In the case of the Happy Ever After

In case of the Happily Ever After

Who wants to be happy? It’s creepy. Ever walk in a room and see a person smiling, it’s disturbing. You’re automatically suspicious. If you’re too happy people think you’re on drugs or joined a religious cult; either way it’s the human instinct to kill the buzz. When I was a young boy, I asked my mama when I grow up will I be good looking, will I be happy, will I be loved and she said shut your black ass up, don’t you see I’m trying to smoke my crack pipe.

It was supposed to be so easy, the happily ever after. I was supposed to grow up, get a good job, marry a good Christian girl, buy a house and go to church every Sunday according to my grandfather. There were so many things wrong with that picture since I was a Buddhist and allergic to pussy. In the fairy tale I was supposed to be the Prince, ride up on my great white house, saved the damsel whiny Princess, and then ride off to the sunset and live happily ever after. Yet history has shown royalty (king, queens, prince and princes) never really have a good life. If they are good looking it usually ends in tragedy. In Egypt Ramesses III and Amenemhat I were assassinated, Nefertiti went missing and Cleopatra committed suicide. Let’s not forget the Marie Antoinette who got her head cut off, Grace Kelly drove off a mountainside and lastly Princess Di crashed into a wall chased down by her fame. Not even American Royalty unofficial had it better. Need I say more, the Kennedys, shot in the head and plane crashes. It seemed not even the real Prince Charming and damsel Princess lived happily ever, just the opposite, life only got more complicated or tragic.

Yet it happens to the best of us--that need to try and make some sort of sense out of our lives. I called it the last chance for happiness. It’s the age when most of us begin the adult negotiations. It usually happens when we start approaching thirty years old. There’s an innate panic of high school reunions and fear of failure. It’s usually the time when alcoholic friends suddenly find Jesus and strippers become soccer moms. It’s the last chance. I’ve seen it happened so many times. My sister was fat and approaching thirty years old when she met her husband. She was a college drop out and working as a receptionist for a law firm. One day she disappeared. All I was told was that she met some guy at work and was no longer speaking to the family, especially me because she blamed me for her last failed relationship. She ignored the fact that guy was a deadbeat meth addict. In the beginning I was insulted because I didn’t want to be a dirty little secret like herpes. My older sister had always had anger management problems but the day she met her soon to be husband she turned into an uber-BITCH. She stopped answering her phone. She wouldn’t loan me money. I felt as if she abandoned my irresponsibility. I didn’t meet the mystery man until the day of her wedding. I was only invited because I promised to bring a gift and not show up drunk. I brought a present. It was very difficult for me to be happy for her since she excluded me from possibly ruining her happily ever after. But I understood. It was her last chance to be somebody. She was pushing thirty years old. She wasn’t so cute anymore. She was used. She had a life time of fast food jobs. She had too many secrets. It was her last chance to be the bride and not the bridesmaid. Women take that shit serious. She was beginning to feel the pressure of loneliness. She met the guy and six months later they were man and wife. It turned out he was already married and never got a divorce.

A happy ending is an ending of the plot of a work of fiction in which most everything turns out for the best for the hero or heroine, their sidekicks, and just about everyone but the villains.. A happy ending at the China Town Massage therapist is getting the dick jacked off. I rather get my dick jacked off. Growing up I fell in love with fairytales I fell in love with family sitcoms on television. I fell in love with idea of the happy ending or happily ever after where problems can be solved in thirty minutes. I watched shows like Leave it to Beaver, Family Ties and the Cosby show like it was the bible. I guess because my real life was such a mess. Daddy got himself killed when I five years old. Mama got addicted to drugs. We were dirt poor. It was a lot of reality for a child deal with so I fell in love with the television. I fell in love with romantic comedies.

I based my life on a fantasy. I believed so much in it I refused to face reality. I based love on that lie. I based friendships on that lie. I based my life success on that lie. I couldn’t understand the implausibility of Rachel on the show Friends, a high school graduate and waitress could just one day be a buyer for Gucci. That’s doesn’t happen in reality. And I couldn’t figure out why nothing was working for me. I was trying to live the life of what some drug addict writer wrote on a binge like West Wing. I should’ve known better because I’m a writer. I thought love was “When Harry Met Sally” and didn’t know love was “When Harry tried to kill Sally.”

