Part 2
I was stunned. Shocked. It took me a few seconds to recover.
Taylor: Are you still there?
Her head was still wrapped in a towel and, while nearly flat chested, wearing just a t-shirt, now I noticed breasts.
Narrator: How successful have you been passing as a boy on the streets?
Taylor: Very. They all think I am a fifteen-year-old boy named Daniel. Took the name from the actor who played the wizard kid in the Harry Potter movies. Got to see the first one. It was marvelous. Best film I ever seen.
Narrator: Are you safer as a boy?
Taylor: Fuck yeah! If they knew I was a girl, I would’ve already been raped by the pervs who troll down here.
Narrator: Then good thing you can pass for one.
Taylor: There was a black girl I knew last month, Emily. She told everyone she was eighteen because she was tall, but she was really only like fourteen. She went with one of THEM and nobody has seen her since.
Narrator: Did you report her to the police as missing?
Taylor: Wow, you sure don’t live in my world. No, we don’t report anything to the cops! I just hope she don’t end up in the morgue or at the end of a dog chain in some perv’s basement.
Narrator: I understand. The police aren’t trustworthy these days.
Taylor: Much safer as a boy. I’ve always been good at acting. Pretending to be a boy is easy cuz they’re just so stupid most of the time.
Narrator: Yes, regrettably most men don’t mature until they’re at least forty years old, if then.
Taylor: Yeah, well, that is sad and puts the burden for maturity on the woman. Don’t seem fair.
Narrator: Fare is what you pay when you get on the bus. OK. Let’s discuss a plan of action. Tonight you’ll sleep here. Do not go outside. The television and stereo work and there’s a decent selection of channels on cable. There’s some food in the refrigerator. Not much, but enough for you to fix a good spaghetti dinner.
Taylor: Thanks. I haven’t eaten today.
She walks over to the closest grow table.
Taylor: Is this like hydroponics?
Narrator: Yes it is.
Taylor: So, like, there’s no dirt?
Narrator: Correct.
Taylor: Why do you grow this way?
Narrator: It’s faster, produces more, and saves me from hauling in a lot of dirt. Imagine how much dirt just this one room uses. It’s just over 1000 gallons. That’s a lot of dirt to haul in here every few months and have to dispose of later. Imagine twenty large bags of soil at Home Depot every two months.
Taylor: Cool. So how does this work?
Narrator: The plants receive a constant flow of nutrient enriched water over the root system.
Taylor: And the netting that it grows through is to support it because the roots don’t have the dirt to hold onto?
Narrator: Yes. You catch on quickly.
Taylor: When it’s interesting. And this is the most interesting shit I have EVER seen.
She’s entirely dropped the bad boy punk routine. Upon discovery, it just didn’t make sense to keep it up. She’ss like a kid: wide-eyed with wonder in the laboratory of a mad scientist.
Narrator: Remember, you’re not to go out tonight, understood?
Taylor: Yes, grandpa. (She laughs.)
Taylor: Are you going to be there all night, watching me?
Narrator: Yes
Taylor: That’s kinda creepy.
Narrator: Yes, it is.
Taylor: You didn’t watch me in the shower, did you?
Narrator: No, there aren’t any cameras in the bathroom, and I wouldn’t have watched you even if there were.
Taylor: Why? You gay? Like it’s okay if you are. You’ve been nicer to me than ANYONE in the last couple of years. So I like you, even if you’re gay. Just saying.
Narrator: My sexual orientation is not your concern, but no, I am not. Underage naked girls are not my thing, regardless of how attractive. Besides, my children are older than you.
Taylor: Like you’re somebody’s dad? Cool! And do you do DAD kinda things with them?
Narrator: There are no DAD kinda things. And no, I was not a great dad. I was a selfish fuck that spent more effort on my career and traveling around the world than on my family.
Taylor: Sorry to hear that. Family is the most important thing, especially when you’re apart. Where’s the best place you’ve ever been?
Narrator: Paris, the Eiffel Tower with my wife at 10PM when all the lights start flickering and we kiss. Thousands of couples show up every night and do the same thing. At that moment, in that place, is something very special.
