John Dorsey currently resides in Toledo OH. His work has recently appeared in Underground Voices, Mystery Island Magazine, The James River Poetry Review, fearless, Poesy Magazine, Spent Meat, and the Dublin Quarterly. He is the author of ‘Little Boy Beat: Selected Poems’ published by Paladin M & E, Inc. in 2004. His collection ‘The Price of Sunshine’ co-authored with Iris Berry will be released in the near future by Feel Free Press.

'My Heart Smelt of Rotting Flesh'

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'I Like Hotels'

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John Dorsey - Writer, Poet and Producer

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3 Poems on Underground Voices

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Review of 'Enemy' by John Sweet

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3 poems on Webspawner

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THE PATRON SAINT OF THE COPA CABANA
by John Dorsey

There's a good reason women crave chocolate when they're on the rag. It leads to Orgasm, or so I've been told. It makes sense if you really think about it, there have been days in my life where I would've traded my dick for a Hershey bar in a second.

By the time I was 12 yrs old, I'd watched ghosts turn into snow angels in the suburban industrial wasteland that is Pittsburgh for a few years, and learned to masturbate after reading Bukowski, and although "Love Is A Dog From Hell" may have changed my life, women remained a relative mystery.

I'd have tried talking to my mother and her sisters, but they were never any help. One was crazy and the other was a lesbian, and I wasn't sure which was which. My mother thought any question about "the birds and the bees" could be answered by listening to Barry Manilow. You'd think they were on a first name basis I swear - Barry this, Barry that...he was like the gay uncle I never had.

My father sat in his recliner watching golf, and coughed with rabid intensity in between puffs on his cherry Swisher Sweet cigars. When I brought up girls, he just told me to never marry an Italian, and "to ask the fuckin' patron saint of the Copa Cabana". My mother just frowned.

I was in the 7th grade, and school sucked. I didn't even have any hair on my balls. All the guys in gym class called me "peach fuzz". The only activity I was involved in was the science club, where I attempted to listen to "Mandy" backwards, and open a gate to Hell-- which my faculty advisor Dr.Novello told me was in New Jersey. It was the school's fault that I got stuck selling candy.

Sixty bars of chocolate--they might as well have been thirty pieces of silver. I peered out the window at our unmowed lawn. I was a sell out, in fact that is what I could hear my father yelling, "go work for the man, you lousy kid!"

I hopped onto my bike, and my mother placed the case of sugary goodness in a book bag around my neck. When I complained that it was too heavy, she just told me, "now you'll have some idea of what it's like to be pregnant".

I had been told more than once to stay away from the Pleasant Glen Trailer park. My father always said that you could judge a person by how they treated their lawn, and that the glen-o-nites, that's what he called the residents, left him wanting. Still, my uncle Jerry said that "those welfare mothers over there, craved chocolate as if it was crack cocaine". So I was at a crossroads. I dove right in.

I noticed almost immediately, that everything was laid out in one big circle, and wondered if this was the place Dante had been talking about. LOT 247. I knocked on the door. The man that answered looked like a cross between fat Elvis and Jerry Falwell. I didn't care whether he ate chocolate, I just didn't want him to eat me. I went into my sales pitch, and although he didn't buy anything, he did tell me that Jesus loved me. That was at least something.

It was getting dark when I knocked on HER door. She was a cross between Helen of Troy, and that prostitute in "Barfly" and I was in love. She asked me to please come in, the place was like something out of a Russ Meyer movie. Everything was either covered in green shag carpeting, or fake wood trim.

"The name's Cleopatra, you can call me Cleo" she said.

Her rotary phone started going off like the school fire alarm, and she leaped for it with the grace of a palsied Isadora Duncan.

"Hey Jack, how's it goin' tonight baby? Do you wanna cum in my ass?" she asked, in between ladylike sips from a pounder of Ironcity beer. This was the awakening.

I watched in awe as she moaned "Jaaaccckkk I wanna ride your monster cock!!" A minute later it was over, but somehow I felt like a man. Maybe it was my noticeable erection.

"Was that your boyfriend?" I asked.

"Boyfriend, aren't you adorable. Honey you could say I have lots of boyfriends" she said smiling.

I had just started to tell her about the chocolate, when the phone rang again. This time she excused herself, and took the phone into the bathroom. I waited a few seconds, and then cupped my ear up against the door. There was no moaning, and the chatter was kept low. I could hear her laughing, and the voice serving up the banter on the other end sounded faintly familiar. I took the book bag off from around my neck, and crashed out on her leopard print couch for what seemed like hours.

She came out a while later covered in pools of sweat.

"That was Hank. He's one of my regulars. He just wanted to talk. What's your name?" she asked.

I wiped the the sleep out of my eyes, and gulped, "Felix, Felix Pepperdine Esq."

"I don't have any cash on me right now Esq., but come back tomorrow and we'll close the deal." she said.

I looked around the room for a second - taking it all in. Then I ambled toward the door, and headed home.

When I walked in my father was asleep in his recliner about to suffocate in a pool of his own saliva, and my mother was watching the religious channel on tv. They didn't even notice me.

The next morning I awoke to the smell of burning coffee. I headed to the door, and scooped up the mail. Nothing interesting - a Radioshack flyer, and the phone bill. My father came up from behind me, and grabbed it out of my hands.

"When you start paying the phone bill, then you can look at it" he said.

I headed to the bus stop, and was alone except for the one girl who always stared at me. Which wasn't as strange as the fact that she always wore a t-shirt with my face on it, and could do a dead on Lenny Bruce impression.

"Are you going to the dance?" she asked.

