Anyway, I ran into Bruce today. I hadn't seen him in a few years. I think the last time I saw him he was 72 years old and was in the process of having all the flesh that fell off his face during his drinking days sewn back up. Way up. He's done now.
I was never close to the man or anything (neither of us had time), but I enjoyed him. When we did chit-chat, he'd give me southern mother hen advice like don't work. He'd tell me "Oh, sweetie, a lady shouldn't have to do anything. Just find yourself a tycoonie. It's not hard. You've got a nice face. Just brush up on your mann
ers - always remember which fork to use - and you'll be fine."Bruce's clients were all tycoonies, which made him a bit of a tycoo...I can't keep using that word. Redo: made him a bit wealthy too. He'd bring the tycoonies (sorry) around, and, with his encouragement, they'd make passes at me when their trophy wives weren't with them or were asked to get something from the car. Either those ladies were eating fillet with the salad fork or Bruce gave terrible advice. So these guys who owned Manors with cool names and Empire State Buildings and such would, like, need to touch when they addressed me. They'd aim for my waist with one or both hands, fingers together-thu
mbs out like asshole lobsters. I don't think they knew what they were doing. Sometimes a lobster hand would clip on to the low part of my blouse that was covering the tat on my hip. I'm sure in their circles inky hips are bad manners. 100 wrong forks. You don't want to do that because it's a work day and I have on my Clark Kent outfit, buddy. At the time I was juggling a few scrappy dudes who played guitar in varying degrees of "eh". I really liked being 25.
When I knew Bruce at 72 he had a 35 year old boyfriend. Before I met the boyfriend, I pictured what this guy's trophy wife would be. Nice pecs and arms; the kind of upper body that made t-shirts look expensive. Maybe a 90's dragon tattoo running down his shoulder with the subsequent, post-millennium whoopsie designs covering it (koi fish, ethnic pattern, name-heart-dagger thingy, water, webs, symbolism) and they'd hug all the muscle clumps the right way. Shaved head! He'd be a strapping young buck with a shaved head = he probably bites the side of his lower lip when he fucks.
But he wasn't at all. He was a willowy, twiggy (trees) babyman with sweet, brown ringlet hair to his cheekbones. Shit. The only thing trophy about this manchild was the 35 part. God he gave good sweetheart eyes. Unfortunately, any chance of Bruce giving sweetheart eyes back was foiled by eyelids marionette-limited by a brow pinned much higher on his forehead than it had ever been in is whole life.
I wondered about the Twig. I mean, his boyfriend's face was falling off but he was super
successful. Optimism's best in this situation because I can't be disappointed either way, so I'll just think Bruce was a lovely man and the baby Twig knew it and I didn't because I didn't have time. Then I imagined that maybe when they're making romance, he insisted on always being behind. That way all that skin that was trying to get away from Bruce's face and body would have fallen forward, out of sight, leaving a smooth back for the Twig to pretend. Maybe that's what you do for love. Maybe that's what you do for somebody to set you up with your own business in Montecito. Both if you're lucky.
