It’s Monday and I’ve decided today my favorite flavor is white trash. I may not remember tomorrow so I’m writing it down today. Other times it’s been black street punks and sometimes blond teenage boys (eighteen and over, yeah-right) ... much earlier it was gray fatherly men with shameful pink secrets or tanned pin-up guys with black tank top pecs or long distance runners for a short time, and for a month it was UPS drivers, uh, forget that.
As of today (I began thinking about it last night) I’m in love with white men, about thirty to thirty five, with red-neck backgrounds and empty pocket tomorrows. Cross country truckers are fine by me, or family farm and incest bred plowboys or transient Harley bike loners eating methanol dreams, even skinhead prison white meat would be truly okay... with crude tattoos of religious motif and a theology learned in spray paint brown lunch bags.. University class rings and the suburban inane are NOT okay. Not today. Too vacant, too certain and too fucking scared of stressing the rules. They don’t know how to give what they ain’t ever had. They buy recorded soul and play it for friends they want to impress. Give me the guy who’s already broken so many rules he can’t remember where the line was and no longer cares. Give me the beer soaked, coffee infused, all nite diner denizen, the frayed Wrangler jeans and dirt dull cowboy boots with a defensive brass chain that links his prison made billfold to his hand carved leather belt ( his statement on Trust) and the watery blue eyes under hay colored lashes, the gnawed down, worried fingernails and high arched feet that ache every night.. Make him tall and lean, knobby knees are okay. No Gold’s gym body builder, just the resigned sloping shoulders, long neck and fat Adam’s apple and cynical chin and heavy brows, thin sideburns and smooth chest and too long for fashion hair that blows languid in the wind, an heirloom of spent Viking blood. Give me soiled conscience regret … give me tough/tender and anti-ambitious... give me mute stoic silence and weary resigned post-pot-dreamers, the deep Dixie depressed … I’ll do the rest. I want a guy who was fondled by his uncle before he grew hair (but he never squealed), one who was beaten with a belt by his alcoholic dad (but he forgave him) and his momma ran off with a Buick salesman, broke his adolescent heart for the first time. Maybe he was married once or twice or more, maybe he has a few kids but can‘t remember their names, or maybe he’s never been on a real date in his life because women don’t like his style of Southern Gothic sad. Maybe he’s a half assed mechanic and drag racing fan or maybe he nurtures the Zen of a squirrel gun and fishing rod, loves dogs or maybe he lives for live wrestling on TV Monday nights and a case of Milwaukee’s best cheap cheer. Outdoorsman or smoky eyed card dealer, just as long as his joints swell in rainy weather and his lust hits his navel when it rises up and his butt is as flat as the plains of Texas … narrow hips, skinny legs, lanky walk and a hard ribbed chest hardly big enough to contain a hopeless heart … and little flat nipples that shine in the sun like tarnished copper wishes and low hanging courage that shrinks up to walnuts when the wind blows cool and a freight train echoes through fog in yearning and plaintive invocation, below a tight skinned, close cut rosy circumcision … a frail dusty bush so sparse it looks transparent and bone white skin under his arms where the smell rolls out like locker room steam or a June time, skinny dipping river bank of wet red clay. He’ll have a deep hardass tan that stops fast at his collar with long creases around his once a month grin and a neck that never looks clean under wisps of baby fine hairs that lay in little swirling curls on the August baked skin of his nape... and ropy arms, long fingers and big knuckles he cracks a lot, and thick wrists with a K-Mart Timex watch on a sweat brown band... Dried apricot ears that stick out like a taxi with both doors wide open and backbones that remind you of the stubs of lost wings on his naked ivory back and a sentimental creamy center inside his hard to crack crust ... and a kindness that peeps out slow and halting, and a generous touch, a vast cosmic sigh, a breath that rasps with stale acrid smoke and a voice that sounds like red rye whisky strained through pulpmill sawdust … the sound of dry music and the desiccated poetry of lost history. I’ll buy him a new creamy white Stetson and ostrich skin Acmes with riding heels and Mexican silver toes and a state fair blue and black plaid western shirt with mother of pearl snaps and a rodeo grade, silver platter tin buckle he can pawn when he’s broke and the latest Clint Black CD to play in his truck when he drives off to Mobile or Nashville or Memphis where he’s got a job lined up laying cement block at fifty cents a piece and he’s got a bitter blond woman waiting, too. Just give me one timeless autumn weekend with him and I’ll never forget but he wont remember next day. I’ve had me a few and there ain’t never enough to fill me up. There’s not another kind of man to make me know I’m in the presence of maleness that transcends posturing and heroics without even trying … not another type of man will give me so much so tenderly and with such honeyed grace. They don’t even know what they’re giving away, and they still think it’s necessary to say, “Thanks” for the clothes and the folding green money. You can’t buy for-real, that’s the trouble, not for five hundred bucks in a slick cruising bar... but these lonely pale riders of long black top highways, survivors of revival, blind crusaders with no clue, they’ll rent you some skin and give you their hearts on short loan. It don’t last much past the glow of a Sunday sunrise, I know it if they don’t … but for a few minutes in bed in the dead of the night they’ll hold you real close and sigh prayers on your pillow and they’ll call you the best friend they ever had in their life... and just for a few sacred minutes it’s true and I don’t ask for no more redemption than the genuine touch of a man ... nowhere between here and big blue.
