The piss throne

Well, well, well…we’ve crossed the Tiber, folks. Our boys, under the field marshalship of the most unlikely of quarterback phenoms, have made it past the first test of the season, and descended through the first layer of Hell that is the SEC schedule (Dante would be so proud.)

If you good folk will remember low before the bye week (I know, dear reader, it is difficult to recall such bygone days of yesterweek, but try if you might to reconstitute the fog of memory into its once-coagulated state. Your faithful narrator was a wee bit worried about facing off with those nasty reptilian foes of days gone by, the Florida Gators. After all, our two armies have marched on the battlefields of SEC Championship combat more than any other two teams in the history of the championship game, and I figured, they’d be ready to prove themselves against the Once and Future King of college football.

And though they have been wounded by the indignities of the past year, this here progeny of the pristine Mobile Delta knows enough about their cagey namesake to understand that a wounded gator is to be feared more than a gator cruising along, minding his own business…no matter how hungry you may fancy he appears. You can call me skeered, you can call me yella. Hell, I’ll even let you call me ‘fraidy-cat, but just don’t call me Nancy. Never liked that name at all, I simply will not abide.

But alas, I digress, as I am oft prone to do. Nonetheless, our crimson-clad heroes turned those Gators inside out, despite early struggles to the contrary. While I feared a less-than-favorable outcome for a moment, I kept alive my dream of seeing the Gators skinned and strung into a nice pair of loafers. In the early going, it appeared I’d never get to see my lime-green daydream bloom into full fruition. However, the Crimson Tide, and in particular Blake Sims and Amari Cooper, came through in the clutch, and when all was said and done, they most certainly didn’t leave a pretty hide.

So this week, some of you may want to mock this ole boy’s continued consternation. Some of you may feel the need to go ahead and let the ole Gump flag fly…but I would warn the wise among you against such tomfoolery. For you see, it is true that the Crimson Tide appears to be hitting its stride. I will concur that the defense looked drastically improved from week 1 (with the caveat that Florida’s offense appeared as useless as a set of pendulous teats on a boar-hog.) And yes, Blake Sims. Blake Mffkn Sims. Amen and hallelujah. I have seen the light, and the light is Blake Sims. There has been little about Sims’ performance throughout the opening stanza of this here college football season that anyone with eyes and at least a passing knowledge of football could reasonably criticize.

But for some reason, I do have an inkling , not of fear, per se, but an inkling of anxiety about this Ole Miss squad. Maybe it’s because Ole Miss looks fearsome through four games. Maybe it’s because this Bama team is beginning to look like it could indeed be a player in this inaugural college football playoff race.

I don’t know y’all, but as this week grows long in the tooth, I feel my concern level ballooning. We need some serious hoodoo, y’all…serious hoodoo. Do not let me down.

But I didn’t come here to prosthelitize on this yon Hoodoo ledger about my pre-season apprehension, nor my trepidation in approaching our tangling with the swamp lizards. No, I came here to do that magical hoodoo that we do, to put down something that will sure enough put piss in the Corn Flakes of these upstart Rebel Black Bear Akbars. Because you see, we are going to need it this week, y’all. Yeah we’re super-duper-triple-bestest and all ‘at shit, but this here game will mean a lot…as will almost every one that follows it.

So you better bring your cotdang Hoodoo A -game, you see, because this here ain’t no High School Prom, this ain’t no Princess Tea. This here ain’t for the weak of heart nor constitution, as from here on out, the Tide will have to cleave through the tangled jungle of SEC competitors for its rightful place back atop college football. You best well get yo damn mind right, people, because from here on out, every hoodoo really does have a life (and death) of its own.

Now this yarn I’m fixin’ to spin you is one that again harkens back to my wet-behind-the-ears years of nubile post-adolescence, when I was near about a man but still too stupid to take the exam for my Man Card. Many of you, my devoted readers, have heard tell of a past girlfriend of the Aub persuasion, one who I dated because of her buxom silhouette and willingness to allow your boy OWB to explore those verdant peaks and valleys with aplomb. I am the dang ole Lewis and Clark of the female body, and I take my explorations ever so seriously.

