It’s that
dreaded week again, the week that, to Bama fans, is not unlike when your mother
makes your 16-year-old ass drive your little sister and her friends to the
mall. It’s time to babysit the cattle inseminators from yonder way ‘cross the
state yet again. Auburn fancies the Tide a “rival,” which is…cute. For most
Bama faithful, the Auburnite is a mere afterthought, a lesser incarnation at a
traditionless (save for sophomoric ritual of hurling tissue paper into the
shrubbery) cow college of an institution of “higher learning.”
Truthfully,
when we Bama folk think of the cow-pokers across the state, we recognize as
them as a carbuncle on the hind parts of the SEC conference, a backwards,
backwoods, delusional conglomeration of “fambly” members who are more akin to
an apple-sauce-and-lortab-cocktail-consuming cult than a legitimate football
fan base. In Auburnland, the sun always shines on the Tigers, and when it doesn’t,
it’s because of some nefarious plot on the part of the Bammers and the SEC
office to deny the Auburnite their God-given birth right.
The
feelings many of us have for our poor Barner brethren do not seethe with the
white-hot embers of hate many of us harbour for our meth-addicted,
Creamsicle-hued rivals to the north. Many look at the Tigers with an “awwww…”
mindset, though sympathy for the devil is probably too liberal a phrase to use
to describe the perception of those orange and blue clad nose-jerky consumers
from across the state. There is a certain “bless your heart” sadness we feel
when we see our fellow humans desecrate themselves with the colors of delusion
(which, by the way, are indeed orange and blue), and I personally no longer
take an elevated degree of joy in seeing their asses stomped into the ground
mightily, and with regularity, by the Crimson Tide.
So I don’t
have to tell you people what this week’s Hoodoo means…I don’t need to tell you
what rides on this particular contest. It’s not about the rivalry, per se. The
stakes are much, much higher for the Tide, as they are playing for something
much bigger than the paltry bragging rights over a state that they’ve owned for
much of the Nick Saban tenure, if we’re taking a “real talk” approach to the topic.
And bragging rights are of limited usefulness when deployed against an enemy
that can concoct fictional narratives of Wellsian persuasion to divert
responsibility from their boys in the wake of a loss. If (when) Alabama wins,
it will be because the refs favored the Tide, or because there were missed
holding calls against Alabama, or because Gus Malzahn had the dropsy, or
whatever other ramshackle tall-tale their feeble minds can conjure.
Yet and
still, the need for sacrifice remains (Loki is a hangry sumbitch), and in this
week, when the stakes are at their highest, it is time to deploy some Defcon 4
Hoodoo. Leave no cards on the table, leave no Hoodoo stone unturned. Bring your
best and brightest, for tomorrow, we will slake out thirst on the fragile egos
of those who would elevate themselves so much as to consider their boys true
rivals of our beloved Crimson Tide.
In keeping
with the theme of the week, I’ll spin a tale from my teenage years, when I was
more motivated by the fondling of breasticles and canoodling with tender young
ladies in my newly acquired Chevy Nova than anything else shy of Tide football.
And because of the particular persuasion of my cohort in this particular story,
it will be apropos for the occasion, in more ways than one.
For you
see, as I have recounted to you fine people in Auburn Hate Week Hoodoos of
yore, I did the unthinkable as a high school senior. You see, I fell into a
trap that sometimes snares even the most noble-minded, stout-hearted men of
crimson repute during the hormonally-tempestuous stretch between 14 and 18. If
you haven’t guessed it before, or your memories of Hoodoos past have been
erased by ever so many malted hops and hookah-hits of the kush, I…well, I…dated
an Auburn girl.
Now this was
no casual affair, you see. I mean, after all, what’s the harm in a one-night-stand
with any fetching young lady of a willing attidude, regardless of her football
affiliation? I could admit to many such trysts with women of an Aubie
persuasion, but those were mere drops in a gulf of intimate experiences,
seconds on the digital clock of my corporeal life.
But this…this
was something different. I was in it deep for this girl, this Aubie-cat. It was
more than a fling, it was the real deal (or as much a real deal as teenagers
can commit themselves to). We met as members of the band, and after summer band
camp of her sophomore year, we were winding ourselves tightly together, so much
so that I put a mutual friend up to getting some concrete feelers on the
situation. When she returned with promising intel (namely, that this Aubie-cat
was likewaise diggin’ on your narrator), I leapt at the chance, asked her out,
and it was official. We were an item.
