Staying on the cutting edge
Girl, I miss you.
Ever since you went away to get married, life around here has been a drag.
No more wild parties, vampish runs through New York’s clubs, no boys giving us free cocaine or cheap sex.
Of course, I know it isn’t just you.
I’m happy for you and glad you found someone in your life.
I guess you picked the right time to straighten out your act since everything these days has turned drag.
It’s “Just say no” to everything around here.
I’m so bored I sit here going crazy wondering where the 1970s and 1980s went.
Drugs are out.
Sex is dangerous.
Next thing, people will be telling me not to breathe.
Sure, I went out on the town after you left.
But if felt like a wake.
Everybody I meet either knew somebody who was hooked or dead.
Not must room for thrill-seeking there.
I guess that’s why I took up with the hell-bent crowd we always found a little too wild even for our tastes.
They scared both of us even when we were into taking risks.
I figured it was worth the gamble.
What’s the point of living if you have to watch out for everything that would make you happy?
And with the money I’m making, it felt stupid to stash it away for a future I’m pretty sure won’t be any better than things are today.
I wanted to have fun.
And would you believe it, that crowd got even farther out than when we knew them, and I guess I was a little nervous when I took up with them.
Do you remember when I thought eating sushi was far out?
This crowd went one step more, eating raw fish, skin, scales, eyes and all.
But even that seemed to tame for them. They decided to eat the fish alive, tail flapping on their plate as they dug in.
You remember that Spielberg movie where they ate frozen monkey brains. This crowd decided to eat the brain of the monkey while it was still alive.
These things, of course, were always prelude to a massive orgy, in which we all tried to kill each other with sex.
I liked the sex part -- even when it went a lot farther than we ever did.
But I always cringed over what new prelude they would introduce.
Maybe I should have gone home to my dull life before things went to far.
I was desperate for the old thrills and the idea that we could live on the edge.
Okay, so I got a little sick when they insisted we all have sex with a cow. I assure you, we’ve moved beyond bestiality. Even they weren’t comfortable with it, especially with the exotic animals. Sex with an animal is bad enough without all those claws and teeth leaving you bleeding from the experience.
I think some of us were a little worried about catching some strange disease worse even than AIDS.
Anyway, they had something better and wilder in mind, something so far out on the edge, we were bound to fall over from it.
That’s when I really got scared.
Maybe it was just the look in their eyes and the way they licked their lips.
If eating live monkeys and having sex with exotic beasts wasn’t far out enough, I could not imagine what they had in mind.
Sex with rock formations?
That’s when I figured I better find an exit strategy.
But too late.
They brought the kids in to our gathering place, prepubescent children of every race, color, and creed.
The only consistent criteria for their selection seemed to be their age: between 7 and 10.
Everyone of them worse the same innocent and terrified expression, looking at us, wondering what we intended to do next.
My friends said they had snatched the children from the street to add to the flavor of the experience, and all I could see in my mind were the faces of the thousands of kids staring back at me from the sides of milk cartons.
Yet, despite my horror on one level, I was relieved on another.
Sex with children was outrageous, but not nearly so insane as my imagination had made this new fad out to be.
My friends assured me that sex was not what they had in mind.
“We’re not going to fuck them,” one said. “We‘re going to eat them.”