Fred Sasaki

CHARACTERS
Dude: an Uptown oaf. He is wearing relaxed-fit Gap jeans, a tucked-in over-sized button-down shirt with a medium-spread button-down collar, Swiss Army sport watch, an LSU baseball cap in his back pocket, and has inconspicuously gelled hair. One hand is holding a beer and the other is stroking his pool cue.

Guy: a conventionally androgynous dreamboat.

Piel: an electric Pokemon man; friend to Guy.


SCENE: All the action takes place in Carol's Pub, around the pool table.

Hillbilly music is playing loudly and roughed regulars sit back and watch the gentry mingle and dance. Several Tim McGraw look-alikes flirt with tomboys in Cubs jerseys. A glass-eyed bouncer is constipated by the door. Our threesome is in the back corner trying to play pool. No one is winning. Dude is drunk and the other two are dim. They are in the midst of a game of cutthroat. Piel slams in a bank shot, lets out a high-pitched "Wow," spins, and dances around the table for another shot. Dude furrows his brows and shakes his head.

Dude: Hey. (Addressing no one.) What's with gays? What I don't get is why a guy would want to fuck a dude. I mean, what's with that? I just don't get it. I mean, what's wrong with chicks? It's just unnatural.

Guy: What are you talking about? Unnatural? Nothing is unnatural. People enjoy each other in various ways. What's it your business?

Dude: Hold on. What are you saying? What are you two? (He looks back and forth between Guy and Piel insinuatingly.) What are you? (He is asking Piel.) Are you straight?

Piel: Why do you think that's an interesting question?

Dude: Oh, I thought so.

Piel: Look. Your question is at root faulty. Gayness or straightness cannot be determined a priori, or even at all. Sexuality isn't classifiable in terms of...

Dude: No, no, no. I get it. You don't need to make excuses. (Dude waves him silent.) And you (turning to Guy)? Are you straight?

Guy: (He pauses) Yes, but what Piel said is right...

Dude: OK, OK, OK. I get it. Listen, come here. (He fingers over Guy.) Let me ask you something. (He sips his beer.) Are you telling me,... are you saying,...would you fuck a dude?

Guy: This is ridiculous. What exactly are you asking me?

Dude: No, listen. Just tell me. Would you fuck a dude? In the ass.

Guy: I don't know why you're obsessing over this. I refuse to answer that.

Dude: Come on. Just answer me. You'd fuck a dude. In the ass. You'd fuck a dude in the ass. Come on. Would you fuck a dude in the ass?

Piel: Guy, I had no idea that you wanted to fuck Dude in the ass. I mean, he might have a nice ass...

Dude: Shut up (he bares his teeth at Piel).

Guy: Look, no one's getting fucked in the ass. Especially Dude. (Dude becomes visibly flushed, starts shaking, and is suddenly belligerent.)

Dude: Oh yeah? Well I'm from the South. From Louisiana. (He makes an "L" with his thumb and forefinger and signs M.C. Hammer's "Too Legit To Quit" hand sign.) And you know what we do to faggots down there?

Piel: Fuck them in the ass?

Dude: Right. Very funny. Shut up. (He gives Piel a drunken and affected stare, baring his teeth again.) We string `em up. (He runs his finger across his neck.) We hang `em. We hang `em from trees. We kill `em. Go shoot `em in the back of the bar. I've seen those faggots in the back having a time. On their knees all hot and sweaty. (Dude drifts off in thought and snaps back.) I'd smash this beer bottle in a faggot's head. (He holds out his beer, which he is gripping angrily.)

Guy: Wow, that's really great. Maybe we should just finish our game.

Dude: I don't play pool with faggots. I kill faggots. (His eyes are glazed over and he stares between them, vacantly. Piel and Guy grab their pool cues.)

Piel: Uh. Whose turn is it?

Dude: It's the faggot's turn. I kill faggots.

Guy: Well, (he pauses, swallowing) you know what we do around here to people who kill faggots? (Guy looms over Dude.)

Dude: Ha! Let me guess.

Guy: We pickle them in pink compote.

Piel: We do? Oh, right. Yeah. We do. Then we fuck them in the ass.
(2006-06-21)

Also by Fred Sasaki

The Agony and the Ecstasy
"I'm on the roof of my apartment building and I can see two people having sex. It's like they're right there."
(2006-06-13)

The Parade of Summer
Decapitated heads of tulips lay splayed over decorative beds along Michigan Avenue as spring turns. The summer wind brings in a thrush of color in the teaming multitude of strangers on the Magnificent Mile. Immense in scope, the classification of the species that take the promenade is far beyond the means of a mere article. Such an endeavor demands a Jacques-Cousteau-like depth and a heavy prescription of Xanax. This being my only caveat, I give you a tasting blanket of the more peculiar anamules on parade, from bulbous suburbanites and tourists to the lean and harrowed hags of the avenue
(2006-05-23)

The Agony and the Ecstasy
"I know how guys are. They're gross like that. They're always masturbating."
(2006-04-11)

The Agony and the Ecstasy
"I wish I were the kind of woman that could have an affair."
(2006-03-28)

The Agony and the Ecstasy
(2006-02-28)

The Agony and the Ecstasy
(2006-02-14)

Love and Sex: Waxing Poetic
(2006-02-07)

The Agony and the Ecstasy
(2005-12-13)

The Agony and the Ecstasy
(2005-10-25)

The Agony and the Ecstasy
(2005-10-04)

The Agony and the Ecstasy
(2005-09-27)

The Agony and the Ecstasy
(2005-08-23)

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