PAPA, CACA, DOO DOO, WEE WEE

Today I created something, it's called, "Put this oil on your pussy lipgloss." It's my very first product. I'm hoping it will sell well and that I can share my wealth with those people who have been nice to me and withhold it from the people who have been mean to me in the attempt to make themselves feel better about their own mediocrity, lack of loyalty and cowardice. This story isn't for you ridiculous people. This story is for the rest of you.

START:  When I was a kid, my neighbor's father said I was a bad apple. My neighbor's name was Michael Soma--for the life of me I can't remember his father's name and for the sake of things it doesn't matter. Michael Soma hung out with me and my friend Tom Maher. We were always together as kids. Michael's father said I was bad because I was the one that told about a snake that didn't exist---which I only said because me and Michael and Tom were ALONE and didn't want to be bothered by adult people or other kids that we thought were dumb. Our cave was our cave and we were being quiet and telling our dangerous secrets of the Witch Coven that existed in Lakeside and how on most nights I could feel a demon trying to steal my soul directly out of my chest. We had been trying to figure out what to do about the demon. I had been up all night praying. My mother bought me worry dolls who I whispered the problem of the demon to, and they were supposed to handle things in the night. But, they didn't. The demon stayed digging into my chest--trying to steal my soul.

If you ask many kids at the lake---I was not the only one having night terrors, demons and witchery happening to me. Most of the kids start their stories by saying--i know you are going to think I'm crazy, but I swear this thing really happened. All of us spoke like that. Those friends at the lake had secrets that were loaded with the supernatural. I believed in God, but also that a devil worshipping cult near by could hurt us. We were all superstitious--not just me---and if you didn't believe an arrowhead could kill you, we didn't want you around. Michael had a whole collection of them but we didn't talk about what that meant.

Michael's father said I was bad because Tom chucked a rock at me and I chucked one back and his rock didn't do anything, but my rock chipped his front tooth. Michael's father said I was bad because were were playing catapult off a bed wherein Tom and Michael would sit on my feet and I'd be laying down with my knees bent and fly them across the room and of all the times we took turns it was Tom that broke his arm when I sent him flying. Lisa Douglass is a bad apple. That should go without saying. I wasn't actually the one that talked about sex and how to spy on our parents and then report back, but I was blamed for it. And even though when we were older I was the one who mashed the coke into my floor just to see if anyone would take the dare to eat it directly off the tile and no one would--I still shared with everybody. I knew what friendship was.

But, Michael--the son of the dad who called me a bad apple-- used to pee on his own dog. His dog's name was Pudgy--he was a doberman pincer. Michael would chase him saying PAPA, CACA, DOO DOO, WEE WEE and then unzip his fly pee on Pudgy. He did this a lot. After Michael died, I saw him once in a dream. He was wearing eyeliner, speaking to a baby cat. Telling it what he wanted. "I want love. I want kindness. I want obedience." The baby cat ignored him and just licked his face over and over as to make the rest of the dream people uncomfortable. I tried to speak to Michael but he held up his hand and said, "Not now, Lisa. My dad said I can't talk to you anymore."

Before Michael died and years after I moved away from the lake and was living with my sister (or had she moved out?) off DeSoto, Michael came to visit me. He came with Tom Maher. They were there. I was on drugs, in bad shape and didn't know what day it was. They drank wine coolers with me or whatever I had back then. Maybe Bacardi 151. They lay on a bed, that for some reason was in the middle of the living room. We laughed like we had always laughed, making fun of ourselves and people we knew. We fell asleep in each other's arms, dreaming of somewhere safe.

Michael died from a shotgun his girlfriend/wife fired at him during a domestic dispute. I think they were high. His ashes are marked with a cross at the top of Sugarloaf---the mountain that overlooks Malibou Lake. I miss him a lot. He was always my friend.

