Stories from the Crowd
In 2013, I embarked on publishing a crowd-sourced book. I asked many friends to contribute a short story, which I then published on Apple Books. However, the eBook format wasn’t something everyone embraced, so the book didn’t gain much traction. On the 13-year anniversary of that effort, I’ve decided to include the contents of the book on this blog. I’ll begin with Chapter 1, “The Nancy Excursion,” by Judy Card.
Judy has known me since my early twenties and has witnessed plenty of antics over the years. She’s always been full of great advice and funny stories. This one recounts a particular evening in San Antonio, circa 1990.
The Nancy Excursion
Nancy arrived one hot summer afternoon after an exhausting drive from Dallas. She and her sister had stopped off for a “few” at their daddy’s and then continued on down Interstate 35 to San Antonio. When they got to my place, it was about 3:00 in the afternoon, and I was on my 4th cup of coffee. The doorbell rang, and I thought to myself – should I answer it or not – I was still in my robe, it being summer and all, I rarely dressed before 5:00. But, I knew she was coming ‘cause Goob had already “prepared” me for her visit. (Unfortunately, his preparation had simply been, “My mother is coming.” And this in NO WAY prepared me.) Anyway, I opened the door to the “Nancy Excursion.”
“Hi, I’m Naintsy!” The woman swept by me and surveyed her surroundings while making an oblique reference to her sister Sherrie Jean who trailed behind her. Naintsy was a pert blond – still in possession of her looks and figure at close to 45. Sherrie, on the other hand, was overweight and looked not only as though she had been whomped with an ugly stick, but also as if she were capable of wielding one herself. They made their way into the kitchen, and Naintsy seated herself in regal fashion at the head of my kitchen table. When I offered coffee, she withdrew from her ample lamee handbag a large tumbler of wine. “I’ve brought my own refreshments,” she said, and then she produced a carafe of white wine and asked me to refrigerate it. No problem.
I already knew Naintsy was a little strange ‘cause Goobie came to me as a result of his mother having locked him out of the house. One night my son came dragging him home with a long story about his plight, and rather than try to unravel all the threads of their saga, I simply showed him the guest room and told him to sleep there. He had a job and could pay rent. I was used to taking in tenants; the room was available; he was clean and personable. Things ran more or less smoothly for over a year. Then came Naintsy!
“After she settled herself at the kitchen table and had taken a long pull from her tumbler of wine, my cat chanced to stroll by. This small happenstance seemed to trigger a plethora of synapses in Naintsy’s brain, and she immediately launched into a recitation of cat stories. It seems that she has a large and perfectly marked Siamese. I knew about her dog, “Sweet Pea,” (Pea for short) because “Pea” had visited me once or twice while Goob was dog sitting. I prefer to think of the dog as “Pee.” The cat I was not acquainted with, but Naintsy brought me fully up to speed on this topic. I heard about its history as a foundling, its eating habits, its penchant for sleeping with Naintsy, and finally I was treated to a rather graphic description of the cat’s testicles. At that point I decided to switch from coffee to something a little stronger and popped myself a beer. I noticed that her wine was chilling nicely in the fridge and saw that her tumbler was about 2/3 of the way down. She was way up on me for 3:30 in the afternoon, and it looked like it might be a long day.
I busied myself with household chores like taking out the garbage and allowed myself a few moments to reflect on her monologue. She’d never met me – I might have been a holy roller, a member of the temperance league, a UFO advocate, who the hell knows what? – and her first story is to explicate the size of a Tomcat’s balls? Reflection is not always good for the soul. I dumped coffee grounds on my fuzzy slipper and was in the process of blow-drying it when Goob came home. “There is a God,” my mind said, and I was in the middle of a mental hand-off when I realized that this mother and son reunion might make a better Jerry Springer episode than an Oprah show. All these people talk really fast and have west Texas accents that sound straight out of the movies. They get really worked up when they talk and – well – after Goob broke the light fixture in the kitchen and we cleaned up the glass, things were a little calmer. I took some aspirin; Naintsy drank her wine; Sherrie practiced a few Karate chops.
Pretty soon Goob organized a wine run to be combined with a stop at the teller machine for his aunt, and a quickie tell-all for his mother. I didn’t know the full itinerary or I wouldn’t have felt such a sense of respite when they left. I found out later from a terribly distraught and tearful Naintsy that the wine run and teller business went fine – it was the tell-all that got her. See – Goob is gay and took this little excursion as an opportunity to announce that fact to his mother. No warning, no prelude, just, “Look Mom, we’re going to a party tonight and then the bar. All my friends are gay and so am I. Now ~ Get over it!” At least that’s the way she told me it went – about a bottle of Zinfandel later.