Though she
was younger than me, she was very mature for her age…both emotionally and
physically. Emotionally, she was driven, a girl who knew what she wanted and
was willing to work to get it. Physically, she was sporting a tremendous set of
D-cup Babylons that were mesmerizing to a devotee of the Temple of Tittay. As
an adult male who tries to walk the straight and narrow, I now make sure not to
let my eyes stray to the chests of women who are likewise endowed, trying
rather to focus on their eyes or whatever words may be spilling from their
mouths. But as a young man, I had no such respect for the women with whom I
came in contact. I was hypnotized by boobs, and if I’m being honest, it was
this facet of the Aubie-cat’s personage that attracted me more than any other
quality. (Yes, I was a pig, but at least I recognize that fact and have done my
best to alter this trait.)
We’d sit on
the back of the bus on long band trips, planning out our wedding, talking about
names for our children, etc. It was sickening, really. Much more so when I
consider in retrospect that had any of those well-laid plans had come to
fruition, my crimson bloodline would have been stricken with the stain of Aubie
blood. Thank God for small miracles.
One of the
other things I had been planning for some time was how in the world I was ever
going to get into this Aubie-seed’s skimpies. For you see, guarding the gates
of her virginal womanhood was a veritable Hutt from the wilderness of Winston
County, a pee-stank grandmatron of this Aubie gene pool, Aubie-cat’s grandmama.
She was a tee-totaler in every possible sense of the world. Liquor never passed
her pristine (and often blueberry muffin-stained) lips…seriously, the woman had
an unnatural fixation on blueberry muffins. In her approximation, smoking was a
pasttime for ill-bred roadwhores, not ladies of Southern upbringing.
As opposed
as she was to these other typical vices coveted by poorly-behaved high school
hellions, neither mustered as much venom from the old woman as the thought of
girls who fell into the trap of loose morals, handing out that hoo-hah (or as
they referred to it, the “snookie”) wholesale to any Tom, Dick or Harry who
bought a lady a Supersized Number 4 combo at the McDonald’s. No, this old Hutt
would have preferred any of her granddaughters (whom she had vowed to guide
into womanhood, given the perpetual whoredom of their birth mother, the Hutt’s
daughter) sample alcohol and burn a stogie if it meant they would keep the legs
together and fight off the hormonally-charged advances of grimy, sex-crazed
teenaged boys.
Sometimes,
I’d tag along with them on short trips, after earning a shred of trust in the
mind of the Hutt. After all, I was the band captain, a leader, a shining knight
in white armor with a 4.0 grade point average. Surely, surely, I would never
attempt to deflower her eldest granddaughter…she had never even seen me attempt
to hold hands with her, after all. I played the role of an innocent eunuch in
the eyes of this Hutt, as doing so eliminated any suspicion that I was indeed
in this relationship for the jiggly-jugglin’.
Being in
the Hutt’s good graces, I was allowed to travel with them on local junkets from
time to time. I went to the beach with them for Spring Break. I hit up the
infamous Elberta Sausage Festival (it’s a real thing) with them, as it was one
of their bi-annual rituals. I had made a trip to Auburn (the heart of fking
darkness) in her Chevy conversion van for an honor band event. Watched a game
with this clan of Auburnites, though I refused to sport those god-awful colors
that reek of inbreeding and shame. I’d do whatever I had to do to spend
additional time with my Tiger-lovin’ honey-pot, a man whipped by the prospect
of carnal desire fulfilled.
One such
honor band-bound trip had us traveling back from Auburn down I-85, then I-65,
during the Blizzard of ’93 (if you were anywhere in central Alabama in March of
that year, you’ll remember it. Auburn and Montgomery had 5-6 inches on the
ground, with accumulation as far south as Atmore and Mobile.) As a result, we
were allowed to sit in the back of the van, together, with a blanket covering
us from the neck down. Seeing the perfect chance at some undercover
naughty-business, I put that blanket to good use as cover, first to hold hands,
without the Hutt spying us. When I saw that those shadowy movements went
undetected, I decided to…up the ante, so to speak. For the sake of modesty, I
won’t tell all my secrets to you, my faithful readers, but will rather let your
minds wander as to what went on in the back bench of that van beneath the cover
of quiltery.
Having been
emboldened by that sleight of hand (literally), this Aubie-cat and I began to
take our relationship to another level…a decidedly physical one. By this time,
I was able to borrow the family Nova on most nights, and so I was able to pick
up my girl and tool around a little bit before returning her home in time for
her ridiculously early “bed time.” We’d catch a movie sometimes, grab a bite to
eat, hang out at my house where there were no prying parental eyes to regulate
our behaviors. Our nights usually ended with a Slurpee from the local 7-11, and
a tryst in some parking lot or other before I would drive her home.
