Crab Grass

I’ve had the symptoms for a while now. I guess it was more denial (and my own personal shame) that kept me from seeing a doctor sooner. But I finally went and although the news was bad, getting a diagnosis feels as though a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

I don’t know where I got it. If I’d been more careful perhaps none of this would have happened. But what good is speculation now anyways? I move on from here. Acceptance is a major phase when dealing with any illness and I’ve finally accepted mine.

Apparently my entire stomach is infested with body lice. For two entire weeks I’ve been itching my furry belly raw, reassuring myself eventually my weird rash will go away.

For two weeks I’ve scratched my stomach through my work shirts, my t-shirts, my bed linens, in the shower, at the movies, out having a drink, and while riding the subway. The whole time I was content in my denial that the little white flakes caught in my fingernails were dead skin cells and not vermin. Little white skin cells with legs and little beady eyes.

Lousy (lou' ze) adj. 1. Infested with lice.

“Body lice?” Dr. Levine, my nebbish general practitioner, asked me if I had any exposure to anyone with body lice. I quietly answered “No. Not that I’m aware of.”

He then asked if I had any contact with children. I loudly cringed “No! Oh God, absolutely not!”

Nonetheless, he confirmed that I had body lice. He was taken aback (or rather he took a step back) when I suggested that perhaps they weren’t body lice, but instead goose mites that had set up a new world colony on my forested belly, “Because, you see, I play rugby and the field we play on is usually covered in goose feces and discarded feathers from where the geese lay during the day. And I bet the geese had parasitic mites that could have jumped onto me and thus my problem.”

Dr. Levine, without the need for my erudite second opinion, restated “Gayest Neil you have body lice, that’ll be five hundred dollars.”

Following my checkup, during my weekly trim, Enrique, my Latino stylist, tossed in his two pesos.

“Maybe jew have dee crabs, non?” He had just finished trimming my goatee down to a hip, East village moustache. I scratched my belly through the vinyl blouse and replied, “Egads Enrique. Why do you say that?”

“Ah meen come on Meester Gayest Neil. With a moustache so sleazy you haf to haf zee crabs!” He was right. Little giggling Enrique had cut me one hell of a sleazy moustache, but the crabs were so 1997.

I was much younger and living in Washington D.C. Having never experienced our nation’s capital I was determined to go to a gay sex club, fuck the Smithsonian and fuck me! So I found a tawdry gay rag and flipping through the back came across an ad listing an “All Male Party” located not too far from where I was living. Scandal!

I went to the club, if you can call it that. It was someone’s filthy home with battered wood encased televisions in each of the rooms showing amateur porn while a variety of men (with sleazy moustaches) sat around jerking off. One moustache tried to fondle me, but I wouldn’t let it near me. Instead I demurely sat on a stained sofa and proceeded to catch a sleazy case of crabs while masturbating, alone.

If only my present vermin were goose mites creating a suburban sprawl on my stomach, then I’d have one hell of a story. Instead I’m stuck with run of the mill body lice with no porno sofa or diseased goose to show for it. Oh, and I have a nasty head cold.

Finally, at the drug store I emptied my blue basket and Patrice, my salesgirl, caught her breath as she scanned body lice ointment and an economy jug of NyQuil. She glanced at my sleazy moustache as I failed to discretely scratch myself. I caught her smirk as she slid my change to me.

Feeling judged, I resorted to what I do best. I lied. “These are for my dear children thank-you-very-much-madam!” Pouting, my moustache, my head cold, my body lice and me stormed away into the brisk October evening; lousy salesgirl.

Locks of Love

Enrique, my stylist, has a severe cocaine problem. I know because he constantly tweaks and rubs his nose. Also, he disappears to the bathroom every five seconds, leaving me there exposed in his torture chair with (God-forbid) my mid-coif melon exposed to the world.