I just stood there shaking my head.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

She was pale with freckles, and light red hair with curls like miniature versions of the rings of Saturn. I wondered if she'd ride my monster cock. Probably not.

"My name's Ede -

I cut her off at the pass.

"Listen, I'm flattered really, but I already have a girlfriend" I said.

My heart belonged to Cleo.

I watched as the girl ran off--a few seconds later the bus pulled up.

When I arrived at Cleo's door that night, I could hear heavy breathing, it was probably that damn Hank. I entered the trailer. Cleo let out one final magical scream, and slammed the phone down on the receiver in climax.

"Hey Esq." she said without missing a beat.

She took the case of the chocolate from my hands, and handed me a can of Shasta ginger ale.

"This is exactly what the doctor ordered" she said.

I stood there drinking my soda, when the phone rang. She motioned for me to be quiet, and mouthed -

"H-A-N-K!"

and then went into the next room.

Again I waited for a few minutes, and listened against the door. God, where had I heard that voice? I glanced at the piles of books scattered around the room, and started thumbing through a copy of Erika Jong's "Fear of Flying".

A while later, Cleo emerged from the bathroom, her mind spent in a kind of half spasm, a mental crescent moon if you will.

"Why don't you run in my bedroom Esq., there's money on the dresser" she said.

Slowly I walked into her lair. Everything was either pink or angora and when possible both and everything smelled like it had been dipped in perfume twice, kind of like my grandma, but in a good way.

I must have stood there in awe for at least five minutes, and then I walked back in - handing her the money.

"Just keep it. For the chocolate, and would you be an angel, and run out and get me some Tampax?" she asked kissing me on the cheek.

"Sure" I muttered.

I ran out of the house, and rode my bike down the street to the Shop N' Save. I headed up to the express register. The cashier was a pale looking Elvira type, who wore a tight faded Donnie Iris t-shirt. Her nametag said CONNIE. She stood staring at me as if my forehead was a black hole.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

I ran my fingers through my hair for a few seconds.

"My girlfriend needs Tampax" I said proudly.

She looked at me sideways for a second.

"Are you one of those perverts?" she asked.

I ran away from her pushing my bike, and headed home. My mother had to have Tampax somewhere. I dropped my bike in the driveway, and inside toward my parents bathroom. The door was locked. The phone cord was under the door. I could hear moaning and then my father's voice.

"Oh Henry I think I love you!!" I could hear a familiar voice saying.

"Call me Hank!" my father screamed.

My heart sank. That was the moment I lost all respect for Henry Pepperdine, family man. I ran out of the house feeling dizzy, the shadow of the sun spiraling in a background of night. I headed for Cleo's.

I took a piece of paper out of my book bag, and started scribbling a note filled my feelings about love, and family betrayal--as if I was Hamlet. I left the note and the Tampax money, inside Cleo's pink angora mailbox. I didn't know where I was headed, I stopped at the bus stop. There she sat talking to herself. The red haired girl.

"Can you do Rip Taylor?" I asked.

"Sure" she said.

I waited for a few seconds.

"Who's Rip Taylor?" she asked.

I looked at her baffled, and then said -

"Forget about it, do you still want to go to that dance?"

She nodded yes rather violently I thought and then ran off all smiles.

The night of the dance I could hear my father doing his thing in the bathroom. My mother came inside, and said -

"Remember your first dance should be to Barry. Ready to go?" she asked.

I got into our astro van, wearing my powder blue suit of armor.

When I walked into the room, I could hear some jocks chanting peach fuzz. It didn't matter. I scanned the room for my date, and attempted to give her a high five hitting her in forehead.

"Sorry. I have to use the bathroom" I said.

"I wait right here" she said.

I watched her go over to the corner of the room, and sprawl out in a metal folding chair. I placed a dime in the payphone next to the nearest toilet. I glanced at the number smeared in pen across my palm like the stigmata.

"It's Hank" I said masking my cracking voice as best I could.

"Hey baby, are you checkin' up on me?" Cleo said.

"I need you to meet me somewhere..." I said.

I went back out to my date, and slow danced to "Mandy" which I had to request, and kept waiting for that fiery gate to make itself known. I whole time I kept looking at my watch. A while later--Cleo appeared.

"I have to go" I said.

"Is that your mom?" my date asked me.

I shook my head.

"That's my girlfriend" I said.

I ran over to Cleo.

"Esq.--what are you doing here? I'm looking for Hank. Cleo said chaining a menthol cigarette.

I pulled her outside.

"I think I love you" I said.

Cleo just chuckled.

"Sounds like someone's been listening to the Partridge Family" she said.

Cleo was holding a wrinkled paper bag, and a beat up copy of Ken Kesey's "Sometimes A Great Notion", she took a hard pull from her bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill.

"David Cassidy's a genius, I admit it, but that doesn't mean my feelings aren't real" I said.

She stood there in deep thought for a minute, and then started unzipping my pants. and went downtown without giving it a second thought. I climaxed in about two minutes. She got up off her knees.

"The best I could do is talk dirty to you, and I'm not even real good at that, but that should get you started. Maybe you should talk to her" pointed behind her to the tear filled face of my date.

As I was about to say something she ran off. Cleo just sighed.

"The one that got away...Come on Esq. I'll give you a ride home." she said.

I got into Cleo's rusted green 1974 Vega, and we headed toward my house. We pulled in front, Cleo had the engine running, as she leaned in and kissed the way the French people do it, I still don't why they worship Jerry Lewis.

"Say Hello to Hank for me Felix. baby" she whispered and then I jumped out of the car and ran into the house...

© John Dorsey
Reproduced with permission

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