Now I don’t want to veer off into the blue gutter from which last week’s tale sprung, as this simply isn’t that type of get-down. No, this week, I tell a story of embarrassment, the kind you just can’t wash off, no matter how hard you scrub with that dang ole boar’s hair boat brush (I shouldn’t have to keep pointin’ this out, y’all, but that there is foreshadowing again. It’d be nice if you’d do your homework so you could follow along. But this once more, I’ll keep you pointed in the proper direction…after all, I’ll do anything for the hoodoo.)

This one here is one of those type of narratives that may give one pause as to the inclinations of your narrator. But hear me out, and remember if you can the days of your hormone-addled youth, when you’d f$#% a snake if it’d lay straight long enough. I was a rising senior, the band captain. That may not sound that impressive to you non-bandies (that’s not really what we called you, we called you non-bandies “the cool people” back then.) But the position of Band Captain can make one dizzy with power, as save for the drum majors and the adult band director himself, no one could overrule my actions.

I willfully embraced this island of power, as other than running the streets of my old neighborhood, I’d never been in a position of authority. There was the safety patrol back in elementary school, but let’s be honest, I was just in it for the cool vest and the cane pole that the crossing guards used to block lanes during carpool. No, after a tough freshman campaign as the only male clarinet player in the band (no, that’s not my hoodoo…rude), I had switched over to the much cooler and overtly-much-more-masculine saxophone. I also played bass, so I transitioned to the upright for concert band.

Now I was a big, strappin’, talented badass. A tough kid with an artistic streak. But that didn’t fly so well with the ladies in my high school, at least not the ones I seemed to want to chase. Girls…beautiful, smart, witty, wonderfully-symbiotic girls, would throw themselves at me. But I was too much of a dumbass to notice it. Or in some cases, to care. I would rather chase something I couldn’t have than take what was at my fingertips. The proverbial dog chasing his own tail, if you will. Looking back, I could have had a lot more fun in high school had it not been for my own self-imposed imbecilism.

But that is not the nature of this hoodoo, rather only a plot point, a shard of character development for that ass. From my position of Band Captain, I drew from a well of confidence that had eluded me in my previous encounters with the ladies. I began to grow into my own, to become who you have come to know as OWB. One of my first, critical steps was to use my position of power as an aphrodisiac. 

As Band Captain, I was Nero fiddlin’ on his dadgum  throne, as everyone was at the mercy of my beck and call. Someone angered me, I’d wait until I saw the individual step out of line and BOOM!...”DROP AND GIMME 20, BITCHES.” SOUND OFF LIKE YOU GOT A PAIR, FRESHMAN! (Sorry, don’t mind me, I was just enjoying a flashback. Happens more and more these days, all that acid is finally paying off…quite entertaining.)

So when summer band camp rolled around that year, I already knew I was going to have my pick of the young ladies. Who wouldn’t want some of this, after all? Females would wither in my presence, or so I supposed. But to my horror, many of these folks had already paired off in the summer. They all lived in the same neighborhood (Alpine Hills), and there was a neighborhood swim club (Is not the neighborhood swim club modern-day equivalent of the Roman brothel? All that bare, moistened, sometimes oily flesh on display, a sometimes-taut/ sometimes-jiggly feast for the eyes. I mean, you’re more guaranteed to get laid at the swim club than at a Chinese whorehouse.)

Once again, being a native of a less-centric neighborhood literally on the other side of the railroad tracks, I found myself with the leavin’s. But during freshman band camp, I laid mine eyes upon a beauty with an ample bosom for a 15 year old (solid C-cups, pushin’ the D… fist-bump) who had a twinkle in her eye and a wiggle in her walk.

Fortunately for me, a friend of mine who was a sophomore had buddied up to her, so my espionage array was already in full gear. At some point during band camp, I asked my friend Frodo (she was tiny-short, y’all, like a hobbit, for realz) if she could get the low-low on whether or not I could “get at that” (charm school, amirite?) Frodo agreed begrudgingly, even welled up with tears at the suggestion. You see, unbeknownst to me at the time (but later beknownst to me), Frodo had a thing for ya boy OWB. In reality, I did have a notion of that being the case, but not interested in that type of party with that particular young lady, I just avoided the topic and kept everything on the friendship tip. (Yeah ladies, we do that shit too. Sucks, doesn’t it?)

