Why this title? 

Because it’s clever. 

What’s so clever about it?

Well instead of morning, I said mourning.

Why is that clever?

I don’t know…Because it’s ironic.

What’s ironic about it?

You mourn because you’re sad, and I put it in the context of a dick joke. Trust me, it’s funny.

Is the title alluding to anything in particular?

I heard a story about this guy who experimented by putting a bit of coke on the tip of his dick. 

Coke?

Cocaine. I don’t know if it was for fun, or because he was already on something, but apparently this guy got a hard-on for like four hours straight and then it just fell off. I don’t know about that last part, but it’s still kind of fucked up.

And that’s how you came up with the title?

No. I saw a documentary on how paper is made, and they were cutting down all these trees. It bummed me out. I began to mourn wood.

Funny. Are you going to quit wasting time?

You want to know the real story behind it?

What gave it away?

Don’t get testy with me. I don’t have to tell you if I don’t want to.

Alright fine. Please, tell me what happened.

I was at a funeral, and some guy had a hard-on the whole time.

How could you tell? 

I mean, it was just easy to spot. You can’t park a tent in the middle of a funeral and not expect anyone to notice.

Did anyone say anything?

What could you say? “Hey man, do you mind not waving that thing around.” I was more impressed by the fact that he managed to keep it up for so long. I didn’t know the guy so I have no idea when he got there. All I know is once I noticed it, it was hard to look away. He must have kept it up for at least an hour. It was awkward, but he didn’t seem to mind. Or notice. I wonder if he knew anyone else could see? Or maybe he was completely unaware? Maybe he’d taken a couple of Viagras, and spent the rest of the afternoon on auto-pilot. Or maybe it had a mind of its own. I heard about something like that once. Some guys get random hard-ons and sometimes they gotta go to the hospital to get it down. I can’t remember what it’s called.

Priapism.

Priapism?

It’s when you get long-lasting erections for no particular reason. Was this the same guy?

Same guy?

The one who experimented with cocaine?

I doubt it. He didn’t look like he was on anything. And he didn’t really look sketchy or anything. He was just a normal looking guy, in a suit, with a hard-on.

Whose funeral was it? 

A guy I knew.

A friend?

You could say that.

An old friend?

He wasn’t that old. Hell, he was my age.

I meant, was he a friend from childhood, or had you recently met?

We grew up together.

How did you meet?

Does it matter?

I’m trying to get some context, and I’m trying to understand the meaning of the title.

I met him at this park in the rich neighbourhood. I liked to hang out there. First time I saw him he was on his knees by one of those wooden fences at the edge of the park, looking like his face was stuck. I go over to see what’s up. He doesn’t see me at first. I’m standing a few feet away and then a dog starts barking. He turns around, sees me, and we both kind of stare at each other for a second. He points to a hole in the fence. I get down and stick my face closer, and I see these girls lying there with their tops off, close enough that I can smell the suntan lotion. It was beautiful. Then outta knowhere, the guy starts barking. The girls sit up real quick. He starts laughing real loud and now they know someone’s there. They grab their towels and wrap themselves. They come running towards the fence, and I’m tripping over myself trying to get out of there. By then there was no one else around but me, standing there looking guilty as hell. He’d already taken off, laughing like a maniac. I didn’t catch up to him that day, but we ran into each other on our bikes a couple of days later, and just kept hanging out after that.

So your friendship was sealed through a brief instance of voyeurism?

If you wanna put it that way, sure. Like I said we were just kids. And besides, most of the other kids were gone. We couldn’t afford to go to summer camp so we were stuck there. 

Were you poor growing up?

Not poor. Just couldn’t afford to go to camp. We lived in a rougher part of town, but it was right next to the rich neighbourhood. So we hung out there cause there was more to do. And when the nanny’s weren’t there with their rich babies, we had the park to ourselves.

So what kind of stuff did you guys like to do?

Stupid shit. Throwing rocks at people. There was a dog park near the playground, and we used to pick up the dog shit, and throw it at the slide so other kids would fall right into it. Real asshole stuff. I was never the one to come up with these pranks. He was the real mastermind. I got into trouble a couple of times because of him.

Why stick around then? From what I gather he sounds like a trouble maker.

