Brick Shithouse

“Well how’s about another one, Vern?”
The Reverend paused for a moment, looking inquisitively at his stuffed Parrot Vern. I also looked up at Vern, despite myself, half expecting an answer.

“Well I don’t mind if I do, Vern.”

The Reverend Goose answered himself in his Kentucky Miner drawl, laughing at Vern’s wit for a few seconds before starting on another beer. The Reverend talked with his stuffed parrot as he drank and as he drank, Vern had more and more to say.  After nine beers Vern was telling jokes; “Ok Vern, WHAT IS the difference between a blond and a lawn mower?” At eighteen, the Reverend wanted to quit, but Vern demanded that he drink more. “Well maybe I can do one more for old Vern.” Around twenty-six, Vern became belligerent and aggressive, “Hell no Vern, I’m telling you Davie didn’t mean nothing by it.” The Reverend fought bravely to contain Vern’s drunken violence.

Vern shoved case after case of cheap American draft down the Reverend’s parched throat, regardless of the effects it might have on the poor man’s health. We sat around a circular patio table, shaded from the Indiana July sun by a large umbrella. The good Reverend Goose, Rick Mossburg, and Rick’s parents Barbara and Dale Mossburg sat in big comfortable lawn chairs around a circular patio table. Vern, the stuffed parrot, sat on his perch a few feet away, under the garage gutter. The patio deck overlooked Indiana Highway 47. We drank and watched traffic. Rick’s daughter Anna, sat on the lawn, playing with an oversize plastic ladybug.

I was fascinated with Rick, his family, and their eclectic group of friends like the “Reverend Goose”. They lived epic American lives equal parts black and white matinee, Hunter S. Thompson novel, and after school special. I was a devoted fan of his southern fried satire and impressive lack of restraint.  As the son of a prominent children’s dentist from a bland upper middle class suburb, I yearned for the excitement of Rick’s family. Rick hailed from the coal mining country of Kentucky. Rick’s father, with only a sixth grade education, became a coal miner, bank robber, bar tender, Baptist preacher, and house painter in that order. Rick’s mother Barbara Mossburg, a West Virginia native, was the quintessential southern woman, a blend of strength and kindness, the backbone of the family. Big haired, foul-mouthed and large-breasted, she ruled the family’s Beech Grove Indiana home and partied with Rick’s college friends.

Rick chose accounting as a college major, which changed my entire view of the profession. I always assumed that accountants pursue hobbies such as stamp collecting or model train restoration. Rick somehow maintained a high grade point average while passionately enjoying his own extracurricular activities: truck stop strip clubs, recreational drug use, unplanned pregnancies, and general “hell raising” as his mother called it. He did all of it with a style, grace, and humor that turned conspicuous vices into something akin to performance art. His tastes were too refined for the keg parties and cover bands that compose the social lives of most undergraduates. Rick treated weekends like an extreme sport. He prided himself on his partying ability, each time providing me with a unique and often dangerous adventure.

Rick introduced me to strip clubs or tittie-bars, as they are known throughout Indiana. He avoided the national chains like Déjà vu or the Gold Club, considering them pretentious and overpriced. The seedier places had more entertainment value. His favorite club, “Lace and Panties,” occupied a dilapidated building conveniently located between interstate truck stops. The strippers didn’t really dance here. They sort of stumbled using the fireman’s pole in the center of the stage to regain their balance. The club served as a last stop for these dancers. The Dominiques, Crystals, and Candies who worked here hid stretch marks, caked on makeup, and argued with their biker boyfriends about child support.

Rick was well known here, a regular. Rick’s proclivities made these trips entertaining and often dangerous. One Friday night, Lace and Panties had a long line of truckers looking to relax after a week on the road; outlaw bikers using the club as a hangout; and assorted thugs ready for the “hot adult action” advertised in pink neon across the front. I waited in this line behind Rick, carefully avoiding eye contact.

Rick paid his cover charge and walked through the large swinging doors. He immediately turned and walked out, announcing to the bouncer and line, “Holy shit, you call this a strip club? I want my money back. Where are all the hot teenage guys?”

Rick was overjoyed when he discovered that the strippers used stage names. I guess most self-respecting people do not name their newborn baby daughter “Busty Brenda”, and Jennifer does just not have the same erotic appeal as local star “Sextasia”. Rick introduced himself as a male erotic dancer and asked if we might be able use the stage for “a little choreography that he’d been trying to perfect.” He explained to the skeptical bouncer, Jerry, that we had a tag team act entitled “Buttermilk Biscuits and a Side of Gravy.”

Rick’s exotic nightlife did not stop at Lace and Panties; in fact it rarely stopped at all, sometimes continuing for several days. My own tolerances were less adapted than Rick’s. I happily crawled into bed reeking of cheap beer and body spray from the last lap dance around three in the morning. Rick would come home from his own Friday night outing early Monday morning riding bitch on the back of a soft-tail Harley Davidson motorcycle. Brenda, the six-five lesbian that he met at the cockfights the night before would swing her bike into the driveway helping Rick from the back seat.

