MISTER ELEGANT - PART 1
Illustration by Milano Chow |
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Vice: When did you first write?
Chuck: In fifth grade, because of praise from my teacher, Richard Olson, who still runs the library in the very small town of Burbank, Washington. That writing stint lasted until the ogreish Mr. Dorn in sixth grade. It wasn’t until I bought a slum house in an area with no television or radio reception that I began writing again. To stimulate myself. No, that sounds dirty... How about: To “entertain” myself.
What is your daily writing routine like?
Early in my day, I row or do something exhausting so I can sit still and write later. During my shower, I think of the day’s plot problem and brainstorm ideas. All day, exercising or driving or whatever, I’m making notes of details I want to include in the day’s work in a spiral-bound notebook. The final task is to sit and keyboard all the ideas together, then print a hard copy I can line edit the next day.
OK. We’ll check back in with you after the story, Chuck. |
 on’t ask how I know this, but the next time you think you’re fat, there’s a whole lot worse way you can look.
Something to picture, when you’re at the gym counting stomach crunches or hanging knee raises to flatten your ab muscles, just know that some people have a whole other person growing out of that spot on their body. That fleshy, jiggly area under the bottom of your rib cage, where to you is just a “love handle,” those other people have arms and legs, most of a whole other person hanging over their belt.
Doctors call this an “epigastric parasite.”
Some social workers, they call that extra person a “heteradelphian,” a fancy word for “different sibling.” It means somebody who should’ve been your brother or sister only got born with their head still inside your stomach. That extra person, he’s born with no brain. No heart. He’s just a parasite, and you’re the host.
You couldn’t make this stuff up.
And, please, listen. If I’m telling you this and you do have another person growing out from underneath your arm right now, please don’t get all bent out of shape.
The only reason I’m telling you is I kind of used to have one, too.
And trust me, what’s worlds worse than some jiggling subcutaneous fat is you popping out some heartless, brainless stranger. Sometimes that happens even years and years after you’re already born.
Don’t ask how I know this either, but after you’ve done a hundred million stomach crunches, when you apply to be one of those Chippendales-type sexy dancers—just to get hired as a buff, naked exotic dancer—they ask you: “… do you suffer from epileptic seizures?”
The question’s on the form they give you at the doctor’s office for the physical exam right after your audition. The nurse hands you a clipboard full of forms and a pen and a Dixie cup she wants filled with piss. And the dance company, it’s not even the real Chippendales, but you ask any has-been, washed-up male exotic dancer what troupe he was with, and just to shortcut a lot of explaining, he’ll tell you Chippendales.
We all recognize those copyrighted white paper cuffs and the black bow tie.
Really, my audition was for the Savage Knights. That’s “Knights” with a capital K. The Savage Knights are your Chippendales type of all-male, high-energy, feel-good touring exotic-dance company that caters to a ladies’ audience. Their home office ran this ad in the newspaper for auditions. In the sports section, across the top, their ad said: “Live Your Fantasy.”
In the banquet room of the airport Holiday Inn, on that Sunday afternoon, my smile on my face was a lie. My tan was a lie. So was my hair being blonde. On the job application, when I wrote 185 pounds, that was a lie. Under eye color, I wrote the color of my contact lenses. During the sit-down part of the interview, I said I wanted to be a Savage Knight because I really liked to travel to interesting places and meet new people.
The truth was, really I just wanted a career where every night, hundreds of drunk young virgins, they would stuff cash money into my underpants with their teeth.
For my age, I lied away three years and wrote down 24.
Every one of my capped teeth, it was a shiny white lie.
I buzzed off my brown pubic hair, and the agent for Savage Knights said they had an opening for another Mister Elegant. At any moment, she told me, 16 different companies of Savage Knights are crisscrossing the world, meeting the male stripper needs of global billions. Each troupe includes a fireman, a police officer, a soldier, a construction worker in a yellow hardhat. Like a roving high school Career Day. Plus Mister Elegant, who makes his entrance in a breakaway tuxedo and gives roses to all the women at the ringside tables. All smooth and cosmopolitan. A cool James Bond.
Troupe 11, their last Mister Elegant had turned gun-shy and bailed after some coked-up birthday girl in Fairbanks yanked him a torsioned testicle.
That’s when my own parasite started coming out.
In that Holiday Inn ballroom, I looked like nothing I’d ever seen in my bathroom mirror. Tanned and baby-oiled. Blond and smiling.
And the agent shook my oily hand, saying, “Good.” She said, “From now on, you’ll be Mister Elegant…”
The emergence of my new heartless, brainless different sibling.
Life is nothing if not a slippery slope.
What was true was, I figured if I made a relentless and ongoing effort I could pass for 24, forever.
For my dance part of my audition, the song “Bodyrock” by the artist Moby gives you your best 3:36 grabber. Call my taste a little retro, but you start with a song folks like and you’ve halfway won the game. Plus the dropout toward the end, when the track cuts to just lyrics, that gives you your perfect window to nail some stunt work. Inside that frame, I pegged a standing flip, dropped to splits, and recovered with a kip-up. After all my tanning and shaving and smiling, the agent for Savage Knights, she gave me a sheet of paper printed with directions to a clinic. The nurse gave me a cup for piss. And the forms asked:
“Do you have a history of epileptic seizures?”
So after all that bullshit, it was easy to check the little box marked NO.
I just made sure and took my Clonazepam.
CONTINUED:
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See all articles by this contributor Anonymous, on Oct 16, 2009 wrote:
chuck is the best, fightclub anyone? | | Anonymous, on Oct 16, 2009 wrote:
hey im 28 and i feel fine, its all a state of mind anyway. | | Anonymous, on Oct 16, 2009 wrote:
i know i mean that quote is such a downer. i never want to be 30 | |
| luxisabandit, on Oct 16, 2009 wrote:
how incredibly depressing ! | | |
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