I had to pretend to be this good boy that came from a good family, a mom and dad with a good job, so that I could grow and have a good life. The truth was haunting. I was from the ghetto. I was from the back of the ghetto, not the front, but the back where the crack heads passed out and drug dealers played dice. I was from the bottom of the pudding cup; life wasn’t going to be so easy for me like Theo on the Cosby Show. The more I surrendered to the fantasy, the addictions begin to happen. I needed to drink more. I needed to abuse more. I needed drugs. I needed more sex. And I’m a stubborn person who refused to be wrong, so I couldn’t see I wasn’t happy. I was fucking miserable. I grew up to be a liar. I grew up to be a hustler. I grew up to be the villain. I wanted to be Prince Charming but name itself sounds like gigolo or gay rapper.

And being gay didn’t help coming from where I come from. It’s such a fantasy of young hot boys with great bodies and big dicks. As a homosexual it seemed that the first thing I learned was to lie. I had to hide it. I had to be convincing when I hid it. I had to create some personality that was a lie. I had to pretend to like women. And then lying didn’t stop when I came out. That day in church when I was recruited to be gay, it all seemed like a fantasy. I was told I never have to worry about getting anyone pregnant. I was promised techno-colored drinks, all the sex I could handle and dancing all night. It seemed so much fun that rainbow flag flickering in the wind. It seemed so tempting, the intoxicating lights, the basing music, nobody ever said I had to grow up. Yet, we do grow up. I came out when I was fifteen years old. I am now thirty years old. I lived five lives in that fifteen years old. But the lying didn’t stop. It was still about sex. Men lie. Show me a man that doesn’t lie and I show you a third nipple, they are that rare. And how was I to know when I came out that I was on my own. My family didn’t ask any questions about my life anymore. I was alone. Nobody told me. All I knew at the beginning of my gay existence I starting lying. I didn’t know how to stop. I lied in my online profiles. I lied about my age. I lied just to sleep with a guy. I lied to myself. I told myself my youth would last forever. It didn’t.

Yet, the happily ever is haunting. I still wanted love. I still wanted a home to call my own. It didn’t matter that I was gay. I was still going to have to grow up. A friend of mine called me at three o’clock in the morning. He wanted to go to a park and cruise. I thought the idea was silly since we both were thirty years old. I only went because he promised weed. In the park at three in the morning on a Wednesday night, it seemed ridiculous riding around in the car in circles looking for dick. Everyone seemed so young. I felt I was dressed inappropriately in beach sandals, cargo shorts and a t-shirt that asked “Who would Jesus Do?” I looked more like I was going to a yard sale than looking to get my dick sick behind a tree in a gay park. I knew I had a nice bed at home and I suddenly wanted to be in it. I couldn’t lie anymore. I couldn’t conjure that desperate spark in my eyes. I couldn’t pretend that it was all so damn unnecessary and hilarious grown ass men sniffing around each other like common street dogs. I wanted more. I wasn’t so young any more.

I was still going to have to become a man that scared the shit out of me. I guess because I was afraid to say that I still wanted to be happy. I thought I had given up on the fairytale with my first STD. I’d seen how it worked out for some of my friends and relatives but I still wanted the American dream. I still wanted the advertisement. I felt I was owed it. When I was twenty one years old, I couldn’t see my life past Friday and Saturday night and now at thirty years old, I was saving for my down payment for my dream home. It’s because it’s called “the life” not “my life.” In that park cruising with my friend I suddenly knew when I’m gone the liquor stores will still be there, so will the drug dealers, the bathhouses, the clubs, the bars, none of them won’t close down because I’m no longer dancing on the dance floor. It’s called “the life” not “my life.” I wanted my life. When I was recruited that day in church and signed the contract to be a promiscuous homosexual I should’ve read the fine print. I decided to hire me a drag queen. I needed a need contract. I didn’t want to be the old man in the park flashing teenagers. I didn’t want to be the botox tragic fag with ass implants and fake teeth trying to pretend I was still in my twenties. I wanted to be home watching television with my lover. I wanted the fantasy of growing old with him on the porch and sweet tea. I was still a romantic no matter how many bathhouses and orgies I’ve attended. I was still a boy standing in front of a boy and asking him to love me.