Please ignore the fact that I was asshole enough to ask I girl who I knew liked me (but that I didn’t like) to ask her best friend if she wanted to ge-ge-ge-ge-get-down. After all, that is also not my hoodoo. This smitten young kitten was so taken with her Sith Band Captain that she did my bidding, even as it shattered her fragile young heart. I think I played a role in turning her into a lesbian, but then again, I simply have no facts to prove that hypothesis. There are, however, several women who, on the record, have attributed their lesbianism to their affiliation with yours truly. I like to look at it as a positive, after all. After looking upon the glory that is good ole OWB, no other man could satisfy them. So they flipped sides. Sounds convincing, no?

Anyway, fast-forward a few weeks. It wasn’t long before this young babydoll with the ta-tas was manning the back seat of the bus with Your Highness, and we groped and petted our way from stadium to stadium. We were stuck together like static-filled socks: she became a fixture at my house, and I the same at hers.

But this is where this tale begins to take a bend toward the Southern Gothic. For you see, while my living arrangement was convoluted in its own right, the domicile for this fair young maiden (who for the purposes of this story I’ll refer to as Babydoll) was just plain effed up.

Her mother came from a class of females to whom my dear mother referred as “roadwhores.” I always assumed that was a perjorative, but something about it seems romantic, no? Like not just your average old, street-walkin’ prostitute, not your regular, skanky “lounge lizard” one finds at the rest stops. No, the title of roadwhore seems far more grandiose, a title worth earning for an aspiring participant in the world’s oldest profession. Everyone must have goals to propel them to bigger and better things, no?

I feel as though I have not adequately explained this, so please allow me to provide you with a few examples to provide the proper context. Can’t have you folks going off, half-cocked, inappropriately using words like roadwhores. As we’ve been told, words are weapons, sharper than knives and such as that. I submit for you the aforementioned samples of its usage:

OWB: “Mom, Ms. Lachlan at school said she thinks she knows you, thinks she went to school with you…”

Momz: “Yeah, she was the biggest roadwhore.”

Or…

OWB: “Mom, I’d like you to meet my girlfriend.”

Momz: “Good God child, you’re dressed like a damn roadwhore.”

And, finally…

OWB: “Big Evie (OWB’s step-mother) sure makes good spaghetti Mom, may even be better than yours…”

Momz: “Roadwhore.”

Now, I can assume that I have provided sufficient context for the terminology, so feel free to use it. Responsibly, please. We are in the South.

Regardless, Babydoll’s mama was a roadwhore. Card-carrying.  Spent more time in bars than the Budweiser vendor, and her tableau of sexual victims would surely rival that of Wilt Chamberlain. It was simply a wonder of nature and modern-day birth control that the woman was the mother of only two children, both girls, the eldest of whom was none other than mi amore.

Being unfit in the rearing of young ladies, said roadwhore had turned over custody and care of the children to her mother, who lived within a block of the high school. This woman had made her presence known early in my relationship with Babydoll, when, during the opening volley of our courtship, she instructed me that Babydoll was not to be seen holding hands with any boys in public.

I think I audibly laughed, assuming surely it was a joke. But her stone face bared down on me like an Easter Island monolith, intimidating from upon her throne as matriarch of this particular jacked-up-ass family tree. I soon came to understand that she was a prude of the highest order, a tee-totaller who was not only against the wilds of alcohol and other substances, but a shrewd, calculating enemy of fun of all sorts.

I remember how she read me the riot act for sitting in the same seat as Babydoll follower a match-up between my school and Theodore High School. You see, that was a long, dark bus trip…the best kind. But my feelings of studliness and man-swag evaporated soon thereafter. We stepped off the bus at our home base, and Col. Grandmama lit into me in the company of the entire assemblage of my band serfs, berating me about “appropriateness-this” and “ladylike-that.”

