The Circular Bed

For Lou

Last summer, Yon and Benna bought a circular bed: never again, they decided, would they have to face getting out on the wrong side. The couple had wanted a circular bed since the day they moved in together four years ago, but wanting and having are two different things. For six months they scoured the local stores and the Internet, but they needn’t have bothered. On that very first bed-buying expedition, to Sleep EZ, one fact was made unassailably clear: beds came in two basic forms – various shades of rectangular and nearly square. Tans already fading from the honeymoon trip to Israel, a present from Yon’s dad and his fifth wife, Nel, Yon and Benna walked to the bus stop in the muggy afternoon. It was overcast and there were no trees. Only windowless concrete warehouses, a uniform skyline temporarily interrupted by bulging plastic signs. Home Bazaar. Papillon Home Store. Mega! Entertainment Systems. The Office Warehouse. Waller Hardware and Pets. Arrow. The Sleep EZ gift certificate, a wedding present from Yon’s dad’s third wife, dangled apologetically, like an unfulfilled promise, in Benna’s right hand. more...

Envelope Me In Your Arms, Stamp Me With Your Kiss, And Send Me To Heaven

Last Tuesday, I mailed myself across the country in a large reinforced plywood box labeled “Fragile” and “This Way Up.” I’m not a very heavy person. I’d been dieting for quite a while in preparation. It wasn’t just a question of keeping shipping costs down: I’d planned to be the Very Best Me for George, so that when the outsize parcel with the San Luis Obispo postmark arrived on his stoop on the Lower East Side, he would not only get the surprise of his life, but it would be a thin one. more...

Eggplant: A Standup Comedy Routine
Performed at The Hyena Comedy School Theater
Mission Street, San Francisco
23 February 2004

I moved here from London three years ago. I thought I was the Definition of Cool back in the UK because I wore Prada leg-warmers to parties, and I would only date men with moustaches.

Trouble was, moustaches were out of fashion back then so I was kind of lonely.

I thought about getting a pet, but animals were forbidden in my building. So I came up with a cunning plan: I went to the grocery store and bought a giant eggplant.

I named it Fergie after my favorite ex-member of the royal family.

We became pretty close, Fergie and I. She was a very special vegetable.

Everyday I would tie a leash around Fergie’s stumpy green stem and take her for a drag around Hyde Park.

I always felt safe walking her late at night – people would take one look at me and Fergie and give us a wide berth. more...

Herk and the Burger Queen



I’m sitting on the stairs outside of the old Victorian which may once have had charm but is now all faded peeling paintwork and graffiti and piss-smell, trying to make my case to a woman at ErosMassage.com, when I see Herk staring at me from beyond the gate at the bottom of the stairs. He is scratching persistently at the left side of his battered, old face, rubbing years of grime energetically into the matted beard that had been making a nest of his chin since long before I moved in to the place on Haight Street. I pretend not to see him. I look through him as if there was barely a gate separating me from the road below, let alone a mad tramp regarding me with squinty eyes.

“Look,” I say to Kim from ErosMassage.com. “It’s simple. Just find my number and erase it from your website.” Kim has a practical, motherly voice. It is not the kind of voice I was expecting to hear on the end of an erotic hotline.
“I’ve searched our entire database, sir. I can’t find your number anywhere.”

For going on two months, I have been receiving up to four calls a day from hesitant married men looking for illicit caresses. At first I was as confused as they were. After ten calls I decided I’d had enough, particularly since people in the market for erotic massages tend to want them between three and five in the morning and turning the phone off isn’t an option because I need its built-in alarm feature to wake me up every day. Usually the caller speaks in muffled tones so you can hardly hear what he wants. I imagine him in his slippers and plaid pajamas, shivering from a callbox, his pickup putt-putting quietly at the curbside about five miles from home. more...

Chat room
for Julian

He could only guess where he was going. The aim, he thought, was to get away from the flat as fast as he could, spend the night somewhere else - who knows where - and come back tomorrow smiling when everything was settled. Or at least, he would be out of the way, so that by the time Lo had come to her senses, she would realize the full extent, the complete comedy, of the mess they had made, do the decent thing and pack a suitcase immediately. Lo would definitely leave, he projected, pouting earnestly in agreement with himself as he bunched his bony shoulders, trying to keep the February chill off his ears and back, but not really doing a very good job on either count.

It had been a rush, getting out. All he could remember was tripping over Mikey's fetid football boots in the hall, and how the light bulb had gone at the very moment he slammed the door, rushing down the dark hallway, nearly smashing into the handlebars of Joan's BMX and barging out the gate. It was cold and he wished he had remembered his bus-pass and his coat. So where to now? Somewhere within walking distance, he thought. more...