I don’t’ understand why it has to be called happily ever after. It sounds like a place where the Easter Bunnies and Santa Claus go to commit suicide. It sounds so damn final. I don’t want to ride off into the sunset. I want to wake up to sun rises. I can’t understand why the story can’t end “the two lovers did the best the good.” Why couldn’t it be called “good enough?” I didn’t want my story to end that I lived happily ever after because I know that’s another lie. I’m TIRED OF LIES. I want my story to end that I did the best I could every day and practiced forgiveness. I think that’s the key to a happy life. It’s hard work. You have to constantly learn how to rebuild. You have to learn how to start over and keep forgiving your past. I am not my past. I am now. I am not happy. That’s creepy.

The Writing on the Wall: I WAS HERE

The need to say “I was here” is as old as slavery. The Romans carved graffiti on walls and monuments, with examples surviving in Egypt of Latin curses, magic spells, declarations of love, alphabets, political slogans and famous literary quotes, providing insight into ancient Roman street life. Disappointed love also found its way onto walls in antiquity:
Whoever loves, go to hell. I want to break Venus's ribs
with a club and deform her hips.
If she can break my tender heart
why can't I hit her over the head?
-CIL IV, 1284.

Over eight hundred years later, not much had change and I was sitting on the toilet at the Men’s Country in Chicago, trying not to touch the toilet seat looking at all the writings on the walls. Some guy named Derrick likes to get off on the smell of men after a long day. He writes in a red permanent marker on a gray wall that he “likes to pull yo clothes off and give you that head to toe lickdown after a long day or a workout. Hang those nuts in my face while i lick on yo dick after its been swingin all day. Hit me up.” He leaves his number and phone number. I laugh that anyone would be so horny to leave their name and number on a bathhouse wall. I pray that what I’m expelling doesn’t make a smell or cause attention. I try to be silent.

Why write on some gas station bathroom in middle of Nowhere, Texas with a ballpoint pen, “I was here.” Did the person forget? And who carries the specific permanent marker for such graffiti: maybe a John Doe that’s afraid no one will miss him if he’s abducted by aliens.

They usually leave their name and date. Sometimes they draw boobs or a man’s dick. It’s usually in those bathrooms where you only stop because you ate some bad “truckstop” tuna or Mexican food and it wants out. On the toilet, you bend down just far enough where the booty hole can aim correctly but your butt check won’t touch the seat. And in that awkward Yoga move between explosive convulsions, the eyes wonder especially focus on the cracks of the bathroom stale hoping nobody comes in like a relative or ex-lover or current lover or the newspaper or news team with cameras. Your eyes wonder and splattered all over the walls are messages. Somebody is looking for a dick sucking around 5 in the evening on Sunday and left their phone number. Somebody doesn’t like a certain gang. Somebody wants to get fucked with an umbrella. You chuckle thinking of all the freaks in the world. And then it’s that ubiquitous, “I was here, 6-17-1997.” You suddenly feel not so alone that somebody was there in the same position you’re probably in ten years ago with exploding Diarrhea.

I often wondered who those people were. What did they look like? Are they still alive? Did they find happiness? Did that guy looking to get his dick sucked finally get a phone call? And what would make them write on the walls? Is it loneliness? Is it that human need to record our existence even it’s a kinky need to get fucked with a canary yellow umbrella? Do anybody ever call those numbers. Does anybody care the Saprina Ellis is a slut/bitch and isn’t that a double negative?

I started writing on the bathroom walls “I was here” when I started to question if I could save myself. I was twenty five years old. I was drinking too much. I was partying too much. I was getting older and scared. I wrote on the every wall at bathhouses, bookstores, clubs, bars, that I was here. I knew eventually I be another ghost. I guess to say that I was once young, that I was horny, that I was lonely, that I was scared, that I was drunk and I once thought I would live forever.

