Cursed With Ambition

Ojo Rojo is the Tooth Fairy

Several years ago I was down in POC with my extended family.  One of my aunts was there, we'll call her Molly.  She's my dad's youngest sister, and she was there with her two children.  One of her kids is a girl who was 8 or 9 years old at the time.  We'll call her Callie.  I don't remember who all else was there, but I know for sure my brother Snake Diggity was there because he was the only witness to what happened that night.  I think the house was pretty full of people though, so there must have been at least 15 or so of my other family members.

We were having a pretty typical POC weekend, which means I had been drinking pretty much the whole time.  After dinner, my aunt Molly pulled me off to the side and whispered to me that she wanted me to do something for her.  She told me that her daughter had lost a tooth and that she was afraid she wouldn't be able to stay up long enough to put the money under the pillow Tooth Fairy style.  So she asked me if I would do it.  Repeat:  MY AUNT ASKED ME TO BE THE TOOTH FAIRY.  I was stunned and strangely honored by her request.  I told her that of course I would do it.  I was proud that she thought I was responsible and stealthy enough to come through in this situation.  Really, though, she probably just figured I'd be the last person up.  She put a $5 bill in my hand and thanked me.  I detected a slight look of relief on Molly's face as she turned away, as if she had done her duty now and that was that.  If I fucked it up from here it was on me. 

Then I went to Madden's.

I have no idea who I was with, who I saw, anything I did or said from that night at Madden's.  Which is not to say that I was totally fucked up necessarily (I was).  It was just a typical summer Saturday night at Madman's in POC and nothing noteworthy happened.  It's just a backdrop to the rest of the story anyway.

I stumbled home after the bar closed.  When I got back to the bayhouse, all the lights were off save a small fluorescent fixture over the kitchen sink.  My grandfather made a habit of keeping that light on at night as a sort of nightlight.  Really it was to light his way to the icebox in the middle of the night for a snack of fat free icemilk over sugar free graham crackers.

When I came in to the darkened house I thought everyone was asleep.  I don't remember whether Snake Diggity was with me all night or if he was just still awake at the house when I got back, but he was there in the kitchen.  We probably bullshitted in whispered tones for a few minutes; maybe I cracked open another beer.  I told him, "Hey man, I gotta be the Tooth Fairy for Callie."  "What?!"  Snake wasn't sure he heard me right.  "Yeah man, aunt Molly asked to me be the Tooth Fairy."  I swayed where I was standing and produced a crumpled, sweaty five dollar bill from my pocket to show him as proof.  Snake took a second to process as he looked at me.  He laughed.  "You're the Tooth Fairy?"  "That's right, bitch.  I'm the fuckin' Tooth Fairy!"  Jake laughed out loud, "That's hilarious!"  I shushed him, "Shhhh!!  Keep your voice down, man.  People are sleepin' and I don't want to wake Callie up."  Snake asked, "So when are you going to do it?"  I blinked for a couple of seconds; thinking.  "I guess right now."

Callie was sleeping in a bedroom around the corner from the kitchen.  The door to the bedroom was closed.  There were two beds in that room and another kid was asleep there.  I assessed the situation:  fewer that ten feet to Callie's bed, squeaky door to open, creaky floor boards in the bedroom and then the finale - how to get the tooth from under the pillow and slip the bill in without waking the kid.  That was the hard part.  And Molly had warned me that Callie was a light sleeper.  Plus, there was another kid in the room that I had to worry about waking up.  If I woke them up, they were sure to wonder why their drunk twenty-something year old male cousin was standing over her bed.  Screams for mommy and running relatives and explanations and ruining the magic of childhood for at least one of my young cousins all flashed through my head.  I got my game face on.  I was going to have to be quick and quiet.  "Like a ninja," I whispered to myself.

