Having landed a job as a copy boy for The Advocate, a magazine for the LBGTQ community, I rented a one-room apartment in Queens.
A copy boy is a gofer, running errands and carrying copies from desk to desk. It was mindless work at the bottom of the pecking order. I got through the day smoking dope in empty toilet stalls.
My new apartment was bare— a mattress on the floor, a few wooden chairs, a table from Goodwill for eating and doing paperwork, and a Sony Boom Box, that wolfed down cassettes.
I saved a few paychecks, quit The Advocate, and bought a kilo of weed, bagging it into ounces.
At first, I peddled it on the street and eventually, clients came to my apartment. I was home all the time, ordering Mexican, Chinese, and Thai food for meals.
One night a guy shows with a brand new Smith Corona electric typewriter under his arm, ripped off for sure, I gave him two OZs for it.
I began writing to pass the time.
I didn’t give a fuck what I wrote, nobody would read it.
My first story was Baghead, about a guy who wouldn’t go out without a paper bag on his head. He claimed to be allergic to sun and moon rays.
Baghead lived in a boarding house owned by a fat girl, Lil. He had fat girl fetish, he liked to lay his head on Lil’s lap as she spoon-fed him Gerber’s baby food.
Lil saw Baghead's face once, he was a handsome kid in his twenties who made a living collecting unique pieces of metal he found in the junkyard and soldering them into jewelry. Selling his work online.
Baghead was the genesis of a host of dim-witted wise-cracks by townfolks like—
Joe, you’re so fuckin ugly you'd look better with a bag on your head,
or,
I put a bag on my wife’s head last night and taped a picture of Raquel Welsh on it.
And,
I told my husband if he don't cover that ugly face of his with a bag I'm gonna divorce him.
One day, Baghead packed his belongings in a cheap suitcase, vacating his room which was littered with bags, walking past Lil at the front desk, bagless, saying,
don’t wait on me Lil, I gotta job up north in a paper mill.
The Baghead story was two and a half pages of total shit. I lit it with a Zippo, as the pages burned the sleeve of my flannel shirt caught fire, so I ran to the sink.
I take a slab of Land O’Lakes butter from the refrigerator and rub it on the burnt arm. The butter doesn’t help so I grab a bottle of Alocane from the medicine cabinet, spraying it, my arm still hurts like a bitch.
The doorbell rings, I open it, it’s Ricco Shoe,
yeah, Ricco,
I got 20 Dilaudid I’ll give you for an OZ.
Where’d you get 'em, Ricco?
Why the fuck do you care?
Never mind, I’m hurtin.
I crush some Percs with a meat hammer on a cutting board, mixing the powder with weed and rolling a joint.
After a few tokes, my zombie body is hovering on the ceiling. I can see myself on the sofa, I couldn't feel a thing in the zombie body, it was miraculous pain relief.
A body is a burdensome thing to carry through life, feeding it, cleaning it, dressing it, relieving yourself, and dealing with the mental ups and downs. Why didn’t the gods have the sense to create humankind as spirit bodies? The gods aren't as smart as they think.
Stinky Smith was born with an awful stench, a cross between rotten food and clammy feet. The obstetrician assured Stinky’s mother the smell would go away in a few days, as the hospital staff, most of whom were gagging through their surgical masks, completed little Stinky’s discharge papers in record time.
The Smith family lived in a one-story house in Fentonville, reeking so bad that little Stinky’s father vanished one night and never returned.
When Stinky was six months old, Anita took him to an Odor specialist, Dr. Flatulence.
Poor little Stinky was tested and diagnosed with Bromhidrosis, a condition that causes extreme body odor. It occurs when the skin’s bacteria break down sweat and produces a smell that mimics sulfur and onions.
By the age of five Stinky weighed a hundred pounds, twice the weight of the average five-year-old. Junk food was his steadfast friend.
Stinky was fat and pungent.
During kindergarten, Stinky had to learn in a private classroom. His teacher, John Slopehead was a sensitive sort who understood Stinky’s blight, teaching Stinky with a surgical mask on.
The two became close, Sloophead pitied Stinky, who didn't have a friend in the world.
Doctor Sloophead calls Anita, Stinky’s ma, suggesting,
Ma’am, I believe we can placate Stinky’s condition by dealing with it as though he’s been sprayed by a skunk. Bath him for an hour every day in a tub mixed with hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, tomato juice, and dish detergent.
Stinky lost his stank thanks to his daily bathing regimen, late becoming a masseuse.