And then there was epidemic of Graffiti in the city in the early nineties what some called the desperation of the ghetto for attention. Images or lettering scratched, scrawled, or more usually spray-painted on property that didn’t belong to the artist, and was often regarded by others as unsightly damage or unwanted vandalism. It was the name of gangs. The names of those shot down in the streets by gang violence. The artwork of young ghetto artist trying to make their mark on the world. I remember being on the train in New York and thinking why spray paint on the sides of the building when the “man” was just going to paint over it the next day. And some of the artwork was better than some crap I’ve seen museums. It spoke to me. It was my cousin Pookie, Ray Ray, or that guy I slept with behind that building on a musty New York Saturday night. It was my history. I had to understand, why say I was here when people would eventually forget.

I was born October 5th. The doctor slapped my ass and recorded the time. I was given a birth certificate with my footprints to prove I existed, an American citizen. And when I die, I’m also promised a death certificate and tombstone to say that I was here. But the real question, why was I here in the first place?

There was time when I started writing on the walls because I was really asking if I would feel good enough. I tried being a whore. I went to the gym five times a week. I slept with a different man every other week. But it didn’t’ mean shit. A condom in the trash didn’t mean shit. Hoping they remember or I remember meant everything. I wanted to carve into their bodies that “Michael Whitley was here” because I often I forgot who I slept with that drunk night but that would’ve probably sent me to jail or to a mental hospital. So I carved in into the trees, walls, on the floors. The real question was if I would ever feel good enough. I had to check the mirror so often. I wondered if the wounds of my childhood abuse could heal. I wondered if they abandoned child would ever feel good enough for happiness. Good enough to be a writer. Good enough to love myself. I asked the question. The universe gave me the challenge.

So I set out for physical response. I pushed in hopes that it would push back. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t some ectoplasm. I ain’t no invisible man. I guess vandalizing walls wasn’t enough for me. I wrote a book. I just wanted to be able to put my name in the computer and see it come up. To see Michael Whitley come up.

For two years I was the “shirtless writer.” An alcoholic drag queen named “Bing” gave me that name. She told me I could rule the world if I wanted. I believed her. Some people called me the “shitless writer” or “full of shit” writer. They didn’t understand. Some thought I was a hustler, a common prostitute or pathetic con man. I was all of it. For two years every week without fail, I wrote my weekly column about my pathetic life living in the city. I sold it at the local gay bars and clubs for one dollar. I still can’t believe I got away with it. I figured people gave away their money all the time. They gave it away to bartenders who made weak drinks. They gave it away to overpriced clubs. They gave it away to strippers. They gave it away to aging alcoholic drag queens. I figured why not me.

Like Graffiti I’d see on my comics on the floors of bathrooms, dance floors and parking lots. It would make me feel alive. I know “I was here.” Just in case I forgot. I wanted to be a lot of things in my life. My first break as a writer came in third grade. I wrote a poem called “mirror.” It was basically about how I was scared to look in the mirror because I was convinced the person behind it was trying to kill me. I thought he was mocking me. I showed the poem to my teacher hoping that she knew the ghost busters. In second grade I wanted to Valentine Day king. My teacher laughed at me when I raised my hand to nominate myself. She said nobody was going to vote for a nappy head snot nose kid, so I should just save myself the embarrassment. I didn’t care. I stood in front of the class wiping my nose as they voted. I told myself that I should do the politically correct thing and vote for the other guy, because I didn’t want to seem vain. When the votes were tabulated, I had gotten zero votes. I didn’t even vote for myself. That’s what bothered me the most. I didn’t even vote for myself. I vowed to never do that again. The next year I ran again and that time I not only voted for myself, I changed the votes. I won. When I was in fourth grade, I wanted the lead in the choir. I was told I couldn’t sing and that I sounded like God murdering a basket of monkeys with a toothpick. She said my vomit would sound better. The choir director told me I sang through my nose and it was always full of boogers. She said I should be happy being in the back, therefore nobody could see me. I didn’t stop singing. Actually I sang louder. I got kicked out of choir. When was in high school I tried to be an actor. My drama teacher told me I acted like Scarlet O’Hara with an obsessive compulsive disorder. I didn’t understand what that mean. I thought she was a bitch. In college I wanted to be a model. I was told I was too dark. Not too good looking. Too short. The first photo shoot I pissed on myself. I was wearing white Calvin Klein. The director told me the shoot wasn’t about waster sports. I didn’t find out what that meant until years later.

