It never fails.
I attract ancient mariners– you know the kind? Once, working late night at McDonalds, I was one of two people in the restaurant who got to talk to Jesus Christ.
My friend runs out, high on crank, and shakes hands with the customer in the white terry cloth robe with the long beard and the piercing blue eyes.
“Hi!” she said. “My name is Carrie– what’s you’re name?”
“My name is Jesus Christ.”
And I think, We should probably get this guy out of here. It’s very late.
So I say, “Would like like a cup of coffee, Mr. Christ?”
“No, I was just going to go through your trash.”
“You should know we compact our garbage.”
“Thank you, that’s kind of you to tell me.”
So there you go. Me and Jesus. We’re solid like that.
Anyway– I was at the ARe cocktail party which was splendid–lovely nosh and fun people and they didn’t mind giving me cranberry juice and soda, because I hadn’t eaten and I didn’t want to get drunk.
Anne Tenino and I had to get back early, so we shared a cab with Damon, T.A. Chase, and Devon Rhodes– and I love all these people, so fun, right? Except I’m the big girl in the front.
And the driver starts talking.
“This here, this is where they shot Jack Ruby.”
“Wow! That’s good to know.”
The car idles at the stoplight for another minute.
“And that’s the sixth floor of the depository.”
“Wow!”
“And that’s the grassy knoll. Did you know about that from school?”
“Yessir, they taught us about that.”
“Good. That’s where Kennedy was shot.”
“I know sir.”
And in the background, Damon is getting very animated about planning an event with everyone in the car but me, remember me? I’m the one talking to the white-bearded cabbie with the red and white star-spangled sequined cowboy hat.
Damon says, “I can teach character classes and sex classes and point of view classes…”
And my cab driver says, “Sex classes?”
“Yes sir, we’re all writers.”
“What kind of writers? Like articles?”
“No sir, we’re romance writers.”
“And he teaches sex classes?”
“Well, we all write gay romance– sex classes help us do our job better.”
Yes. Yes I did say that to the man with the red and white star-spangled sequined cowboy hat, why do you ask?
Anyway…
“Sex classes?”
“Yes sir.”
“And you all write… gay romance?”
“Yes sir.”
There was a pause.
“So, like men like to think of two girls together…?”
“That’s the idea.”
“Oh.”
And another silence, and we turn into the street where the hotel is.
Then– “YOu know, not many people know about the passage in the Bible, Mark someutz, where Jesus says God made gay people.”
I’m a little non-plussed. “No, but I do know about the passage in Luke where Jesus agrees to heal the Centurion’s erastes pais, which was the slave who was the male lover of a member of the Roman legion. The Centurion was frantic– he loved his erastes pais and he knew he could be beheaded for asking Jesus for help. He said, ‘Please, come to my home and see it’s a good home.’ Jesus didn’t need to come to his home– he knew that there was love there so he healed the slave.'”
The cab driver was unimpressed.
“Yeah, but in Mark, Jesus said God made the Uhnniks.”
Me: 0.0 “Uhm, the–“
“You know, the Uhnniks? Them people who were supposed to be gay cause they were made that way… down there?”
Me: 0.0 “Uhm… the eunuchs? Cause, God didn’t make those people, they were slaves who were castrated at birth.”
Cab driver: “Nope. Some of them just came out that way, and Jesus said that God made the Uhnniks, and we had to be nice to them too. That’ll be $17.95.”
I gave him $25– because seriously, he may have taken the wrong path, but at least he caught the part where we were supposed to be nice to everybody.
Poor Uhnniks.
But we get out of the cab, and everybody is talking about exciting writer things, and I’m like, “Did you people… ugh… did you hear… you’re talking craft and I’m talking motherfuckin’ Uhnniks…”
Damon pats me on the shoulder. “That’s okay dear. We all know it’s going to end up in a story somewhere.”
MOtherfuckin’ Uhnniks. Poor, poor me.
