steps, checking this time for hemorrhoids as the recruits bent over, cheeks spread. The doctor repeated the procedure for the second line and all along no one’s privy parts were exposed to the gaze of his fellow recruits. What’s crazy, in retrospect, is that at no time did the doctor wear gloves as he examined all those privates of the soon-to-be privates.

In those years between 1977 and 1989 the world learned of A.I.D.S. and its halfwit brother, H.I.V. Gloves, either latex or vinyl, became paramount to the safe conduct of medical procedures and examinations. Gloving, de-gloving, and even double gloving were drummed into the heads of these students, becoming their mantra as they divided up into groups of four or five, each group led by an instructor or a proctor, that is, a savvy senior classman. The live labs were held in the school’s practicing clinic, not a classroom, and each of us models were assigned a real exam room.

There I stood in the unheated room - a thin hospital gown, white guy pale shins and black socks -when a group of four entered. Included in that first group was Native American girl from Eastern Washington, the part of the state which remains extremely rural and agro-centric. An inordinate amount of time she dwelt upon my testicles and sac. She lingered. The room grew quiet. When the instructor hinted that she should move on, the girl said that this was her first time examining male genitals other than her experience growing up on a cattle ranch where she assisted her father and brothers castrating the bulls every year. I happen to be a taurus, I said.

Next up was a doe-eyed laddie who rolled my penis between his thumb and finger as though he were appraising a fat postprandial cigar and assumed such an air of the true connoisseur that I was forced to suppress a shudder, turned my eyes to the clock above the door and I set my mind to digging up a childhood memory of when as a boy scout I had sculpted and slept in an snow cave in one of the several gigantic glaciers on Mount Rainier during the coldest winter night of the year. I repeated to myself the bank robber’s advice to stay calm and no one gets hurt. Also I kept my gaze fixed on the clock as the young man seemed eager to make what I shall charitably call “inappropriate” eye contact.

The second year there was a new mom in the group who was nursing her newborn baby quite openly with her full breast exposed and right in front of me as I was being examined. While this was not exactly an erotic situation, anytime I start getting my buttons pushed there is sure to be a reaction. No noticeable twitching, let alone a full blown raging hard-on, but I did start leaking. Ah, dear me. The instructor told the class that a clear discharge was common but a discolored discharge would be cause for concern. Not just my body, but my bodily functions were now on view and a subject fit for group discussion. Ah, dear me. Then the new-age-in-your-face mommy half-joked that her lab report would be pasted into the child’s baby book as the her first pelvic exam, the very first step on the child’s future medical career. The tike was asleep, blissfully oblivious and made not a sound - not a gurgle, not a burp, not a tiny baby fart. The baby and I were both there, but only one of us had been marked for life.

In the third year I encountered the Wesley Crusher of Alternative Medicine, a young overly earnest baby-faced fellow who couldn’t wait to jump into the captain’s chair and take command. Part of the male pelvic exam is checking the inguinal canal for signs of hernia. This is done by using a finger to trace back the spermatic cord from the testicle and invaginating, that is, turning inside out, the scrotum until the finger reaches a triangular shaped opening in the corner of the groin. This is the inguinal canal whence the testicle descended during puberty. A finger is placed over the opening, the patient is asked to turn his head and cough. The coughing causes the diaphragm to put pressure on the bowel and if there is a hernia, that is, a break or breach in the bowel wall, then quite often the hernia can be detected by the finger as the bowel pushes out through the canal. If the doctor’s finger is small enough, and most female doctors have petite fingers, then the finger can actually intrude up into the inguinal canal which is a more reliable check. Believe me, that is a feeling quite unlike any other. So Ensign Crusher thinks he feels the bowel protruding on my right side and jumps into a spiel as to how I should proceed in naturopothic treatment and how he would be willing to see me in clinic and .... The instructor cut him short, reminding him that I have my own medical plan and that there is no naturopathic treatment for hernia. After the class, the instructor checked me herself and confirmed that I probably had a right inguinal hernia and that I should consult a surgeon.

I did this job every May for three years and I had continued even after I was employed full time and no longer needed the money because I felt that helping to train doctors to detect cancer was a worthwhile and important pursuit. After the third year, the school gave up the program because of the expense and instead the students practiced on each other. For a few years thereafter, I included the job title “Teaching Assistant at a Medical School” on my resume and I even tried to impress young ladies by telling them that I had taught medical students to perform pelvic exams.