Using a
keen eye honed by a few years of seeking out non-descript areas for covert
carnal subterfuge with one young lady or other, I had a literal catalog of
locations we could visit to engage in heavy petting (and beyond) without fear
of being disturbed. One was a school yard across the street from my childhood
home, at the end of a long driveway concealed between two buildings. I think I’ve
told y’all about that Steve McQueen-ish Great Escape in a Hoodoo tale of
yesteryear, as after being discovered by a school security guard, I had to
employ combat driving techniques to escape and evade capture. There was another
time that we were accosted in a parking lot near Mobile’s Bel Air Mall by a
security detail, as we necked while I listened to the Alabama-Mississippi State
game during the 1992 championship campaign.
There were
other close scrapes at other trusted locales, so many, in fact, that I had
sought to cultivate additional locations for these nocturnal sessions of the
flesh. I was running out of options. In a city the size of Mobile, finding a
secluded spot that was not frequently passed by police officers or other
authority-type busy-bodies was no simple task. One had to poke and prod and
conduct surveillance before committing to a site, which was time-consuming to
say the least (especially when doing so involved a female compatriot who had to
be home by 9). Compounding the difficulty was the fact that not only did I have
to feel confidence in the selected site, but my ever-skiddish counterpart had
to likewise be convinced, for the consequences of being found out, for her,
would have been catastrophic to her burgeoning social life. If the Hutt ever
caught a clue that she was shucking skin in the back seat of the Nova with me,
we’d both have to move to another state to be able to retain our respective
hides.
One night,
after much debate (and a particularly convincing sales job by ya boy), we
settled on a makeshift location for our evening make-out session. We were
running short of time, but teenage boys being teenage boys, I had needs that I
felt just had to be met. I’m sure she could have gone on home without tasting
the nectar of forbidden love on just that one night, but me, I didn’t think I
could make it for even a day without some variety of sweet lovin’. Young men of
that age get that way after tasting the tempting flavor of female companionship,
with a single-minded drive to complete the task regardless of the obstacles put
before them. I firmly believe that if the powers-that-be were serious about
installing peace in the Middle East, they’d put the problem before a group of
hormone-addled teenage boys with the promise of poonanny as a reward…they’d
have that shit solved in no time.
In my case,
I didn’t look at the dwindling location situation as a problem, but rather, an
opportunity. An opportunity to plow new ground, to chart new territory. With
the clock running on our potential nightly engagement, I suggested the
unthinkable.
“Why don’t
we just go to the park, cut the lights, and knock it out real quick?” (Romantic,
I know. I’m sorry ladies, but this feller is taken.)
“What? We
can’t just do it in the parking lot at the park, are you crazy?” She obviously
lacked the imagination that propelled me forth. I guess that’s to be somewhat
expected from an Aubie, however.
“Well, sure
we can. It’s dark, so probably won’t be anybody else there. And, since it’s
dark, nobody will see us. We’ll cut the lights, and knock it out. Be done just
like that. So…whattya think?”
I could
tell by the look on her face that she was hesitant. Some would say hesitant,
others would say horrified. I didn’t think she was completely sold on the deal,
maybe it was the fact that she continued to shake her head no as I spoke, like,
the entire time.
Always the
trooper, I figured my seniority would win the day. I just kept reassuring her
that all would be well.
“Nah, man,
see, nobody will see us…cuz it’s like, dark. And I promise, I won’t take too
long, I’ll only need a minute.” (Again, I tell you people, this dude was a
stone-cold Romeo in the cotdang flesh. You ladies know you want some, amirite?
Silver-tongued sumbitch right there.)
“Well,
okay, I guess, if you hurry.”
Boom, the
words I wanted to hear. I whipped the Nova around and jetted back towards the
park. The recreational space in question was Mobile’s Langan Park, a vast
expanse of green grass and pine trees with a lake as the centrepiece. There was
a large parking lot adjacent to the lake, and the water side of it was on the
other side of little pitch, making any cars parked there hard to see from anyone
north of the driveway. It was far from perfect, but it would work.
