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.