The Anarchist's Blac Book of Poetry - by Frankie Metro

Crisis Chronicles Press is pleased to announce the publication of Frankie Metro's The Anarchist's Blac Book of Poetry, a 42-page chapbook including several illustrations by the author. Published 6 June 2012, The Anarchist's Blac Book of Poetry is now available for $7 (includes postage) from Crisis Chronicles Press, 420 Cleveland Street, Elyria, Ohio 44035.

Frankie Metro might fuck goats and transsexual Korean karaoke singers, but he also writes some cool shit. Support this motherfucker and buy (or steal) his book.

A Classic Reading @ the Paraclete Center w/ Pantifesto's Porntastic Phunhouse

Raid a morgue for poetry.

Have an orgy with
the Beats.

Be sure to invite
the little boys
for the ones
who are into that
sort of thing.

Methadone Modus w/ Steven Purkey

Gutter Cuddly

You see them hott foxes?

You see them standing there?
In their drrrty jeans and black Carhartts
Lookin' all gutter cuddly

With Misfits patches
Facial tattoos
Pierced libidos
The scum of the Earth!

You see them over there?
Standing on the street corner
Flying a sign that reads
"I promise I won't spend it on drugs."

She's got studs and spikes

Combat boots

Ripped Crass t-shirt

Ain't she hott?

Give up the thought

Give it up now

She'll never be yrs

She belongs to no one!


All you can do is spare a dollar

&

Appreciate the filthy art of the

Gutter Cuddly.

Post-May Day Massacre Meth w/ Karl Koweski

The Jabba The Hutt To My Bib Fortuna

Months breezed past without a publication. Though the writing continued unabated by the unliterary turn of my private life, I'd lost the drive to submit my work to small press venues. The cheap pop of seeing my name in the internet lights had diminished years ago and like an annoying girlfriend who fucks on demand, it just took a while to sever the relationship.

At the six month mark when I thought for sure I'd never have to read another shitty Facebook poem again, Engel phoned me. He was a smug ex-patriot writer and publisher of Grievous Mental Harm Press. He offered to publish a collection of my poetry a year ago. I accepted and emailed a manuscript. Since then he had emailed seven incarnations of his own manuscript of politically driven poetry asking for my own in depth critique. I tried but each time I dipped into his collection, I stopped at the same place, around the fifth line of the first poem. This didn't stop me from responding “it's good” after every analysis. I sensed my own poetry collection slipping further away from publication with every missive until we quit corresponding all together.

And now he was on the phone saying:

“I'd appreciate if you wouldn't go telling everyone that I only publish women writers who I'm trying to fuck.”

I'd been small press incommunicado for six months...

“You must be referring to Kara Catasrophsky, the woman you published who you were trying to fuck.”

“I wasn't trying to fuck her. I was trying to nurture her inner poetess. Besides it's a well known fact Kara only goes for men of color.”

“It became a well known fact after she met you and saw what you really look like. And how you breathe through your mouth like a retarded child.”

“Whatever the case may be, Hammer, I'd appreciate it if you didn't go around telling this to everybody in the small press.”

“Engel, you know who thinks you published Kara Catasrophsky cause you were trying to fuck her? Everybody who has ever bothered to read any of her poetry. I didn't have to say anything.”

“Well, then, have you read the latest rewrite of my collection: Amerika, Land of the Slave, Home of the Knave?”

“Yeah, it was good.”

“Sure. Sure.”

Jesus, if only I could quit the small press a second time without having to get involved with it once more.

* * *

On the heels of this call, my cell phone chirped again. This time it was Francis the Sissy demanding to know “why are you trying to sabotage my career?”

“Sabotage what career? You're unemployed. You can't hold down a job longer than a week. You beg for money from people on the internet.”

“Sabotage my poetry career!”

“What poetry career?”

“Dude, I've been hearing you been saying shit about me behind my back to artists I respect in the small press. Making me look like a jackass and hurting my book sales.”

Francis the Sissy was a Poet. So much so that he actually took poetry seriously.

“Book sales...?”

Never did I think to hear these words pass from the lips of a Poet.

“I would expect this sort of backward dealings from Jacob Harding with his silly porkpie hat, bad teeth and rampaging ego. He's jealous of me.”