As we
wheeled down the long driveway, I noticed that there was no one else in the
park. Like no one at all. It’s worth noting at this point that there was a
reason for the lack of patronage at this particular park during this particular
era of Mobile history. It was in that year, 1993, that the car-jacking craze
finally landed in my sleepy little town. Mobile has always been known for its disproportionate
rate of violent crime, but car-jackings were a whole new deal: hyper-violent
theft in which the victims often walked away seriously injured (or dead) in
addition to having probably their second most-prized position stolen literally
from beneath them.
In fact,
this very park had been the site of a recent car-jacking. The parks were still
open to recreational users after sunset, and one student from the University of
South Alabama had driven over to the park to use its extensive walking path to
get in a little jog after classes. As he returned to his car, a
nefariously-minded perpetrator emerged from some dark corner, shoving a pistol
in his ribs and demanding his keys. The victim complied, but before the jacker
left with his wheels, he pistol-whipped the student within an inch of his life.
Ugly business indeed.
So I, in my
infinite teenage wisdom (powered by unadulterated ‘mones) picked this site…this
site… as the location of our get-down sesh on this particular evening. Good
decision-making, no? I was a sharp sumbitch, to be sure.
I wheeled down
and tucked the Nova into the corner of the parking lot, cut the lights, and
escorted my Auburnic lady-friend to the backseat. Within a few minutes, I had
unfastened the over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder, the twins were set free,
jiggling and wiggling before my overjoyed eyes. We leapt right into the action
with little foreplay, and before you know it, the windows were steamed and things
were getting downright serious.
About five
minutes into the depths of this carnal cavortation, both our hearts skipped a
beat as a light bounced off the fogged windows, illuminating the entire cabin
of the trusty Nova like a tractor beam from a flying saucer. But this was no
ordinary light…it was a police spotlight.
I sat up
enough to smudge a little of the fog from the bottom corner of the backseat window
and peered out. Just as I expected, there was a Mobile PD cruiser sitting 20
yards away at an idle. I was mostly blinded by the spotlight, but I could tell
from movement in front of the headlights that the officer was out and heading
towards the car.
At this
point, I was unaware of the fact that following the aforementioned car-jacking
incident, the City of Mobile had wisely elected to begin closing its parks at
sunset to discourage ne’er-do-wells from taking advantage of late-night park patrons.
By choosing the park, we were violating city ordinance, and violators like us
were being policed out and ticketed with a vengeance to help instill the new
policy. I guess it would have paid for me to listen to the news from time to time,
as I could have used said intel to choose my location more wisely.
“OH SHEET!”
I screeched at her through clinched teeth. “It’s tha po-po…get dressed, quick!”
At this
point, Aubie-cat was only half nekkid, thank Odin’s Cod-Piece. She slung her
gauzy poet’s shirt back around her neck and poked her arms through with the
quickness. But, the fact remained, we were stuck in the back seat…no way to get
back to the front. And finding two sweaty teenagers in the backseat, any
officer worth his salt would know exactly what was going on. Given the fact
that Aubie-cat was a mere sophomore while I was a senior, we both knew phone
calls, possibly police car rides, were likely to follow. That, friends, would
have meant disaster…for the relationship, for my future, for Aubie-cat’s hopes
of ever, ever leaving her house again once her Hutt-mama got a’holt to her.
“Think
fast, man!” I had to come up with something, quickly. Our very lives (and my
continued sampling of the poontang) depending upon it.
I racked my
brain, trying to think of some reason to explain away this damning situation. I
couldn’t run, as the po-po had me dead to rights. Plus, there was one way in,
and one way out…wouldn’t have been easy to give him the slip. Downright
impossible. And attempting to do so could have resulted in some kinda law-enforcement
APB or some shit, thus turning a mole hill of a violation into a mountain that
would have had far-reaching consequences.
“Ohhh, what
are we gonna do, what are we gonna do? Grandma is gonna kill me…I’LL NEVER SEE
YOU AGAIN!”
Well, that
just couldn’t happen. I had worked hard to cultivate my access to those world-class
baby-feeders, and I wasn’t about to surrender those privileges so easily.
Then, it
came to me. A moment of divine inspiration, a saving grace.
“Move over,
get up front!”
“Wha…?”
“Just do it
woman!” She followed through, slipping between the two front seats, still
braless.
I had the
perfect plan. It was an unpleasant one, but desperate times and all that shit…
Just as the
police officer was within steps of my Nova, I threw the passenger side rear door
open. I knew I had a belly full of McNuggets, as I had annihilated a 20 piece
not an hour before, along with Supersize fries and about a quart of Sprite. I
had but one option, way I figured it.
