That Time I Trashed a Guy’s Place

freeing my revelatory inhibitions . . .

Due to undiagnosed bipolar, unleashed since I was a self-medicating pothead, I went off now and then during my unruly younger years.

One of my earliest spectacles was when I threw all Ross’s clothes into the street in front of my house. I’d been dating my coworker for six years, always on the verge of kicking his woefully non-sexual ass to the curb.

He and I never lived together, but we were over at each other’s places so much, a bunch of Ross’s stuff was parked at my house. All of it . . . thrown in the street.

At the time, I lived in a tiny hick town and there was no traffic on my street. One could stroll around and pick up clothing without any risk of being hit by a car. Ross drew out the task with dramatic martyrdom.

One of those poor-white-trash moments not surprising to spot in Podunk King City, Californ — I — A.

Later on, I had been dating Hubert damn near a decade. This time around, I was the one perplexing the guy by being woefully non-sexual.

Can’t remember details about an old lover, but I always remember how good or bad it was in the sack together.

Anyway, mismatched appetites create underlying friction, occasionally erupting in volcanic fashion. One time Hubert and I were trying to pull off our hoity-toity date night at Ridgemark Country Club in Hicksville Hollister.

I was barely a drinker and he was damn-near an alcoholic. You know the saying: if you’re asking, the person’s prolly an alkie. With no experience dabbling in the medium, I went from sober to psychotic after two tall Long Island Teas (a potent drink laced with multiple alcohols and liqueurs).

I have no idea what possessed me to throw the dregs of my drink across a nearby dance floor where glass shatters against gleaming marble in this high-class joint. I saw it in a movie once and, in my drunken stupor, thought it might amplify the ambiance of a rocky evening.

Just another of those poor-white-trash moves one might witness in Podunk Hollister, home of the Haybalers.

Which brings us to that time I trashed a guy’s place.

Bob the handyman, unbeknownst to me, was visiting and fiddling with a good many of the female fixtures found around a nineties commune where we all used to live. Bob’s job was to maintain the healing waters of Paraiso Hot Springs in yonder desolate hills.

Only a matter of time before Bob the handyman would get around to twisting a few knobs on a loose wench like me.

I had just moved in to Spreckles House, named after the sugar magnate with his big factory near Salinas, California. This was his hangout back in a different century. He’d take the stagecoach down for a weekend of mineral healing and debauchery. I could feel his essence in my rickety abode.

By my late thirties, I’d been living a sordid life banging married men and gorging on the pleasures of male harems for a shag-a-thon. I had no inkling toward commitment or fidelity about anything but hedonistic pleasure.

What pissed me off about Bob was — he did not tell me he was drilling half the ladies with any libido left, there at Paraiso where we all lived in bucolic bliss separated by pastoral patches of imagination.

Not that I expect a spreadsheet showing my lover’s love life, but geez! He’d been acting all romantic like he was courting me, when I was just another smashpad on his wilderness rounds.

Chatting at the hot pools with another woman he was servicing, she casually mentions something about me which I did not tell her.

When I was surprised she knew something so personal about me, she laughed at me for being so naïve. Not realizing Bob did regular rounds of the hillside cabins followed by a half-hour jaunt into Soledad to cajole and cram it into his ex-wife.

An impulsive move which turns out to be stupid: I call his ex-wife.

First time I ever spoke to the high-strung bitch. She yapped like a meth fiend. She pleaded for me and her to get together so we could be scorned besties. We could plan revenge on Bob during the hour-long drive up to Salinas to shop at some places she knew where we could steal merchandise without getting caught.

Bob was lowlife . . . unmistakably. But to think he would endure this motormouth for a boink?

Oh my gawd! I gasped after I finally had to hang up on her.

Fixated on the yellow roses Bob presented prior to his final drilling of me, I wondered if he bothered with such fakery for everyone else he was boffing.

Surely he couldn’t afford it. Roses were prolly stolen.

Maybe he steals from his ex who goes out stealing just for the thrill of it. Half the time he’s “borrowing” her sportscar, ditching his dented pickup truck for a weekend acting like a high-class lothario.

So, I grab his gawd-awful roses and march over to Bob’s cabin.

Nobody locks their doors, so I barge right in. Whereas I was renting a four-room abode, Bob lived in a smaller one-room cabin which came with his job. I’d never been in one of these cabins.

A massive featherbed filled the entire room. Having been ticked off by his carnal appetites just moments ago, over by the pools, now I was face-to-face with Bob’s gargantuan bed . . . which was no doubt a testimony to his boner’s gargantuan appetite.

His place was decked out nicer than mine. His cozy hideaway for hanky-panky.

Thinking of an older man I dated in high school. Hank told of an ex who made him a luscious quilt, but then cut it into pieces in a fit of rage. My friend was pondering how anyone could do that.

A lovely handmade quilt graced Bob’s towering featherbed. All puffy, I could tell it was down. It would’ve made a satisfying spectacle had I cut it open and spread some feathers around. But like my friend Hank, I couldn’t imagine destroying a work of art. I’d stitched too many quilts myself.

Seeing scissors on the bedside table, I cut those yellow roses into thorny jabs to greet his next midnight romp under the down comforter.

I didn’t disturb anything . . . I didn’t want him alerted. I wanted him to jump right in, enthusiastic and stark naked in the dark.

Reading John O'Neill I thought: oh wow! . . . I’m one of those crazy dames who would trash a man’s place!