Rick introduced me to the best place in south central Indiana to find recreational heterosexual sex: gay bars. Girls here were friendlier and less guarded when I approached them with a wine cooler from the bar. The bar contained stunning women from the surrounding college and farm towns, tired of the grinding and groping of white trash heterosexual barroom courtship.

PeriWinkles or “twinkles”, as it is affectionately known in Bloomington Indiana, is the only gay bar in seventy miles. It’s unique cultural and sexual mix created a scene that should have been directed by David Lynch. The combination of homosexual design sensibilities and small town white trash culture collided violently on the flashing disco dance floor. An impeccably styled cowboy complete with black satin hat, wranglers and embroidered western shirt groped the assistant stylist from the local Super Cuts. A pair of randy farm hands stole a moment together on the dance floor while ABBA pumped “Dancing Queen” from the fur-covered speakers at the edge of the stage. Abba, Blondie, Pet Shop boys and the ever popular YMCA were the crowd favorites.

Rick introduced himself to the bar tender as an inspector from the health department. He demanded to know if the frothy blue “Cowboy Cocksucker Cocktail” had been made with freshly squeezed cowboys. Rick ordered two. Rick loved it when one of the crowd would try to pick him up. He was a large man, fuller figured, built like a professional bowler, and described himself as “corn fed” in personal ads. As we walked across the bar, a small blond man put his hand on Rick’s shoulder.

“Hey their fat boy, I like flesh.”

Rick howled with laughter and ordered the man a Cowboy Cocksucker.

Stanley, a closeted frat boy was particularly put off by Rick and constantly tried to intimidate him. When we would walk into the bar, he was never without a comment about Rick’s ass. He stood with a small crowd of Banana Republicans, the closeted underbelly of frat row. “When the hell are you two going to come out?” he said making a grinding motion toward Rick. Several of Stanley’s friends whistled, hoping to intimidate Rick. “When I see you in hot pants,” said Rick not missing a beat as he handed me a wine cooler.

The Electronic Saloon was the aesthetic antithesis of PeriWinkles. Its patrons were decidedly heterosexual, Appalachian poor, and ripe for the twentieth century’s advancements in dental hygiene. While PeriWinkles’ customers dueled with catty comments and fashion advice, the Electronic Saloon crowd preferred a more traditional ass-kicking.

After years of living in Seattle, San Francisco, and Chicago, the audacity and rawness of the Electronic Saloon seem almost unbelievable. An out of control bar brawl was contained with a warning shot from a .45 through the floor of the bar. God help the Thrifty Auto Parts below. The bartenders were dirty lecherous bastards that plied the college girls with free drinks and used terms like “pussy” with reckless abandon. Local gals had an assortment of scars, teeth and bad breath that Rick found intoxicatingly attractive. After a successful night, he would call me the next morning from a local trailer park screaming in the phone. Sentiments usually ended with driving directions and the phrase, “before her husband gets home.”

For me, the Electronic Saloon in its decided heterosexual nature was a far less fertile hunting ground than PeriWinkles for eligible or even coherent girls. The Electronic Saloon, this southern Indiana jewel, was not without its charms however. Its beer list contained two brands: Budweiser and Coors Light. While your choices were limited, they were priced to sell at 95 cents per aluminum can.

Those of us that enjoyed the colorful local culture that the Electronic Saloon provided eventually came to the same annoying question. The saloon part was self-explanatory but what did this foul drunken cacophony have to do with electronics? One night, I asked Gordon the bouncer and owner about the name. He just pointed to a rusting Miss Pack Man Video Game sitting in the back of the bar. “What the fuck did you want me to call it the Dumb Fuckin’ Shithead Saloon?” he said. I thought that the Dumb Fuckin’ Shithead Saloon might be a bit more forthcoming, but I just smiled and nodded.

I enjoyed the Electronic Saloon every bit as much as Rick. I was a single college student at the time without children or responsibility. Rick had a live-in girlfriend that probably considered herself more of a wife and a two-year-old daughter. Rick’s girlfriend Jessica was a thin Asian girl that Rick had been dating and impregnating since his senior year at Beech Grove High School. Jessica and Rick’s relationship was ripe for the afternoon talk shows. Jessica made an impressive victim. She was slight, pretty, a straight A student, and soft spoken. In truth she was more of a street brawler, ruthless, obsessed with winning at any cost, and fanatically devoted to beating Rick’s overpowering libido into something that would fit nicely into a future suburbia. The results were far from promising.

Rick and Jessica broke up weekly. The frequent endings of Rick and Jessica’s relationship was a major event not only in Rick’s life but that of his friends, family, school officials, several social services, federal agencies and of course local law enforcement. Rick was always the one that ended the relationship. It became painfully obvious within the first week of Rick and Jessica’s ill-fated romance that it was doomed to failure. It was obvious to everyone that is, except maybe Jessica. Her controversial methods of relationship counseling were legendary to all that spent time with the couple.

