*Note: This is a continuation of my more recent Post called: Painting Henry Ford's House.
Sorry for the lack of order.
GOOD BRAIN
GOOD BRAIN
Later that day I returned to the main house to retrieve a tool from my plastic toolbox. The toolbox was made by Stanley, and I had purchased it at Home Depot because it was on sale, and cheap at $19.99
I opened the plywood, temporary front door that the carpenters had put in place while the permanent front door was being manufactured. That door was to be custom made in Oak.
As I ascended the front staircase, still under construction, I had to step carefully around the hunched form of the Carpenter who was installing it’s final features, such as a curving Red Oak banister to later be held up by straight, painted square pine spindles.
A nice guy I thought. An artist. Or at least a good craftsman. Though I had to admit that he was humming along to "Gimme Shelter" in an idiotic and simple manner. He squinted as he took a measurement with what looked like a complicated variation of a Compass. He then marked off his measurements on the steps with a pencil.
A nice guy I thought. An artist. Or at least a good craftsman. Though I had to admit that he was humming along to "Gimme Shelter" in an idiotic and simple manner. He squinted as he took a measurement with what looked like a complicated variation of a Compass. He then marked off his measurements on the steps with a pencil.
It reminded me of an earlier time when I was painting in a different house and where another carpenter was performing the same task. I was also impressed at that other time because it seemed to take a lot of carpentry skill.
My Turkish foreman, Yusuf, was standing nearby and, since silence was never comfortable around him, I felt the necessity of saying something—anything—so I said in as simple a language as I could create:
“I once saw a carpenter install a big spiraling stair rail. It was complicated work.”
For some reason, Yusuf seemed to be in some kind of reverie. Lost in thought. Something was bothering him. He didn’t respond. But I felt that I had to say something, so I continued rhetorically: “It takes brains………
Yusuf gave a start. “T’a what?” he interrupted loudly. “You’t give good Brain”?
He laughed even more loudly and, to my momentary surprise, even hysterically:
“HA HA HA HA HA!”
Oh God. I thought as I got it..That joke again. The one about giving good “Brain”. I chastised myself and I thought: ,’ I should have known better. I had to be dumb enough to use the word “Brain”.
One of the painting crew, I’m not sure who, had made up this clever phrase and or imagery, if you will, recently.
“Another fanciful conundrum,” I thought. Obviously the phrase “Giving Good Brain” had evolved from the familiar idea of “Giving Head” which, as everyone knows, involves hetero or homosexual oral sex.
I thought: ‘Maybe Yusuf was implying that the erect penis of a man, possibly his, would be sucked upon by me with such force and/or violence that the penis would penetrate upwards and through the base of my skull, and thereafter copulate with my very brain tissue?’
“UNK, UNK”. I would say as his penis passed in and out of my brains with a “Snick, Snick” sort of sound.
During this action, Yusuf would be squatting over my knelt form. His filthy painter's pants bunched around his hairy ankles. His feet splayed. His broad, powerful, naked hams flexing with each thrust. His huge, erect, throbbing engorged cock fucking and copulating with my brain tissue.
"HU! HUUUU!" Yusuf would say. "HU! HUUU!", like a delighted Chimp fucking a knot hole in a tree stump slick with honey.
I looked away from him, out the window and at the breaking waves of the Atlantic Ocean, and fought off a the sudden feeling of wistfulness that the ocean always engenders.
‘Such imagery is whimsical and nonsensical.’ I thought. Besides, logically and in reality, the only angle of trajectory a sucked penis can follow is beyond the tonsils, and down the throat. A simple matter of ballistics of a sort. Soft tissue meets soft tissue. I congratulated myself for my ingenuity. Any ballistics expert would concur with that. '
But then I asked myself: "Was that really the source of the humor? Was that why it seemed so funny to the painting crew?
'Or Maybe' , I thought, 'Maybe the real source of the amusement over the concept of “giving good brain” derived from the idea that it implied that oral sex was, like all sexual behavior, a baser, less intellectual pursuit? 'Now that………that, I thought, is more advanced thinking.'
'Or Maybe' , I thought, 'Maybe the real source of the amusement over the concept of “giving good brain” derived from the idea that it implied that oral sex was, like all sexual behavior, a baser, less intellectual pursuit? 'Now that………that, I thought, is more advanced thinking.'
But I doubted this alternative theory in favor of the former. But I could have been wrong.
“HA HA HA HA “ Laughing loudly, Yusuf again intruded on my thoughts.
“The Fucking bastard”, I thought. He will use every opportunity to disregard everything I say and make me look like a joke. To stick it too me, no pun. This Yusuf shouldn’t be in charge of anyone or anything. But still he was my Boss, and he stood in the way of my income. Like a prayer, I chanted over and over to myself: “I need the money, therefore, I need the job.”
“I ask’a You” Yusuf repeated. He was laughing as hard as I had ever seen him laugh .
“You’t give t’ Good Brain”? Yusuf couldn't articulate his words very clearly because several of his molars and other teeth were missing.
I shook my head. “Forget it” I said with a wave. Yusuf continued laughing as I walked away. He had me. In his mind he did. And on some objective, commercial level, he did. He really did. He won. In the world of Commerce, and this twisted street level version of it, he won, absolutely and with absolute impunity.
The carpenter on the stairs took no notice. He continued humming to the Rolling Stones and marking his measurements.
* To find out what happens next, go here:
