Cheap Wine and the NanoNurse

I never thought I'd do a nurse. Not in a million years. She came out of nowhere and left into oblivion. The whole scene started out as a ridiculous 'joke' I believe.

It turned into more than that.

~~~~

The NanoNurse was a small, petite blond and carried around with her BearTheBiker. Or maybe it was the other way around. They were an odd couple from somewhere in Missouri. BearTheBiker was worse than shit and no one knew how to take him. His nurse girlfriend would do contract nursing jobs when they needed money other than that they rode around on Bear's bike all day. That is until they came to the club we were playing at late one summer night. It was amusing too because she came in dressed up in a sexy nurse's outfit that included a very short skirt with white stockings. Everyone in the club stopped whatever they were doing and stared. I remember it quite well.

She paraded around like that all night without fear because BearTheBiker was this thuggy looking guy dressed in biker leathers. At first I thought this was some kind of erotic, schizophrenic nightmare. The fucking place stopped to a crawl when she played pool to make a long shot. BearTheBiker just grinned like a 'possum eating shit. The cutest part about this act was her complete shyness about it all. She always acted as if it were not happening. That's what got to us.

"Hey baby", he would say, "Bend over and get that cue ball I knocked off the table."

It was as if she was oblivious to anything that was going on around her and dutifully she picked up the cue ball. She had this type of innocence that wasn't innocent...not in the least. Whatever their purpose was or their reasons, they latched on to our band.

"Say guys," he told us one night, "You really do need a bouncer and road manager to help out around here." Plus NanoNurse here likes you guys too and we both enjoy your music. You guys get high don't you?"

It was an odd question at the time because after playing for 45 minutes we'd go outside to the back of the club on those warm summer nights, light up a couple of joints or drop acid and otherwise make out with our girlfriends in the dark. Sometimes NanoNurse would join us and sit down on the bench we had put up. There she would sit spread-eagle causing a major distractions to any of us standing there. Sometimes it would draw a crowd. BearTheBiker was never far away but he always seemed disinterested in what she was doing. Yet one night I decided to start talking to her and see what nonsense they were up to. I was curious about her and Bear. Any other time we had talked it was always superficial crap about nothing important and it always skirted around the fact that she practically killed us with the outfits she wore to the club every night they were there.

"Why do you wear these...um...revealing clothes." I asked her that night.

"They are fun, plus in this heat and humidity, they're cool." was her response. But I was not convinced.

"You know...they're kinda airy."

I thought about that. "Come on," I said, "women don't generally wear that for those reasons." I pointed in the general direction of her crotch.

"What other reason is there?" she said and then she winked at me. All I could do to respond was to simply stare at her. I was going to find out more some day. She made it seem like it was some kind of secret. I dropped it for now, I had to get back and start playing the same tired cover tunes I had been playing all summer in the dreary heat and sweat of the club.

I never bought the reasons she told me. It just seemed stupid of me to pursue it with her anyway. She would be talking and flirting with other guys most of the time anyway. Sometimes in the early morning hours her and Bear would pick out a friend and when we finished playing we'd all go to our house for coffee and donuts and we would fulfill our munchies, talk and sit out on the front porch. You could smell the fresh coffee, hear crickets in the background and NanoNurse's giggles. Most nights I was exhausted and went to sleep while the rest stayed up, laughed and carried on until sunrise.

One of those summer mornings however, I woke up in the late morning with her laying beside me and an arm stretched across my back. I freaked because I didn't want Bear to find her like that near me. It was bad enough she was naked and sleeping on the covers next to me. Surely she could have found another place to sleep! I jerked up, came to my senses and headed for the empty couch in the front room. I didn't realize at the time that Bear had been sleeping on the other side of her. I quickly fell back to sleep on the couch and stayed there until I was woke up a second time.

"Why did you leave this morning?" It was a voice in my dreams. I quickly floated to consciousness when she repeated the question. "You didn't have to leave, Bear wouldn't do anything to any of you."

OK, well I wasn't going to take that chance. Not in a million years. He could have drawn and quartered me by himself if he'd had a mind to.

