"You're So Raunchy"

Around the time that my business relationship with Wade and Brent ended, Julia either saw the error of her ways or had a relapse, depending on your point of view, and we got back together. I tried to be a little more considerate, which was apparently enough for her, because she agreed to marry me. The next summer I drove out to her home in Ripon, California, and we got married. After a honeymoon consisting of a brief camping trip at Mount Rainier, we drove back to Michigan. I had (barely) graduated from Calvin by this time, but Julia still had another year to go.

We rented a small apartment, and I started looking for work. Having graduated, I was – to the great relief of my supervisors – no longer eligible to work on campus, so for a while I got by doing various odd jobs. One time Wade’s uncle needed an apartment painted, and Wade convinced him I was qualified for the job. I did a passable job, although I vastly underestimated how long it would take and ended up making about $5 per hour. I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to paint the ceilings, so I called Wade. Wade told me they would get back to me. The next day I found several more cans of paint at the house, and I assumed (reasonably, I thought) that the new paint was for the ceilings. It appeared to be the same color as the paint I had used for the walls.

For some reason, though, the ceiling paint took a long time to dry. After several hours, it still had that glossy, wet look. Eventually I realized that the paint was dry: it was high-gloss paint, and it had been intended for the bathrooms, not the ceiling. The contrast between the eggshell finish on the walls and the glossy finish on the ceiling made it feel like you were in a cave. Wade’s uncle was not thrilled.

The most memorable of these temporary jobs was putting up signs around the city for some event that was going on downtown in a few weeks. The job itself was nothing remarkable, but it precipitated an experience that I’ll never forget.

I had just stapled a sign to a telephone pole and was walking back to my car, which was idling in a driveway nearby. A man approached, wearing a checkered blazer. Not exactly gaudy, but not exactly stylish. His hair was gelled but slightly mussed. Overall, he gave the impression of a man who cared about his appearance but not enough to shower regularly. If this weren’t 1993, I might have thought he was an aspiring metrosexual. If this weren’t Grand Rapids, Michigan, I might have thought he was French.

I did not, of course, assume that he was gay. In the early nineties, political correctness ruled the day, and I had been taught that a slight build, an effeminate manner, odd clothing and a pronounced lisp did not constitute adequate evidence that one was homosexual.

“Excuse me,” he said, overpronouncing the s to an almost comical degree. “Could you give me a ride?”

I told him I was working and didn’t really have time.

He persisted. “Please,” he pleaded. Again with the s.

“Please. I live just down the street.”

“I really need to get back to work.”

“It will just take a minute. It’s not far at all. Please.”

Finally I relented.

“Ok, where is it?”

“Just down the street,” he said, getting into my two seater 300ZX.

While I drove he thanked me profusely, remarking about how glad he was that he didn’t have to walk through this “raunchy” neighborhood. That’s the word he used.

“It’s just so raunchy,” he said again. “Don’t you think so? Isn’t it raunchy?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty bad,” I said. “Now where did you say your place was?”

“It’s just up here,” he said. Then he talked some more about how “raunchy” the neighborhood was. He asked me again whether I too thought it was raunchy.

I became dimly aware that his desire for me to use the word raunchy went beyond the need for me to confirm his assessment of urban blight. It was as if he was prompting me for a password, like in spy movies where one spy asks, “How’s the weather in Liechtenstein?” and the other spy says, “Dry, except on Tuesdays.” All I had to do was offer him that word, that shibboleth, and a whole new world would open up to me.

I decided that no matter what happened over the next few minutes, I absolutely would not under any circumstances utter that word. I considered having it surgically removed from my vocabulary.

Eventually he changed the subject.

“So, where do you live?”

“In an apartment, a couple of miles from here. With my wife.”

I had raised the ante, countering his ambiguous raunchiness with a firm claim to heterosexuality. By the way, if you are a straight male in a situation where your sexual orientation is in doubt, I highly recommend tacking “with my wife” to the end of your sentences. Try it sometime. You can say the most outrageously effeminate things, and as long as you follow it up with that code phrase, no one will think you are gay. For example, someone might ask you if you have any big plans over the long weekend, and you might respond, “Oh, I’m probably just going to stay inside and make taffeta dresses for my teddy bears. With my wife.” I’m telling you, it’s like magic.

My passenger changed tacks again. Back to plan A. “I’m just so glad you picked me up. I just hate walking in that neighborhood. It’s really raunchy, don’t you think?”

“OK, I’m going to drop you off here.”

“Oh, it’s just up ahead.” I was learning that it was always “just up ahead,” like a mirage on the horizon.

“Yeah, but I’m going to drop you off here.”

“OK.”

I pulled over.

He thanked me profusely again, noting once more how raunchy the neighborhood was.

I muttered something roughly equivalent to “You’re welcome.”

Then he did something that marked a quantum leap beyond innuendo, rendering both his orientation and his intentions unmistakably transparent. In fact, he did two things.

The first thing was to reach over with his left hand toward an area of my anatomy that I have reserved for use by people lacking Adam’s apples and for medical professionals who for whatever reason want to hear me cough. He grabbed me in a way that clearly indicated a lack of medical training.

The second thing he did was to use the word raunchy again, but in an entirely different sense. He said, in a tone that indicated that we had finally reached the point in our relationship where I could be trusted with this information:

“Only, you’re so raunchy too!”

There are times when rational thought gives way completely to instinct. I don’t recall making a decision regarding what I did next. I just did it, without thinking. In fact, I did two things.

The first thing was to reach over as quickly and decisively as he had, my hand falling toward a precisely determined location. I squeezed and pulled. Then pushed. The passenger door flew open.

The second thing I did was to use the word fuck but not in the sense he would have liked. I said, with the firm conviction that our relationship had progressed to the point that I could trust him to understand what I meant:

“Get the fuck out!”

He did. In fact, he got out and began running. This latter may have had something to do with a little blue sports car pursuing him down the sidewalk.

I wouldn’t really have run him over, of course. But it felt good to give him a scare. I was so angry that I was actually trembling. I was never really in any danger; I was probably six inches taller and twenty pounds heavier than this guy. The worst he could do was a hail-Mary crotch grab. Still, it was an unwelcome violation of my personal space, and it infuriated me. Whatever the vagaries of unskilled temporary work, I hadn’t counted on being sexually assaulted.

Fortunately, although my workplace travails were far from over, I never had to experience that sort of violation again.

Not long after that, I got a job at the Amway headquarters. If you don’t know, Amway manufactures (or resells) a staggering variety of products, ranging from small appliances to vacuum-sealed beef stroganoff. At first I worked on an assembly line, sticking makeup pencils into plastic molds. It was the sort of job that would have been done by robots, if they could have found robots that would take $8 per hour. Still, I couldn’t complain. It was boring and tiring, but I knew what was expected of me, and I could do it. I just stood there all day, making the same repetitive motion for eight hours while I rewrote the sequel to Highlander or reformed welfare in my head. Finally I had found a job I could actually do.

Then they reassigned me.

To be continued…