Notes from the Upper West Side. A novel by Dan Wrench. Chapter 6 Lord of All Tale So I have this issue with Parp, but he is a reason I got into therapy. I have to remind myself of that sometimes.
Jessica says I use Parp to avoid the main problem, which is... Okay. My major problem. The problem I talk about most with Jessica, when she can make me get past my own bullshit.
And the problem I started out with 25 years ago in college in Upstate New York is simple, yet profound. I need to be Lord of All Tale. My condition dictates that my friends think of me as the cuntlord. It's okay if my friends have the attentions of females, but only if they know I could have said attentions if I wanted them.
It also helps if their girlfriends are dumpy. You may think this is a trivial problem. It really isn't. It's a big damn deal.
Somewhere in my youth, the proposition was fused into my consciousness that if I am not the group cuntlord, then I am no one. All of my other drives and ambitions it turns out are in service of this need to be as Fritz Koch, my original college therapist said. Le du d'Rau, desine yu. Literally that means the right of the Lord to bald the wife of any tenant on his land.
I have no land and no tenants, so I make do with my friends. Don't ask me how I got this way. Some guys, you know, some guys have to be the funniest guy in the group, group clown. Some guys have to be group jock.
If they aren't, they become alienated from themselves, strangers in their own lives, desperate. That's the way it is with me and needing to be the Lord of all tail. If a guy I know gets tail that I couldn't have first, well, he can't. He's not allowed.
Don't judge. I'm in therapy. Fritz, Dr. Koch, never judged, out loud.
Who knew what he was writing on his pad though. When I first showed up in his office and told him my problem, a fraction of me thought he might say, but Paul, we all need to be Lord of all tail. It's a man thing. Tell you what, buy me a drink and I won't charge you for the visit.
It didn't seem so far fetched at the time. All men need to be the Lord of all tail. I would have bought it, and I would have felt a special unspoken camaraderie with my friends. Or maybe I would have killed them all.
Who knows? But Fritz never let me think it was a common problem. He was almost grave about my condition, and he was pretty grave when I suggested, jokingly, that a real therapist would lie to me about all men needing to be Lords of all tail. Do you think that describes the reality you live in?
Ask Fritz. Do you think people lie to you like that to make your life easier for you? Nah, I said. Let's try the opposite.
Do people go out of their way to make you feel uncomfortable? Funny you should ask. There's this kid in my class, Tony, I said. And what does Tony do that makes you feel bad about yourself?
Nothing, I said. I don't remember what I was going to say. I would tell you if I could remember what exactly made me think of Parp right then. All I remember now is that he was a mean little prick in those days.
A hanger on. George Vider's tote. Parp Twist to the Knife, one of the smarter chicks in plain analysis class, said, Vider puts the knife in and Parp Twist at. But I nearly digress.
What's important is that I figured out with the help of Fritz that I could deal with my need to be Lord of all tail. It was a huge relief because it was really starting to hang me up with my man friends. Just a few days before meeting Fritz had almost caused me to get punched in the face. See, in those days, I was regularly manging a couple of girls.
Not at the same time, but serially, like a regular guy who loves the one he's with. And they had some great tails on them. Great. Tails.
Then this one day I was just off campus at a place called Pizza Mita with Kurt Libby. The nicest little guy you'd ever want to meet. A little tubby blonde haired guy who, in spite of being a chunky little putts, got on the wrestling team in his high school in Ann Arbor and won a letter for it. Who knew you could let her in wrestling?
But he was also pretty shy back then and chicks kind of scared him, so unless a bait made the first move. And the second move, he was going to be beating off until graduation. Which, by the way, makes him the ideal friend if you're somebody who needs to be Lord of all tail. But just a few days before that, a few days before we met up at Pizza Mita, some bait grabbed him and said something like, I'm going to blow you now you pasty fuck.