..........jackertoo@aol.com........
Adventurous Marine ... don bellew My cousin, James, he was a rounder. He was always chasing after some married woman or getting picked up for drunk and disorderly, some kind of trouble. He was a few years older than me and we never were close or nothing, just politely acknowledged our family connection and not that out in public. I guess I was an embarrassment to him, me being the butt of so
Donnie D Bellew Charles got us another beer from the refrigerator. The light fixture over the table was one of those kinds that hang from a retractable cable. He pulled it low and threw most of the kitchen in darkness. When he sat down the light was harsh on his hands, showing up the ridged tendons and blue veins, the thin fingers and heavy knuckles. He tilted his chair back and rested his
As sailors sleep Bunk beds make strange sailboats yet I float and scut before the draft of your breath. As you lie sleeping, I hover above. Your watcher, your guardian spirit pinned in your sky. You sleep as if my weight were nothing, air about you granted worship. Fine striped blue ticking and tiny downy barbs are my cheek's lover not the tendoned tan hands I watch in repose,
by Donnie D Bellew Something about Rayburn just seemed soft; he wasn’t sissy by any means, but he had that quality of easing past objections and ignoring jibes, you know? Like he didn’t really need disagreements--they made him nervous. He smiled a lot. He was easy company, anyway, and I usually paired off with him when the boss handed out job orders. If you got to work with a man all day then
One thing I liked about Ralph, he never wore any underwear. His personality sure wasn’t star quality, he was no conversationalist at all but the sight of his heavy meat swinging loose inside thin blue cotton work pants kept me working near him day after day. He was one of those guys who seem completely comfortable with the world, you know? Never complained, never grumbled, just went about his
David was half way through his steak dinner, thinking it was likely the best food he’d had in a month, when he noticed the two cowboys at the next table. He was so entranced with the tender and savory meal he’d not even noticed them come in. They were not much older than him but they had the look of experienced wranglers. Kind of similar, both slim and browned from the sun, both faces deeply
What? Twenty bucks?… just to see my dick? You shitting me?” “Here it is. I got it right here.” He watched the bill wave slowly. “Nawh, man. I can’t do it. Let me cut your grass or something. I gotta get some money, I owe this guy and he‘s pressing me, you know?” “Look at the yard. I cut the grass yesterday, Fred.” “Ain’t you got nothing else I can do?” I just grinned. “Yeah, I
donnie d bellew First day on the job and Kitt knew he wasn’t going to make it. When he signed up for the apprentice program he was only thinking about the money. Brick layers made more money than god! What he didn’t think about was the macho bullshit he’d have to put up with. Sure, he knew construction workers were gonna be homophobic and rude. He just didn’t realize how intimidating it
Lonnie knew Marvin was gay the first time he went into the yard next door to talk. He told the guy right off he was straight. They understood the lay-out. Lonnie must have known Marvin would eventually try something and Marvin had to know Lonnie would protest, right? Lonnie liked going over there. Marvin had a big screen and cable, the computer with internet access, the well stocked
Marvin came out of the hot shower even more depressed than before. He put on his flannel robe and decided to send Lonnie home. He just wanted to sleep off the headache. “Hey, I can’t take the noise, man. Cut it off, okay? I got to lie back down, my head is splitting!” Lonnie didn’t turn it off but he hit the mute. “Dallas just got a first down!” He announced. “I made you some coffee, it’s
Model 4 ... donnie d bellew Jimmy is a fireman in Walker County, the next county west from Birmingham. Born and raised in a small town, did two years at a state junior college. History major and a Civil War buff. He’s twenty eight, married seven years, two kids. He’s six foot, one, a hundred and eighty three pounds of lean, lanky country boy. He told me on the phone he didn’t have a long
