Mullet Sessions

I once fasted for seven days straight. There was another time when I tried to run up and down the four mountains in the Aspen area. When I was 19, I spent three weeks continuously traveling: every night, for twenty-one days, I found myself in an entirely different bed. As though that wasn’t bad enough, I couldn’t even recall the last time I’d had a conversation that wasn’t in broken Spanish. 38 days without reliefe. Three days of altitude sickness in the Andes. 24 hours of Moab. 30 minutes under the hands of Shirlee Platjes, with fingers capable of creating the feeling of femurs snapping, muscles ripping, I want to cry but know I can’t. About the fast… there was mishap with an imitation Pop Tart on the fifth day.

You’re probably wonding what this is about.

In America, in this America, a heterosexual, middleclass, not-unatractive, white male can be socially ostracized by killing somebody, by having a tatoo across his forehead, by having missing limbs and by failing to utilize conventional bathroom behavior. What’s left are a handful of legal and non-permanante forms of self ostricization.

January 15th, 2004: In exchange for cutting off my beautiful curly hair and copper-wire-goatee, the St. Regis agrees to give me a job refilling the coffee cups of the very afluent rich. I accept and cringe simultaniously. At this moment I vow to some day raise my hand high and aim my finger in the (general) direction of the Man.

October 29th, 2005: I shall call today “Day One” for reasons to which you shall soon be privy. I have been raising my hand steadily for the past 649 days. It now reaches nearly halfway down my back. Merritt cuts the first lock away from the top of my head and this time I manage to shed a tear. Following the five minute massacre that ensued I lifted the mirror shard from my lap to see the monster we’d created. The scream that ensued, I managed to convince all of the neighbors (as temporary as they may be), came from the mouth of my sister. Almost as soon as I’d convinced myself that the massacre didn’t actually occure, I stumbled into the bathroom where the large bathroom mirror managed to drag me back to a wretched reality that I had intended to live for the next seven days.

Day two: I wake with a thirst that, somehow, I know only a Schlitz will quench. I ride my motorcycle to Liquormart and return with a twelve pack of greatness. Milk, schmilk. My Coco Puffs deserve Schlitz. By 2pm I make my way back to Liquormart in order to replentish my fridge.

Day three: For some odd reason, I am being befriended right and left today. Smiles appear on the faces of all around me. Superman, Batman, the Chip n’ Dale guy. They cross the street to shake my hand, pet my hair. It occures to me at this point that I’m sitting beneath a gold mine. Dollar-a-pet from here on out. One girl even convinces me into giving her a free taste… but doesn’t follow up. I guess it wasn’t her flavor. The business proves to be too much of an ordeal for one man, and minutes later I am accompanied by my new manager: a self-proclaimed, ass-hole extroirdonair. At 6:07 p.m. PTM (Pet the Mullet) Collection Agency is given birth.

Day four: Today takes a turn for the worse. The care-free days of yesterday are but a memory. I wake to a deflated and dying mullet. I rush to the store in search of the hard-to-come-by mullet locion. But there is none. The cashier informs me that the next order of mullet locion won’t be coming in for at least a month. She suggests a homemade recipe of transmition fluid, Copenhagen aftermath, KFC juice and a pinch of Foghat. I manage to gather all the ingredients but the last…proving to be crucial. People now cross the street to get away from me. My grades begin to drop for no apparent reason. My roommates make me sleep in a van outside. Reluctantly, I retire to the van where I rest my head on a pillow of Reagan-era Playboys, empty beer cans and greasy shop rags.

Day five: I wake in a small puddle of tears, drool and greese. I’ve raised my middle finger long enough, I’ve decided. Whether the Man sees or cares matters not to me. Five days on the fringe of society is long enough. I go to the bathroom and with the paper cutting scissors that performed the original massacre, I return myself to the masses (almost). As for the mullet: I am glad to report that it is currently en route to a mullet-less leukemia survivor.