Tawny Kitten

Prairie Fires and Faerie Pyres, Part 12

“Walter is a friend,” C said. She looked into her empty shot glass rather than at Buddy or me.

I drank. Like C, Buddy played with his shots. Mine was sticky and uncomfortable to handle. I wanted to get up to wash my hands, but Dee’s hand was on my thigh.

“A friend who wears disco pants,” Duke said. “And can’t dance worth shit.”

“Well C,” Buddy said, “you can really inspire the dorks and the dipshits.”

“Buddy…,” C said.

“Is he a fuck buddy?” Buddy asked.

“Stop,” C said, and looked directly at Buddy then me. Buddy held her gaze. I drank my beer.

“You must have loved those pants, C.” Buddy wouldn’t stop. “I’m sure they were too tight. And dirty dancing. Did they play Flashdance?”

“Metal, Buddy…”

“Metallica?”

“Eighties’ metal.”

Buddy said, “Metallica was an 80s LA heavy metal band.”

“They didn’t have the hair,” I said.

“You’d know,” Buddy said. “Whitesnake?”

“My hair kind of looked like the guy in Whitesnake.” C said. “They played a lot of Guns ‘N Roses…”

“I love Tawny Kitaen,” Buddy said. At 13, Buddy and I had just discovered girls. My brother Scott had given us a copy a VCR tape of the Whitesnake music videos, Is This Love? and Here I Go Again. Buddy thought Scott was the coolest person ever.

Buddy spent three months drawing Tawny Kitaen cartwheeling over the cars, lying on top of cars, doing the splits on top of cars. He continued drawing cars, and eventually stopped drawing Kitaen.

“Tawny Kittens?” Dee asked.

“In the white dress?” Duke asked. In Is This Love?, Tawney wore a white dress that was not really a dress. It was more of a suggestion. Buddy wanted to marry this women. I encouraged him.

“Like a drifter, I was born to walk alone,” Buddy spoke, quoting the lyrics.

“That’s poetry,” I said. “Poetry in a white dress.” Buddy memorized the guitar part to Here I Go Again. During the bridge, he would Tom-Cruise around the room. I played savage air drums. For a while, we even loved the words to the song.

We’d stand next to each other and play air keyboards. Once or twice, Scott joined our keyboard line. He broke one of mom’s crystal vases using a fire poker as a mic stand in a series of profoundly phallic and funny gestures. Scott could sing.

“Tawny danced around a pole,” Buddy said. “Did you dance around the pole for Walter?”

I interrupted, “Buddy drew a thousand pictures of Tawny.”

“Is that where you learned to draw breasts?” Dee asked.

It was where he learned to draw breasts. A teacher siezed one of his notebooks filled with drawings. She became hysterical. Buddy was called into the principal’s office and received a month of detentions. The principal kept the notebook. I saw it on his desk three years later. Pervert.

“Pole dancing for Walter,” Buddy sneered. “He must have loved that.”

“Stop Buddy,” I said.

C said, “We just had fun. And danced.”

“You have a Tawny Kitten,” Buddy said.

I stared at him because he almost chose another word for ‘kitten.’

Buddy said, “Why does C always get tangled up with fucking dorkshits?”

“Walter’s nice,” C said. “You’re a prick.”

“Bitchy, Bitchy, Bitchy.”

… continued

——

Prairie Fires and Faerie Pyres

Part 12: Tawny Kitten

Part 11: Living With Your Ghost

Part 10: Kernel Panic

Part 9: Pais Lee

Part 8: Burning House

Part 7: Merkin’s Face

Part 6: Merkin’s Beard

Part 5: Conversation Of Biblical Proportion
Part 4: Hockey Fight
Part 3: Your Blog’s Not A Waste Of Time
Part 2: Put Your Head Somewhere Else
Part 1: Showier Prose