Dear Caroline

Dear Caroline,

I don't know if you can hear me, now that you are dead, but on the thought that I might not know everything there is to know, I am going to take the chance that maybe you can hear me. Your friend Michael wrote to me today and said, "you don't know me, please call me, it's about CT. it's serious." It took me a moment to realize CT was you. CT equals Caroline Thompson in a way that I couldn't quite understand. So, I called the dude. The dude said you were dead. I listened and didn't know what to do. I called to coroner to be sure. I felt bad. I felt really really really bad. Worse than I've ever felt. Then I remembered Romeow. Where was he? Your cute cat. You loved that cat. Was he in the apartment? Did we have to go break in and save him? I didn't know, so I called the coroner back and kept calling back until someone answered. At some point in the early morning I realized that the coroner might have said they had a Caroline Liz Thompson, and on your blog it was Caroline Ruth Thompson. So, I called back, to see if they were wrong or if I was wrong or what. I asked about Romeow. Where was he? Could I save him or keep him and the whole time with all these phones going I knew your parents and your brother didn't know yet. I had already called Matt, your recent ex boyfriend. So recent that he had called me Saturday going I haven't heard from Caroline, do you think she's okay. I was like, yeah, we spoke she seemed cool. You said you were sad that you may have hurt him, but were really excited and happy. In fact, we spoke at 2 AM on Thursday morning and all you talked about was going to this poetry conference and grad school and about shopping with me at Betsey Johnson. (I had told you I put a dress on hold and was too sick to go pick her up..dresses are shes.). You told me you'd buy me the dress, to forget about the sale---the 50 percent off the 50 percent off sale--you'd cover me. You had it handled. I told you I was broke and you told me you'd pay if I agreed to come to the Chicago Poetry conference. We could room together you said.

We talked about our date. The night we went to Beyond Baroque to see poets read their work. You wore your cashmere hat and your lace up knee highs, your cashmere jacket. We shivered outside because the Beyond Baroque people had set up chairs outside. We were bored. It was supposed to be cool, but it bored us. You showed me a photo and told me you were sending it to Matt. You looked pretty, I can't remember what else about the photo---oh yeah--your ass. You sent a photo featuring your world class ass and we laughed to the point of crying. Then, you told me we should go watch him and see him do the comedy. But--before all of this, you and I had our date. Our date at Marmalade or whatever the hell that deli is called near Palmetto---that guy stalked us. He was wearing a white man hat. I can't describe him. Weaselly, like a pinched bunny face. I don't know. He walked in circles around us eating us with his eyes. You told me about your family and I started in on telling you my weird dating scenarios and weird sex fantasies. Then, White Hat man comes over and brings us a chocolate souffle and starts talking about himself. We stare up at him and don't care about him and his stupid story of his wife leaving him and NOW HE WAS BROKEN and did one of us want to pick up the pieces of the broken White Hat man? I made him tell me which one of us he wanted. Just say it, I said. He wrote his dumb name on a napkin---had to get up and walk all over the place to find a pen and we just sat there going, will this man ever leave us alone? Then he came back and set it in the middle of the two of us and then shamefully went away. IT TOOK FOREVER. That White HAT man ruined our date, but only for awhile. Then Beyond Baroque, then laughing till we peed. Then, we went to see Matt--in Hollywood. Matt performed--it was funny, but now you're dead and I'm real fucking sad. Matt became your boyfriend that night. You two became inseparable--it made me happy because I love both of you. There's more, but it mostly was about how talented you were and I'm not in the mood to do it more today. This isn't the end of you. I remember you. How could I ever forget, it's just that. WHAT THE FUCK? I love you and I miss you, that's all. It's rare that I meet a girl that's smart and charismatic and doesn't hate my fucking guts while pretending to be my friend. You were my real friend and i'm sick and sad that you are gone. Remember your Louis Vuitton bracelet? I saw it the day I went to meet your parents and Romeow was there and there was a moment he got out and your dad was overwhelmed in the car and we weren't supposed to tell because it would just have made him stressed. I grabbed Romeow and carried him back through the door and decided I'm getting a cat. So, me and your mom and you brother Jeff made our first secret. I'm getting one just like Romeow. I'm even putting the photo of us up, from when we were freezing. You look cute and I look shitty, but as vain as I am---this is for you. I love you.

Lisa