Leave the Lipstick, Take the Iguana Read online

  “I am sorry.”

  “Do you have any plasters?”

  “No, we don’t.”

  No plasters. No bandages. Back in Kumasi, I had dragged out my first aid kit, which was so extensive I could probably have performed the appendectomy on myself in my own home, trying to decide if I should take anything from it with me to Korle-Bu. I had stopped, in my drugged haze, to remind myself that I was on my way to a hospital. They will have these things there, I thought. Funny, though, because they didn’t.

  Days passed, and it became clear that my uncovered wound really did need attention. I returned to the nurses’ station, where a formidable woman scraped off the scab that was trying to form through the pus, and then walked out. She returned with the attending physician, who declared it was necessary to remove the stitches immediately. Chatting animatedly, the nurse cut out the stitches and swabbed my incision, then took out a precious bandage.

  At that instant, an enormous cockroach—one of the African flying variety, and the size of my cell phone—scuttled across the white counter, heading straight for the sterilized instruments. I opened my mouth to sound the alarm, but the nurse had already spotted the wretched thing. She moved towards the counter, and raised her hand—the hand holding my bandage.

  Impossible. I looked on in mute horror, unable to utter a syllable of protest.

  As I watched, the nurse swiftly brought her hand down onto the countertop—BANG!—killing the cockroach in a well-practiced motion. Hard wings crunched into the thick body, flattened across the countertop. Briskly, the nurse swept the remains into a trashcan, and then calmly finished unwrapping the bandage. She reached down and firmly taped the bandage into place on my abdomen, covering my infected wound.

  Perfectly unconcerned by this series of events, the nurse met the wild look in my eyes.

  “Those cockroaches,” she remarked, “they are so troublesome.”

  Kristy Leissle is a writer, professor, sailor, and long-time global voyager. She is happiest when writing about her adventures while having them, pen bent toward battered notebook while life’s extraordinary moments unfold.

  MELANIE HAMLETT

  I Had a Passion for the Christ

  She wasn’t a Jesus freak until she freaked for Jesus.

  As fifty other tourists and I entered the cave, a man dressed in a pharaoh’s outfit handed us each a cracker and a teeny-tiny wooden cup of grape juice, which looked like a shot glass from biblical times. It was The Last Supper and we’d be breaking bread with Jesus himself in T-minus five minutes.

  I wasn’t Christian and I didn’t believe in Jesus anymore, but I thought it might be kind of fun to visit the Christian-themed amusement park in Orlando, Florida. One of my favorite things to do is immerse myself in a culture that I usually make fun of in order to understand it better. I figured spending the day with Bible thumpers at a Jesus amusement park might help me see religious folks in a new light.

  After exploring Noah’s Ark, which had nothing but a cardboard cut-out of Jesus and an arcade game, I took a stroll through a giant plastic purple whale, where I found my man, Jonah, floating around. I tried to show off my vocals at “Celebrate Jesus Karaoke,” but people didn’t respond well to my performance of the only non-gospel tune in the book, “I Believe I Can Fly.” I even endured a frighteningly patriotic show, the only one at Holy Land not based on a Bible story, called “The God Bless America Show,” and applauded along with the crowd as the man in uniform on stage proudly announced he didn’t mind being crippled for the rest of his life because getting shot in war was God’s will for him.

  At first it felt disrespectful being a non-believer among all these good Christian men and women, like a Russian spy wandering around the Pentagon. But then it occurred to me I’d always felt this way. Even as a kid I thought Jesus was a load of crap. Sure, I’d attended Sunday school, prayed a lot, and sung in the church choir through my sophomore year in high school, but only to make my mom happy.

  As soon as I hit sixteen, though, I decided to do what I darn well pleased, mostly drugs. While all my peers spent Sunday mornings studying the Bible in church, I was always hot-boxing a joint in the parking lot or rummaging through the church kitchen with a bad case of the munchies. My mom finally dropped her good-Christian-daughter-agenda after I was busted drinking and smoking on a choir tour and sent home in a van two days early. Here I was though, a non-believer standing in a cave elbow to elbow with a crowd of Gentiles.

