A Common Pornography: A Memoir (11 page)

I didn’t have
a job for a couple of months and I was starting to run out of money. I had a pretty large collection of records (in milk crates) and cassettes (in fruit boxes) and I felt a voracious need to buy music. A friend gave me a tip on a job where all you had to do was call people on the phone. I didn’t realize at the time how painfully monotonous it was going to be.

I was cold-calling people from a photocopied list, trying to sell them some kind of water softener system. I wasn’t even sure what it did but I was assured that it made taking a shower feel like wet heaven.

A couple of weeks into the job, I called in to take a night off. Instead of just faking a sickness, I told them that my dad had a stroke. They called my house the next day and found out it wasn’t true.

My new friend
Terry and I were goofing around one day and I showed him some poetry that I’d been writing. But I never called it poetry back then. They were simply called “pieces.” I had seen Henry Rollins do some of his spoken word on a TV show called
IRS Records’ The Cutting Edge
. He read “Family Man” and I thought it was the most hilariously uncomfortable thing ever. That was the sort of prototype I was working with. Terry liked these pieces of mine and so we decided we would turn them into songs and record them.

Our first “album” of punk rock songs was recorded on a cassette player in his bedroom and bathroom. Just Terry and me. We decided to call ourselves Neon Vomit. He was good at creating some heavy riffs based on my smallest suggestions (usually just me saying, Can you do something like this—and then imitating a guitar part with my clenched mouth), and then I would yell the lyrics in my best Rollins imitation. There were no drums, but sometimes we would bang on the toilet seat for percussion. Among the first songs we recorded was a sarcastic putdown of Doug, one of the more snooty guys in our little circle of community college New Wavers. It was called “Gee, Doug, You’re So Funny” (chorus: “Gee, Doug, you’re so funny / You make me want to vomit!”). Terry and I made a few tapes and passed them around the campus of Columbia Basin College and it was soon the center of a rivalry as heated as West Coast versus East Coast hip-hop.

In a classic double-cross moment, Doug somehow talked Terry into playing guitar for him on a song that he wrote called “Kevin, You’re Such a Fag.” I admit that it was a pretty catchy song, especially with the cool drum machine they must have borrowed from someone.

Even though it was fun to record the Neon Vomit songs, I still wanted to sing (not just yell) in a band that would actually play shows. My friend Len played keyboards and wanted to form a more traditional New Wave band—with expensive haircuts, high-fashion clothes, poetic lyrics, and a sexy name.

I was writing more and more songs as Len tried to find a guitarist and a drummer. My lyrics started to sound a little less like Henry Rollins and more like a Prince protégé. It was an embarrassing mix of those two influences, with some Cure and Scritti Politti blended in. A classic case of some journals I should have burned a long time ago. Thankfully, nothing ever came of it.

I met Daphne
at the Palace. She lived in Hermiston, so instead of driving back that night, she and a friend stayed at a cheap roadside motel. I went to the hotel too, and Daphne and I had sex on the floor while her friend slept in the bed. I liked her immediately because she also liked Prince and she was easy, like me. Easy and eager.

We saw each other off and on for a few months, whenever she came to town for the weekend dances or to shop at the mall. An alternating gaggle of other kids from Hermiston also would come up with her. They always stood out a little because their sense of style was actually more small-town than the Tri-Cities. They tried a little harder to seem different. But under their Goth makeup and torn punk jackets, they were hicks like us.

Daphne and I would have sex anywhere, anytime. She wanted to do it in a cemetery once, so we drove to one and did it in the back of her station wagon.

She had a problem with acne, as did I, and sometimes when we made out, our mouths would inadvertently slurp up all the Neutrogena acne wash and cover-up cream. I thought that her skin problems were probably due to stress. I’m sure it was a burden to always be so horny and to have a dad who was a minister.

One of the last times we had sex was in the middle of my high school football field. We brought a sleeping bag out to the fifty-yard line and squeezed inside. We called it the Human Burrito.

David was one
of the other Hermiston kids. He was a stocky grocery store worker, always trying to talk me into starting a New Wave band with him.

Almost every weekend, David and Daphne and whoever else was around would sleep on Marco Torrez’s floor. Marco was this guy all my other friends made fun of. He was a tall, black-clad Mexican who wore lipstick and women’s hats.