“Don't you wear a funny hat? And listen to Tom Waits?” I asked.

“I know where you're going with this. Enjoying the relaxing tunes of Tom Waits doesn't make me pretensious.”

“I don't know what to tell you.”

“Well, you can stop knocking me down to build yourself up.”

“Where do you even hear this shit, Francis.”

“Someone who doesn't even write in the small press. That's how I know it's true.”

I mulled this over. Someone outside the small press who knew both The Sissy and The Hammer and likely Engel, the ex-patriot...

“Tara Quim.”

“No, that's not who,” he said quickly. “I don't even know who she is.”

“The weird woman with the massive meat beard who's been bombarding your Facebook with asinine comments and retorts.”

“Oh, her...” His voice quavered as it sometimes did when he attempted to beg money from virtual strangers.

“Yeah, her.” Every time his comment section crested thirty entries, he'd burst into a spontaneous round of masturbation. He loved her for her obsessive commenting.

The fact that she poached about two hundred of my closest internet acquaintances from the social network du jour led me to believe that if I chose to give a shit, I'd be spinning damage control well until the Mayans ended the world with one of their annoying self-fulfilling prophecies. She had the ability, and I just happened to give her the motivation about a week ago.

Tara was a train wreck forty freights long. I'd known her the length of two of those freights, though not in conjunction. The first took place seventeen years ago while we dabbled in college, and then, last year when we reconnected online.

* * *

The first time I only knew her in passing. Our circles of friends intersected here and there. I knew enough about her and her STDs by reputation. And like the herpes virus that kept her at arms length back in the day, she flared back up in my life suddenly, painfully. Messages like sores cropped up all over my Facebook page. She constantly harangued me with instant messages.

I still don't know why I showed her my cock on webcam. I do know why I showed it to all her friends. They were clean as far as I could tell and much better looking.

Something about my wanton immorality triggered a synapse in the reptilian recesses of her infected brain and her friendliness shifted into obsession. That was three days after initial Facebook contact. She began emailing pictures of all the places I had referenced in my short stories. I was ecstatic. Here was somebody who had actually taken the time to read what I had written. Perhaps, I reasoned, I could use this influence to get her to help me fuck her friends.

She came off highly resistant when I broached the subject again for the thousandth time on the phone.

“They don't want to fuck you,” she huffed.

“How do you mean? All of them?” I asked. “I'm the Polish Hammer. Of course, they want to fuck me. I'm the first Caucasian ever to master the Screaming Monkey kama sutra technique.”

“I'm available.”

“That's nice, but I've yet to include the Reclining Rhinoceros in my repetoire of sexual tricks.”

“That's not what you claim in your story 'Cellulite Delight'.”

“Fiction, baby! I never seduced an 800 lb Samoan woman. I'm not saying I can't. But it just didn't happen. I made it up.”

“Well, you can fuck me twice and call me Irish. That'd make a good story.”

“No, I can't. Hell no, I can't. I'll only ever be the Bib Fortuna to your Jabba the Hutt.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Star Wars...”

“Yeah, I know Star Wars. You saying I'm Jabba the Hutt? That I'm a fat ass?”

“Not at all. I”m merely saying our relationship is similar in a nonsexual mutually beneficial sort of way.”

“We're not gonna have sex?”

“Bib Fortuna and Jabba the Hutt never had sex.”

“I bet Bib Fortuna never showed Jabba his dick.”

“C'mon, Tara! You know I only go after married women. I've got six girlfriends right now. All married to fools.”

“You call me Jabba the Hutt, try to hook up with my friends none of whom are married, you'll probably write about me in your fan fiction to yourself... Does this sound right to you, Mr. Bib fucking Fortuna?”

“I guess so. Yeah.”

“I”m going to ruin you, asshole.”

I hadn't heard an asshole addressed in such a fashion since prison. And like that time, I kept quiet and pretended it wasn't happening.

I sat there, brooding over the Jabba the Hutt phone call of a week ago. So this is the game she was playing. Well, I could take it. My ruination in the small press began fifteen years ago the first time I submitted. The only way I could possibly redeem myself was to quit writing all together and take up chess. Yet every time I attempt to master the Sicilian Defense, a story idea falls in my lap.

Completely fictional, of course.