1732

Friday March 18, 2005
Internet Addiction Word Therapy

Philly Joe was the blue/eyed terror of Rockaway. He was big and fast and strong at a time when all of the old timers said the neighborhood was changing and had changed. None of that mattered to Philly Joe one bit. He ran the streets with glassy eyes and a face that made it clear to anybody who was looking for trouble that Philly Joe wished you would try something with him. Not surprisingly, perhaps, hardly anyone ever wanted anything of the sort.


Those who did learned concrete lessons. And fire/plug lessons. And beer bottle to the grill lessons. And et cetera and so on lessons.


Philly Joe grew/up by the water and they all thought that he was going to be the greatest hockey star Queens ever produced. And [for a minute] it was true. Philly Joe was in the Times as a kid. And NYC High School Player of the Year.


And a str8/up phenom in the minors.


Listen, Philly Joe stood at almost seven feet on his skates and weighed/in around 270 lbs. His body fat was six percent even though he lived on fast food and beer. For a moment in time that he mistook for eternity, Philly Joe had it goin on.


Hot girls pretended to be stupid when they saw his dark curls. He could fuck them any way he wanted.


But he wasn't even Philly Joe yet. He was just Joe. The Kid. The Rock from Rock. Joey Queens. Future Money Maker.


Everyone was Joe's friend. And Joe was dumb enough to believe every word they said.


Poor Joe.


But he was Philly Joe the first night the Flyers put him on the ice during the playoffs in L.A. when the team was facing elimination. That you can take to the bank.


Two goals. Eight minutes in the box and he won every fight. Sick D. The bars in Philly were alive that night. [i use descriptive fragments to build you a picture. that is my thing] The disenchanted freaked for hours. Bartenders made a g. The guys in the Carharts finally won their bets for once. The police noticed a huge drop in domestics.


In short, Philly Joe saved Philadelphia's life that night.


And the next night, too. This time a hat/trick and an assist. He even shared the rock. No one on L.A. came near him. They were all afraid. The Flyers advanced and Joe's legend was made.


Yada Yada number one rookie honors. Yada Yada Ferrari. Yada Yada the girl who played the sexy spy on t.v.


Yada Yada even better second season. Yada Yada long/term deal. Yada Yada the sexy girl in the dating movies. Yada Yada DUI #2. Yada Yada dropped assault charges for the price of a fully loaded and brand new Lincoln with zero mileage.


Damn.


[Oh, no. Look/out, Joe. It's late and you're going too fast and there are trees.]


Yada Yada broken spine/shattered femur. Yada Yada back in Queens.


But not for long. Philly Joe still had a whole bunch of that Philly green from his guaranteed contract. He bought a house in Ronkon-coma, [at least that's what the local kids used to call it] and settled into a comfy life as a local tavern superstar. Philly Joe knew stories about everyone and the one's he didn't he just lied about. No one knew. It was easy. Philly Joe had them all fooled.


Until a little five/footer with the landing strip and the tan and the boom fooled him with some cocaine and brown liquor one night. For awhile, they were like that Eagles song. Then she got all swollen and shit and popped/out a little blue/eyed boy they named Tonto.


Two years later, the five/footer split. And she left Tonto. Philly Joe found the boy trapped and screaming behind a closed door he couldn't open with a five/hour/old, brown and yellow diaper around his waist.


Thank/God Philly Joe got picked up by that one sports network to wax poetic about hockey from their studios in Connecticut. He was spending way too much. They were heading for disaster.


Tonto got to go to hockey school year round. He lived in a dorm and trained for the Olympics with a bunch of kids that he liked at first and hated after awhile. Tonto would come home during school breaks and visit his old man on Long Island. Every two years between the ages of six and sixteen, Tonto had a new mother waiting for him when he came home on his holiday. A Russian girl. A Korean. Americans with dyed hair.


But he was never there long and Tonto told himself that he had no faith in anything anyway, so none of it really mattered. At least, none of it mattered on the surface. Deeper things were brewing in Tonto's mind. Philly was still Philly, however, although he now had quite a gut and he wasn't so damn pretty anymore.


And Tonto was on the ice, and that made his old man happy even though the boy didn't have his father's size and aggression. Apparently, Philly Joe missed the thing about making babies with the tall drinks of water when you want big sons. Whatever. Life was cool.


