A Few Beers with Michael Douglas

Everyone randomly sits on a weathered deck outside the restaurant patio late summer left to my own devices as my acquaintance who invited me here wanders off to mingle with old friends and family she once estranged. I think it is a first communion or something of the sort. Resembling swaying daisies in the distant field, little girls run in white dresses being chased by little boys or maybe it is a formal kids birthday party. My acquaintance told me what the occasion is, my mind elsewhere at the time it had been so long since I’ve been out of the city I really didn’t care about the occasion, just getting out was a welcoming delight. Not knowing the children or their parents or what the celebration is I sat quietly in the welcoming sunshine and sipped on a cold beer listening to my thoughts in general and the woman are looking lovely so there is that. To my surprise one of the lovely ladies in a short skirt sat across from me, a slight sideways glance, an attempted smile, her eyes never left me as she slowly sat keeping her knees tight as a trap. I didn’t stare back but could feel this penetration of sight on my body, a magic she seems to possess. Struggling not to notice her short skirt and her healthy thighs crossed at the knee gives me the sweats, a feeling of nervous tension as Michael Douglas may have had in that movie. The title of the movie momentarily slips my mind under these circumstances but late summers tapping on autumns shoulder expelling warm sunshine, a comfortable heat, a warmth that wouldn’t produce sweat from sitting motionless, I could feel my arm pits moistening with these tensioning thoughts of all the days pleasures being offered to me, where skin meets hem and that shadowy space between her crossed legs and I try not to make a scene of that particular point of interest.

Restoring my strength and bringing me back down to reality, a female preying mantis distracts my attention just over the shoulder of the woman wearing that short skirt. Slowly sauntering unnoticed across the railing of the deck and disappearing into the greenery. Great, I thought and turn my attention to the hors ‘devours table. A young servant noticed my empty glass and gladly replaces it with another. A dark wooden turned bowl with the most elaborate fruit in it sits in the center of the table. I had later learned it is called buddha’s hand. It sits greenish almost yellow resembling a bowl full of hands praying and holding onto a single apple as an offering. I’ve never seen or heard or even imagined this fruit, tempting though to bite the apple.

Grateful to be here on this beautiful day, not knowing where or when my acquaintance will make her presence I really thought I should change my location when to my surprise a male preying mantis shows up on the railing behind the woman with the short skirt. If I startle her with this observation she may leave in a panic and as much as I want this to happen an equal amount of me doesn’t want this to be the outcome, either way I began to wonder what goes through the mind of a male preying mantis. The female, an attractive calming green with a thin elegant neck. Alien looking but I can see the attraction with her warm calming hue and long delicate legs, but I wonder what happened to the males? Bestowed with merely an unassuming pale brown tone that won’t even garner a second look. Quite boring in appearance and possibly designed for only a sole purpose. Then there’s the risk involved, maybe he is unaware, or maybe he’s just taking one for the team, but with a 70% chance of survival after the deed, I’m certain I couldn’t perform with those odds looming in the back of my mind and having to maintain composure for the task at hand with one eye always in focus.

The human adult male consists of 60% water. Forty-two liters or eleven gallons. The human brain is 73% water controlling 75% of the water in a male penis that needs up to 79% blood and 96% water for a good solid erection to produce seamen or 99% water. I watch the brown insect make his way into the greenery regardless of the ramifications of copulating with a member of the opposite sex. I’m thinking he is not aware of the danger, perhaps none of them are aware. I thought maybe I should warn him, but how? The female mantis would still do her duty and lay an infertile egg sack and maybe go hungry if a male a doesn’t show up to do his business. Hungry that is until a grasshopper or ladybug or spider or maybe another male happens by. This appears to not be the case and this light brown male preying mantis, this Æðelstane; noble stone—is worthy to the task, worthy to the risk, ready to take his chances.

There are big stones of various sizes stacked in the distance, forms and variations of stone puzzled together to form a fence. Stone, a noun that comes in many forms, drupe for instance is the stone of a fleshy fruit or its pit, something the buddha’s hand on display at the table doesn’t have. It’s merely soft and fleshy without a pit without pulp, but it does have fingers. Rocks, pebbles, the measure of weight—one stone equal to fourteen pounds. To kill two birds with one stone—leave no stone unturned, when as close as—a stones throw away. Testicles, stoned to death or drunk and high, stone-cold, stone deaf, stone-dead, the verb stoning. That brings me to Sharon, Sharon Stone. A soft fleshy fruit with a heart of stone who killed a lover while in the act and starred with the steadfast Michael Douglas in the movie Basic Instinct—the infamous leg crossing scene that puzzled a room with men in it. I watched the male preying mantis sneak into the cover of greenery, follows the scent of a woman just as my eyes avert to the woman across from me as she switches her legs from one position to the other position while taking a big haul from a cigarette and staring me down. Even though its not on the menu, how was I not going to look at the pit less fruit, that stark appearance like that of the buddha’s hand offering up a bright red apple over on the table, the almost yellow iconic fruit displayed as the center piece, and Michael Douglas had the stones; he defeated tongue cancer. A fight he endured for over a ten-year period, or so I’ve been told, after he had contracted it through HPV (Human Papillomavirus), he proudly claims he contracted this cancerous disease from eating pussy, a lot of pussy possible from romancing the stone, a busy man keeping a busy schedule fighting for his life with a survival rate of 51.2 percent. Who would have ever thought being caught for infidelity from contracting venereal cancer was even possible?

A refreshing breeze picked up filling the air with the scent of barbeque and fragrances to attract hungry children, aggressive wasps, and so far, not my acquaintance who may have just become bored and left me here to my own defenses. The servant gladly brought me another beer. I politely thanked her dropping some loose change that had been agitating my left leg most of the afternoon into an empty glass on her tray.

“Will anyone eat that buddha’s hand? I asked.

“Not likely.” She responds, chuckles then thanks me for the tip.

With just enough breeze as I settle back into my seat, her napkin, the woman across from me, lightly leapt from her lap and onto the deck. Instinctively we both had the same reaction to reach for it. Our hands close, our eyes meet and from the corner of my eye I notice and watch the female preying mantis in the throes of copulating with her mate move out to the edge of a branch, no longer hidden, no longer discreet, he is in a stronghold as she chews his head right off, then begins to go for his heart.