issue100observations

                                                              ZYGOTE IN MY COFFEE.COM

***BIO*** KARL KOWESKI: I'm a 32 year old displaced Chicagoan, now living on top of a mountain in Alabama for reasons that involve a woman. I was the lead singer/banjo player of the now defunct country/punk/disco band The Screaming Shits. Now I just work in a machine shop and write articles for porno mags.

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The Polish Transvestite Karaoke Massacre

by Karl Koweski

Outside Pawlewski’s Pub, Stephen hesitated a moment, looked up at the night sky and said "it must be getting ready to storm. There was a star out earlier and now it’s gone."

I glanced at the pollution-blotted sky and shook my head. I could smell a commingling of petroleum and detergent in the wind off Lake Michigan, Northwest Indiana’s signature scent. It took a ten year relocation to Alabama to detect its olfactory existence on my return visits home. It smelled like failure. And not far away, on the north side of Chicago, twenty five men dressed in blue pinstripes breathed in huge gulps of failure as their forebears had done these last ninety-eight years.

"There are no stars in the sky over Chicago, they’re all on the diamond of Wrigley Field getting paid millions of dolars to break my fucking heart."

Stephen shrugged. "Shoulda jumped on the White Sox bandwagon when you had the chance two years ago."

During the next few moments of dismayed silence, we heard a heavily Polish accented voice singing "Come On, Eileen" from inside the bar.

Stephen finished his cigarette, dropped it among the hundred other rubbed out butts. "The girls are here," he said nodding toward the red Aveo attempting to parallel park across the street.

"Girls?"

My wife was at home with the kids...

"Stephen, I ever tell you, you’re my favorite brother."

The girls consisted of Stephen’s girlfriend, Megan, and her friend, Beth. Beth defied Aveo physics. I watched her step out of the passenger side door, yet she was actually larger than the vehicle itself. She wasn’t even fat, really, just built like a jauggernaut. She resembled Steve McMichael of the 1985 Chicago Bears fame. She rolled her wide shoulders and crossed the street looking as though she were daring you to just try and sack the quarterback. Introductions and condolences over the Cubbies blitzkrieg post season defeats were made.

"I guess we’re cock-blocking tonight," Beth said, looking at me. Despite her intimidating size, her face was soft and pleasant and of obvious Polish heritage. I liked her right off the bat because she was female and I was not married to her.

But cock-blocking? For her? She didn’t need me to protect her. She could punch through a compact car, easily. Her intimidating physicality was the sole reason I hadn’t initiated my patented "rub myself against her backside as I slide by to use the bathroom" move.

"And who’s gonna block my cock?" I laughed, waggling my eyebrows.

She looked at me as though I were crazy. Maybe it was confusion. I used my I’m-not-really-serious-but-maybe-I-am tone of voice. Sometimes that will throw a woman off.

"Let’s go inside," Stephen said. "I’ll buy the first round of Okocims."

After ten years of Alabama living, I’d almost forgotten what a good corner tavern in a solid Polish neighborhood was like, though very little differentiated Pawlewski’s Pub from the hundreds of other taverns barnacled to the corners of every city block. It followed the template right down to the old pinball machine featuring the graphics of a cheesy late eighties/early nineties action flick, in this case, Demolition Man.

Televisions mounted above opposing corners of the bar silently replayed the highlights and lowlifes of the third and last Chicago Cubs 2007 preseason game. The karaoke machine was set up next to the dartboards. DJ Glen sat behind a card table stacked with several CD catalogues, reflecting the track lighting like a miniature hubcap fire sale. A dozen rough-looking women sat at small tables circling the slight karaoke stage. None of them could be considered pretty, but they were in the right place to become beautiful.

A monitor ticked off the lyrics to "I’m Every Woman". A whiskey-voiced woman growled the words. Bazooka breasts dominated her torso. She might have had a black, page-boy hairdo. I don’t know. Her breasts were gigantic.

Segregated at the other end of the bar were the men, old embittered Polacks, the lot of them. They hunched over their draft beers, grumbling about Chicago politics, tax hikes, the weather, Rex Grossman’s worthless ass, and the Cubbies chances of going to the World Series next year.