"You make my pussy wet." she whispered in my ear and got up and left the room.

I slapped myself, snapped out of it and told myself NO!. That was the end of it for a couple of weeks. They left town and no one saw them or knew what lonely road they went down. I wondered whether Bear or NanoNurse had gotten into a fight and split up and went to wherever it was they came from. Or if Bear finally got into a fight he couldn't get himself out of. There was no way to find out. None of us had any idea. But then one day NanoNurse showed up late one night at the door.

"Could Bear and I stay here a couple of days?" I hadn't heard the Harley so I knew immediately things weren't right.

"Sure," I said, "But where's the bike?"

"He was in an accident.", she said, "and he totaled it and had head injuries and injuries all over his body. She went to the pickup where Bear was laying, put down the tailgate, pulled out a ramp and wheeled him down it. I ran over to help.

"What the fuck? Why isn't he in the hospital?" I was looking at her in amazement.

"He's OK he just looks bad is all." She motioned towards his broken and bandaged body. "Besides," she continued, "they were trying to poison him. Besides, I am a registered nurse and I have a lot of morphine to keep the pain down for him."

What fucked up mess were they into?

I couldn't believe what she was saying. Bear looked like a total mess and the last place he should be was in our house. I started to wonder who was after them. NanoNurse didn't want to talk about it. I noticed bruises and scratches on her. Pain seemed to drift through the air like the scent of Magnolias.

"If he don't get any better though I might take him to a hospital here."

INDEED I thought.

She spent the next couple of days drugging Bear to make things easier for him. The house was grim and none of us liked it much. It's one thing to take care of a sick friend but quite another to take care of someone that clearly should have better medical care. My roomates and I got together and decided that we would either talk her into taking him to the hospital where he belonged or call an ambulance. The problem was that no matter how much she changed bandages and sponged him down he started to smell and was 'leaking' on the bed. Stuff was oozing and we were afraid he was going to die.

"You need to take him to the hospital." I told her.

She thought about that for a moment. "OK, help me get him into the truck. No...better yet...let's call an ambulance."

I heard her explain to Emergency Services what was going on. They arrived and carried Bear out like a chunk of wrapped up meat, then off to a hospital somewhere. She followed and stayed most of the night there. We were all relieved when we went to the club for our nightly gig later that evening. I thought about her and Bear most of that night while playing and I was ready to go home and get smashed on cheap wine the rest of the night. But I had to wait a few more hours until the gig was mercifully over. None of us played well that ngiht. Besides, it was a light crowd anyway.

We got home and I grabbed a couple of joints and stumbled into my bedroom and turned on the TV to watch an old movie in the early morning hours. I then began the process of numbing myself for no particular reason. It was simply something to do. I fell asleep after watching "Freaks" and the start of "Midnight Cowboy". I had no dreams and I felt no pain. Sleep was a silky travel into the subconscious where I must have floated around and saw nothing there. Surely, that put a grin on my face.

Later in the morning, I woke up with her asleep next to me. She must have been sleeping lightly.

"He went into a coma right after we got him there." I could tell she had been crying; her eyes were red. "Remember what I told you a month ago?" I nodded like I knew what she meant. "I need that now from you." she said. "That much I can take care of." she giggled.

BearTheBiker never regained consciousness as far as I knew and NanoNurse quickly drifted out of our lives for good.

Networking

Susan's Snake

"Say, that thing could strangle you." I said. "...not likely," Susan said, "He likes me too much." "But pythons have a nasty habit of strangling their victims." I was puzzled. "He might think certain parts of you are food" I decided not to say what parts I thought they might be. She got the idea though. I started grinning slyly. "No one could do a thing here if it starts squeezing your neck."

