TG Techie: Chapter 40: Funnel Cake

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Funnel Cake

I woke up at 8 AM the next morning feeling great. This hangover thing was a piece of piss, I didn’t know what everyone else was complaining about. My head didn’t even hurt. I checked my email, screwed around online for a half an hour, and figured I might as well go back to bed.

oOo

I woke up five hours later. It was a terrible mistake. The sun was streaming through my bedroom window and straight into the back of my skull. My head was filled with the feeling of a pile of burning tires. I didn’t know how it could feel that way, but it did. You know that plaque on your teeth? The stuff you scrape off of them with your fingernails when you can’t brush? Well every muscle in my body had been packed with that stuff. I won’t go into what my mouth felt like, other than it would never be clean again.

I groaned. That made everything hurt worse.

Mom was sitting on my bed and just another person sitting two feet away from me was too much. “I let you sleep long enough. Time to go to an amusement park!”

Rolling over would take too much energy. I hid under the covers instead.

Mom got up, “If you aren’t downstairs in half an hour I’ll be back with an air horn.”

Forty five minutes later I managed to get down the stairs, limping on my injured brain. It took everything I had to sit at the table and eat buttered toast. The uncut tips of my toenails hurt.

Mom just sat watching me. I glared at where I thought she might be through the glare of sunlight on my retinas, “Stop enjoying my pain.”

I couldn’t make sense of her expression, but hated her for whatever it was. “I would but you’re making it too easy.”

“I’m never going to drink again.”

“You didn’t drink this time.” I opened my mouth and she held up a hand, “If you had drank, I would have to ground you, so think carefully about your answer.”

“I’m never going to drink in the future.”

“See? You can be smart. Put your shoes on, we leave in as soon as I find my keys.”

Putting on shoes hurt. The sidewalk shot agony through the tips of my hair with every step. The hot seat of the car was unbearable. The smell of the hot car drove thought from my mind. The sun had leveled up and was attacking every part of my being.

Then we started driving and it got worse.

oOo

We got out of the car in the parking lot of Elitch Gardens. If I hadn’t been thinking hungover I would have realized that something was wrong. My mother would rather walk eight blocks than pay for parking.

The line was easy, it wouldn’t get really busy until later when people showed up for the haunted house at a time more appropriate to experience a haunted house.

I was feeling okay by that time. Not great. Not even good. Somewhere a few degrees North of functional.

Elitch Gardens used to be a Six Flags franchise, but they split. So all of the Warner Bros shit that used to adorn the rides and merchandise shops was all gone. Notable blank stickers on the bat wing ride now, or empty spaces on the shop signs. It was a little pathetic, and as usual I struggled to care beyond noticing it was gone. Even when not hungover the whole thing just gave me a “huh” moment.

We passed a few rides, the ones that are supposed to lure you into the park. Mom is a daredevil, and likes the really hardcore stuff. The ones you have to pay an extra $25 for and have names like The Vominator, or The Ejection Seat. I played the dutiful son on most of our visits, and held her glasses while she got shot up 300 feet at 200 miles an hour, or whatever.

Then I had always felt … unmanned by watching her. Cowering in fear and sweat in line. Never as brave as my weakly woman mother. It was nice to think that as a weak little girl I wouldn’t have to face that manly shame.

But we shared a thing for the roller coasters. I loved the roller coasters. We would always try to get onto the front car and be the first to feel the drop.

All of this was very unappealing at that time. I tried to let my mom walk ahead of me in the crowd so I could pretend to lose her and find somewhere to sit down. She walked beside me instead, filling my head a proposed ride list.

“I was thinking Tower of Doom first, then the Mind Eraser, Log Ride, that wooden one, something that spins around, and then something hardcore.” She suddenly switched directions, “Of course we need to do the ferris wheel first.”

And on the way there it happened. We passed a funnel cake cart.

Cinnamon and butter and dough fried in grease all went straight into my nose, shot into my stomach and caused a devastating and instant reaction.

That is to say, without any advance warning I puked. Everywhere.

Hands on knees and doubled over, things I remembered having eaten weeks ago came pouring out of me in a gush. I took a quick breath in, smelled more funnel cake, and heaved again.

I felt my mom’s hand on my shoulder, guiding me away from the cart. I stopped to vomit two more times.

My eyes had stopped processing while my digestive system was busy, so my first visual memory is of a handful of Kleenex wiping off my streaming eyes. Mom had come up with roll of paper towels, I have no idea where, and once my eyes were a little clear she went to work on my mouth.

She didn’t say anything the entire time, just got me cleaned up enough to get to the car without looking like a complete wreck.

There was a bottle of water waiting in the car, still cool. I rinsed my mouth out, spitting onto the asphalt, then took a sip. Before I could realize that was a mistake it was all out of me again. And once I’d puked up the water there was nothing else and I started dry heaving.

“Drink again, so you have something to bring up,” Mom put another water bottle in my hand.

I did that, and then that happened, and then I felt much better.

I took some more Kleenex to wipe the vomit snot off my face, and stood straight for the first time in fifteen minutes. “I’m hungry now.”

“Let’s get you some grease,” Mom said.

oOo

Pete Contos’s restaurants are a fixture in Denver. There are eight on Colfax, including Pete’s Grill, Pete’s, and Pete’s Kitchen. They’re good diners, big portions of cheese and meat and eggs, swimming in grease. Pete’s establishments are known for good food, friendly service, and a grandfatherly owner; who loves his patrons, owns 90% of LoDo, and has deep ties to the Greek mafia.