  Once the disciple guy finished his little speech, Jesus entered the stage, cave left. I’d expected him to be the typical, distorted white version of Jesus from my childhood, or maybe even the Mel Gibson version from that terrible movie about torturing Jesus. But never in my wildest dreams had I envisioned a young hippy fella so h-o-t, hot. Dear God! With long dirty-blonde hair, blue eyes, and a beard, he was a Legends of the Falls version of Brad Pitt. Having been a raft guide and ski instructor for most of my twenties, I’d always dated rugged, mountain-man types. Since moving to New York City a few years earlier, though, I hadn’t been able to find such earthy-type guys. Until now.

  After we listened to Jesus’ painfully long monologue about cannibalism, ate our tiny crackers, and downed our shots of grape juice, Jesus finished the show by coming out into the crowd and touching people. He made it a point to lay his hand on all fifty of us saying, “Bless you my child” to adults and children alike. While I knew he wasn’t Jesus-Jesus, only the actor playing Jesus, I couldn’t help but catch the Jesus fever in the cave, now looking at him almost as a force larger than life.

  When it came my turn to get touched, I was a nervous wreck. I’m sure I must have looked like someone straight out of a snake-slinging tent rival since my knees buckled the moment his strong manly hand connected with the spaghetti straps on my shoulder. Blood instantly rushed to my neck and checks, making me blush, and goose bumps popped up all over my arms. Unfortunately, our little moment together was ruined by the sound of my empty wooden shot glass hitting the floor. My poor hand just couldn’t concentrate on holding it anymore. When I came back up from retrieving the shot glass, Jesus had already moved on to touching the kid beside me.

  I couldn’t figure out what in Jesus’ name was happening to me. It’s not like I was looking for God. I’d already found a new one years ago, one that didn’t create a hell or send people like me to it just because we once stole a thousand dollars worth of merchandise from Disney World as a teenager. I honestly didn’t care about this Jesus guy or the Bible, and yet here I was falling under his Christian spell.

  Just as I was finally starting to pull myself together, Jesus came up from behind and touched me. AGAIN! Now, I don’t mean to brag, but I’m the only one in that entire cave who got touched more than once. Not even the children in front of me or the two women beside me in wheelchairs got it twice. After it was all over, I went to follow him out of the cave, but I was told Jesus had to go “pray in the gardens now” (i.e. costume change in the green room). The people around me chanted “Thank you Jesus! Thank you Jesus!” over and over as we were escorted out another door by the pharaoh-looking guy who’d dealt out the crackers. I know this is a bit of a stretch, but at the time, part of me thought perhaps this Jesus dude had been flirting with me. He was just a man after all, and men can’t help themselves sometimes.

  Now that I had the Jesus fever, I was on a mission to see as much of him as possible. I went to several shows, including “The Women Who Loved Jesus.” It only seemed appropriate. The stars of this show included his mom, a pissed-off hooker, some woman who was almost stoned to death by a crowd of angry men, and a lady who’d been bleeding for twelve years due to some strange, unexplained disease. You’d think after all my training I would have known my Bible stories a little better, but I was totally lost for the entire show.

  If I hadn’t been there to see Jesus, my feminist self would have been highly insulted by the content. One pathetic woman after another gave a long-winded speech about how no man cared about her. Th
en, like a superhero, Jesus would swoop in, she’d cry, he’d save the day, they’d embrace, then she’d give another speech after he left about how obsessed she was with him. They all said phrases like “I’ve never loved anyone the way I love that man,” and “I think I love him in a … different way,” or my personal favorite, “No man has ever touched me in that way.”

  Whenever Jesus wasn’t saving some damsel in distress, he was hanging out in the streets of Jerusalem with his homies. Like John Travolta’s character in Grease, he was the guy every man wanted to be and the hunk every woman wanted to screw. Things took a turn for the worse, however, when out of nowhere a bunch of Roman guards ran on stage and started flogging their hero. At the end of the show an announcer came over the intercom and told us not to miss the follow-up grand finale called “The Passion of The Christ” outside in twenty minutes.

  Given the sexual overtones in this last show, one might assume “The Passion of the Christ” was going to be some sort of soft porn, but I had a sneaky feeling it would be a live version of that awful Mel Gibson flick. I usually have a pretty week stomach, but I couldn’t get enough of Hot Jesus.