At first Robert was reluctant to work for me. He always had another job when I called. I kept trying to hire him for a couple of reasons. First, he was the only man in our neighborhood that did lawn work on a full time basis, and you couldn’t depend on the high school boys to do a good job or to show up when they promised. But the main reason I wanted him doing my yard was because he looked so
I shaved, dressed and put five twenties in an envelope. I drove to his house and pulled in behind his truck. His mother was a tiny woman, with a very put upon expression, a whiner. “He’s asleep! He’s out all night runnin' around with that rough crowd. I can’t do nothin’with him! You need him to work?” “No mam, that’s okay. Just give him this. I didn’t have the money for him the last couple of
counted coup It's a Motel 6 morning in Bullnose Montana. Don't know what today is but the rodeo's over, the Greyhound has gone. I got two twenty dollars still stuffed in my sock from a contracting job that's all done. Don't know if my sore butt was prize for my bull ride or a gift from the plowboy still asleep in my bed. And there's just enough whiskey waiting there in the
I could never figure out why my sister married that idiot, Clark; nobody else could, either. She was a lot like me, quiet and shy in social situations. Clark was all-star linebacker. Opposites attract, right? He was the swaggering macho jock and she was the sweet, lady-like girl all the cheerleaders laughed about. But he wanted to marry her and she did it--against my advice, of course. Jenny
“See that boat up in the slew? Ain’t that Toby Martin?” Bobby Joe leaned out over the rail of the bridge, pointed. “Yeah, that’s him, cum sucking little faggot!” Earl spit a wad of brown juice into the river below. “Let’s go fuck with him … you can bet he’s got a cooler full of beer. He always does.” Bobby nudged Earl with an elbow. “Shit. I can’t stand that sissy! He don’t like me,
My all time favorite reluctant lover was Charlie. He was a macho type but not too harsh; just butch enough to get my attention and cute enough to hold it. He was a body and fender man at an auto shop on my mail route. He was temporarily staying at his dad’s house just a couple of blocks from the garage. He was thirty five when we met, an ex-army special forces, parachute jumper, lean and mean
I followed him to the kitchen. He set the bottle on the counter with a loud rattle, almost empty, hand not quite steady. “Get the beer … I’m gonna … uh,” he unsnapped his jeans and shoved them down, “gonna show youse da devil…” He turned half away, pushed his jockeys down off one side of his ass. “See?” he looked over his shoulder, awkward and silly. “Where?” I brought the beers over beside
I’m afraid this ain’t much of a story. It happened too fast, too sudden to develop a long story. I was staying up late one night, with my Uncle Matt. We’d watched the late movie and it was after midnight, the rest of the house was real quiet, everybody asleep. When he hit the remote, shut down the TV, the room went dark, no lamp on … Uncle Matt just kept sitting there. Hey, I was in no
Some Like It Cool ... donnie d bellew It’s Monday and I’ve decided today my favorite flavor is white trash. I may not remember tomorrow so I’m writing it down today. Other times it’s been black street punks and sometimes blond teenage boys (eighteen and over, yeah-right) ... much earlier it was gray fatherly men with shameful pink secrets or tanned pin-up guys with black tank top pecs
“Hi, Craig. How’s it hanging?” “I’m cool.” He shrugged, shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned back on the gate to watch me wash the truck. I went on with my chore. Craig wasn’t the kind of guy to expect me to stop for him. He lived down the street and dropped by most anytime of day. We weren’t even good friends, just casual neighbors with nobody else around to talk to, hang out with.
I think the year was twenty-five, I know the month was June with summer quickly burning off the downy spring. Dates grow encrusted and obscure but I hold clear a vision of saturated days, long and fever hot. I was at an interim of life, a milestone mark I wouldn’t soon erase. I’d never been away from home, the fall and college cast a looming shade. I clenched to this, my last toy summer, with the
When I pulled up to the next spot, Ryan was standing by his upright post and taking a leak with his back turned towards me. I let the truck roll forward, squeaked to a halt just past him. When I got out, in front, he didn’t turn away. “Did you see the storm coming?” I pointed back down the road and he turned his head in that direction. “Aye, been watching ‘em. They moving slow.”