Well, Naintsy dried her tears of tribulation and stumbled her way upstairs to shower for the evening’s festivities, putting a brave face on the day’s events. She came down in a floral, aqua, off- the- shoulder outfit Chiquita Banana could die for (matching shoes.) I went up to soak – mostly my head. When I came back down in my comparatively drab black pants and white silk shirt, I was concerned only with finding my other shoe – the left pump. I did notice the front door was open and the dog was gone along with Naintsy. Her car was in the driveway, a good sign; at least she hadn’t run over him – probably. So I took off out the front door after them like “Diddle diddle dumpling my son John, one shoe off and one shoe on.” I walked up and down a couple of blocks calling the dog – and Naintsy. No luck. By the time I got back home, I’d decided my huaraches were exactly the eclectic look this sweat stained outfit needed. Naintsy was on the sofa sipping wine, petting the dog, watching “Wheel of Fortune.”
Oh well, let the good times roll! We left for the party. Naintsy was once again in good spirits (literally); Goob was his usual goober self; Sherrie was “somewhere out there;” I was along for the ride. When we arrived Naintsy immediately went to work. She zeroed in on Scott – a comely young man with grace, charm, and je ne sais quoi – a great wardrobe. I tried to discreetly warn him, but my oblique references to her previous conquests and the possibility of future ones seemed to go over his head. She was all over him, but I think that he was of a mind that his “proclivities” so to speak rendered him immune to her advances. As the wine flowed her anecdotes became somewhat bawdy if not downright ribald. In the meantime Sherrie was amusing herself by circulating the room giving palm readings. (Could I make that up?) Goob confided at one point that her acumen for predictions was “scary.” I know I certainly found that adjective appropriate to the entire scenario. Picture it – Sherrie – about 185 pounds of her stuffed into a pair of too tight black jeans, bourbon and coke in hand, making dark, dirty, and and mirthful comments on the past, present, and future of a room full of “de rigueur” attractive and exceedingly gay men. When she asked to see my palm, I declined. I’m an observer. I don’t want to know. Hell, if I’d known what today would be like, I’d have stayed in bed with the front door locked, and it wasn’t even O’bar thirty yet! Speaking of which, this interesting little soiree broke up, and we all dutifully reassembled at “the Bar.”
This is a place out of Jean Genet’s imagination – an old pre-war building, awninged portico, wood floors, upstairs, downstairs, back patio. It’s everything you would expect a gay bar to be – dark, loud, crowded, smokey, and a lot of affectation from the patrons, posturing, the high five thing, lots of hugs and kisses all around. Truly it can be a fun place and somewhat instructive about both the darker and lighter side of human nature if you’re willing to keep an open mind and a fly on the wall perspective. Since I’m not usually fond of large crowds and people crushing in on me from all sides, I always find a secluded bar stool. I’m not yet liberated enough to pay for my own drinks at a bar, so I deputized one of the little sugar pies in our party to go and get me a beer. I lost track of Naintsy for a while. I’m not exactly a regular in this place, but, one way or another, I know a lot of people who are. This is one of those bars where the more people you know, the more people there are who want to know you. Anyway, I spent about an hour doing the meet and greet number.
Eventually I spied Naintsy out on the dance floor with Scott. She was obviously tipsy and was shaking everything she had at him for all it was worth. I fully expected her to pull out voodoo beads and a snake rattle. I made a mental note to check the calendar and see if we were somewhere close to a full moon. Just then a major motion picture drama unfolded right before my eyes, and I knew that whether or not it was a full moon was a moot point. As I looked on, along with a few hundred other casual observers, Naintsy lost all control, stuck her hand (the one that wasn’t holding the wine glass) down the front of Scott’s pants, and began wildly groping him right on the dance floor – all this in front of Goober. I can’t even begin to describe the array of emotions that were displayed on Scott’s face in about 10 seconds time. He extricated himself from Naintsy in all haste and was not seen again the rest of the night. Goobie, about 3 cocktails over his limit, approached his mother and tossed off the “by the by” comment, “Well Mother, now we’ve “both had the same man.” Naintsy ” “dropped her wine glass and ran out toward the parking lot with Sherrie hot on her heels. Goob strolled out to the patio and began throwing beer bottles at the wall. Security threatened to throw us all out, which would have been fine with me. The whole scenario was taking on all the elements of a very bad Vaudeville performance – no – more like we were all participating in a Federico Fellini film.
In between the pounding, throbbing, drum beats in my head, I found my ride and thought I could finally call it a day. As luck would have it, there was a minor epilogue. I did indeed arrive home without incident. Naintsy and Sherrie had preceded me by some 10 minutes – enough time for them to gather their belongings and Naintsy’s carafe out of the fridge. To this day I’ve never seen either of them again. I know they made it back to Dallas in one piece because after about 3 months, Naintsy resumed taking Goob’s phone calls. As for Goobie, he was passed out when I got home. To get the “rest of the story” out of him, I tried to rouse him; he looked at me, leaned over the side of the bed, and threw up on the clothes he’d been wearing. Oh well, just for that, I added bleach to the wash load. I don’t think he ever figured out what happened to those designer jeans.
The Nancy Excursion: 12 hours start to finish (round trip)
Guaranteed excitement – spills, chills, and thrills
Caution: danger of flying glass
(Not recommended for those with hypertension, or history of heart disease or stroke in their immediate family)”
Excerpt From
Stories from the Crowd
Scott Ballew
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