“The Private Blog of a Seductive Old Man,” by Michael Fowler

Oct 19th, 2011 | By | Category: Fake Nonfiction, Prose

The Private Blog of a Seductive Old Man is a modified excerpt from Mike Fowler’s latest novel A Happy Deathhttp://www.dpdotcom.com/happydeath.htm. It has been modified to fit your screen.

Day 1, Saturday. My wife of thirty years has left me—who knows why. Sure, it annoyed her that I hadn’t changed out of my bathrobe or moved off her sofa since my retirement in 2005, but is that a good reason? Tonight I went to the bar where we first met and tried again. Actually that bar was gone, so I tried one down the street that looked similar, only someone had removed all the Pac-Man games and the jukebox and substituted a virtual darts thingum and a mechanical bull. I sat down next to a fox in her early twenties who was blonde like my wife was thirty years ago and asked her if I could buy her a drink. She looked at me with a disbelieving grin and said, “You do know you’re pushing seventy, right, old timer?” I said, “Hecky far, I forgot. It’s been so long since I’ve done this that I hit on the wrong age group.” I finished my beer and, thinking I was stepping in line for the men’s room, boarded the bull. The last I saw of my hearing aid, it went sailing over the crowd into some cowgirl’s Scotch.   

Day 2, the next Friday. Wiser after trips to the audiologist and chiropractor, I turned an eye to the bone-weary matron in work pants who bused my table at the mall food court. Emboldened by a large serving of liver and onions, I winked at her and said, “I’d like to make time with you, toots, but you probably think I grew up before running water and went to school in a cabin.” No,” she said, giving me the once-over, “but the last time I saw that tie you’re wearing was on a wax Lincoln.” Then she picked up my lemon pie, that I hadn’t touched yet, and tossed it into a refuse bin. Embarrassed? I would have died if it weren’t for my pre-meal insulin shot.     

Day 3, that Saturday. Tried singles’ night at the local supermarket. I located an attractive woman who couldn’t have been much younger than me, and gently banged my cart into hers. “Hey, good-lookin’,” I said, “wanna shop for carbs together?” She told me, “I prefer guys who wear their own hair,” reminding me of the cheap weave I wore. “At least my teeth are my own,” I retorted with a broad smile. “Let me guess,” she said. “Your friends call you Mellow Yellow.” “Actually,” I replied, “my friends call me Piles, on account of all the money I have.” “Piles is the perfect name for a…” she started to say, but here a 64-ounce can of tomato juice fell off the shelf and onto my foot—if she nudged it over, I didn’t see her—and when I looked back her way, she was gone!

Day 4, the following Sunday. Spruced up and splashed on some Love Potion Number Nine. Then went to church. As a born-again atheist I didn’t belong to any, but I drove around until I found a big crowd going into one. I got to the door just in time for the service, and asked an usher, “where do the widows sit?” He pointed a finger and said, “Right there. Want me to take you over, Gramps?” “Nah,” I said, “if a salmon can swim upstream to spawn, I can hobble fifty feet to an old bag.” I soon located a redhead who was years away from decomposition and sat in the pew beside her. When we stood to sing “Onward Christian Soldiers,” a song that plodded like one of Rod Stewart’s, I asked to share her hymnal. She agreed, though she gave me a look as if to ask what was wrong with the songbook in the rack in front of me. I almost expected her to say “Fresh!” Holding one half of the book as she held the other, I whispered to her that I just did harmony, and to let me know when to come in. She was still staring at me as she started to sing, and it began to look as if she knew the tune by heart. I hummed a bit, but otherwise kept mum. When the music segued into “Oh Come All Ye Faithful,” as dull a song as anything by McCartney, I could take no more. Feigning chest pains, I staggered out, telling myself she wasn’t my type anyway. Sure, she was a great kisser and enjoyed oral sex, if I was any judge of character, but she had more veins sticking out than a junky.

Day 5, that Friday. Visited a Buddhist temple and came on to a vigorous divorcee in her sixties who could sit cross-legged for an hour and had the thighs of a linebacker. She was a bit put off, I think, that I screamed out in pain every five minutes during the “calm abiding” meditation, but I wasn’t used to the rock-hard cushion I sat on. After temple I agreed to join her for a two-mile run through the park—who was I kidding? I kept up with her for the first twenty feet, then fell off the pace with a crippling charley horse and watched her disappear into the distance. Sayonara, babe.