Taylor: Hmmm... a romantic, I see. Where’s the worst place you’ve ever been?
Narrator: Las Vegas, Nevada.
Taylor: What? Why Las Vegas? I heard it’s pretty out there. All those casinos and flashing lights.
Narrator: Las Vegas is like huge fake breasts: nothing is real, just plastic. It’s all provided with a clean veneer over the grime of its purpose: to swindle. And I don’t gamble (present circumstances excluded).
Taylor: So why aren’t you out there still traveling the globe, sending post cards with funny looking stamps back to the folks at home?
Narrator: Well... I just didn’t like it anymore. The level of bullshit required to advance my career any further came at too high a price. Wasn’t willing to give up that last little part of my soul that they didn’t already own. Eventually the years of submission show on your face.
Taylor: You don’t seem to be someone who likes having a boss.
Narrator: Besides, there’s a new and improved, completely soulless generation coming up who are ready and willing to sell it all to advance, no questions asked. They’re org chart worshiping greedbots.
Taylor: Greedbots... cool.
Narrator: I wish them well and pity them.
Taylor: Why?
Narrator: Underneath all the pretty wrapping of corporate paper promises, the box is empty.
Taylor: I understand completely. That’s why I won’t suck dick for money. It has to really mean something when I do it. Greedbots, I like that. Like a robot that can only say more, more, must have more.
She raises her arms and walks in a Frankenstein manner and laughs.
It occurrs to me that this is just a teenage girl, with all the teenage girl characteristics, but also with a level of smarts not found in most teenage girls and most adult men. Considering that her life expectancy might be about twelve hours, it was important for me to remain detached from her as a person. I tried to forget the intelligence and occasional bursts of wisdom from the near dead.
Taylor: So I noticed that this stuff smells different from the weed stuff I smoked. Smells nicer. What are you growing here?
She sat down at the table and lit up the remaining half of the joint, took a long drag, and exhaled a huge cloud.
Narrator: On the side closest to you, the short plants are Cinderella 99, and the taller plants are Critical Mass.
Taylor: Nice name, Cinderella 99. Can I smoke some of that?
Narrator: I would prefer you didn’t.
Taylor: Why?
Narrator: It’ll make you very, very high and paranoid. It’s great stuff to grow and sell. Flowers in less than eight weeks and is too strong for many, but for personal consumption, I don’t like it. In the other rooms are Grape Ape and Sweet Tooth #4.
Taylor: Do they all have funny names like Grape Ape or Cinderella 99?
Narrator: Usually they do. Someone even named a strain Alaskan Thunderfuck. Along the far wall are a few special plants I am growing out. They don’t have a fancy name. They’re just known as “zero.”
Taylor: Zero?
Narrator: Got it from a friend who was growing several hundred seeds and found one mutant that grew huge, flowered fast, produced a huge crop, and had an unusual and very strong high.
Taylor: And I guess that makes it good?
Narrator: Yes. It’s completely different from the rest in almost every aspect. He knows I like Satori as my daytime smoke, so he gave me a cutting. It’s supposed to be Satori on steroids.
Taylor: Damn! I need some chocolate. My period is about to start. I always crave chocolate right before it starts.
Narrator: Sorry, there isn’t any.
Taylor: Just as well. I don’t have any tampons anyway. Forgot to “borrow” some from the Stop and Shop over on Reagan Avenue.
Narrator: Perhaps I can pick some up on my way over.
In a house full of women, you just get over it and buy tampons for them. No real need for embarrassment at the checkout as they obviously aren’t for us… unless there’s any men who think sticking cotton on a ripcord up his ass is a good idea. Highly improbable. Regrettably though, in a world of seven billion people, quite a few of whom seem to be bat shit crazy (and unfortunately, a smaller subset of those in charge). You just know there must be a few men out there who cherish thoughts of extra absorbency and a new enhanced gentle glide applicator.
I AM NOT ONE OF THEM! (just high)
Taylor: You’re COMING TO SEE ME? REALLY?!!
Narrator: Yes.
She jumps up from the chair and dances around singing, “my daddy’s coming home,” over and over. It’s a senseless lyric to a nonsensical, improvised tune without a discernible melody. Yet another reminder that I’m dealing with a child.