That is, life was cool until Tonto turned sixteen and quit the national training school. He said he knew nothing about teams and didn't care to be on one any longer and they got mad and sent him home on a bus when they couldn't change his mind.


He didn't even rate a plane ticket after 8 years of servitude.


And when Tonto got back, 38 year/old Philly Joe was hot. "You did what?" He asked in front of wife #6 and her 16 y/o daughter. "How could you be so fucking stupid?" Joe shouted.


But Tonto didn't care. He'd hated hockey and those kids forever and nothing was going to sway him. Not even when Joe showed his teenage back what the wall by the fish/tank was all about in front of the women.


Fortunately, the girl came to Tonto's room later and told him her name was Jane. Otherwise, he might not have known. Tonto said, "what's wife #6's name?"


And she stared with her blue eyes into his blue eyes and said, "dude, what's the difference? I just met Daddy #4 ten days ago."


And homeboy saw her point. And all the rest of her points as well. Steppy didn't look like any of the girls at the hockey academy. He knew that right away. It was winter on Long Island and Steppy was pale and her cheeks loved their freckles and the red on her head that was almost blonde was in a braid and begging him to feel something soft for the first time in over a decade.


Tonto peeped her jeans and her cool jacket and her brown socks and he became embarrassed by the children's posters that remained on his walls from the days when he still pretended to be like everyone else. Her teeth were white and her lips looked little pink cushions for him to rest his weary soul upon. Plus, her tongue was pierced.


They talked for awhile that day and then she left. He heard Steppy's IROQ pull out of his father's garage and he opened his laptop and had an mpeg moment with the closest mannequin he could find.


Tonto wanted her [so bad] and the pervert former hockey stars on his walls watched him with smiles on their faces while Tonto tried to bust one off with her smell still in the room. He worked it and BOOM. All over his incestuous hand. Then he had to get the Kleenex.


And I think you see what's coming by now, right?


Turns out, fine/lil/steppy/Jane had a history of fun with her step/brothers. She was still too young for it to show, yet, but she was plugged/in.


And Tonto had his mpeg thing going at school for years. He wanted to try it all. They worked their way up to it, but b4 too long there were exact-o knife scars on her thighs and on his shoulders.


Once, Tonto even had a black eye.


And then, in the fall, Steppy/Jane told him that if he let her do something to him, that he could do anything back that he wanted. Anything. And then they told each other that they loved each other like they'd been doing for months, and she smiled, and said,


"ooh. I've eaten a lot today. Go in the bathroom and lay on your back by the toilet and be naked when I get in there."


And he did.


And it went from there without any snags. Although, one day when Tonto was eating his cereal with his shirt/off, Philly Joe came from behind him and asked Tonto where he got the fresh scar/tissue on his shoulders and had a look on his face that Tonto could not decipher. Tonto thought that he was busted and reflected that he didn't know what he would do if they took his Steppy from him. He told himself to play it cool and looked/up at his dad. Two seconds passed, and


Tonto shrugged and that was it. He always wore a shirt after that.


Wife #6, Tonto rarely saw. He never even wondered where she was.


And then, one afternoon in early February, the shit hit the fan. Tonto heard it on the radio in art class while he was at school. Philly Joe was in custody for fucking around with his 17 year/old Steppy. #6 caught/em, and Jane had to admit that it had been going on since 3 days after she met Philly Joe, who made all the papers once again.


Tonto knew that he was fucked. He was the laughing/stock of the Five Towns and he was underage. Some unknown relative or worse would be coming to collect him. The house was paid for, but it would go to the lawyers.


Poor Tonto. He drove home in his Pathfinder and went to his room. It was Friday and he layed in his bed until Monday without eating or peeing. He only swallowed a few sips of water. Monday was a school holiday and he knew that it would be the last day that he was free. He layed in his bed and stared at the lightning/fast clock becuz there was nothing else to watch.


Tonto wondered why he'd ever been born. He knew that no one loved him and he could actually feel pain in his heart.


And then, the phone rang at 1130pm, Monday night.


He answered and she said, "rape me."


There was nothing else he could do. Tonto stayed on the line and listened to his Jane breathe.