The Nishi Monologue

After not having the right word for poop, that fateful day on the bus, I learned to wait and see what words the other kids were using. Vagina was never a word that came up. Nobody talked about their vaginas. Dick was frequently referenced. In the 5th grade, J.S. brought a condom to class and stuck it on the drinking fountain. In middle school, he showed up covered in hickies. I’m sure he knew what a vagina was.

I didn’t know what to call it until after middle school health class. We were bombarded with medical terms: STDs, condoms and VAGINA. But vagina was such an ugly word.

Before then, I knew that spot as a NISHI. Nishi sounds like a sushi roll. Sashimi over rice delicately covered with pickled ginger with a side of wasabe and soy sauce for dipping.

When I googled Nishi, it showed up as a Japanese surname and an Indian 1st name. It’s Sankrit for Night. So I googled Nishi along with Vagina and all I got was a compiled list of words for vagina from the Vagina Monologues. No history. No background. No origins. But some other mom besides my mom used this word. I had figured it was another word Mom had made up or had been passed down from her mother-- like the word she used for the cows in the field—CooBossies.

I expanded my repertoire of words from movies. In Go Fish, they are laying in circle on the floor listing all the names they knew for that dark spot: Honey Pot, Bearded Clam and Love Mound. But it was Boys on the Side that had the word that stuck.

Jane: [Elaine is crying at Robin's bedside, the nurse thinks her sniffles are relative to a cold, and tells her she could aggravate her daughter's condition] It's not a goddamn cold! Don't be such a hoo-hoo. Nurse: [apathetic] And what's a hoo-hoo? Elaine: [kindly] It's a cunt, dear. [nurse gasps] Elaine: Now why don't you leave us alone?

Hoo-hoo is he word that stuck. Only I like to spell it whowho. Maybe it should be a whatwhat.

Picking up Women at the Gas Station

People freak out about meeting other people on the internet. They could be serial rapists or serial killers. I would have to say you have the same chance of meeting them on the internet as you do in real life.

Jessie was driving her shitty little Saturn. I was sitting in the back seat. A big red truck drove along side of us and honked. They were honking because they approved of our rainbow sticker. We pulled into a gas station and the truck pulled into the gas station across the street. Before we left, the red truck drove over to our side. A short little Mexican woman jumped out. Somehow Jessie arranged a date between me and this woman, Esme.

It was almost a blind date. I didn’t know her. We danced at Diversions, and I brought her home. And then she didn’t leave for 2 months. Esme lived on 16th street in an olive green house with her mother and the 8 year-old son she had when she was only 13. The kitchen walls and ceiling were brown with grease. There had been a fire. Tester noodles were crusted on the backsplash.

Her mother wore oxygen and was too fat to tie her own shoes. She couldn’t move very fast, but her voice carried and she scared me a little. I met many of her friends and family that commented on my light eyes. I only ever caught half the conversation, because it was always in Spanish. Esme drove a gold Camero with naked women silhouettes. It didn’t run very well and spent most of the time parked in her backyard. I didn’t really think anything about her not working, because I was a college student. A lot of us didn’t work or didn’t work that often. But I think she was dealing. And that was why she was on probation. Only I didn’t understand this until later.

I was 21. I believed what people told me. It only lasted 2 months, and I would have ended it sooner, but I was scared how she would react. I caught her in lies. Was it an overdose or a brain tumor or multiple personality disorder? Esme wasn’t educated enough to keep the lies believable. Instead of picking one lie, she would combine and overlap them where they didn’t make sense. I wasn’t stupid, only new to liars and manipulators.

She stole my chocolate one day. I think it was intended to be funny. But I’m serious about my chocolate. I tried to get it back, and she was rather rough about it. I realized while we wrestled on the floor that she could hurt me and wouldn’t care if she did.

There was something mean about her. She had this kitten for a while, but as soon as she saw another kitten that she liked better she threw the old kitten out. She said it was ugly.

Esme had been looking forward to going to the graduation dance with me. She had just bought a new outfit. A couple of days before the dance, I broke up with her via letter. Jessie delivered it. The next day there was a box of things on the porch, pictures of us together with her face cut out and everything I ever gave her. She requested I return everything that she ever gave to me. I didn’t. I still have my broken hematite ring, the glass fang with a bubble of mercury and some pesos from Mexico. I don’t have a single picture of her though.

Jessie said she saw her drive by the house a few times in her red truck (really her fiancés red truck, the fiancé she had the entire time) But we moved. I didn’t see her again until Tulip Time. She acted like we were real close, called me some endearing term. I kept on walking.

I heard about her later through the lesbian grapevine. Sylvia shook her head in amazement, “You dated Horse Hair?” “Why do you call her that?” I asked. “Because she had a fucking mullet.” Sylvia said that Horse Hair had dated her girlfriend Erica. At one point she came to D&W with a loaded gun and waved it around. And another friend of mine had dated her sometime later and got a disease. She might have had bad hair, but she got around.