A Couple A’ Boys Watching Pam Anderson
This is a horror story.
It was the summer of 97' in Brooklyn, NY.
I was seven years old, my brother was nine or ten. We had our friends A and P over that night. My mom wasn’t around. All of us boys sat in the living room of the Brownstone.
The big box television was right in front of us, resting on a big glass table. The front door was to the right of it. We had the futon pulled out like a bed. The only light was coming through the big front windows. Those old nostalgic orange lamps that light your way in Prospect Park.
My mom came in in a wave of cigarette smoke. Her hair was dishevelled. I don’t know how it happened, but my brother wanted to watch Pamela Anderson Lee.
Sure, boys, have fun, she said, pressing some magical button on the remote, ordering the film through Pay-Per-View. Then she quickly vanished to the back of the apartment building.
The television glowed. I didn’t really know what I was watching. Pamela Anderson Lee was blonde, her chest was huge under a frayed wife-beater, her shorts were short and made of thin, frayed denim. She kept looking at me with this desert landscape behind her. Her mouth kept moving in an orgasmic gesture. It was all surreal. Every shot faded into the next. She looked like she was really enjoying the texture of her own body. She would never need anyone else to satisfy her. I didn’t like that, but she didn’t care.
All I wanted to do was give her the world. The romantic idiocy started young in me.
She was now in front of a dilapidated barn. She had a straw hat on. All the boys were sitting there transfixed.
I heard the front door of the building open. It had a very particular sound. It went creak then pop. I sat up. I looked at the clock, it was 2AM. My concept of time was nonexistent, but I did know it was very late.
As Mrs. Lee touched a doorknob with a very seductive hand I heard blood curdling screams.
I knew who the screams belonged to. They were coming from the obese drag-queen that lived across the hall. The screams were just outside our front door. I was petrified.
I dove under the glass table and listened.
Help! Help! He’s killing me! He’s killing me!
I tried finding the boys. My brother wasn’t there. I saw A’s foot sticking out from under the bed. I think P was hiding behind the window curtain.
He’s trying to kill me!
Bang…it all went silent. But the weird, raspy, homosexual voice was still echoing throughout the apartment, and was cemented into my DNA. The feeling of true fear was lodged in my brain waves. I hoped that one day I would be able to get it out.
Pamela Anderson Lee was still dancing. She didn’t mind that the sad, pudgy drag-queen was getting mugged outside my door. The drag-queen who was my friend for many years. I hoped for him. I said a little prayer for him, trying to stay lucid, but the terror and uncertainty kept a tight grip on my reality.
I sat there Indian style. Horrified. I passed out.
I remember small voices in the back of my head.
M’am, I’m Sergeant Abel, Brooklyn precinct. So you said you saw a red Corvette take off? And the accused was dressed up in a UPS outfit? Like, he was disguised as a mailman? And then he attacked Mr. Jones in the foyer?
Yeah, Mr. Jones, the person said, who I believe was my mother. She chuckled a little bit, I could tell she was crying. She liked to go by Ms. Cleopatra, but, yeah, Mr. Jones was very innocent, very sweet.