Day 6, Saturday. Went downtown to the big fountain this afternoon and sat on a bench beside a woman who was feeding the birds. She flung handfuls of sliced bread from a grocery bag at them, and had a good wrist for it. Growing bold, I leaned forward to catch a glimpse of her face, but she wore so many scarves wrapped around her head that I could only see the gray ends of her hair sticking out. I did notice that her ankles were the same thickness as her calves, giving her legs a columnar shape from knees to house slippers. Sexy? I guess! She flung out another handful of bread and I said, “Lucky birds, to have all your attention,” the only come-on line I could think of. She responded by taking a piece of bread from the bag and eating it herself. I stood and moved away, thinking I could do better. Hell, she didn’t even offer me a bite.

Day 7, the next Friday. Ran into a lady professor at the library who was reading up on her great passion, Elizabethan-period dress. This also happened to be my great passion that morning. I went back to her place to try on a doublet and some leggings and with any luck at all a codpiece, when her wheelchair-bound boyfriend from down the hall rolled in brandishing a broadsword, real or prop I didn’t know. This flame fancied himself Hamlet to my Polonius, and called me a rake and a puppy as he circled the room and swung at me with the sword. I had to skip briskly in my leggings to stay out of harm’s way, and didn’t know any of my lines, so I exited out the door, codpiece untouched. Curtain. 

Day 8, that Sunday. While attending a community rally for Women’s Rights I met the free and fearless Nettie, who hadn’t worn a bra since 1967 or a top since mid-morning. Her tats of butterflies and flowers showed resplendent in the afternoon sun, and I sensed, though I didn’t verify it by staring, that her sundrenched femininity had turned a tempting shade of pink. “My dear,” I asked, “didn’t we meet during the Summer of Love? I think we were getting it on when Jimi caught fire at Monterey.” 

“Were you at Monterey, Hoot Owl?” she replied. “You do remind me of a seedy little drummer I dated back in the day.” Then, taking note of my shy glance, she added, “My things stood straight out then.”

“So did mine,” I conceded. I stopped short of apologizing for my skin tags.

Day 9, Monday. Nettie and I went shopping for sandals and then I got a tattoo at the emporium below her rent-controlled apartment. I was a tattoo virgin, so it was my first. Nettie said my initial one was of critical importance, since it laid the foundation for all my future body artwork. Though it struck me as a tad ornate, I took her suggestion, a six-mast schooner on each buttock. As she nursed me back to health, applying lotion and painkiller to promote the healing process, she said, “These scabs aren’t so bad, no worse-looking than tertiary syph.” I thanked her for being my caregiver, saying I hoped my nose wouldn’t fall off. “When you’re back in the saddle,” she said, “you don’t need to ride out. We can fool around in here, and hit the street to demonstrate.” I thought about that. It might be my last chance to join the revolution. And I’d become devoted to Nettie’s challenged pets. Angus, a goldfish who suffered brain damage from jumping out of his tank, was my favorite. Under my care Angus had started to swim again instead of sinking down to the gravel in bewilderment, and great things were expected of him.     

Day 10, Wednesday. Nettie threw me out after she returned from a neighborhood activity meeting to find Angus dry and flaking on the kitchen floor, and me watching high-def TV in the bedroom. Too bad. If I had succeeded, she was to have given me charge of Fennel, a blind mouse. 

Day 11, Friday. Fractured my arm at the post office lifting a booklet of stamps the wrong way. The lady postal clerk I was showing off for said I put too much torque on my elbow, and probably I had a lack of calcium in my diet and should schedule a DEXA scan ASAP. She was nice enough to call me an ambulance and now I’m to have a cast. I told them at the clinic to seal me in plaster down to my thighs, to ensure my celibacy for a few weeks. With luck, my sex drive will dry up in that time and a new, neuter me will emerge from my cocoon. I hope so. I’ve decided a geezer like me needs to ride easy along what’s left of life’s trail. 

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Mike Fowler has been in Defenestration so many times he practically owns stock in the magazine. And by stock, of course, we mean delicious waffles. He’s all about self-promotion these days, so go buy his book.

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