After the girls absconded to the bathroom, I elbowed Stephen in the ribs. "Is it always like this?"

"Only the first Friday of every month," he answered guardedly. "It ain’t no big deal, is it?"

"Hell no, brother. It’s cool. I wish Beth was more into me, but it’s like I always say ‘you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make her suck you off in the backseat of an Aveo."

"I’m sure it has nothing to do with you being a married man," Stephen chuckled dryly.

"Bullshit. I useta be so goddam good-looking, it didn’t matter. Ah hell. I still like my chances with the other ladies."

"You’re joking, right?"

"I don’t know. Maybe."

Stephen bought a second round of Okocims when the girls returned from the bathroom. "You still gonna karaoke?" He asked.

"I never turn down the chance to sing Rainy Day Women #12 and 35 in public."

We were seated between the Polacks and the karaoke dolls. Glancing to my left I made eye contact with a Pole who looked like the cretinous love child of Tony Shaloub and Benny Hill. He wore a leather bracer extending from the wrist to elbow of his right forearm, as though he were expecting an attack from a barbarian horde or a spontaneous Iron Maiden concert to arise. I raised the devil horns in salute. He nodded.

Stephen passed the overstuffed binder, a three ring circus of songs organized by artist. Leafing through the innards I was immediately disappointed. During my karaoke journey through the cover song of life, I’d yet to find a Mecca of Monster Magnet tunes, or Iced Earth, or Danzig. Hell, even some Nick Cave would have been nice. I’d always dreamed of singing "Curse of Millhaven" before a live audience.

Instead...

"I can’t decide between Hammer’s ‘U Can’t Touch This’ and ‘2 Legit 2 Quit," Stephen said.

On stage, Manuela, a thick-bodied Latina, croaked "Me and Bobby McGee."

"Fuck it," Stephen said. "I’m going balls out with ‘99 Luftballoons."

"Holy Christ. In that case, I’m kicking things off with ‘I Love The Dead.’"

In the context of karaoke, when confronted by a gaggle of women whose beauty has been eclipsed by age, cellulite, and, in two alarming cases, five o’clock shadow, I find that singing Alice Cooper’s ode to necrophilia is a fantastic ice breaker. It let’s the ladies know, in a sensitive way, that a man singing languidly about fucking corpses would have no reservations about dicking them.

As we filled out song cards for Megan to deliver to DJ Glen, the leather bracer adorned Polack mounted the stage and launched into a garbled "Turn The Page", switching to his native tongue for the chorus.

"Tam ja isc... ruchomic ten stronica..."

Having turned up a few Okocims, the hapless falconer didn’t sound half bad. His musical styling reminded me of the hail mary troupe of babushka-clad old women who lined the five front right side pews at St Casimir church every morning chanting the rosary in Polish during the dogmatic, traumatic travails of my youth.

With "Turn the Page" reaching its conclusion, DJ Glen took the microphone. "A round of applause for Stosh for his multi cultural rendition of the Bob Seger classic."

The bartender clapped. Some of the old Polacks clapped. Everyone else pretended they were elsewhere. It was as Stosh returned to his beer, I noticed the seething animosity that seemed to exist between the congregation of Poles and the confederacy of good time girls. The scarcely veiled evil eyes, the mumbled curses, the Polish jokes whispered just loud enough for everyone in the bar to hear.

"Next up, we have the mighty Karl."

I choked on my Okocim. All ready? I hadn’t consumed near enough beer. I was also surprised to hear DJ Glen describe me as "mighty" though I’d written the adjective along with my name on the slip of paper. Usually "the mighty" is understood, without the need to speak it aloud.

Stephen winked. Megan and Beth gushed non-sexual words of encouragement. The stage, roughly the size of an Aveo’s hood, did not afford me enough room to prance like Mick Jagger. Squinting into the crowd from this new vantage point, the women disconcertingly resembled men in bad wigs. It was my most heinous nightmare realized, in a Polack bar on the northside of all places.