But the need to say I was here was still tormenting. It’s why I kept doing the comic every week. I didn’t care what they thought. I didn’t care if they gave me money or not. I was fucking h ere. “I so want you to succeed.” His name was Mike. He was more than a little overweight. He and Jabber the Hutt probably wore the same pants size. I liked Mike because he was a Negrophile, a barfly and every week he had a ten dollar bill to stuff down my pants. I knew he was in lust with me, had been saying he was trying to lose weight so that he could be with me. I was also sure he said that to all the young black boys with flat stomachs and a nice dick print. I was always happy to see Mike, mostly because he gave me money with few complications. Hearing him say that he wanted me to succeed made me feel so good, because it was hard trying to hold on to a slippery dream at twenty-nine years old. It was hard hustling the bar with my little comic that I put together at home. And it was hard wearing my heart on my sleeves for every pervert just to try and look down my pants. I only did it because I got to be a writer every week. I got to live my dream, and until I was discovered by the “powers that be” that write checks, it was all I had to look forward to in life. So I hugged Mike, put my skinny toned arms around his fat waist, and that’s when he whisper it in my ear again, “I so want you to succeed” but it didn’t sound so supportive anymore. It was more suggestive and nasty. He whispered it again to make sure I heard him, “I so want you to pee on me.” Needless to say, I let go of Mike’s fat nasty ass.

I was shirtless writer. I was here. And I was horny, often scared, trying to figure it all out, and trying to make myself feel good enough for happiness. I laughed. I danced. I sold a comic in the club for two years. I kissed. I sucked dick. I ate ass. Vice Versa. I sold jokes. I was in love. But most important, I lived.

30 by 30

When you turn thirty, take the mamas out the room, your dick still gets hard and the need for sex increases. I think it's I got to make a baby thing but i'm gay, talk about paradoxes.

When you turn thirty and ghetto, too many black gay men aint got their own place, either cheating on somebody or staying with somebody that's more than just rent, like there isn't any sex in the champagne room, there ain't a thing as the roommate; it's just a hard dick inconvenient truth.

You can no longer call your friends at 3 in the morning about some weak trick, they're usually sleeping or getting ready for work or your girl friends burping babies or playing wife and the college party friends have become reborn Christians or republicans and you only left to the drunks at the bar, so here’s the AA number.

All gay relationships are testaments too bratty ass kids compromising, somebody got to be dependent or it ain’t going to work.

When you turn thirty years old, you're an automatic top. That's stupid.

When you turn thirty, no more free drugs or liquor, unless you're willing to play like you're dumb again or get fucked raw. And the drug dealer no longer takes credit.

When you turn thirty years old, the hunt for sex becomes a bitch, with work, and working out and having to maintain friendships or a career, casual sex takes a lot of free time that could be better used for cleaning the house or writing that novel. So sex after thirty years old is more direct, no foreplay, if he don’t tell you he’s fucking in the first fifteen seconds, move on.

When you turn thirty years old, porn stops being so sexy when everybody looks like their sixteen years old and a crack head. Also porn becomes a reminder that you’re not using your gym membership which distracts the jacking and dries up the lube. Also, you learn with porn there are only really two good minutes of worthy lotion time that you have to keep rewinding.

When you turn thirty years old, bartenders are assholes and don't like broke black people.

When you turn thirty years old, paying twenty bucks to get into a club is like not buying your next bottle of poppers when everybody is fucking in the parking lot anyway or wasting money that could’ve been better spent on a good bag of weed. I see you in the parking lot.