Now many young men would be frightened off by this sort of thing. But not one to cower in the face of adversity (nor the tremendous babylons that found home on that young girl’s chest), I took the challenge of winning not only this girl’s eternal heart, but the approval of her grandmother. (That’s foreshadowing, but not for this hoodoo…put that in your hoodoo memory banks, ya’hear?)

I worked my way in, spending time at Babydoll’s house, engaging in wholesome, Mormonic activities like separating clumps of lariope grass and doing our homework. Every day after school, I made it a point to stop by, if only for a few minutes. For some reason, these odd people had an even more odd tradition of each day having an afterschool snack that consisted solely of blueberry muffins. Now I love blueberry muffins, don’t get me wrong. But every damn day? And why after school, every day? Why not at, say, breakfast sometimes? (On a side tangent, one of the worst smells I’ve ever detected with my olfactory was the scent of burning blueberry muffins and fried oysters…ruminate on that for a minute but be careful not to conjure too hard. Shit’s nasty, y’all.)

This house was, in a word, horrifying. Clutter everywhere. A silver-fine layer of dust was layered over everything. Terrifying old porcelain clown curios, “World’s Best Grandma” mugs, yellowed water-color still-lifes of grapes and other tarnished produce. It was like taking a tour of cotdang Miss Havisham’s parlor, for crying out loud. Place always creeped me out, and aside from the ever-present lingering odor of blueberry muffins, there was always a stale-pee-stink that hung about in the sitting room where we’d often be called for visitation during my trips to this Gothic cathedral of the redneck and absurd.

Of course, there were times when the proximity of Babydoll’s abode played right into my ever-groping fingers. As I have mentioned, it was on the corner next to our high school, so when grandma wasn’t home, we would escape to this place to engage in carnal pleasures (despite the rather unsettling environs.) Like I’ve said many times before, a man of that particular age will go to great lengths to partake in the sheer glory of a voluptuous bosom.

Sometimes, when we had a break, we’d step to her house…especially when we knew the grandma wasn’t going to be at home. During the interlude between the final bell of the school day and the beginning of band practice, Babydoll and I broke away for a little fun. It was not an uncommon occurrence, as her grandma had to go pick Babydoll’s younger sister up from the middle school a few neighborhoods away, at just the right time of day to allow for an afternoon dalliance.

On this particular occasion, I decided to yank Babydoll’s chain. You see, her grandma (who I will heretofore refer to as “Jabba” given her considerable girth and the spillage of her belly over-top of her ever-present elastic-waisted knit grandma britches) had a throne, as I’ve mentioned before. It was a cornflower blue Lay-Z-Boy recliner in a plush fabric. To be honest, I don’t know how the poor chair had held up so long, considering its daily load of human tonnage. But it was old enough to show its substantial wear. 

On my prior visits to the home, I had been warned about the chair.

“No matter what you do, don’t ever sit in that chair,” I had been told by Babydoll in her ever-so-sensuous voice. I can hear it now, like music, even though she was a cotdang Aub. “Grandma will never let you back in here if she catches you in her chair.”

I figured this was yet another quirk the old lady harbored in her semi-agoraphobic old age. Kinda like another rule of the house, namely that one never flush (used) toilet paper down the toilet hole. I can still remember the dressing-down I received when, after emerging from the bathroom, Jabba asked me what I did with my teepee.

“Um, ma’am?” I wasn’t sure what I had been asked, as certainly my hearing had failed me. “What did I do with what?”

“The toilet paper, where is it?”

“The sewer, I guess…is that bad?”

She called Babydoll aside, and after a few heated remarks in an adjacent room, Babydoll had to inform me that when using the facilities at their home, one was asked to refrain from flushing said toiletry accouterments down the commode. Instead, it was to be placed (used, nasty) in a lined waste basket next to the potty. I was also informed that there would be follow-up investigations to verify my compliance with said house rules. (It was at that point that I decided that it was simpler to just run by McDonald’s on the way to Babydoll’s house if I felt Nature’s most urgent call.)