The opening chord of Alice Cooper’s emotional ballad twanged through the speakers. I brought the microphone to my lips and announced "I’d like to dedicate this song to the Chicago Cubs".

Immediate hisses and catcalls erupted through the entire bar as though I had just interfered with a foul ball destined for Moises Alou’s mitt.

"I love the dead... before they’re cold..."

"Fuck you, asshole!" A platinum blonde sporting pumpkin-sized earrings and an adam’s apple shouted.

"... their blueing flesh for... me to hold..."

"They’re making millions, how much you making? Jackass!" The Polacks began to spew invectives as well.

United in their embittered Cubs adoration, their faces contorted in rage, their animosity focused right between my eyes. But why? I didn’t play third base for the Cubbies. I didn’t go 0 for 12 with 13 strikeouts.

I sang "cadaver eyes... upon me see..."

"I oughta kick your pansy ass."

"... nothing..."

A tube of lipstick sailed through the air and bounced off my forehead. A compact whizzed past my left ear, thudding against the dartboard behind me.

Another seven and a half minutes remained to the song. I’d be burned at the stake before the chorus, yet I could not keep from adding fuel to the fire.

"Chicks with dicks and Poles with holes mourn your silly grave..." I ad-libbed.
"Get off the stage, faggot!"

The words hung in the air a split second before a manly voice belonging to a manly woman said "who you calling a faggot?".

The women turned toward the Poles. A Polack wearing a Cubs hat and Led Zepplin T-shirt stretched over his considerable gut shrugged. "I’m just saying he ought not to bad mouth the Cubbies is all. They play hard."

"So you call him a faggot?"

Sensing trouble, Stosh tightened the leather bracer to his right arm.

"Maybe I oughta call you a faggot!"

"That’s it, goddammit."

"D-d-d-d-d-d-dead... da-da–da-da-da-da-dead-da-da-da-dead... dead... D-d-d-d-da-dead..."

The woman threw down her wig and charged the loud mouth Polack. Stosh intercepted her, delivering a right cross to her jaw. Another woman directly behind the first attacked, swinging her over-sized purse around like a morning star. Stosh deflected the first blow with his leather bracer, but caught the second swing with the bridge of his nose. He crumpled to the floor, gushing blood.

"... I... love... the dead..."

The brawl intensified, becoming a dervish of pin-wheeling arms and flying costume jewelry. Bar stools skipped across the floor. Polish growls and girlish screeches resounded.

Stephen, mistaken for one of the Polacks on account of his Polish ancestry, took a punch to the stomach from Manuela followed by a devastating roundhouse that knocked the cigarette plum from his mouth. Before Manuela could press her advantage, Beth grabbed her by the hem of her skirt and nape of her neck and launched her across the bar.

"Uh... uh... uh... uh.. I... I love... the dead..."

The transvestite with the black page-boy hair-do caught old man Obcowski in a headlock, knocking the VFW cap off his dome. She almost had the old Pole snuffed out against her gargantuan breast before the bartender broke them apart by hosing her down with the soda water spritzer.

"I... I love... the dead," I crooned into the microphone as a Janis Joplin look-a-like kicked another man whose last name ended with "ski" slap between the balls.

By the time the song reached its triumphant conclusion, three Polacks lay unconscious on the floor, including Stosh who never recovered from the first flurry of blows. Two transvestites were denuded, another beaten down with her own pumps, sobbing.

Wigs and cosmetics, two sets of falsies, broken dentures, and a plate of kolachky treats the bartender brought from home littered the floor among the fallen Polacks and transvestites. I stepped down from the stage and pumped my fist in lyrical victory.

"How about giving it up for Karl, ladies and gentlemen."

Megan and Beth clapped. Stephen lit a cigarette and brushed his long, Okocim-soaked hair out of his face.

"Next up," DJ Glen continued. "The Amazing Stephen."

My beer was gone, tossed across the establishment by an angry transvestite. The bartender located another Okocim for me.

"You sang that song like a fucking rock star," Beth said.

"Thanks baby," I tipped her a wink and patted her meaty shoulder.

It was when I broke eye contact and glanced down I noticed the outline of a penis snaking down the seam of her jeans.