One night, David and Daphne met me at Shari’s, one of those twenty-four-hour restaurants that we often found ourselves in since we were too young to go to bars. David kept going on about how he was learning guitar and buying a drum machine. “We could be like the Jesus and Mary Chain,” he said. “There’re only two guys in that band.” David seemed to think I was going to be the singer in his band. “We have to think of a good name and we have to take press photos,” he said as he sipped from the oversize milkshake in front of him. I looked at Daphne to try and gauge her position on the matter.

“You should take naked photos,” she said. “That would get some attention and create controversy. I could use my uncle’s camera. He lives up here.”

“That’s awesome,” said David.

I wasn’t sure what to say. I wasn’t thrilled by the idea of posing nude for photos but I liked taking my clothes off in front of Daphne.

The following Friday, we met at Marco’s before the dance. I’d been to his place only once before. It was a small one-bedroom apartment with big posters of the Cure and Bauhaus looming over the front room. There were black curtains and black candles and a black fake leather couch. David sat in a director’s chair, writing band name ideas in a notebook. He told me Daphne was on her way and that her uncle was coming over to help her set up the camera. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Her uncle is cool. I met him once. I think he used to be a model.”

There was a little kitchen in the apartment and I went in there to say hi to Marco. I was hoping nobody else would be there to watch this. Marco was wearing a satin bathrobe and I asked him if he was going out later. He shrugged and took a pizza out of the oven. “I guess we’ll see what everyone feels like doing,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“We’re all going to do it,” he said. “It’s going to be cool.”

One of Marco’s Goth friends came out of the bathroom, a girl named Alexis. I didn’t know her very well. She was sort of new in town and over twenty-one. She bought all the alcohol. She was tall and skinny and wore clothes that barely stayed on. She made up her face to look like a china doll. In fact, her whole body looked like it was powdered white. She could glow in the dark. She was probably the first person I knew who wore such sexy clothes. Garter belts. Lace. She probably had to go to Seattle to buy such things. I said hi to her and wondered if she was going to get naked.

Daphne came in with her uncle then, carrying a tripod and an awkward camera. Her uncle was a chubby forty-year-old with a fringed jacket and feathered hair. “Hi everyone,” he said, a little too jovially. “This is going to be fun.” He helped Daphne set up the tripod in front of the couch. “So, should we do the band photos first or just start with everyone?” asked the uncle. No one said anything.

Daphne turned and snapped a photo of my blank expression. “We have lots of film,” she said. “Let’s just do some candid shots first. See what develops. Get it? See what develops?” She turned and took a photo of her uncle.

“Oh, God,” he said. “Whatever you do, don’t let your dad see me in these photos. He’d damn me to hell—again!” Everyone laughed a little about that. We all started drinking then. I put more vodka in my Big Gulp cup, mixing it with the last of my Coke. I liked the burn in my throat. The sensation of almost throwing up with each swallow. Five or six swallows later, I was over that hump. I became loose and daring.

“Shirts off,” yelled Marco. He had Depeche Mode on and I was watching Alexis dancing out of the corner of my eye. Five shirts were thrown into the corner.

We looked at the uncle with his striped polo shirt still on. “I’m only here to document,” he said. Then he asked Daphne if there was supposed to be someone else there. “I thought you knew an Asian boy,” he said. He seemed a little disappointed when Daphne told him that her Asian friend wasn’t coming.

Alexis grabbed my arm and led me to the couch. She had on a black see-through bra and I saw her small nipples sticking out a little. “Let’s see how tough you are,” she said. She had me lie down with my shoulders on the armrest of the couch. She grabbed a burning candle and dripped wax on my chest. It stung just lightly before drying in clumps. I peeled the pieces off my smooth chest and looked at them closely. She tried to make designs on me. A question mark. The anarchy
A
. There wasn’t quite enough wax melted to do them in one try. She straddled me and leaned over with the candle. One of her bra straps was down and I was hoping that she’d move close enough for me to brush my mouth against her breasts but the candle went out and she leaned back, laughing. I remember some things vividly: her bra slipping down a little more as she laughed, the quiver of her body, the anxious erection in my pants.

Daphne lit some more candles and was starting to take photos. She wore a white bra and her breasts looked heavy in it. I noticed a few acne scars on her back. I wanted to look at them closely but I didn’t want everyone else to think I was weird. Marco sat by me on the couch and Alexis grabbed another candle and moved over to him. “Let’s see if you can take the pain,” she said to him. Marco was more lighthearted about the whole thing. He laughed and squirmed and pretended like it was really hurting. I felt sort of foolish and I got up to grab my drink.