When you turn thirty years old, threesomes feel like a gang rape. Two aggressive tops feeding off their aggressiveness treating the bottom like a slutty cheerleader getting raped by two hyper-DL freaks, but when you’re thirty, it’s more difficult to play Buffy the dick slayer.

When you thirty years old and still a bottom and you’ve figured out you're not the girl, that you get attracted to toys and used them alone, and soon as your ass become your own, he starts raping the newest eighteen year old who has to go through the entire process of learning how to clean, take dick, open up. When you’re thirty years old and still a bottom, just when it starts feeling good, suddenly you're too old, they say stupid shit when the see your large sex toys "so what does my dick do for you" like what did you dick every do for me except get hard and got off. Man, it's not about your dick. It's about the fucking ride. Some idiot once told me if you're going to be a good bttm your priority should be the dick, making it stay hard but he was like 50, that's like a full time job and i got shit to do with my life.

When you’re thirty years old and a top, your dick becomes your gun, even if you’re not that masculine or aggressive, for some reason you become an animal when fucking, it’s like you got to treat every hole like your bitch or slut.

When you’re thirty years old, why are so many black escorts like 22-25, like they know their dick, it's like blinding a horse and having sex with it, maybe that's the point.

When you’re thirty years old, cockrings are the new engagement rings in gay life. I get so excited when a trick brings me lube or poppers or a new cockring. It’s like bring me chocolate and roses.

When you’re thirty years old, the truth about drugs, they can be cool but most people don't make it cool, are idiots and broke. With drug life, you can't trust most tricks or leave them out of your sight. And party and play is most likely placid and petrified, or posing and flaccid, or he's a drug whore or crack head or he's just hitting you up to see if you got drugs, when you're looking yourself.

After 30, there’s no such thing a free drink or drug

When you turn thirty years old, you don't have to go to the gym, you can always starve; get a drug habit, because no matter how you get thin, it's a must for being successfully gay.

When you turn thirty years old, the internet is not about sex most of the time, it's about patience being tested and jacking off alone.

When you turn thirty, if he doesn't tell you he's fucking in the first fifteen seconds, he just wants attention. I hate anyone asking why you like me, it's because you have a dick and hopefully it gets hard.

When you turn thirty and black and gay, there's no such thing as the white men who don't see color. He sees black dick. He sees a black hole. He sees contrast. It’s most likely a fetish, a collection.

When you turn thirty years old, everybody got a fucking opinion on how you should be living right, not living right, what they could do better, how you should buy their self help book.

When you turn thirty years old, money becomes blood, and there are so many fucking vampires especially when the drugs or liquor aren't free anymore.

When you turn thirty years old, you understand that you weren’t' cute at 21, you were just stupid with a dick that got hard if grandma farted.

When you turned thirty years old, you most likely formed some type of addiction.

After 30, I really haven't met a man that hasn't lied about something. Most of the shit people put in the their profile, no fems, fats, old heads, is only porn, real life is often way too desperate, trust me, if the lights are dark enough and the dick is hard enough, it’s what people do when nobody is watching is the truth.

When you turn thirty years old, you realize as much money as we as gay men spend on clothes, gym memberships, sports cars, lube, condoms, fisting gloves, poppers, weed, drugs, will be enough to send three kids to a very good college yet we learn nothing.

When you turn thirty years old, you’re going to demand a new gay contract, because worshipping youth or going out to clubs get old real quick. You now have mortgages, boring friends, and trying to live a long life without getting really really bitter.

When you turn thirty years old, in the middle you realize, young gays, 18-25 are just as stupid as old gays 40-65, the only difference somebody is paying and somebody wants to get paid.

And lastly, very few people like sucking dick, it's a courtesy, it's foreplay, but every man likes getting his dick sucked, you're only deep throating his ego and he will let you suffocate for it. If you can form a life of either somebody always sucking your dick and doing less dick sucking, you have a successful gay life. But the best thing about 30, is that the sex is so much better. you know what you're doing, you know what you want, you know how to get yourself off even if he don't and you know how to get him out of your apartment.