I Touched Someone's Goiter Today

** You must understand, My Dearly Beloved Sweet Nuts, that these narratives happened to me or to people I know. Mostly me.

I touched someone's goiter today only because she asked me to. I hesitated, of course, because this sort of invitation is not like being asked to have lunch together. It is the farthest thing from casual. It doesn't happen everyday, and it shouldn't happen at all because it shatters the boundaries of good form and crosses over to "What the fuck, woman?" I hope you, My Dearly Beloved, understand my hesitation. See, you don't comply to moving your fingers up and down someone's greasy throat just to cop a feel on their iodine deficiency. You don't. You might as well smell skin cancer, or lick the stitches of an appendectomy wound. You don't. You just don't, because such constraint is in keeping with the courtesy that is expected of sober people. You can always ask, because asking is polite, or you can wait for them to appeal to your sympathy through means that are convincingly hands on. 

Our first liter of cheap brandy, 50 proof, was two hours ago, and this second liter shredded our restraints in no time at all. Anyway, how we in the Third World do it is that we sit in a circle and rotate the shot glass in the direction that's assigned by whoever's pouring the shot. It's not usually a circle, not necessarily, since it depends on where we're drinking and how many of us are trying to get shit faced. Sometimes it's a semi circle, most especially when we're drinking on the streets, usually below a lamp post. It's a semi circle to give room to passers by, who usually smile off that shot glass that we offer, and tricycles and refrigerator mechanics on their way to a job at one in the morning. It could be a rectangle, or a square, depending on the shape of the table. This is, however, a luxury on two counts. First, a fully functional table is uncommon with these impromptu get togethers. And by "fully functional" I mean "having four legs." We rest our liter of brandy, the chaser, and the shot glass on a make shift table supported by hollow blocks. Second, you need space to accommodate the drinking table and its occupants. And you don't get that luxury when you're drinking on the streets below a lamp post at one in the morning. 

That's how we roll. 

Goiter Girl still doesn't look any younger than a 40 year old house wife that's marinating her liver with that second bottle of cheap 50 proof. She was the one pouring the shots then, and she was doing a capital job. She never missed, her shots were prompt, and her stories kept flowing out of that dirty mouth. I wasn't paying attention to her because my drunk texting can't wait. The honest truth is that I was distracted during the second liter, so I had to ask her again when she solicited her goiter. "I'm sorry what," was the only thing in my head. 

Maybe she was thinking I had healing hands. And maybe I can't blame her poor, darling heart; that bitch's face was mahogany with 50 proof brandy. She thought wrong, unfortunately, and I will not enlarge on her ridiculous imagination. You see, My Dearly Beloved, I cannot even heal the dick that erects for other men's dick. And my healing hands have been trying twice a day, for about thirty years now, since I learned how.


I swallowed my spit, in secret, as my fingers cupped that pregnant growth on her neck. And I wiped my hands on my jeans when she wasn't looking.