I thought maybe this was some kind of sexual thing with her. Hard to tell. She WAS a herpetologist after all. I found that a lot of them were a bit out of synch with the rest of the world in some way or another. She was no exception. "Hey I like you," she said, "Why don't you come over for dinner after I feed this big guy? We could drink a little wine and mess around with this snake." I thought it was an interesting invitation. I had seen snake handlers back home. As much as they did with them, one of the things they didn't do with them was to wrap them around their necks. Even so, a boa constricter, anaconda or python would be large enough to pop your head off your shoulders. I think secretly that may have been my motivation for going home with her. "I had a friend that was into snakes, poisonous ones". I said. "He would go to Big Bend and trap them and bring them to his menagerie in Alpine. It was illegal but the thrill was always there." "EEEEEWWWW." She lit up when she heard that. "Yeah," I continued, "He was up in the Mother primeval once by himself climbing around a huge rock pile looking for pit vipers. He wasn't paying attention and his leg slipped into a crack but his momentum still carried him forward and he broke his leg like a cracked egg. Bones and everything were sticking out and he almost bled to death." "Did he make it out of there?" she asked. "Yeah he had to crawl all that night to get back to his car to get some help." I said, "He almost lost his leg." You started making dinner and brought this package out wrapped in clean white butcher paper and placed it next to the cutting board. She drew out a rather large cleaver. "How about snake steaks?" she asked. "It tastes like chicken." I somehow KNEW she was going to say that. We both laughed. "Sure," I said, "And why don't you break out that bottle of 1981 vintage Snake Oil to go with it?" I made salad for dinner that night. We had fun and we sloshed down enough cheap wine that neither of us cared much what happened next, if anything. She let the snake run lose in the house. "He keeps the mice down and snacks on cockroaches that manage to get in." I didn't think much about that. I had other things on my mind besides that stupid python. The dinner didn't last long until we found ourselves in her bedroom pounding each other like noodle dough. I was only focused on one thing and nothing else mattered. "Oh wow..." she said. Then she raised and spread her legs and slipped her hand down to her crotch. Susan gave out a little sigh and a moan. The next thing I see is the fucking python slithering up her bed post. Then it started heading towards her. It was headed right between her legs. "Whoa!" I immediately decided to get the hell out of there. I grabbed my clothes and rushed out to her front porch, naked as a fresh peeled banana. I got dressed and got the hell out of there. The next couple of weeks I didn't answer the phone. I never went to the zoo again.

Stormy West Texas Weather

The Redhead In The Sandbox

To love a red head is like making love in a sandbox.

I attract them like flies...copper pennies--not dollars, from heaven.

I was coding in my cubicle a number of years ago when Christy showed up out of nowhere, on my right. I was concentrating and hardly noticed her.

"My husband's leaving me." she sobbed. oh gawd...go away These are things I don't want to hear. But they rain down like softball-sized hail in Kansas on a Mennonite wheat field.

She burst out crying.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"He doesn't love me anymore."

"Quit sobbing so loud. PLEASE...Someone's gonna come over and see you and think I did something to you." I said. "Besides how do you know he doesn't love you anymore?"

"HE HAS A GIRLFRIEND!"

She starts sobbing louder.

I put my finger to my lips hoping she could at least be more quiet. I've accepted the fact she would stay in my cubicle for awhile longer. Shit! I shoulda kept my mouth shut.

None of it mattered and her boo hooing got louder. I told her to please leave my cubicle and she ignored me. At the moment I was working on a program and don't want to break my concentration on it. But it was too late. Then my supervisor who is female entered my cubicle...the GrindMachine.

"What's the matter Christy?" she says then scowls at me like I did something. I was afraid this might happen.

"Oh nothing!" Christy says.

"Her husband is screwing around on her." I said without hesitation. "Uh...She just showed up in my office and started sobbing. I was sitting here working." I tried to explain to my boss. I'm not sure it worked.

"Are you sure you are OK?" the GrindMachine asked her again. Butterfly puddles of tears were dropping on my desk and she moved closer to me. I tried to ignore both her and the GrindMachine and tried to finish my work.

"I have to finish this." I say to both of them, staring at my monitor and typing away.

My boss the GrindMachine seems somewhat satisfied and left. "No offense but get the fuck outta my office and quit crying." I tell Christy.

"Can we talk later?" she said.

"Yes, yes...just get outta my office." I was getting pissed.

She whimpers off and I was relieved but I know I am going to have to explain this to the GrindMachine later. Chances were good that her husband wasn't leaving her at all and she came crying into my cubicle for some other God-forsaken reason unknown to anyone but her. God dammit....the GrindMachine will drill me into the chair like a stripped out screw and probably ask Christy if she needs to file a grievance to HR.

I'm so fucked.