Narrator: I’ll be there in the morning.
She continues her dancing and singing, holding out one of the longest lateral buds in a fake tango embrace, her face pressed against the crown bud as if to dance away with it.
Taylor: So what else are you going to bring me, Daddy?
Narrator: I would prefer you to call me something other than daddy; and yes, I’ll bring you chocolate too.
Taylor: Yahoo! Chocolate and tampons... my life is complete. (Fake Southern Belle accent) I’m simply overcome with happiness. Is it hot in here?
She holds her hand up to her forehead and pretends to faint in a total drama queen move. As she lies on the floor, a sad look comes over her face.
Taylor: So what should I call you?
Narrator: How about David?
Taylor: And when I make you hold your driver’s license up to the spy camera, will I find the name David?
Narrator: No
Taylor: Then until that time (getting up off the floor)... I’ll just call you... DADDY!
And for the next minute, she returns to the dancing and singing of “My daddy’s coming home’’ (spastic remix).
What was the point of trying to stop her? It might be the last happy experience in her short life, and I decided that it wasn’t for me to ruin it for her. I put my control freak, precise nature back in the box. I’ll save it for some other time.
She dances over to the boom box sitting on one of the tables, presses the power button, and then the CD play button. Music comes on very loud, startlingly loud.
Taylor: What the fuck is this? (She freezes in one of her spastic moves).
Narrator: Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.
Taylor: (Turning it down to a more conversational level) I know who he is! Didn’t he like go deaf or something?
Narrator: Yes. The symphony you’re listening to is, in my opinion, the greatest musical achievement in human history... and he never heard it, except in his head because he was deaf when he wrote it.
Taylor: Wow! But I guess people compensate for their handicap the best way they know how. Sometimes that will produce greatness. My grandpa used to tell me about a country singer with the stutter. But when he sang it was the smoothest voice you ever heard.
Narrator: Yes, that’s what happened, greatness out of adversity.
Time to text the wife:
-Narrator: Honey, going to Mississippi tonight. Jackson, Marriott can you get me a room?
-Wife: Yes, of course. Nothing bad I hope.
-Narrator: Just gotta help her get back on her feet.
-Wife: You didn’t say it was a WOMAN.
-Narrator: Didn’t know at the time.
-Wife: How OLD is this woman?
-Narrator: 17
-Wife: Bless her heart, so young to be homeless. You know that’s a special age for her.
I roll my eyes. Aren’t they all!
-Wife: She’s a woman but still a child. Treat her kindly.
-Narrator: OK
-Wife: Don’t be so cold toward her like you can be at times. But you’re great with kids. You’ll know what to do.
-Narrator: Will do
-Wife: Why don’t you bring her back home? The girls have some clothes she can wear.
-Narrator: Perhaps you could take her shopping!
-Wife: Excellent idea!
Fuck, I hate texting! It fails at sarcasm every fucking time!
Big mistake too. My wife is one of those warm-hearted souls who wants to adopt every stray. I once told her that I didn’t want any more pets. She agreed, and then turned the outside window flower box over the sink into a drive thru window for all the cats in the neighborhood. She kept full bowls of food and water for them at all times. She would allow them into the house through the window, as if coming through the window allowed her to get off on a legal technicality.
I would have preferred her middle finger and a “fuck you” or at least an “I disagree.” What I got was bunch of friendly cats all over the house at all hours and a happy wife. Mind you, they were affectionate and well behaved animals. They didn’t tear up anything.
Subsequently, I ceased all proclamations and went back to our normal marriage operating model of anarchro-communism with its collective approach to important decisions. Not really good at being a Stalin, more of a Trotsky type. Yeah, where was I? Right, shopping.
-Narrator: Was not serious!
-Wife: But it’s a GR8 idea.
Pet store alert. The I-want-a-puppy pleading is about to commence.
-Narrator: Not a good idea.
-Wife: Why not?
-Narrator:……………………(panic)……………………..(panic, shit!)…………….
-Wife: We need to do more stuff for others that will have a lasting impact. It’s our purpose in life.
-Wife: Hotel Confirmation number: MS 52095 9MM