I gouged my
index finger down my throat as I kicked the door opened. I gagged first, and
then rammed the finger down me ole pie-hole again. That time did the trick, as
I hurled forth a cascade of induced projectile vomit that shot out of the door
and splattered on the asphalt outside with some velocity.
I could
hear the police officer’s response, “WHOOOAA, YOU ALRIGHT?”
I composed
myself and wiped the puke off of my lips as he poked his head around the front
of the car, his Maglight shining directly into my ever-loving eyes.
“Uh, yeah…yessir…think
so…”
Seeing I
was harmless (except for the projectile vomiting thing), he walked around to
the passenger rear door. “You don’t look too alright to me…you been drinkin’
son?”
“No sir, I
don’t drink. I ate at the McDonald’s up on Moffatt a little while ago, and got
this far before I felt sick, pulled over in this parking lot to lean back and see
if the nausea would pass, and then that happened.”
“Well, damn…I
just ate there about 30 minutes ago. How long’d you say it’s been since you ate
there?” At this point, due to the fog windows and Aubie-cat’s utter silence,
the officer didn’t even know she was in the car. I kept up my fiction, as I
could tell he had become concerned over his own health, afraid the same pukey
fate would befall him mid-shift.
“Umm, prolly
been 45 minutes…if you ate there, I’d say you got about 15 minutes…prolly ought
to find a bathroom ‘less you want to ralph in the parking lot too.” His concern
was palpable…not for me, but for himself.
“Aw shit…don’t
tell me you had some McNuggets…”
“Yessir.
20-piece. They’re all right there on that asphalt I believe.”
That’s all
he needed to hear.
“Well, go ‘head
and finish up and get outta here soon as you can. Park’s closed after dark now,
so you can’t be down here. I know you had a circumstance, so I’ll let it slide…just
hurry up and move along, park’s closed,” he said as he walked away, double-time.
“Yessir,
sure thing.”
As I saw
him get back in his car and cut the spotlight, I slithered up into the front
seat. Aubie-cat had her hand held over her mouth, partially out of shock at my
resourcefulness in the moment, half to hold in the giggle I knew she wanted to
let slip out. As soon as the copper pulled off, I cranked the trusty Nova, hit
the lights, and squirted out the park’s one driveway and onto Zeigler Blvd.
“I cannot
believe you…you can puke on demand?” asked Aubie-cat.
It was one
of my many talents. I was blessed with an extremely strong gag reflex. One
time, in class, I literally worked up a puke simply because I swallowed a hair,
one of my own, and it stuck in the back of my throat. I coughed and hacked,
then gagged and had to swallow a vomit-comet rather than spill it on the
classroom floor. For once, this gag reflex semi-blessing, semi-curse worked to
my benefit.
I pulled
into her driveway in plenty of time to make the curfew the Hutt had imposed.
Easy-peasy. I had missed my evening round of fondling with light felatio, but
such was life. I was lucky to have escaped the scrape intact. I leaned in for a
kiss without thinking, but Aubie-cat recoiled.
“Uhhh, not ‘til
you brush those teeth.”
“Oh yeah,
my bad.” I guess even Aubies have standards.
One small
epilogue…though we escaped the jack-booted press of anti-sexual authority in
the moment, there was one small snag on the home front. As I pulled away from
the driveway, I realized that Aubie-cat’s bra was left in my car seat…she had
apparently sat upon it when she climbed back into the front seat, and forgot to
grab it on the way out.
Not good.
Grandma would surely notice those unfettered sweater puppets swinging free and
easy in the breeze. I circled back, but saw that Aubie-cat was already inside.
It was a literal “hope for the best” sitch, to be sure. I prayed that the Force
was with her.
After
returning home, I called her up. She recounted how she realized her foible upon
entering the back door. With a little quick thinking of her own, she was able to
conjure a story about a spilled drink and my mother laundering said
undergarment on her behalf. Fortunately, the Hutt deemed it too late in the
evening for an investigatory call to my mother to be considered proper, so she
let the sleeping dog lie.
Too much
action for a night that produced very little action, if you know what I mean. Oh
well…such is the life of a teenage male.
Loki,
please feast on this tale of shame and debauchery and let it satiate your
rampant appetite for embarrassment. May our beloved Crimson Tide trounce those
genetically-mottled chicken-cultivators from yonder in West Georgia, and let
Alabama’s banner fly unblemished into the SEC Championship Game. May the
battlefield be strewn with the bodies of our inferior foe, and the men in
crimson once again claim victory over the heathen horde of infidels.
