2004-11-29 - 8:25 p.m.
Saturday, November 27, 2004
Saturday was another fun day. General hanging out and then an actual activity.
Saturday night, Joey, Mrs. DLH, and I went to Papa and Mama Fazul's house for dinner. Papa F. invited Cher, but she was in New York for the long (island) weekend. Papa F. also said I should invite Edna, but she was in Las Vegas with her friend who went specifically to meet a never-before-seen long distance boyfriend.
Saturday started out much like Friday. Joey and I hung out at his place, drank tea, talked, and napped. I really can't believe how much Joey likes to nap. If napping was an Olympic sport, Joey would bring home the gold--hands down. Joey never ceases to amaze me with the things he does and says. Little things, such as enthusiastically offering me the food he doesn't like, or offering good stuff and then panicking when I accept. Example: He offered chocolate chip cookies and I took a few. I then went back and took a few more.
"You ate seven cookies!?" he exclaimed.
"Uh...yeah."
"Who eats seven cookies!?"
"You cheap bastard! You offered!" I laughed. "You've never eaten seven cookies before?"
"Well, yeah," he said, "when I was a kid."
He must have realized how he sounded, so he added, "Yeah, but I mean, we're going to my mom's house to eat and then we're going to Papa F.'s house. You're going to ruin your appetite."
"Dude. They're only cookies," I said. "Besides, dinner's not til this evening, and I'll have plenty of room for your ma's pasta."
We went to Joey's parents' place and right away his mom started giving us food. Joey is very curt with both of his parents much the same way I am with my father. When we're around his folks, I usually say something such as, "Joey, behave." He usually chills out after a minute or two.
So his mom is telling us to eat, and his father is watching TV in the living room, and Joey occasionally snipes, and it's a rainy, gray day in the city of Chicago, yet all seems right with the world.
No matter what Joey says to his mother or how he says it, she usually says, "Okay" in a weary, agreeable way. She's a cute little old woman, Joey's ma. At times, she reminds me of my mother. I mentioned this to him. "Josephine and Josephine," he said. (They shared the same name). After we ate, we sat around a bit. I spoke to his mom in my broken Italian, and his father taught me the Italian word for whale--bay-leen-ah (or is it Bah-leen-ah?). Anyway, I learned a new word. We took his mother to his uncle's house and sat around there for a while watching some weird Mexican wrestling show that teamed butch lesbians against large, flamboyent gay men. Mexicans seem to get off on stuff that's totally bizarre and interesting in only fucked up and fetishistic ways, like all those shows that have adults dressed up as and acting like children. That's really fucked up.
After leaving his uncle's house, it was off to get flowers for the Fazuls, then back to his place to shower, and then to Whiting to pick up Mrs. DLH.
When she found out where they live, Mrs. DLH didn't seem too into going to the Fazuls' place. I was the designated driver and I felt a bit of tension in the car. After all these years with Edna, I can pick up on tension pretty easily, especially in a space as small as a car. Once inside the house, however, Mrs. DLH was glad she went. Papa and Mama Fazul have a spacious, kick-ass house. It's great to know an adult from our neighborhood who got out and acts like a total adult. It's inspiring. Papa F. is always yelling at Joey and me, giving encouragement, and generally advising us not to be fuck ups. Papa F. is a great man.
Papa gave us a tour of the house. Mrs. DLH was awed by the amount of space and even more by the front loading washer and dryer. She even hugged and kissed them. "I'm not leaving this house," she joked. We were all awed by the place.
The dinner was amazing. Salad with homemade vinaigrette. Garlic bread. Homemade pasta. Papa and Mama made the dough and the filling! Three different kinds of meat and homemade sauce. Brownies. Homemade wine. We joked about how everything was homemade.
"I'm surprised you didn't make the meat," I said.
"Well, I did grind it," Papa said.
"No way!"
"Way! If I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna do it all the way," Papa said. "I have a meat grinder and I have the seasoning, so why not?"
Amazing! It was great to be around such pleasant people. I asked Mrs. DLH to dance and at first she was reluctant.
"I don't know how to dance," she said.
"Neither do I," said I.
She laughed. I went over to Joey and he danced with me. Mrs. DLH would later dance with me as well.
Joey and I talked about our experience the previous evening at the bar and Papa told us this story:
When the two guys tried to hold up the bar, everyone hit the deck; however, despite this, someone was injured. The story goes that there was a woman in the bar who got hit by a bullet, but didn't realize it. Somehow, the bullet found its way up the woman's ass where it stayed, unbeknownst to her, for about a week. She started feeling sick and died of an infection from the foreign object that was lodged in her body.
"That is unbelievable!" we all laughed in shock and disbelief.
"What's unbelievable," Papa said, "is: could you imagine how messed up this woman must have been that she couldn't feel a bullet going up her ass?!? And how messed up was her ass that she couldn't feel it?!?"
We all roared with laughter.
Joey told a story about the time that he was a summer camp counselor.
"I held up this kid, who was, like, my favorite kid in the whole camp. I held him by his legs to lift him straight up into the air, but he didn't lock his knees. So when he got up to my chest, I felt him going forward. I only had a few seconds to think and I knew that if he went forward, he was going to hit his head on the ground. So, I felt him going forward, and so that he wouldn't hit his head," he laughed, "I stuck out my foot, and he went forward, and...man! he had a big knot right in the middle of his forehead."
We laughed.
"So what happened?"
"Well, the next day, I say this man and this woman coming toward me and I thought, 'I know what this is about.'"
"What did they say?"
"Well, she came up to me and told me who she was and I said, "I know..." and she told me, "Well you just need to be more careful."
TO BE CONTINUED