So far, for those non-mathletes out there, let’s make sure everyone has the same count. Thus far, the rules are:

1.       No hand-holding in public

2.       No sitting in the same seat on the bus

3.       Must enjoy blueberry muffins

4.       No flushy-flushy for the teepee

5.       Never, ever-ever-ever-ever sit on Jabba’s throne

Now back to our story. Babydoll had gone to the restroom, leaving me in the living room. I thought it would be humorous to have a go at her and thumb my rebellious nose at Jabba and her rules. I decided to violate her personal space in every (legal) way I could conjure, knowing that Babydoll would freak and scramble to right her misguided boyfriend’s many, many wrongs.

Quickly, I rearranged the dust-covered curios, switched the pictures around on the wall. Turned the god-awful Auburn blanket on the couch-back around so that the Aubie logo faced upsidedown. (I know, I know….couldn’t get to the toilet, as it was occupato.)

Then, as the tour-de-force, I decided to sit upon the matriarch’s throne. I relished in this violation, snuggling down into it, wiggling low into the substantial wallow created by Jabba’s oversized ass like Boba Fett in the belly of the Almighty Sarlacc. I wrapped myself in my rebellion, proud of my secret defiance and sure that it would draw the desired reaction from Babydoll. I even lifted the crocheted blanket from the chair’s seat and draped it over me damn head like a dang ole Kossack peasant woman.

As I nestled into the plush chair, I detected a plume of scent rising up…it wasn’t blueberry muffins nor oysters. No, it was unmistakable, it was definitely teetee. The pieces began to fall into place as I noticed the creeping dampness seeping through the back of my jeans. “What the hell?” It was at that time that my beloved emerged from the bathroom.

She didn’t notice the curios, the pictures nor the desecrated Aubie blanket. The look of panic on her face confused me, but to my astute mind, it belied a much greater sin against the sanctity of Jabba’s palace.

“GET UP!”

I was a little shocked she had yelled at me in such a harsh tone. After all, she was coming at me all wrong, that kind of reaction made me ask “why?” rather than acting.

She pulled at my arm, urging me up. “GET UP GET UP GET UP!”

I thought surely Babydoll couldn’t be THAT terrified of Jabba. After all, she wasn’t even home, would likely never know I committed said sins in her house.

But I had underestimated the true power of the Force, friends. As karma, is a cruel, cruel roadwhore.

“Why are you so upset, guh? She ain’t even here?”

“NO YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” She was almost hyperventilating by this point. I followed her orders and rose, noticing that the trailing scent of piss wafted up behind me.

Our eyes met. I anticipated the words that were about to come out of her mouth, but the horror had not yet settled in.

“MY GRANDMA PEES IN THAT CHAIR FIVE OR SIX TIMES A DAY! SHE’S INCONTINENT! I TOLD YOU NOT TO SIT THERE, EVER, DUMBASS!

You see, I had no idea. Sure, I’d detected the smell of stale pee, but what old person’s house doesn’t smell like stale pee. Honest mistake, right?

I played back in my mind how terrible it must have been for the maiden to emerge from the restroom, after not flushing toilet paper presumably, to find her one and only sitting on a piss throne, wrapped in a piss rag of a blanket.

I instantly began to gag. I never threw up, as I had not yet had my daily allotment of blueberry muffins, so I was working with an empty stomach. Dry-heaved like a mofo though. My jeans were damp with the most recent irrigation of the recliner…and I still had an hour and a half of band practice before I could change skivvys.

I felt so violated. All I could think to do was get away from the horror as quickly as possible, which in its essence, meant getting out of my clothes. I stripped down in a lightning strike and jumped into the shower, where I curled into a fetal position and began sobbing. After all, I had not only played sponge to this old woman’s bodily fluids, but I had covered myself over with improvised maxi-pad of a blanket she had rested her liquidacious nether regions upon. The horror…THE HORROR!

My sulk didn’t last long, however, as I heard a frantic knock at the hollow bathroom door. The knock was followed by words I had not, in fact, anticipated, namely “hurry the f@#$ up, Grandma’s home!”

