this one always makes my therapists salivate

a little foreword:

i've had a fair amount of therapy (and more than a few therapists) in my life, starting at about 17 when it finally dawned on folks that i might be a troubled youth (damn shame, since that was at least six years past the point at which such intervention might've proved useful), and my approach to the process has evolved over the years.

at first, i was terrified--by the time i sat down across the table from my first therapist, i had pretty much stifled all my pain into a tiny little pandora's box which i really had no interest in opening for him or anybody else (and by then, of course, there was the additional pressure of hiding the fact that i was a goddam faggot), so we didn't get very far in the year we saw each other.

in time, however, i came to realize just how valuable a therapist can be--hell, you can tell those fuckers damn near anything, and not only are they paid to listen to you, they're obligated to (a) sit there with a fixed dispassionate expression on their faces, (b) nod and take it all in like it's normal, and finally and most importantly (c) keep all the shit you've spewed out to themselves.

and what a freeing realization that was.  hell, i suddenly had a safe, captive audience for all my deepest, darkest shit--and, boy, did i take advantage of it.

of course, me being me, i always felt the need to give as good as i got, which meant making my shit as interesting as possible--i got very good at figuring out what they wanted to hear and delivering same.

and i could always tell how successful one of my stories was by the resultant scribble rate--i.e., the more feverishly they scratched away at their legal pad as i talked, the better i knew the act was selling.

the following, for whatever it's worth, is my all-time bestseller--and (also, for whatever it's worth) every goddam word of it is true.

if after all this build-up you're expecting something big and dramatic, you'll be disappointed, because on the face of it, it was a little thing.

but then, my dad was a subtle master of the little things.

* * * * *

somewhere around 1965 or so, the troublemaking white-trash brown family finally moved outta the house to our left--and god, what a relief that was

maybe someday i'll tell the story about how my dad--a mud engineer for an oil company with access to all sorts of toxic chemicals--came home one night with a tight smile and a little brown vial of god-only-knows-what, flushed it down the toilet and never said a word as to why, even when shortly thereafter the entire line of sewer-choking willow trees the browns had planted between their property and ours suddenly, mysteriously and simultaneously died--but i digress

and into their place moved the muellers--a fun family if ever there was one.

see, mr. mueller--"jerry" to everybody, but i always called him mr. mueller--was a dj for the top rock 'n roll station in houston at the time [and i'll tell a story about that at some point in the future]. but jerry's job was only one of two things that made him so captivatingly interesting to the kids in the neighborhood.

the other thing? jerry's hobby--he was an HO car nut.

how can i explain HO cars to the uninitiated? they were these little miniturized slot-cars that raced around a track--it was our dinosaur-age version of video games, only they were real.

and mr. mueller had this incredible track, built to scale--complete with artificial hills and banked curves--on this huge sheet of plywood he could electrically raise and lower onto the pool table in his garage.

all of us kids would line up for our turn at the controls--little hand-held gadgets with thumb-controlled throttles--and race mr. mueller's cars [a corvette sting-ray and a shelby cobra, as i recall] around and around that track, hour after hour. and, lemme tell ya, it took finesse--too slow around any particular curve and you lost; even a hair too much juice and your car jumped the slot and you wiped out.

soon enough, however, we all learned the vagaries of not only the track but each of the cars, and kids started bringing in their own cars, bought fresh from the hobby shop and tricked-out and weighted so as to gain every last advantage--and the game changed.

that's when i decided i had to have my own car, and i picked out the body i craved--a lipstick-red oldsmobile toronado--and i imagined exactly how i'd weight the rear end of the chassis so it'd stick to the track like no other car in the running.

but first, i had to come up with the money to pay for it, which required the first long-term saving and planning i'd ever done in my short life.

and by god, i did it--i saved my allowance, denied myself all the little treats i normally enjoyed, and i waited--and waited, and waited--until finally i had enough.

on the long-awaited saturday--and because he happened to be off the rig that weekend--i asked my dad if he'd drive me to the mall so i could get my car. we went to the hobby shop, i pointed to the box i'd lusted after for so long, the clerk pulled it outta the display case and placed it on the counter, and i dug into my pocket and started counting out my dollars, quarters, pennies, dimes and nickels.

and, holy shit, somehow i came up short.

i don't remember how short--all i remember is being flabbergasted at how i'd managed to be off after calculating for all those months exactly how much i'd need and how long it would take me to get it.

and i remember looking up blankly at the clerk, and saying, "i'm sorry, i don't have enough money."

and then my dad saying, "it's ok, i'll make up the difference."

and he did--the transaction was completed, my little car was bagged, stapled and placed into my happy little hand, and we left the store.

and as we drove home in complete and utter silence, i knew something was wrong--whenever he gave you the silent treatment, there was always something wrong.

when we pulled into the driveway, i reached for the handle to open the door, but he stopped me with one cold word: "mike."

i froze, turned to look at him and he fixed me with that look, and said, "smart boy.  you figured if you dragged me all the way over there and came up short, i'd make up the difference. and you figured right--you got me.  enjoy your little toy."

and then he got outta the car, walked into the house and ignored me the rest of the weekend.

and that's my red toronado story.

* * * * *

i told this story to my mother many years later, and she said, "i wish you'd thrown that damn car in his face like he deserved."

and i remember looking at her and thinking [but not saying], "yeah--if you couldn't fight that shit at 33, how the fuck was i supposed to do it at nine?"