David was standing behind Daphne as she paced around and aimed the camera in odd angles toward the couch. He seemed a little stoned or nervous. I got the feeling that he wanted to see Alexis naked too. He fingered the belt loops on his pants and breathed awkwardly as he drank three cans of beer in quick succession. Daphne’s uncle eventually tried to sneak out of the apartment, growing disinterested. “Where you going?” Daphne called out. He said he’d see her in the morning, and left without saying good-bye to anyone else. “Oh well,” said Daphne. She set the camera down and unsnapped her bra. Alexis and Marco hooted their approval and she kept going. Her socks and pants were tossed sloppily in the corner. David nudged me and we followed her lead.

“Check this out,” Marco shouted over the music. He stood up, dropped his pants, and had his penis sticking out the fly of his boxers. The girls laughed. The mood seemed so much lighter after Daphne’s uncle left; it almost floated. I saw Marco’s penis and it was the first time I had seen someone else’s penis. It looked big around the head but the rest of it seemed splotchy and discolored. Daphne took some photos and Marco covered his face, suddenly shy. “I should get it hard first,” he said. Then he paused. “Right? We don’t want our dicks to look small.”

“Nothing looks worse than a dead dick,” David said. All of us burst out laughing.

“I’m not helping out in that department,” said Alexis. My anticipation was killed a little when she said that.

Daphne’s camera turned our way. “Okay, future rock stars,” she said. She stood on a chair and took shots of us from above. I put my arm around David and he felt tense. He pushed me away a little and said he had to go to the bathroom to check himself out in the mirror. “We’ll use only the best ones!” Daphne shouted after him. She gave me the camera and told me to take over. I wanted to snap a photo of her but she dashed away, following David into the bathroom, saying something about how she didn’t like pictures. I thought I heard David getting sick in the toilet.

On the couch, Alexis laughed as she tried to put her bra on Marco. But it wouldn’t fit and ended up looking like a weird sling or bandage. I took photos of that, trying to keep Marco’s penis out of the frame. Then I took some really close snapshots of Alexis’s lips, legs, and breasts. She was drinking a lot and posing with a bottle of cheap vodka that was almost empty. I started to wonder if she might throw up, but she reached behind the couch and grabbed a blanket. I put the camera down and joined them on the couch. I squeezed in between them and Alexis slowly closed her eyes as she turned her back to me. I tried to kiss her shoulders but she shrugged me off. I was starting to feel a little dizzy as well. I felt Marco pressing against my backside. I figured if I was going to make a move on Alexis, I wouldn’t be able to get rid of him, so I tried to block him from my mind. I felt his hands on my hips, slowly moving to my penis. All three of us were under the blanket. I wondered what was happening with David and Daphne. I heard the shower in the bathroom.

“She won’t let you,” I heard Marco whisper. It took me a second to figure out what he said and what it meant. The music had stopped playing but I could hear Janet Jackson being played from somewhere else. Marco’s head went under the blanket and I shifted a little. I could still feel Alexis, warm on one side, as I looked at the ceiling. I felt Marco put me in his mouth, but it hurt and I pushed him off. I turned back toward Alexis and he started to work me with his hand. I stared at Alexis’s neck and the spill of her hair on the couch as he touched me more. I moved my hand back and found Marco’s penis. I closed my eyes and flipped over. I heard Alexis breathing, slurry and asleep, on one side of me, and I heard Marco, breathing through his nose quickly, on the other side. We both came on the other’s hand. We didn’t say anything to each other. I heard the shower turn off in the bathroom. I felt frozen and unsure of what to do next. Marco used the blanket to wipe himself off and nodded for me to do the same. I heard Daphne and David exit the bathroom and slip into Marco’s bedroom. David looked pale and weak from vomiting. I pretended to fall asleep, hoping Alexis would wake up or flip over to face me. I thought maybe she wasn’t really asleep. I thought about the photos I took of her and then I realized that someone else would see them—the person developing the film. I felt a nervous sickness then.

I slipped off the couch and put my clothes back on. I noticed that it was past 2 a.m. by that time. I stepped outside and breathed in deeply. I thought about getting the film out of the camera and taking it. I tried to go back inside, but I was locked out. I pressed my ear to the door but couldn’t hear anything. In a way, it sounded like nothing had happened.