And the next thing you know, he's in a closet at a party while somebody on her knees is unbuckling his pants in the dark. Now, Pizza Mita was this cavernous place with rows of heavy, wooden, varnished tables and wide booths, aisles of booths, and a jukebox. This is always big back then. When Kurt Libby was sitting across from me in the booth at Pizza Mita, I'm pretty sure it was the Bee Gees playing.
Kurt told me about the blowjob, the fantastic blowjob, this slow, slurping blowjob from Heaven that he got from this new love of his life. And his voice and his face are all, shit really happens Paul. Now here's the part that means I have to be in therapy. See, when Kurt told me he got swooped down on by a chick who just had to have his cock and that he spent the weekend with her regrowing, poundable bone, I didn't feel good for him.
Even though I was getting laid by babes with fantastic tails. I had no reason to feel slighted, but I did. I'm thinking, there was available ass at this party and Kurt Libby caught it because I couldn't be there, FUCK! And what really bugged me is that I got no sense from him, that he knew he'd only scored because I wasn't there.
The tail is my turf. I'm thinking, what is he, stupid? I'm funny hip Paul. He's butter ball Kurt Libby.
I resented the little shit. What did he mean, springing this on me while I was eating french fries and ketchup at Pizza Mita and the Bee Gees were playing on the jukebox? I had him pegged as a safe, conversant. If I wanted to hear someone go on and on about this weak piece of tail he scored I'd be hanging with...
Well, I wouldn't be hanging with Kurt Libby. He ambushed me. He looked at me funny. Something wrong, Paul.
What do you mean? I don't know, it's like, that's not okay if somebody likes me. Asshole? How presumptuous is that?
I don't get it, I said. What's that supposed to mean? Of course you should get a piece. You should get more than one.
The more the merrier. When my friend's score, it is a joy unsurpassed. He laughed. Sorry, he said.
I guess I'm just a little nervous because I'm with her now, and I'm kind of funny about how you guys are going to react. They're not a. I said, so you're still seeing this girl, you're not on to the next conquest? I laughed really hard right there.
But still, no indication that you knew how funny it was to imagine him moving on to another conquest. Oh no, he said. She's coming here to meet me. You can meet her, her name is Constance.
Connie? Constance. So, I get to meet this twat that thinks Kurt is a score. Oh look, here she comes.
I could see her shadow hovering over the varnish tabletop while Kurt Libby, the tubby ex-letterman turned and said, Hey Constance, with this stupid, are you my new mommy look on his face? Hey Paul, this is Constance. I could feel myself not looking up at the caster of the shadow. It was a palpable non-movement.
I could see a pink scarf with gold bangles in it getting thrown into the booth beside Kurt and hands moving to take off a coat. Then I looked. She was cute. She wore a sweater with tits in it and had red hair and a bun.
But not too tight, so some strands of hair flaked off the neck of her neck in that way that you just know they know makes you want to fuck them, but because it isn't tits or ass or cunt, they can say, What? What are you talking about? But they know. Hi, Paul.
She said she looked at me for a split second then turned right back to fat Kurt and dragged her sweater, tits and nape over next to him and kissed him like I wasn't even there. That pissed me off. She didn't see that I was alone. She didn't think that might mean I was available.
Look, I'm not saying she had to jump with me, but hey, eyes on the big boy. It was like she was going out of her way to make me feel undesirable. Nobody. A stranger in my own life.
Desperate. Or maybe she just thinks I'm out of her league. That's right. She's small time and she's trying to be realistic about what to expect.
Admirable in a way. I was just getting comfortable thinking she must know I'm out of her league, and for some reason I opened my mouth and this came out. I hear you just gave this tubby fuck his first blowjob ever. I kind of laughed.
I actually have a very high-pitched giggle. Or wait, I guess it was more of a weekend blowathon. I almost made a remark about how the basketball team must not have been in town, but something stopped me. I'd like to think it was what people call better judgment.
Better late than never, but not much better. Notes from the Upper West Side is a work of fiction. The people depicted in this work do not exist. Notes from the Upper West Side to copyright 2013 to 2014 by Dan Rench.