Penn Jillette - Sock

s o c k

Penn Jillette

A L S O BY P E N N J I L L E T T E ( w i t h T e l l r e )

Penn & Tellers How to Play with Your Food

Penn & Tellers How to Play in Traffic

Penn & Tellers Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends

ST. MARTINS GRIFFIN NEW YORK

SOCK . Copyright 2004 by Penn Jillette. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Book design by Jonathan Bennett

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jillette, Penn.

Sock / Penn Jillette.1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-312-32805-2

EAN 978-0312-32805-4

1. WomenCrimes againstFiction. 2. New York (N.Y.)Fiction. 3. Murder victimsFiction. 4. Police diversFiction. 5. Gay menFiction. 6. ToysFiction. I. Title.

PS3610.I45S63 2004
813'.54dc22

2004040965

10 9 8 7 6 5 4

s o c k

Bad monkey wammerjammer. Sewn in a crossfire hurricane of needles and pins. An imaginary friends howlings in the driving rain of the washing machine. Dont you wanna live with me?

Look at my eyes. Look at them. I told you to look at my eyes! Look at my eyes! These arent giggly, jokey eyes to make babies giggle. My button eyes are like a sharks eyes. Buttons from a sharkskin suit. My eyes have been fiddled with by a husder. Nervously tapped by a bad man. My eyes are worn right in the center from the tapping of a diamond pinky ring. It was his gamblers tell. When the owner of that expensive but cheap suit was lying, hed click click click click his flawed diamond against the buttons of his suit jacket. And he was lying all the time. Click click click click click. Those buttons are my eyes! They were always my eyes. They saw everything from the coat of a wheeler-dealer: Mr. Ferris, the big wheel down at the carny. Doctor, my eyes have seen the pain of a lying diamond. Black eyes. No emotion. Predator. Predator sock monkey. Bad monkey.

Look at my skin. It wasnt born from a clean, new sock. No way. This is a sock that has been used. Look at my mouth. My mouth sheathed a real heel. A mans heel. It rammed against the end of a steel-toed boot. That makes a monkey tough. Very tough. Theres human blood in my mouth. Blister blood. And foot sweat. I taste foot sweat all the time. Lumberjack foot sweat. Im worn. Ive been around. My mouth has walked forty-seven miles of barbed wire. Bad monkey.

And the toe of that sock skin. You know where that is. You know what that toe became, dont you? You have your little baby names for it, but you know what it really is. Yup, its that toe that kicked me in the you-know-where. My very fiber is a kick in the behind. Thats what I am. I am a kick in the behind. Bad. Thats me. Kick it. Kick the bad monkey in the behind. Kick it.

Kick it. Turn it up. Louder, louder. The Little Fool never played Mr. Rogers pap in the Little Fools bedroom. This aint no nursery, this is our room, brothers and sisters, and we kick out the jams. We play the radio. We play it loud. Kick it. Going faster miles an hour. The Top 40, the FM college station. Janey said when she was just five years old, Little Fool never once gave it away. The Little Fool taking it. Its all pumping in. But do you like American music best? Mon-key?Records. Eight tracks. Cassettes. CDs. MP3s.The Little Fool always listens and I always remember. Everything. He left the music on in the room. He didnt turn the music off, ever. Even when he wasnt there. Even when he slept. And he left the refrigerator door open. Bad monkey. Bad rocking monkey.

Bad to the nylons stuffing my innards. Im not stuffed with old pjs. Theres no reassuring baby smell deep in me. No way. And Im not stuffed with sensible, modest pantyhose that got, oh, pshaw, a run. No! Im stuffed with nylons. Nylon stockings. Modern petroleum, chemical, artificial nylons that were held on with black lace garter belts around the legs of a woman. A woman. A woman with legs up to there. Not a lady. Not a child. A woman. Thats what my stuffing is. My stuffing smells like cheap perfume. Cheap perfume that was put on those shapely upper thighs. Thats not where you put perfume. Bad monkey.

Lumberjack sock stuffed with a womans nylons. Yeah, the old lady washed them. She washed me all. I was created clean, but that smell is deep. Deep. Deep. Its a smell of the soul, and my soul is a lumberjacks sole. Ive been worn. My soul has walked miles of barbed wire to smell the nylons of my innards.

Hustler eyes, lumberjack skin, the heart of a womans legs, and a grandmothers spoiling love. I got it all, baby. I got it all, my little baby boy. Drool on me. Grab me. Carry me. Rip me apart. Im a bad monkey.

The Little Fool calls me Dickie. Thats my name.

Why do you call him Dickie? the parents ask.

Because hes dickie colored, the Little Fool answers.

They laugh. They laugh at how cute the Little Fool is.

But hes lying. He learned how to lie from my button eyes. He calls me Dickie because its the baddest word he knows. And Im the baddest wammerjammer monkey he will ever love.

He will rip me apart with his love. And he will grow big. He will be very big. And he will never forget me.

And Ill love him forever like a bad monkey. Like a very bad monkey.

Yeah, sure, Im built from a lumberjack sock. Did you believe that? For a minute. I mean, how old do you think the Little Fool is? Huh? Do you think Im talking about another time, another reality full of lumberjacks and typing monkeys? Is that what you think? Gimme some truth! I dont even know what a lumberjack really does. Do people even use that word anymore? Do you ever use that word? Lumberjack. You idiot. The Little Fool believed it was a lumberjack sock when he got just a little too old to carry me around. When we stopped sleeping together. He learned the word lumberjack in some story meant to appease him. Daddy, story? His Daddy read him stories about lumberjacks.

What stories about lumberjacks do you read a child? Im not talking English sketch comedy with lumberjacks cross-dressing. Im talking about the packages of gay porn. The flannel parting to show a ripped six-pack stomach and a big shaft of heaven below. I guess flannel used to be a childs thing. A baby blanket thing. Comfort thing. Not any more. Smells like Seattle flannel.

Lumberjacks arent tough any more. Lumberjacks are for gays. I use the word gay, but you all know what everyone means. They went to all the trouble to lose all the bad words and make people say gay instead. They had the muscle, the flannel- and leather-covered muscle, to get us to do that. They had the New York Times and CNN muscle. But gay became the same word the bad words are. Thats the way it works. Avenue of the Americas means Sixth

Avenue because thats where it is. There are no magic words. Even the Little Fool knew that very early.

Lumberjack is for gays and babies. The Little Fool was forgiven. He was little. It was a story from his Dad. The Little Fool loved his Dad. The Little Fool loved me. He loved lumberjacks. And if he still does love a lumberjack now and again? Whats it to you? What are you looking at? The Little Fool grew up big. He grew up big enough to laugh at lumberjacks. And hes enough of a man to know theres something very sexy about lumberjacks. There just is. Imagine if I were made from a firemans sock. Try that on for size. Too sexy for a bad monkey. Way too sexy.