t r u e  s t o r i e s | quasi-accurate tales of postmodern life

trailer trash

BY HANK HYENA + + + + my parents named me "Henry Fidele." As they incessantly explained to me, this means "Emperor of Faithfulness." They also gave me a bashful face and the Catholic religion. Everything conspired to turn me into a gentle and harmless creature. I squinched my face in rebellion. I abandoned the Church. And finally, many years ago, I changed my name to "Hank Hyena." Adopting this putrid beast as my totemic ally helps me in my quest to be regarded as vile. It's usually not enough, though: People still assume I'm a "nice guy." To convince them of my wickedness, my supplemental ploy is to tell horrible stories of sadistic things I have done to friends. In 1979 I was living in Yuba City, Calif., in a trailer park by the Feather River. My buddy William lived in the trailer park too. William sold local wine to gas stations up and down Interstate 5. I was busy squandering a trust fund, trying to seduce lonely wives. Less a Don Juan than a beta male, I resembled one of those bachelor sea elephants who gets in some humping whenever the alpha king of the harem falls asleep. William shared a lime-green 28-foot Frontier Flyer with his wife, a speed freak named Abigail who always wore ripped cutoffs and a bikini top. I parked two spots away in a tiny pink and white Nomad. When William wasn't on the road, he'd share the bottles that weren't selling well, and he'd say, "You're my best friend. You're the man I can trust." He told me intimate details about Abigail's body and specifics about their sex life, highly personal things that you only blubber about when you're drunk. Stuff about noises and scars and favorite positions. Maybe he was just an open guy, but sometimes it seemed like he was bragging -- he wanted me to believe that she was hot. Plus, he never wanted to hear about my adulterous affairs. "You're better than that," he'd say. "You should hook up with a good woman, like I did." Married people are so damn condescending, thinking they're better off than rogue predators. When William left for four days in April to pitch cheap Chablis in Klamath Falls, he begged me to keep an eye on Abigail. "Please," he said, "keep the scumbags away from her, and I'll owe you forever." The first night he was gone I had to haul Abigail out of a rusty Winnebago; this old wolf named Gavin was pouring tequila down her throat and massaging her arms. The second night I found her in Barry the Retard's camper shell, he was bribing her with $20 and a handful of bennies. "For just a blowjob!" she argued. The third night, I dragged her out of the men's community bathroom stall; the manager and his brother were taking turns putting their tongues in her mouth. This sounds sordid and absurd today, but in 1979 loose sex and addictive drugs were considered healthier than television. The labels "trailer trash" and "slacker" weren't even invented yet. William's strategy of using me as a watchdog was effective until the fourth and final evening. When I dropped by around midnight to make sure Abigail was behaving herself, I was surprised to find her squatting in front of a whirling floor fan. She had her skimpy cutoffs on, I assumed, but I wasn't positive about that because the fan was positioned in front of her lap. "Come sit by me," she chuckled. Circling the fan, I discovered that she was completely bottomless; her thighs spread apart, revealing the treasure that William begged me to guard. "I'm just trying to dry up my herpes," she giggled. "What are you staring at?" I gazed at her prettiness, thinking about the Trojan Extra-Lube I always carry in my wallet. When I moved forward and kissed her mouth her quick fingers unbuttoned my Levis. I carried her into the bedroom then, I pushed her brown legs over her head. I sawed away until I popped my cork with a guttural shriek. Our little secret, she laughed. "You're my favorite baby-sitter." The next morning I was sleeping in my hammock when the familiar bad tuning of William's Cutlass Supreme woke me up. He screeched into his parking space and dashed into his aluminum home to hug and kiss Abigail. I heard him asking her questions, and I started to sweat. Next I heard Abigail shout, "No! No!" There was a pause, then William screamed out my name. I ran to my trailer, wrapped myself up in my army blanket, and crawled under my bed. It wasn't a bad hiding place except for that one foot sticking out. William dragged me out, scraping me up on my Astroturf carpet. He hurtled me outside onto the crabgrass lawn, belly up like a big fish. "Why'd you do it?" he shrieked. "I trusted you!" "William ..." I mumbled. "It was an accident ... We were drunk ..." "You're my best friend! You betrayed me!" He was waving his hairy fist in my face. I thought he might understand me if he patiently put himself in my underwear. "William," I explained, "I am an ex-Catholic, and sex isn't fun unless it's immoral. Sleeping with Abigail was a lowlife thing to do to a best friend, that's why I couldn't resist it." "You asshole! What a holy crock of shit!" "Easy, William," I insisted. "You'll grok this if you just settle down." "You fucked my wife, you dog! What do have against me?" I did have some grudges, now that he mentioned it. "William, you owe me $10 because the last bag of marijuana you sold me was crap." "You think she's a whore? You can have it!" William wadded up two fives and threw them in my face. "What else?" He roared. "Double-crossing skunk!" "OK," I said, thoughtfully. "You told me Abigail's dad accidentally shot her with a shotgun when she was 12 years old. You said there's still pellets in her butt skin. You can't tell me things like that without me wanting to see, first-hand." "Dick-Brain!" he screamed. "I ain't your friend no more!" "Hey!" I retorted. "There's other stuff too -- remember Margaret? My girlfriend last year? She thought you were sexy. We argued about it, then we broke up. You ruined that relationship, William. For that, you owe me one." William's face looked like a dead pig now. He stepped forward and swung a punch at my face. I pushed him away, he stumbled over a trash can and fell into a flower garden, banging his face on a plastic flamingo. "Henry Fidele!" he bellowed. "Emperor of Faithfulness! What a joke!" "Hey!" I snarled, "You're not supposed to talk about that!" I had confided once, in a moment of inebriated courage, that I did not like my appellation. My feelings on this matter were not to be scorned. "Emperor of Faithfulness! Emperor of Faithfulness!" He chanted it over and over again, like an idiot child. "William," I hissed, "your wife was gonna sleep with somebody while you were gone, and I wanted it to be someone that you trust. Plus, Abigail and I are awkward around each other, we don't know each other very well. We thought screwing would be a good way to break the ice. Besides, I sleep with other men's wives: I didn't want you to feel left out." He cursed me now, groaning, "God damn you! You're gonna rot in hell!" "Perfect," I replied. "Truth is, I slept with Abigail because satanic wisdom is attained in the sexual act, and I am a seeker of knowledge." OK. I didn't say those cruel and clever things. Truth is, I stood there sniveling, crimson with shame, staring down at the ants crawling between my feet. I whispered "sorry, sorry, sorry" about 2,000 times. But it sounds better the other way. I'm wedded now, to a woman who hears me relate innumerable depraved tales about myself. "People must wonder," she says, "why I married such a creep." "I wonder myself," I reply. April 23, 1997 Hank Hyena is a writer and performance artist in San Francisco. His last piece for Salon was "The husband's revenge."