Not really. I mean he had his moments, but when you’re a kid you don’t really know what’s good and bad. Besides, we had a lot of fun, and he was the first one to introduce me to girls. It was kind of hard for me cause I had no brothers. Neither did he but somehow he always knew what to say. Like I said, we were just kids. You want to talk about bad influences…if anything we were using each other. I had someone to hang out with that was weirder than me, which made me feel like the normal one for once, and he had a sidekick for his stupid pranks. His mom was also really nice to me. Probably because she knew her kid didn’t have any friends, and I was the only one who hung out with him. He’d piss her off and break stuff, but most of the time she’d just laugh it off. She used to affectionately call him “my little asshole.” I used to joke that I spent a lot of time playing with his mother’s little asshole. 

Where was his father?

Gone. It’s the same story you always hear, “went to grab a pack of cigarettes.” At least that’s the story I got. And I never asked too many questions.

So you guys remained friends all these years?

Yes and no…

Did something happen?

It wasn’t one thing. It was a bunch of things…

You want to elaborate?

It started near the end of high school. He had this girlfriend, Ana. Smokin’ hot, a total fox. She didn’t go to our school but everyone knew who she was. It was a small town, and her dad was rich. She went to the private girls’ school in the rich part of town, and she was one of those girls that developed young so she looked older. She was pretty smart, but not many people knew that because she usually didn’t say much and they were too busy staring. And since there were no guys at her school, and most guys were too shy to talk to her, all he had to do was walk up to her and ask her out. 

How did he meet her?

At the mall. He saw her go into one of those fancy underwear stores, waited for her to finish, then he just walked up to her, asked her out, and that was that. 

Is that what he told you?

I was with him. I was standing right next to him the first time he saw her, and I was standing right next to him when he asked her out. 

So you’ve known her for as long as he has.

Yeah. Pretty much.

So how long before they were exclusive?

Well they started hanging out and soon they were always together. Him and I were still good friends at the time, so it was basically the three of us all the time. Say what you want about him, but he was always very loyal to his friends…at least to the ones that stuck around.

Did you go on the first date too?

No….We just hung out a lot.

How did you and his girlfriend get along?

Her and I got along pretty well. Like I said she didn’t talk much, but she was still fun to be around. So there we were, this weird trio, two dweeby high school kids, and this girl that looked like a model. She was easily the best looking girl I’d ever seen, and that’s including the ones I saw in the stack of magazines he had hidden in his closet. And even though she could have gotten any guy she wanted, she chose him. 

And why do you think she chose him? From what I gather, neither of you were very old, and from what I can tell, very mature…

Well we weren’t but for as long as I knew him he was always so confident.  You know those girls from the backyard?

The ones you were spying on? 

Yeah. Well a few weeks after the barking incident, he somehow managed to get both of us invited over to their place to go swimming. Don’t ask me how he did it. One second we’re on our bikes, the next we’re walking into their backyard, and there they are lying on their lawn chairs, all golden and half naked. One of them even asked me to put lotion on her back. I won’t say much more, but I will say it took me a while to get out of the pool…if you get my drift.

So he had a way with women?

You could say that.

And what about you?

Not so much. But it paid to be his friend at the time.

What do you mean?

Well as far as I can tell they were each other’s first. But she was also somebody else’s first… If you know what I mean…

I don’t.

She was somebody’s first…and I’m not talking about the neighbour…

You slept with your friends’ girlfriend?

Well…like I said we didn’t really hang out with anyone else. It was usually just the three of us, or the two of us when she was at school, or hanging out with some of her older friends. We didn’t really hang out with any of her other friends. Or at least, I never really hung out with them. But like I said, the two of us were together most of the time, and more often than not, she was too. 

Just the two of you? You two seem to have had a very close bond.

We did. But he could be weird sometimes…

Weird how?

This one time, his mom was working later than usual so I asked my mom if he could stay over. So he stayed over and he slept on the floor on one of those inflatable mattresses you go camping with, and I was on my bed. So it’s the middle of the night and I get woken up by a noise. I roll over to see if he’d gotten up or something, but I don’t see him. I also get this weird feeling like he’s still in the room. And there he is, at the edge of my bed just watching me sleep. I pretended I was asleep but I could feel him watching. Eventually he went back to his bed, but it still creeped me out. I didn’t say anything in the morning, but that was the last time I invited him to sleep over.

Interesting…so back to this girlfriend. You seemed to be going somewhere.

Well what I was trying to say was we both slept with her…not at the same time or anything…and not behind anyone’s back or anything. What I mean is they were dating so they probably had sex all the time when I wasn’t there. But usually when I had sex with her he was in the other room, or he was the one insisting. 

So the three of you were in a polyamorous relationship.

Naw, nothing like that. Like I said, we were just kids. It’s not like we were all dating each other. They were dating each other, and I was always hanging out with them.

So you were the third wheel.

Not really. I mean they wanted me there. He was always inviting me over, and she always seemed happy to see me. Once in a while he would just leave the two of us alone. I didn’t ask for it. Sometimes it felt like we were just his playthings, and he would just leave when he was bored. Sometimes he’d sneak away, and we’d catch him hiding in the closet or something. He was kind of funny because you never knew what he was going to do next. Which is why my first time was such a surprise. 

Right. Your first time. What happened?

I was fifteen. He invited me over to his place, and when I got there he was waiting outside for me. He gave me this quick pep talk about how we were best friends, and how he wanted to share everything with me, and since it was my birthday he’d gotten me a gift. I didn’t really know what he was talking about but I went with it. The year before he’d given me a nudie mag he’d stolen from the convenience store, so I was kind of expecting something similar. I mean, he was acting kind of weird, but I didn’t really ask questions, that’s just how he was. I followed him upstairs. He told me to close my eyes and pushed me into his room. Like I said, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. And also, it wasn’t my actual birthday. So he shoved me in the room, and above the bed he’s got ‘Happy Birthday’ written all fancy. Ana is on the bed, completely naked, legs dangling. He shuts the door and I can hear him laughing like a maniac down the hall. She’s just sitting there on the bed smiling at me. Now I’d be lying if I said it was the first time I’d seen her naked. She liked to change in front of us. Not like a stripper or anything. If she wanted to change into something else she’d just do it. The first time I was kind of caught off guard but after that I stopped caring. If she didn’t care, why should I?

And she never made any advances towards you?

Not really. She was my best friend’s girlfriend. She might have caught me peeking once in a while when she was changing, but that was it. And like I said, if she didn’t care, why should I?

But eventually it did lead to something.

Well yeah, but like I said, I had no idea.  So I’m standing there in front of her. She’s naked. I’m not sure what to do. So she pulls me towards her and starts taking off my shirt. Looking back, it couldn’t have been any clearer, but at the time I was completely clueless. He’d been dropping hints for weeks about my upcoming birthday, and how I was soon becoming a man, despite the fact that I was only fifteen. Not in a million years was I expecting this though. And like I said, it wasn’t my actual birthday…so there I was, I had no idea how the condom, or anything else worked so she ended up having to help me through most of it, sort of laughing the whole time. I don’t think she was being mean, I was just really awkward. So we finished up…2 minutes later. I picked up my clothes, thanked her, and left. When I opened the door he was standing there, looking like he had a few years back at the fence in the park. He smiled at me and just let me leave without saying anything. I got dressed real quick and bolted out the door. I avoided them for a week. Then they showed up at my door, and we just laughed it off. Things went back to normal for a while until I found out that I wasn’t her only first-timer.

What do you mean by her first-timer?

Well half the kids in my class lost their virginity to her. Turns out he’d started making appointments with about half the class to sleep with her. He was charging them and splitting the money with her. 

If I understand correctly, your friend opened a brothel in his mother’s house and played the role of pimp as he prostituted his girlfriend out to other boys. 

Well not exactly…

And you didn’t say anything?

What could I say? And besides, a pimp wouldn’t give a girl a choice. He wasn’t forcing her to do anything she didn’t want.

So that makes it better? Prostitution is prostitution, no matter how you spin it.

Call it what you want, but like I said, it’s not like he was abusing her or forcing her to do it. She wanted to do it.

I find that hard to believe.

No seriously. She was totally on board. I don’t know who came up with the idea first but they both wanted to try it. And I was the first one they tried it on.

What an honour that must have been. How much did you have to pay to have sex with her?

Well being his friend, he didn’t make me pay, but apparently he was charging kids 40 bucks each to roll around with her for 2 minutes, about as long as any of them could last. She also had this friend, as good looking as her, who decided she also wanted to make some cash. He was more than happy to expand his business and soon he had a girl working every day. His ‘tutors’ as he called them, worked after school. I think they convinced their parents that they were all part of a study club, and since his mom always got home late he never had to worry about the stream of high school boys, and occasional girl, showing up every 15 minutes with an ‘appointment.’ 

It sounds like his busy schedule slowly began to put a wedge between the two of you. Or am I misreading your tone? 

You’re not. Whenever I’d show up to his house he’d become really fake, like some sleazy salesman, and then he would invite me in for a drink. We were still in our teens so most of the time it was just grape juice, but he still liked to serve it in wine glasses. He also started wearing his mom’s housecoat like he was Hugh Hefner or something. It looked ridiculous because it was pink and fluffy, and he wasn’t exactly tall so it hung down to his ankles. Then things got really messed up…

What happened?

