Crapper Won - the VHS...
Having intuited these strings of events were going to be something worth documenting, I started writing a letter to an unknown recipient up its inception. It reads a bit like a confession. I've copied and pasted its contents below…
My name is C.
I am a 31 year old female living on a 10 acre property about 30 minutes outside of Llano, Texas. I live here with my husband and two year old son W.
I would like to tell you about a mysterious VHS cassette I found in the left-hand pocket of my off-white Patagonia wind-breaker jacket upon returning home to Texas after a visit with my sister in Socastee, South Carolina the week prior. During our stay, my husband took it upon himself to purchase his sixth polo horse. This tidbit of information will prove essential as my story progresses.
What caught my attention, was the way in which my off-white Patagonia wind-breaker hung slightly askew in the back foyer. Opposite the wall of jackets and hats, stood a mid-grade washer and drier; both in dire need of replacing. Whoever left the VHS cassette had clearly been aware of the door-cam we had installed in front of the house. Said interloper happened also to know that I never kept the back door locked. Uncannily, out of the 23 jackets hanging on that wall, my off-white Patagonia wind-breaker, in particular, is the only jacket I have ever worn out on a regular basis.
Stuck to the VHS cassette was a Post-It note with the following handwritten message:
What up C? Long time, no C (ha, you know me, always loving the corny puns). Thought you would appreciate this movie. The main character in this film is the spitting image of your latest husband– the look in his eye, the way he moves his body…the things he says. It’s like they stole his identity and y’all should be getting royalties. Gimme a buzz when you get a chance! HA! Buzz Buzz…get it? -BJ
The note was signed “BJ”. Off the top of my head, I don’t recall having ever personally known a BJ. What could it possibly stand for? Billy Jean? Billie Joe? Brad-Jelina? Nothing came to mind, but I had the sense this was not the work of a woman. Although, I could be wrong. I find that the older I get, the wronger I was in the past.
BJ told me to give him (assuming this is indeed a man) a “buzz”; which I would normally interpret as a phone call, although there isn’t any phone number to be found on the note.
Seeing how I grew up in an urban-ish California suburb and have only recently moved to Texas, I find it interesting that BJ began the note with “long time no C”. I also find it odd that, shortly thereafter, he makes use of the southern colloquialism y’all. It’s not very often you hear of native-born suburban Californians addressing each other as y’all in the second person plural.
Was this (everything in the letter seemed surgically strategic) strategic use of y’all being weaponized by an old Californian acquaintance? Was he to imply that I sold out by having moved to Texas? If so, how did BJ know my routines around this house? How did he know when the house would be empty?
Is it possible that we were home when the VHS cassette was dropped off? Was I home alone with W? There’s so much to ponder.
I asked both my neighbors if they had seen anyone stop by the house outside of me and my husband. They hadn’t.
The VHS cassette was devoid of any cover art and the sticker on the front had been peeled off leaving that sticky crumbly mess of glue and shredded paper. All sexism aside, that seems like a rather male thing to do. I am just going to commit to associating BJ with the masculine first person singular. If BJ turns out to be a she, I’ll eat a cottonball.
Clearly, BJ wanted to make sure I actually watched the movie instead of just googling the title and looking at some pictures. If I wanted to take his bait, I had to pop in the cassette and press play. Of course, the only people who have VHS players in the year 2021 are collectors and film buffs. I had never been much of a film buff. Not much of a collector in that sense either.. So I just ordered a new VHS player and some cables from Amazon. I got it all for under $300 and it’s scheduled to arrive the day after tomorrow. In the meantime, let me continue trying to put this all together.
What could have BJ meant by Buzz Buzz?
There is an infinitesimal chance that BJ knew me back in high school when I still had a huge crush on Buzz Osborne (aka King Buzzo) from the band Melvins. I know, I know, the guy is 180 degrees south of handsome, but there was just something about his voice that touched me in a way that I needed to be touched back then.
Tumbling into adolescence, it took me far too long to realize that I had been blessed with better looks than my wits could handle. I quickly became addicted to male attention and had developed the dreadful habit of getting drunk, falling in love, falling in bed and getting ghosted the next day. I figured if I could just quit drinking and develop a crush on a fat ugly married guy who played in an awesome band that nobody liked, then I could keep myself out of trouble. Stupid as it sounds, the plan actually worked.
For a while...
College ruins most girls and I was no exception. Honestly, the only reason I pursued a tertiary education in the first place was to put some distance between me and the girl I was in high school. Pursuing a half-hearted career as a dental hygienist just might grant me the opportunity to lock down a budding young dentist. After which, I could have a surprise pregnancy, quit my job and be a stay at home mom living off of his six figures. It was a reasonable plan and I couldn’t very well go on looking at icky mouths forever.
That’s was his job.
Admittedly, a lingering adolescent fantasy I had of being the hot dental hygienist getting busy with the hot shot dentist in his office between patients still turned me on a bit. That probably came from the fact that my mother found me such a smoking hot dentist when I was in my early teens. I always looked forward to showing off my pretty mouth to him. That’s what he used to say every time he came into the office to see me.
––Oh, there she is, the prettiest mouth I’ve seen all day, sit back and relax, I’ll be right with you.
The way he said it sounded completely innocent but in my fantasy, he meant it in the most perverted of ways. I found myself quickly developing a dentist fetish and getting more and more aroused every time I sat in his chair and let him penetrate my mouth with his big strong hands and tools.
My mother had scheduled for checkups every six months, but I just couldn’t wait that long to feel his touch crossing the threshold of my oral cavity, in and out, in and out; telling me how pretty it was. I often found myself faking a toothache just so my mother would let me see him sooner and I could feel a piece of him inside a piece of me. Yeah, I know. If you think it’s embarrassing the way I tell it now, overhearing the way I relayed these experiences to my girlfriends would make you cringe yourself inside out.
I will never forget one appointment in particular. I had been up all night throbbing and fantasizing about his imminent digital manipulation, only to find out the next day that he had gone on vacation. Filling in for him was a smelly old woman from someplace far away. She always looked angry. I think it was because I was prettier than she was. Not once, did she call my mouth pretty. She only barked while she told me nothing was wrong.
When I got home, I told my mother never to book me another dentist appointment, unless they knew for sure that Dr Brookshire was going to be there. I often wonder if my mother had any inkling of what I was up to.