I honestly do not know why I spend thousands of dollars on hair styling, scalp massage, eyebrow waxing, coloring and organic avocuava facials only so this little Puerto Rican princess can snort my cash up his goddamned nose!

You’re asking what’s avocuava, aren’t you? Well, one afternoon, little Enrique comes flitting back to the chair as chatty as a chihuahua, “Oh Meester Gayest Neil. In my island country of Puerto Rico my grand mami-Gorda teach me a wahnderful facial scrup made from exotic guava and wahnderful avocado. You like to try, si?”

“Stop snorting and start scrubbing!” I declared. That little Mexican mixed an amazing facial scrub. What? Puerto Rico? Oh, for fuck’s sake. Brown is Black is White is Red. Puerto Rico? Mexico? Canada? Holland? China? We’re all global citizens. We’re the world’s children. Back to my story, I asked Enrique what he calls his facial scrub and he replied, “This is my Mami Gorda’s Guava and Avocado Facial Scrub.”

I CAN’T FIT A CHIMICHANGA IN MY MOUTH... MUCH LESS THAT!

“You’ll never sell it with a name that long, my dear. You need something catchy. You need something fresh. Let’s see. I GOT IT! Avocuava. Call it Avocuava Facial Scrub.”

“But Meester Gayest Neil? What of me grand-Mami Gorda?”

“You love her but drop her, Enrique. Your scrub needs something nouveau, something the hipsters will snag right up. And slap ‘organic’ on that name! Organic sells.”

And right there, Enrique’s Organic Avocuava Facial Scrub was born. Bless little Enrique’s heart. The little fucker cannot say the word avocuava, but he sells the shit out of it.

Enough discussion of Enrique’s business acumen. This morning he still hadn’t returned from the bathroom.

“Enrique!” I screamed once, twice, three times and finally he comes spinning into the room. And he’s been crying.

“Oh Meester Gayest Neil. I do not know English to say theese.” He begins crying again. “But my dear seester and my in-law brother and my bambino nephew Enrique Junior were in a cahr crash and have died!!” At this point Enrique collapsed into a heap on the floor.

I didn’t know what to do. My haircut wasn’t finished. Should I get up? Should I say something? Well, he continued to wail on the floor and after what must have been ten minutes of this awkwardness, I finally left the chair, took the plastic sheet off and moved towards poor, sobbing Enrique.

His face was contorted in an expression of grief, anger and bewilderment. I carefully reached out to him. His shaking hand stretched towards mine.

“Enrique, you didn’t finish my hair, but I’ll pay you anyways. And here’s an extra something.” I slipped him cash for my haircut and stood. He dropped the money and convulsed, wailing louder than before.

“Now don’t you get used to those big tips!” I joked, but he only cried more profusely. I quietly showed myself out and, a newspaper over my head, made my way to the nearest Great Clips where a barbarian maiden with the nametag “Jackie” mangled my head and nearly cut my ear off. The entire time, I couldn’t get Enrique out of my mind.

On the walk home, I held my head high. I imagined Enrique’s pain. I related on some level as my shorn locks were much like Enrique’s dead family. I too had experienced loss. What if his sister had spent a little more time pounding homemade tortillas or little Enrique Junior had spent a little more time writing back to his Christian Children’s Fund sponsor here in America? Fate too crippled my stylist, which in turn sent me to Great Clips. Who knows what happened to “Jackie”.

It’s the butterfly effect. Ah…maybe butterflect? Fectutter?

Regardless, Enrique Santiago Martinez is in my thoughts tonight. This afternoon, when I returned to my 2800-square foot loft in Chelsea, I opened the salon window. It was magic hour; the golden sunlight was shining in a beautiful shaft cutting through a cloud.

I drew my hand back through my shorn scalp, brought it in front of me and blew towards the sunshine. A shimmering cloud of miniscule shaved hairs sparkled like pixies, floated and danced to the street below. I squinted into the light. I saw Enrique’s family.

And they were safe.