This one time I was at his place and he offers me a drink. I could tell something was different. After a few minutes he says, shall we go enjoy the show. He said it exactly like that, “Shall we go enjoy the show?” I’ve got no idea what he’s talking about but I follow him. I’m heading towards his room, but he takes me downstairs. I’m a bit confused because the basement was just one room used as a storage area. We go down and in the corner there’s six guys sitting around a TV with weird perverted looks on their faces. I walk in and they’re all watching porn on this tiny screen. The weirdest thing about it was the set looked a hell of a lot like his room, the actress looked exactly like his girlfriend, and the guy lying underneath her was from my math class. I look at him completely weirded out and he’s just smiling like an idiot. Turns out he’d found a way of making guys pay for sex, and pay to watch their friends. It was like some porno theater with live shows. 

So he was recording people having sex? Without them knowing?

I mean he wasn’t technically recording them. I found out later that it was just a live feed from the bedroom to the basement, but it was still kind of fucked up, especially since most of the guys knew they were being filmed when they went into his room upstairs.

So what did you do when you found out?

I didn’t stick around there too much longer. This time around he didn’t show up a week later with his girlfriend by his side. I saw Ana a little while later when I was at the mall, but he wasn’t with her. She didn’t mention him at all when we spoke. I didn’t see her much after that.

When’s the last time you saw her?

A few years ago, at her wedding.

Who was the lucky groom?

Who do you think?

Not… 

Yup. I was just as surprised as you when I got the invitation. It was a weird wedding too.

How so?

I don’t know…the whole thing was kind of weird. I missed the ceremony, but the reception was at this hotel on the side of the highway. Fancy, for a hotel on the side of the highway, but kind of rundown. All kinds of weird people stayed there, lowlifes trying to live the high life. The kind of place rich people go to have an affair because they know they won’t run into someone they know. I just showed up because I hadn’t seen them in years. He gained weight, and kept the same haircut, which didn’t really help considering he was losing most of his hair. His wife looked the same. Still as good looking as I remembered. Apart from them, I didn’t really speak to anyone besides his mother. I recognized a couple of the girls, friends of hers, that used to work for him back in high school, but I didn’t really have much to say to any of them. It wasn’t like one of those happy reunions. I spoke really quickly to him and his wife, but we didn’t talk about the old days. I was in and out. I didn’t even bother bringing a present or staying for food. 

So why did you go? It sounds like you didn’t really want anything to do with these people.

I dunno…sometimes you feel like you may have misjudged someone and you just want to know if you were justified. Or maybe just bored curiosity.

Did you misjudge him?

I guess I’ll never know…

Did you see him at all after that?

Not until the funeral.

Whose funeral was it?

It was his and it was strange as hell. The last time I’d seen him he was getting married. Now he was lying in a coffin. 

That was sudden. How did he die?

They say it was a heart attack. Technically. But it was more of an overdose.

Was he a drug user?

Not that I knew of. For all the time we spent together he never did any drugs. I don’t even think he drank. I remember him always managing to get booze for us when we were underage, but I don’t think I ever saw him drink anything. Or if he did, he was really good at hiding it.

Maybe he started after you guys stopped talking?

I don’t think so. I mean word got around about some of the stuff he was doing, but the drugs he overdosed on weren’t exactly the type you get arrested for.

What did he overdose on?

He took one too many of those blue pills.

Blue pills?

You know the ones…The type that help you get in the mood…

Viagra? And that caused the heart attack?

With the amount he took, it would have given anyone a heart attack.

How much did he take?

Enough to actually turn him blue…

Why so many?

For as long as I’d known him he never talked much about his own sex life. He loved watching others. I think he got off on that. He loved to brag about how much money he was making, and all the good looking girls working for him. He showed them off like trophies. But he never said a word about his own sexual exploits. People always assumed he got some whenever he wanted. Doing what he did, I’d imagine it wasn’t hard to get one of his girls to go to bed with him. Especially since he was paying them so well. But despite what people said, he would never cheat on his wife, and she would never cheat on him.

Wasn’t she a prostitute?

Not a prostitute. She helped run the business and sometimes she would participate.

So he was a pimp, and a loyal husband?

He was a businessman. He owned a few of those rub and tug massage parlours. He also owned a few X-rated movie theaters. Oddly enough they were always located a few doors down from each other. The funny thing about these massage parlours is that they didn’t look sketchy at all from the outside. Even from the inside they looked legitimate. But I don’t know any massage parlours that have soundproof walls, queen sized beds, and closets full of sex toys.