Snake watched as I tiptoed out of the kitchen and through the corner of the living room to the bedroom door.  I eased open the door, past the squeaky part.  Callie's bed was right next to the door, so I stood with one foot in and one foot out of the bedroom just in case I had to make a quick exit.  I fought the effects of the alcohol as I tried to stand perfectly still and steady all of my movements.  The room was dark and I could barely make out Callie on the bed.  Once my eyes adjusted I could see that she had her back to me.  That was lucky.  "Okay," I thought to myself, "Step One:  Extract the Tooth."  I flattened my hand on the mattress first and then eased it under the pillow very, very slowly.  My eyes were trained on the outline of Callie's body so I could detect any signs of waking.  My hand got a third, then halfway under the pillow.  My hand was directly under Callie's head, but no movement.  I felt around with small movements of my fingers.  I started to panic - NO TOOTH!  I felt a race of adrenaline.  I couldn't find the fucking tooth.  I moved my hand slowly to the left and to the right.  My mind raced.  No way I could keep moving my hand under the pillow; Callie was sure to wake.  Could I make three quarters under?  What if I just left the fucking money and got the hell out of there and fuck the tooth?  "No, no," I thought to myself, "Callie would see that the tooth wasn't gone and know this whole Tooth Fairy business was a sham."  I was resolved - I had to get this thing done.  I decided to go for it and reach even further under the pillow.  One inch, then two.  Still no tooth.  I kept sliding and feeling for the tooth.  My hand was almost all the way to the other end of the pillow with my arm up to mid-bicep.  I was just about to give up when - BAM! - my fingers touched tooth!  It was almost all the way at the other end of the pillow!  I pinched it between two of my fingers to that I could keep my hand flat while I slowly, ever-so-slowly pulled my hand out from under the pillow.  When I finally got it out I held the tooth up in the darkness.  "I got you little motherfucker!" I thought to myself.  The adrenaline coursed.  I could feel victory.  But now for the money.  I folded the bill and placed it between my flattened palm and the mattress.  I slid it under the pillow an inch at a time and very slowly.  Of course, the ideal placement of Tooth Fairy money is dead center under the pillow.  I was feeling cocky from the successful tooth extraction, so I decided to go for perfection.  Just a couple of inches more and I had it.  The bill was centered under the pillow and just because I could, I adjusted it to a perfect 90 degree angle.  I carefully slid my hand back out from under the pillow and I was out.  I eased the door closed and made two strides to the kitchen where Snake was waiting.  I pumped my fist in the air.  "Did you get it?"  I held up the tooth between my index finger and thumb.  "I'm the fuckin' tooth fairy, man!"  Snake started laughing.  I held my arms in close to my side and made a fluttering motion with my hands as I pretended to fly like what I imagined the Tooth Fairy would.  Snake saw that and almost fell over laughing so hard.

And that, my friends, is the story of who the Tooth Fairy really is - an unshaven twenty-something year old white dude with no real wings and a heavy beer buzz.

Ojophobia

Some people who know me know that I have a couple of quirky fears:  going to prison and lightning.  I don't have pathological or irrational fears of these things, but I talk about them a lot and they have become a running joke of sorts.

Ojo's Prison Plan

When I was in my early twenties I had a few run-ins with the law.  Mostly just being hassled on 6th street in Austin or traffic tickets or whatever, but I did go to jail twice (both times for minor traffic related shit).  I always felt persecuted, singled out and wrongly accused in these situations.  I also have a challenge of authority hard wired into my brain.  Plus, right around this time I saw a movie starring Tom Selleck where he was framed for a crime he didn't commit and got sent to prison.  The movie was about how he had to survive in prison and try to prove his innocence and get revenge on those who had framed him all at the same time.  The opening scene of the prison sequence involved a group of inmates standing in a rough circle with some scrawny white guy's screaming head rythmically protruding from the group.  See, this scrawny white guy was getting gang raped.  This was Tom Selleck's character's introduction to prison life and it was my introduction to the concept of prison rape.  Before that, I didn't know it was a thing.  Now, anal rape is right up there with heroin and having a retarded kid as things I hope I never experience in life.  (Incidentally, this movie also introduced me to the phrase, "Fuck me!" by someone other than my father.  I thought it was his deal before I saw the movie.  Only after hearing it somewhere else did I fully understand what it meant - same as "Fuck you!" only directed inwardly, usually as a personal chastisement for a mistake or flaw.)  Anyway, the combination of the feeling that I was being persecuted by cops and the prison rape revelation caused me to seriously start considering the prospect of actually going to prison and what I would do if I ever found myself there.  I came up with a few things.  First, since I'm not a big guy there would be no way I could be sure that I could outmuscle a would-be rapist or, much less, a group of them.  I mean, I still planned to muscle up before going in and all, I just didn't think it would make a big difference.  What I needed was some selective advantage.  What I would do is:  during my trial or when I was out on bail or whatever, I would drink a shit load of milk and take protein and keratin building supplements.  The idea being to make my teeth and nails really strong.  Then, I'd file my teeth down to points (picture Spawn), grow my nails long and file them to sharp points too (a la Lady Deathstrike) to use as weapons.  I figured even if the teeth and nails didn't work that well as actual weapons, (they can be still be knocked out or broken) anyone who wanted to fuck with me would be met with an evil grin of sharp pointed teeth.  That alone would probably scare off all but the most dedicated assfuckers.  If nothing else, everyone would think I was fucking crazy and just leave me alone.  And no one would be interested in a blowjob from a guy with razor sharp pointed teeth either.

I also had the idea of doing asshole flex exercises to strengthen the sphincter.  I didn't have much faith in that technique, though, because I've heard that if somebody wants in, they can pretty much get in.

Ojo's Fear of Lightning

I believe it was Memorial Day weekend of 2000.  I was in POC fishing with my dad, my grandfather and two of my younger cousins.  The weather started out fine, but as the day wore on there were scattered thunderstorms.  We are used to these conditions and usually the storms are small enough that you can run from them in the boat and be relatively safe a couple of miles away.  On this particular day, there was a fairly large storm coming up from the southeast, which is the predominant wind direction in POC during the summer.  The storm was coming our way.  My dad was in charge so it was his call what to do.  At that point in time I had never really been threatened by the weather (despite a few years before having a large tree felled by a tornado fall on me, missing my head by inches) so I didn't pay much attention.  Dad decided to run from the storm, but the problem was that we ran northwest and away from home.  Plus, we were a good distance away from town to begin with and across a large section of the bay.  The storm seemed to grow and we heard the thunder long before the rain started.  We had no choice; we were going to have to ride it out.  The storm rolled up on us.  The first thing that happened was that there was a strong rush of cold air.  The wind picked up from the 10-15 mph breeze to a 20-30 mph gale.  Then the sky just opened up on us.  It was raining really, really hard.  And horizontal.  The wind whipped up the waves and the boat started rocking violently.  The rain was pelting us sideways and it was cold.  Then the lightning started.  At one point there was a lightning strike every 20 seconds or so.  And it was close.  The thunder sounded at the same time as the bright flashes.  I swear bolts were hitting within 200 yards of the boat.  The five of us were cowering on the deck of the boat.  We deposited my youngest cousin in the best shelter there was to be had under the center console.  It was cramped and dirty, but at least it was out of the pelting rain.  My grandfather got inside the large fish well on the bow of the boat and my other cousin squatted under its door.  My dad and I huddled near the stern holding whatever we could find over our heads.  The lightning was so frequent and so close that I was really, really scared.  I was absolutely convinced that we were going to be struck.  I asked my dad, just so I could be informed, "Dad, what happens if the boat gets struck by lightning?"  He looked over his shoulder at me and said without any emotion whatsoever, "We all die."  My fears were confirmed.  I knew exactly what was going to happen:  there was going to be a bright white flash and a deafening boom and the last thing I would see before the fade to black would be my dad, my grandfather and two cousins twitching on the deck of the boat with steam coming off their bodies.

Well, that didn't happen of course.  We rode out the storm and it eventually passed.  As soon as it let up enough we started the boat, got the anchor up and headed for home.  The bilge was completely full of water so the boat was really low in the water and sluggish.  I had to hold the leads from the bilge pump onto the battery during nearly the entire bumpy twenty minute ride back home while my dad bitched about the way I was doing it.  We were all blue-lipped cold and wet when we finally made it in, but we were all relieved that we'd simply survived.  I've been afraid of lightning ever since that day.

More Roman Holiday

Roman Forum

The Roman Forum (or Fora Romana), like many of the sights in Rome, were frustratingly unmarked.  If I was to change one thing about my trip, it would have been to study up on Rome before getting there.  As it was, I bought a guidebook on Rome containing all of the major sights, partly out of frustration, on the second to the last day we were there.  I read it on the plane back home and really wished I had read it in advance.  We had one of those travel guidebooks on Italy, which was useful in its own way, but you really need just a book on Rome.  Anyway, the Roman Forum is not just one building, as I thought before, it is actually an area of buildings.  It is the center of the ancient city of Rome where all of the important political, religious and commercial buildings were located.  It is situated between 2 of the 7 hills of Rome - Capitoline and Palatine.  Palatine Hill is located within the confines of the modern city park, if you can call it that, that you can access from the Forum.  Capitoline Hill is to the west of the Forum and there are several important museums and churches there.  It is hard to imagine what the area looked like at its peak because only very few remnants remain.  There are only a couple of intact buildings at all.  Not surprising, though, when you learn that the area was treated as a quarry for the subsequent generations of citizens.  As I mentioned, almost none of the structures are labeled.  There would be some huge ornately carved arch with no plaque or anything to tell you what it was called or what its significance was.  It looked like some of the areas were in the process of being excavated, but there was comparatively little restoration or organization.  This blew me away.  One of the greatest archaelogical treasures in the world that was sort of just left as-is for people to wander through at their leisure, oblivious.  The guidebooks helped a little, but it was still difficult to judge from maps what exactly you were looking at.  I guess excavations, restorations and park planning cost money; money that the Italian government has better plans for, I guess.  Still, the area was very impressive and awe-inspiring.  I just would have liked to have known better what I was looking at.  We didn't get to go up on Palatine Hill, which is where the succession of Emperors' Palaces were built.  The gates to Palatine closed at 6 and we got there too late.  We tried to plan to go back a couple of times, but it just didn't work out.  Next time.

Circus Maximus

There's really not much to the Circus Maximus these days.  It is largely unexcavated or simply gone, except for one small area of ruins at the extreme eastern end (seen in the top left picture).  Today, the modern citizens of Rome use it as a jogging trail.  You can see some goombah tourist fake running on the Circus Maximus in the second photo from the left on the top row.  The buildings across the Circus in the third and fourth top photos are on Palatine Hill and are the remains of the Emperors' Palaces.  The flowers were growing on the hillside of the Circus where the bleachers used to be.

Trevi Fountain

I've forgotten the story behind the Trevi Fountain - who carved it, why - but this is one of the most popular gathering places in the city.  There was a festive atmosphere there 24/7.  The streets leading to the fountain were lined with restaurants and shops, including gelatto stands, which we took full advantage of as seen in the second picture.  (Those gelattos started out as big as our faces.)