It was at this point that I realized my piss soaked clothing was still on the floor in the living room. I froze, not sure how I would make my way out of this one alive and/ or without killin’ an old lady. I decided my best course of action was to remain in said bathroom until the avenue for escape presented itself. Fortunately (and on account of some advanced, Darwinistic natural selection typa bullshit), ya boy OWB wasn’t datin’ no fool, despite her decidedly Auburnian inclinations. Babydoll leapt into action.

I heard clanging, then the unmistakable sound of the washing machine filling up from the other end of the house. I heard the rear door of the house open, followed by muffled chatting in the next room. At this point, I wasn’t sure what was going down, but I had not heard yelling, nor the sound of a round being racked into the tube of a scattergun.

A few moments later, a soft knock, followed by Jabba’s now-softened voice…”You okay in there hunny?”

“Uh, yes ma’am, I’m all good.”

“Well Babydoll tossed your clothes in the washer, we’ll dry ‘em and you’ll be good as new. I’m gonna go make you some blueberry muffins.”

“Hmmm,” I thought. I was puzzled. Why was I not dodging birdshot, or at the very least, the cacophony of old-lady-isms? Surely, something was afoot.

I awaited my clothing behind the door of the restroom as instructed. After all, at this point, I was just glad I hadn’t been flung into the Rancor pit with only some femur bone or other to protect myself. My toasty clothes were delivered, and I emerged to the increasing aroma of fake blueberries steaming off from the pseudo-batter.

Jabba was on her throne, and as I looked upon her, I saw for the first time a look of sympathy and compassion cast across her face. Before I could open my mouth, Babydoll put her arm in the crook of my elbow and walked me outside, a paper plate heavy with blueberry muffins in her hand.

Once at a safe distance, I had to have answers.

“Um, what just happened back there? Are we not in trouble?”

Babydoll smiled. “Nope, everything is fine.”

She had to know I needed further illumination, as the preceding events had been theater of the absurd on the highest order.

She volunteered the answers I sought.

“I told her you had the stop-sign pizza in the cafeteria at lunch today, and it gave you the trots,” she said, suppressing a giggle. “I told her we were on the way to band camp and you messed yourself, came here to clean up and wash your clothes so you didn’t miss band practice.”

Damn genius. I mean really, people, for an Aub, you gotta admit…that’s pretty fast thinking. Shit, most of those people can’t cipher to 10 without their fingers and toes, maybe an abacus. And most of them can’t spell abacus. I was duly impressed by the resourcefulness of the maiden…brains and big bazooms to boot…daddy like.

Now, never you mind that I had to play the perpetual role of a public shitter for the duration of the relationship. I once took a road trip with them to Auburn (it was for Honor Band, okay? Geez, people…) We ate at the Shoney’s Buffet on I-85 in the ‘Gum on the way back, and for the remaining four hours of the ride, there was a “booty check” every 30 minutes.

I’d hear, “Now OWB, theys a rest stop raht up here, if you need me to stop you just say the word, hunny.” Then she’d covertly whisper to Babydoll’s sister in the passenger seat, “He’s got what they call a nervous stomach, you see, what they call a nervous stomach. Gets the trots real easy.”

(Who came up with that god-awful terminology, by the way? The trots, really? That sounds like the name of some colitis-themed 50’s doo-wop (huh-huh-huh…he thed doo-wop) group, doesn’t it? “Hell yeah boy, I hear The Trots are playin’ at the casina this evenin’.”  I mean, what the f@#$ does it even mean? What are the origins? But I digress…)

So to recount, not only did I date an Aub, not only did I defile an old lady’s domicile and eldest grand-daughter, not only did I rearrange her curios and steep myself in her stale pee, but I also gained (and was forced, by circumstance, to embrace) the reputation of a serial public shitter.

But I reckon there are worse fates, right, people? I can imagine that watching Bama lose to Ole Piss (irony, no?) would be one of them. So by God Almighty, if this above multiplicity of hoodoo doesn’t get us a win versus those inbred (but quite literary) heathens, then I may as well just hang my hoodoo boots on the fence post.

Roll Tide, y’all.