So you’d been to one of his places before?

No.

Then how did you know so much about it?

His wife told me.

I thought you hadn’t spoken to her since the wedding? Was this a new business?

No, the business had been around long before the wedding. But as I said we didn’t talk much.

So how did you know about all of this?

We spoke at the funeral.

She told you all that at the funeral?

Not exactly. I didn’t really talk to anyone at the funeral. Like at the wedding it was another scene full of weirdos. The service wasn’t so bad though, they brought in this priest to say a few words, it was pretty classy. I spoke to his mom afterwards. She cried for most of it. There wasn’t much I could say. I spoke to Ana before I left. We made plans to catch up after so many years.

How did that go?

It went alright. We went out for dinner, and she told me about the business. Nothing too graphic. Just a few details about how they got started. I found out more the second time we went out. That time around was less awkward. We just went for drinks. We got a little bit drunk. She got more graphic this time. At one point she started crying. She was still traumatized about the night he died.

You never did say why he took so many pills.

Well as I told you he wasn’t one to discuss his sex life very much. Turns out it’s because they didn’t really have one, or at least, not in the traditional sense. He never really showed much interest in the physical side of things, even way back when they first started dating and I was around. Apparently he just liked watching her. Whether it was a guy or a girl, he’d just sit there and watch. What’s even weirder was the fact that he wasn’t even in the room when it was going on. He’d set up a bunch of cameras in their room. Whenever he’d invite someone over to sleep with her he’d just go to his office and jerk off, while watching her on the TV. As I said they had a weird relationship. Despite the fact that they were both a little messed up, I think they really did love each other. 

That’s a strange way of expressing your love for someone. 

I know, but it seemed to work for them.

And they never cheated on each other?

They didn’t. Like I said, whenever something was happening it was because they both wanted it to happen. They’d invite all kinds of people to their place. They’d have orgies and swinger parties. He’d never be there of course. Turns out he’d set up cameras in every room in the house. Sometimes he’d hire someone to play her husband and then he’d just go sit in his office and watch these parties from the TV. And one night they’re having a party. Everyone gets really drunk, including his wife. They have this wild orgy and at the end everyone goes home. She stumbles up the stairs and into his office. He’s cleaning up and turning off the equipment. She comes on to him. A bit more aggressive than usual. She asks him to fuck her. They’ve had these conversations before, but this time she won’t back down. They start arguing. She threatens him with divorce and all kinds of other stuff. His back is against the wall, because as I said, despite his weird way of showing it, he really did love her. They try. He can’t get it up. She starts yelling at him. He’s just sitting there taking it. She starts crying. He’s torn up. He grabs a Viagra bottle and chugs half the pills in there. They fuck for the first time in years. She wakes up in the morning to find him hard as a rock. His whole body is stiff. Turns out he’s been dead for a couple of hours. Overdosed on Viagra and died of a heart attack.

You don’t hear that happening too often.

I know. It’s fucked up.

She must have been pretty upset. What happened after that?

Well she called the cops and the ambulance showed up to take him away.

No, I mean after the two of you met up the second time.

I’d rather not say.

You’ve come this far. Why stop now?

Well I’m not too proud of what happened next, and I’d just like to clarify that we were both drunk.

What happened?

We ended up going back to my place the second time we met up.

And? Did something happen?

Sort of…We had a few more drinks at my place and we ended up in my bed.

You had sex with her?

I couldn’t.

You felt guilty.

What are you, my therapist? No it wasn’t that…

Then what was it?

I was having problems…

Problems?

With my…you know…

You were having performance issues. 

Yeah…couldn’t get it up. 

Because you felt guilty.

No it wasn’t guilt. It was something else…

It’s perfectly normal for people to experience psychological and physiological issues when they’re in mourning. There’s no need to feel ashamed, and you don’t need to feel guilty about that.

No, it wasn’t that. For some reason I couldn’t stop thinking about his funeral and something his mom had said. I got to talking to her at the wake, and obviously she was really upset. She told me how, when his business had started to expand, he was able to afford all kinds of new things, so he bought her a house and a car. She kept going on about how he always took care of her, and how he was such a sweet boy. I don’t think she really knew what he did for a living, and I didn’t want to be the one to tell her.

So you felt guilty about the fact that you couldn’t tell her the truth about her son. 

No, I’m telling you it wasn’t guilt, it was something I heard her say to someone as I was leaving…

What did she say?

“Although he’s gone, I know he’s still watching over us.”

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