  After all two thousand of us were herded outside and situated behind ropes like kids awaiting a Fourth of July parade, Jesus came out into a crowd wearing a white robe and hippy sandals. Sweaty with a bad case of bed head, his mood was somber as he walked around giving another one of his long-winded speeches. Afterwards, a group of Roman guards tackled him to the ground. They were pretty hot themselves, each wearing gold-plated six-pack covers and flowing skits that showed off their soccer legs.

  They dragged Jesus over to some fake rocks, where Satan awaited him. Sporting a black robe with a hood, like a character out of Harry Potter, Satan now had his chance to make a speech. Everyone boooo-ed of course, which pleased him greatly.

  Once the guards ripped off Jesus’ robe, leaving him in an ancient Depends diaper, they bound his hands to a wooden post with rope. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought this was some sort of old-timey S&M porno. Each time a whip hit his back, the loudspeakers belted a “crack” sound and fake blood magically appeared. With every lash, Jesus violently arched his back and moaned, sometimes even making the o-face. This amused Satan, who laughed hysterically like he was at a taping of Saturday Night Live.

  When they were done with the whipping part, the hot guards, now sweaty and jacked-up on testosterone, dragged Jesus out into the audience and kicked him in the kidneys repeatedly. By this point in time, my emotions were all over the place, ranging from disgust at a place that would let little kids watch such violence to fear over how un-phased the crowd was by this insanity. Then Jesus landed on all fours on the ground in front of me, covered in blood and sweat and so scantily clad I could almost see his junk through the diaper. I soon realized I was, more than anything, unbelievably horny.

  But you would be too if you were a single thirty-two year old woman who hadn’t had sex, much less been kissed or even touched by a man, in a year and a half. The baby-making organs of a woman in her sexual prime will latch onto anything that seems promising, even the Son of God.

  It’s not that I am a celibate prude. Quite the opposite in fact, I was prone to the addictive feast or famine approach to life—the one where people like me often times take a good thing too far and turn it into a bad thing. After my last binge a couple years ago, I’d decided to cage the little feline for a while. It’s been pretty easy to abstain … until this Jesus guy showed up.

  No wonder I reacted so strongly to Jesus touching me in the cave. Maybe it hadn’t been a spiritual experience at all—just a sexual one. And that tent revival reaction of mine was probably just Jesus jolting awake hormones that’d been on snooze for too long. After the touching incident, the whipping, and now, here in front of me, a sweaty, handsome hippy with the body of a swimmer bent over doggy-style, my inner tiger smelled blood and desperately wanted out of her cage.

  There wasn’t much I could do with all this arousal other than continue to watch and take some pictures. Eventually the guards put a thorny crown on his head and made him carry a log, all the while continuing to beat him. I couldn’t believe he just kept taking it, like a man, never giving up.

  Once he was up on the cross, the guards pounded huge spikes through his hands and feet. (The special affects at Holy Land were some of the best I’ve ever seen, by the way.) They let the poor guy hang up there for quite a while, which was kind of boring to watch until one guard gave him a sponge bath and another speared Jesus in the gut. I must say, even nailed to a cross, the guy looked hot. And that six-pack! I’ve never been a fan of buff guys, but Jesus had one of those lean-yet-toned figures I always fell for. Sure, I felt bad staring at him “that way” while the people around me cried, but I couldn’t help it. This was the first near-naked man I’d been around in ages.

  I’m sure you know what happened next. He died. The guards took a hammer to his hands and feet to get the mails out, lowered his perfect body down from the cross, then wrapped him in a white sheet and carried him through the crowd down to a tomb. Satan made a victory speech, and again, the crowd booed.

  After the tomb exploded, Jesus appeared again, only this time he had a wardrobe change. All cleaned-up now, he wore a white flowing nightgown, gave another speech, thanked his Dad, then held up a set of enormous golden keys in front of the crowd. Anyone who wanted keys to his place, he said, they were there for the taking. Hells yeah I wanted keys to his place! If only he wasn’t speaking metaphorically.

  All of a sudden, a bunch of angels dressed in white and gold disco outfits gathered around him and started twirling, like dancers at a Grateful Dead show. Their gold, sparkly wings fluttered and made cool designs, a visual routine that would have blown the mind of anyone on acid.