~~~~

Christy was a cutie as far as that goes. She was notorious in the office. She was a pathological liar and the stories she told though interesting were always hard to believe. Her life was the Titanic headed for the iceberg but I couldn't put my finger on why this was. It seemed like she had one disaster after another. Christy would say things like, she had known so and so in high school and dated Mr. SoAndSo and Mr. SoAndSo had no idea who she was. It was weird. Her wild stories were legion. Most people in the office ignored her.

Lies or not, it was her and her stories that were fascinating.

I was outside smoking one afternoon on a Spring day when she decided to follow me and light up too. When she told one of her stories she'd get right up in your face to where you'd get gassed out from her perfume. Sometimes to try to keep some distance she'd end up backing me into a corner and I couldn't escape until she finished her tale. Then she'd laugh about it. Today though the story got good. Well, as good as moldy bread when there is nothing left in the house to eat that is.

"I went to the lake last weekend with my husband and kids. We rescued another couple. Their boat's motor had flooded and we towed them in." She had this mischievous look.

"Cool," I said, "Did you have fun?"

"You bet we did!" she blurted out. "While we were towing them back to shore, the guy's girlfriend started sucking his cock giving him a blow job!"

"Whaa?" I asked a bit stunned by this statement coming out of nowhere. I played along and I was going to call bullshit on this one.

"You let your two boys see that?" I asked. Who knows if she had kids, I never saw them.

"They were asleep at the other end of the boat." she said without thinking.

"Then that really DOES sound like fun." I said, "But I thought you hated porno movies. Say...did everyone enjoy watching her suck his dick?" I figured I would up the ante and see how this story of hers would grow.

"We sure did!" That comment had to sink into my head for a couple of seconds. And then...

"Can I ask you something?" I was going to see how far she would take this bullshit story. Maybe I would find out why she blurted it out in the first place.

"Sure," she said, "ask me anything you like."

I pondered whether I should ask or not. Even if she told anyone (being the notorious office liar that she was) no one would believe her even if she told everyone in the office.

"Do you like sucking cock?" I asked. That line never works anywhere the first time except in a Mexican whore house.

I was curious to know anyway. Some women love it, some hate it and some women just do it for you. You can tell the difference you know.

She looked at me with that deer-in-the-headlights look. I thought, This is carrying it too far!.

"Of course I do." she said. And she SAID it so matter of factly.

"But I guess I am not good enough at it. My husband is still leaving me."

And then she said, "What I really like to do is..."

I stopped her in mid-sentence before this got way out of hand. I decided that she won this one and probably all future stories as well. I was convinced she could always top whatever I had to say about her stories no matter how much I upped the 'price of admission'..

Now her last statement was a leading one and I stood there smoking, wondering if I should say the next thing that was about to come out of my pin head mouth. In situations like this, it was probably best not to.

I didn't ask her to prove it nor did I want to know what she really liked to do. I stubbed out my cigarette and got the hell out of there.

I am so fucked.

Selling 'swag' at work...
Of Christy's many problems one was money. Her and her family lived with his parents. I found this out one day when I went to the parking lot after work and my battery was dead. She volunteered to give me a ride home. I crammed into the back seat of their VW and we talked and laughed all the way to my house. Her husband didn't say a word and found nothing about me and her amusing.

"Wanna ride in the morning too?"

Bitchin'. I thought. But I knew better.

"Thanks but no." I declined.

I watched as the couple drove off. I could tell they started having an argument the minute I was out the door. It was probably about money.

Because of her lack of money someone had talked her into selling Avon. So during the week the women in the office would pass around her catalog, fill out an order form and write a check for the order. I think they did this more because they felt sorry for her than the fact that they needed any Avon products. This went on for about 2 months. The company looked the other way, as long as the ladies weren't blatant about it.

Then I started noticing that the other women weren't talking to her much and they quit passing around the Avon catalog. Her supervisor was always on her ass about stuff. I would ask Christy what was going on but she gave me some reason that didn't make any sense. Around Halloween see came to my cubicle.

"I'm getting fired" she said. "I lost all the Avon money for two months. They won't let me pay it back either." I knew it must have been a lie.

That was the last time I saw her.

They had given her a choice. Either quit or get fired and have criminal charges brought against her. Apparently, they had given her two months to pay the money back. Something she didn't or was unable to do.

After she left I hadn't realized how boring the office could be. No really....