We had a small yard but the temperature was in the high nineties and the humidity was thick enough to float a steel ball six feet off the ground so Warren was sweating like Niagara Falls. He made the last pass and pushed the mower up by the steps, peeled off his tee shirt and climbed up on the deck with a massive sigh. “You should have let me help. I told you it was too hot …” He waved his
By late Saturday afternoon I was completely burnt out in Rich’s household accessories. Sometimes shopping just isn’t enough? I also picked up a couple of phone numbers, a clerk and a guy in the parking lot who looked really butch but friendly? So I called it a good day and went home. Warren was asleep on the couch while Wild Kingdom featured the life cycle of a green moth, fascinating stuff.
donnie d bellew ........ Tommy stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel just as he heard the front door open and quickly slam shut. “John? That you?” He called. “Well, yeah. Who else would it be, man?” His room mate came into the hall and stripped his tee shirt over his head. “It’s that kid next door, Kevin? He’s been over here twice already since I got home. He wants you to
With three trunks and several cardboard boxes full of papers, books and junk all smelling of whisky, mildew and pipe tobacco, it’s no surprise that it took me a month to discover the album. Uncle Harold had carefully packed up everything Granddad kept in his room and shipped it to me. I was his sole heir. Uncle Harold wasn’t really my uncle, just a long time resident in Granddad’s house.
I noticed him down at the end of the bar. He glanced up at me but didn’t smile so I didn’t try to talk to him right away. Still, we were both sailors, the only uniforms left in the place. Wouldn’t seem too odd if I spoke to him, would it? It was getting late and I guessed Tod wasn’t coming back. Several patrons seemed to leave at the same time and I looked around, wondered what time the place
I don’t generally announce my sexual tastes to just anybody I meet. I try and keep my private life private. Macall was just inquisitive as hell, though. He started in as soon as we began working together and wouldn’t quit. I kept avoiding his leading questions about who I dated and why I wasn’t married, etc. I actually told him it was none of his business, but that didn’t seem to make much of an
The Grand Obsession ... don bellew It goes like this: He looks okay, not too damn defensive or nervous. He keeps watching your eyes, trying to tell if he reads you right. He’s not sure. You look right at his crotch, again, smile. Now he’s certain and he either grins or he gets the fuck away from you fast as he can. If he takes off then you keep looking, right? So he grins or he laughs … he’s a
When two guys from the Tiger Club sat down beside him in the library, Darren immediately began gathering up his books and notes. Common instinct for self preservation told him these guys had no good intensions towards him or anybody else. The Tiger Club was the top of campus hierarchy and nerds were down in the nether regions, dregs of the college social order. Darren very carefully avoided
When the poker game broke up Wallace was still sitting there, leaned over his fists. I thought he was about to cry or something. "He's wrecked, drunk as a skunk!" Somebody muttered. "That damn scotch, he was okay with the beer. Never should have started with the scotch ..." "Don't let him try and drive home, Donnie ... make him sleep it off." He roused up about the time everybody
Weak in the knees ........... don bellew It had been cloudy all day, a dull silver sky that was growing dark in late afternoon. July it usually stayed light until nine but here it was only six-thirty and I was yawning. Too quiet, I guess. Quiet was the very reason I’d moved out to the country when I retired. I wanted to get out of the city and away from the sight of constant people.
I was staying late one evening at the office, just hanging around to use our great system to surf the net. My home PC is okay, just slow. The boss is cool. He knows what I’m up to. I don’t get paid by the hour so he doesn’t care how long I stay. He actually benefits because I answer the phones and take messages until I leave, maybe eight o’clock on a good net night. When the crew of janitors
Writer’s Camp ... by Donnie D Bellew He wasn’t spectacular. Not even pretty, just an average face with an interesting ... uh, aura? persona? How do you label it? He was on the large size, not his hips but his long bones. He’d need a double x large sweater just to cover his wrists. Belt too high, shirt too plain for him to be gay. He didn’t have the look, either. Maybe that’s what drew my
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