Inside Pete’s Kitchen the wall are full of photos with famous people. There are a bunch of local sport people I don’t know at all, as well as Drake, Jessica Alba, and Drew Barrymore smiling with Pete Contos. It’s cramped but open 24 hours, and the gyros are incredible.

I didn’t have a gyro, the souvlaki was a little too rich for me.

“You need grease,” Mom told me, as we sat. “The grease absorbs the last of the alcohol in your system, and gives your body some energy to keep your liver going.”

I ended up with a huge plate of corned beef hash and eggs. All of that throwing up had made things better but I knew I’d never be able to smell funnel cake the same way again.

“So what can you tell me about it?” Mom asked.

“We watched movies. No one really did anything but get drunk. I guess that’s the only way a party is fun?”

“Wait until you go to a faculty party. Alcohol is the only way to handle it. You’d never think that people that smart could be so boring. I guess they’re all used to communicating with research papers.” Mom put down her gyro and fixed the wall with a stare, “Did you do anything you regret?”

I definitely don’t regret getting my dick sucked. I definitely regret having a dick. I paused to munch before I said anything. Then, “I don’t think I’m as gay as I thought I was.”

“Do you think any of those descriptions work on you?”

I desperately wanted to tell her about everything. The loft and the Crew, and what all those people meant to me, and that I had a sexuality but I didn’t know what it was and I didn’t even want to know. And I knew that, girl or not, this wasn’t a conversation that would go down well. “I guess not. It’s not something I think needs defining. It just is.” But there was a line I would cross and we were at a juncture were I could. “How old were you when you first—”

“Older than you are now.”

“But when you first got interested?”

Mom gave a little sigh, still looking off in the distance. “I was on a bus trip. We had all gone on a field trip for school, a French circus—like Circ Du Soleil. There was a boy I liked there, I made sure I sat next to him.” She smiled soft and melancholy, “I don’t remember anything from the second act, because that’s when his hand found its way into my sweater and changed everything about the world.”

Mom! I didn’t shout. Didn’t even think.

Why?

Well she wasn’t embarrassing me.

Why?

… She was talking about herself?

Why?

To relate to me. It was working.

“Are you going to tell me about the boy? Do you like him better than Autumn?”

“No? Yes? Not really. He’s just different is all.”

“Aisling, would you like to know what I would tell you if you were my client?”

This was new found territory for both of us, “Um … sure?”

Mom stole my toast, “There are a lot of theories about the evolution of human relationships. When we look at our closest cousins chimps aren’t monogamous. Bonobos are … bonobos are like meth driven swingers. Claiming that monogamy is ‘traditional’ still isn’t an answer, because what the Right calls ‘biblical’ marriage doesn’t exist in the bible.

“Despite this monogamous relationships have slowly become the norm over the past 30,000 years. There are polygamists, and one tribe in Mongolia is agamist.”

“What’s agamy?”

“They just have sex with whomever they want. There’s no marriage and no relationships. The women raise the children without much help, but the tribes all take care of the women who are raising the children.” She gave me a sad little smile, “Raising a child on your own is actually very easy, as long as you have someone who can do every thing else for you.”

The waitress came and refilled our coffee. Mom thanked her and smiled and told her she liked her fingernails. I paid attention as they talked nails and mom got the number of a new manicurist. God love my mother, and in every other relationship she was calm, healthy, and kept perspective. But with a manicurist my mother was a catty diva, ready to throw each of them to the curb the second they did something wrong.

She turned back to me, “It’s a little chicken/egg, but our culture sees sex and love as the same thing. You can uncouple these concepts, but it’s hard.” She put her hand on mine, “So be very careful about why you choose to love someone. Being the first person you fuck isn’t a great reason.”

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Comments

Good advice from mommy shrink

Some people make monogamy work. A lot just suffer with it. Some go with serial polygamy -- divorce and marry again.

But how many songs are there out there where a couple breaks up because one of them finds someone else?

Very wise words.....

D. Eden's picture

“Being the first person you fuck isn’t a good reason.”

Very true. Not for loving someone.

It has been my experience that love and sex have little to nothing to do with each other. If you are lucky, very lucky, you will have great sex with the person you love - but it is not necessary, and it is not a given.

D. Eden

Dum Vivimus, Vivamus

Good advice from mom

Great advice my first was a girl that basically raped me when I was in the navy and then i fell in love with my second who was my first guy but it didn't last long. Then two more guys before i met my husband. The last was another woman a mistake I would happily make again but I don't want to make a habit of cheating. So that's six in my lifetime lost my virginity at age 20 Aisling is way ahead of me.

EllieJo Jayne

Aftermath not great

Jamie Lee's picture

Getting drunk for many is easy, but find it not so easy the following day, as Aisling has found out. This one time after a drunk may be enough to keep her from drinking again. Or not.

Mom knew she had to get Aisling to barf if she was going to feel better, so the amusement park idea was perfect. Who would have thought it would be the smell of funnel cakes that would be the trigger for Aisling to see what was left from the night before?

Mom is also smart enough to know Aisling is having sex, and wants her to be careful that she doesn't get hurt in the process. So far when the group has had one of their times together, no on has had any thought of doing anything that would hurt one of the others. Provide pleasure, yes, but not harm.

Others have feelings too.

Not always the first

Podracer's picture

- but sometimes it works. 36 years now.
I've drunk a bit of alcohol now and again. Never had any of the headache, pain, sensitivity either. But on the odd occasion I went over a certain line into the poison, the morning or early morning would start 24 hours of nothing staying "down". 20 minutes - argh.. 20 minutes - hello again. Ad exhaustion. Still no headache though :)
Very impressed by Mom. I hope Aisling is too, even if not right now then eventually.

"Reach for the sun."