After one particularly memorable breakup, Jessica made a two-hour heartsick drive in the middle of the night to Rick’s parent’s home in Beech Grove Indiana armed only with a Louisville Slugger and a dream of winning Rick back. Amazingly, she was successful in her quest and once the five windows, mailbox and family cat had been properly fixed, things were back to normal for the happy couple.

I quickly learned to screen my calls when Rick and Jessica were working things out. As soon as Rick would take his phone off the receiver his friends and family would begin taking messages for him. With dozens of my own romantic relationships behind me, I have yet to break up with anyone that was as painful to me personally as Rick and Jessica’s frequent romantic tsunamis. I would reach from my bed at 3:00 in the morning knowing what was in store. After a groggy and incoherent “Hello,” I would hear Jessica on the other end of the line.

“Hi Mike, how’s it going.”

“It’s three o’clock in the fucking morning.”

“I know, but I have an important message that I need to get to Rick. I wouldn’t call if it weren’t an emergency. What, do you think that I like waking people up in the middle of the night? Maybe Rick should be a little nicer to me and I wouldn’t have to do this kind of thing. Don’t blame me. Blame that asshole Rick Mossburg.”

“Why don’t you call him yourself?” I screamed.

“Rick’s phone doesn’t seem to be working.”

“It’s not working because of the fifty-five messages that you left on it today, you psychopath. IT’S NOT WORKING BECAUSE RICK DOES NOT WANT TO TALK TO YOU.”

“I just want you to give Rick a message, tell him that I love him and that I think that I might be pregnant. Can you tell him that for me? Or are you too big an asshole to care about the unborn life of Rick’s first offspring?”

Jessica was always pregnant when Rick had managed to stay away from her for longer than two days. A life-threatening injury or any number of other cataclysmic disasters happened with alarming regularity during these intermissions in their relationship.  When Jessica made these request I knew that she was deadly serious. I also knew that whatever choice I made always resulted in the same sleepless consequences. If I walked across the hall to find Rick and deliver Jessica’s message she would call back to inquire about Rick’s response. To ignore Jessica meant that she would continue to call until I picked up the phone or unplugged it.

In the last year of Rick and Jessica’s relationship after their daughter was born and they were living together, things were particularly bad. Jessica often threatened to call the Police, claiming domestic violence when they got into a fight. Indiana has a twenty-four-hour holding period for any claim of domestic violence, whether or not the claim is substantiated. Rick had to factor this twenty-four-hour holding period any time he went out for a night on the town. I watched several times as Rick was hauled away by the local Sheriff with a smile on his face.

Calling the police was a two-edged sword for Jessica. It was an act of desperation, but it also gave Rick an additional chance to be away from her. Jessica would try to recant her claims of domestic violence but the holding period made this useless. It didn’t matter to Rick. He liked going to jail. It was the only time that he could get any sleep, a needed sabbatical from Jessica. When Jessica would try to recant, Rick would argue with the Pplice. He demanded a well needed twenty-four-hour vacation and he reminded the officer that according to the letter of the law, she called and he should be held. Before being pushed, handcuffed and smiling, into the back of the squad car I heard Rick yell back, “Take me to jail, at least the sex will be better.”

By his senior year I think that even Rick had enough of the fights. He finally called it quits despite a constant barrage of Jessica’s personal tragedy, homemade desserts, and trips to the Monroe county jail. Jessica finally forced Rick over the edge. She would not be defeated and she spent the entire summer trying to ruin his life through both conventional means and by trying to destroy his relationship with his daughter.

Rick decided that something drastic had to be done. In a fit of despair he left town a few days later to stay with family in Kentucky. He was staying with his half sister and her two-year-old son George. Two days later I received a phone call from Florida. Rick was screaming into the phone and he sounded happy.

“I just got married!”

“You did what?” I said. It was difficult to hear over the loud noise and music in the background.

“Got married.”

“Did what?”

“Got married!”

“To who?”

“Bambi. Bambi ahhhh? Hey what is your last name? Never mind it’s Bambi Mossburg, I almost forgot,” screamed Rick laughing.

“Who’s Bambi?”

“You’ll love her. I met her in a bar, and I knew right away she was the perfect woman for me. She smells like beer. How could I go wrong?”

The newlyweds made the twelve-hour drive back to Indiana the next weekend. The Reverend Goose, Rick’s parents and a few friends planned a wedding reception on the porch of Rick’s house to commemorate the couple’s arrival.

A big haired southern gal with immense breasts stepped from the passenger side of Rick’s truck. I couldn’t help but think that Bambi and Rick’s mother were cut from the same cloth. Rick’s mom stepped forward to greet her new daughter-in-law.

“Why Rick, She’s built like a brick shit house!” said Barbara Mossburg, smiling.

Bambi stepped forward, hiccuped and introduced herself to her new in-laws. “Anyone got a bud?”

I pulled a Budweiser from the cooler, we drank, watched the traffic go by and listened to Vern.