  We were told to follow the angels to heaven, so all two thousand of us walked about fifty yards away to a gold and white amphitheater where we were met by even more dancing angels. After about ten minutes, Jesus finally showed up, casually late to his own party, only now he wore a non-thorny crown and a King’s robe. As he walked down the aisles, people held their right hands up and screamed “Praise Jesus!” again and again.

  Not only was the train of his robe longer than Princess Diana’s wedding gown, but he had the aura of a real king. While I’ve never actually dated a guy with money, I’m still just as much of a sucker as any woman for a handsome man with power and loads of cash. And don’t forget fame. He wasn’t just the most popular man at Holy Land; he was the most famous person in the world. Even more so than Brad Pitt.

  Satan made one more appearance, but Jesus had the upper hand now. He threw Satan on the ground by pointing his staff at him and using his superpowers. Two disco angels picked Satan up off the ground and lassoed him with a gold rope before escorting him out of Heaven, once and for all.

  As the crowd continued to cheer and Jesus reveled in his glory, I started to wonder if maybe I had a shot at hooking up with him after the show. I mean, I was on vacation and that was usually the only time I ever hooked up with cute guys. Even though I wasn’t the prettiest woman at Holy Land, the odds were definitely in my favor. There was absolutely no competition—most good, Christian women wouldn’t even consider banging the Holy Spirit. And certainly not in the backseat of a car or in a public restroom like me.

  After the show was over, I went looking for Hot Jesus, but he was nowhere to be found. I was willing at this point to even settle for one of the hot Roman guards, but they must have made a dash for the green room too. After wandering around, looking for any guy in a costume, I finally gave up on Holy Land and left. Defeated.

  Back in NYC, I started noticing a dramatic change in my body. I’d be on a crowded subway or waiting in an hour-long line at Trader Joe’s when, all of a sudden, I’d have that knee-buckling experience if a man so much as brushed up against me. These were not good-looking men, or men I’d even consider hooking up with. They were still men though, and I was a single, horny woman in her
thirties who still hadn’t been touched by anyone in almost two years, except for Jesus of course. Being a hormonal landmine of sorts, I knew I needed to do something.

  One day, as if by divine intervention, a kid next to me on the subway grabbed my leg. For the entire subway ride he made sure he always had a hand on someone, if not me or his mom, then another adult close by. It occurred to me at that moment that perhaps I wasn’t a horn-ball or a sex-crazed psycho, but rather a human being who just needed to be touched. The need to have physical contact with another human being doesn’t go away just because we grow into adults. In fact, once I thought about it, I bet half the men I’d hooked up with in the past had been out of a dire need be hugged.

  I knew then and there that I had to find another way to survive in such a dark, lonely city like New York, lest I settle for a boyfriend who’s bad for me. So thanks to Jesus, I do what I think any smart single woman ought to do. I pay someone to touch me. Twice a month, I treat myself to a massage. Until, that is, I meet a guy as nice and cute as Hot Jesus.

  Melanie Hamlett is a travel writer and two-time Moth Storyslam winner who lives in either a trailer in New Mexico, the back of her truck on the road, a friend’s couch in NYC, or out of a backpack in a foreign country. She’s been featured in multiple podcasts, including Risk! and Broadcastr, and can be seen performing all over New York City at places like The Upright Citizens Brigade and The Moth. She also tells picture-stories about her travels as a wandering narcoleptic at melaniehamlett.com. She’s currently writing her first book about her adventures.

  LORI ROBINSON

  Giving Dad the Bird

  A daughter gets her feathers ruffled and finds birds of a feather do indeed flock together.

  Since I was a young girl conversations with Dad are more often than not interrupted by him raising his hand like a stop sign and announcing with great importance, “Listen, there’s a black-throated blue warbler,” or some such name. He cocks his ear toward the noise, and with pursed lips calls out a perfect “pish, pish, pish,” hoping to entice the bird closer. A birder’s universal call, this sound can be perfected by studying The Art of Pishing, (audio CD included) by Pete Dune. A copy of it, along with What Bird Did That?—pictures of different windshield bird splats accompanied by detailed descriptions of color, contents and consistency—are among the hundred or so birding books my dad owns. From a psychological viewpoint it’s easy to understand why I view all birds as competition for my father’s attention, and developed no interest whatsoever in the winged creatures.