Fuck Your Mom

…And Your Dad

CLIT IS AN UNDERUSED WORD

By Conrad Weems

She was nineteen, her jeans low, her belly sunburnt from rooftop lounging. He’d just come back from the ship, all swagger and nowhere to be. They met somewhere unimportant: a base BBQ, a dive bar, the sidewalk in front of a liquor store.

In 1976, every night smelled like hot plastic, motel sheets, and cheap hairspray. You didn’t talk about it in the morning. You flipped the tape. Side A again.

We forget, but they were fire once; our parents. Salt-skinned and alive. Young and dumb and fuckable

This is Carrier Heat, a flashpoint. An erotic reconstruction of a truth no one admits: everyone used to be gorgeous.

Every generation danced.

Every generation flirted.

Every generation burned.

1976 wasn’t disco and roller skates for everyone. Some were making bad choices in base housing, flipping through dirty paperbacks and using record players like Ouija boards. The air smelled like salt and resin. They wanted something warm. And dumb. And stupidly real.

He shaved that morning but left the shadow. Put on the A-shirt, took it back off. The heat in San Diego sticks to you like a second skin. He smells like motel soap and motor oil, and he says he’s leaving in the morning. He’s said that before. His dog tags are hot to the touch. The fan clicks once. Then again.

He wore his dog tags like drag, a pair of briefs like fashion. Tan lines where a uniform should be, hips made for standing at attention.

That navy haircut, a little too long — punk creeping in at the edges.

Her hands on his chest, Fleetwood Mac on low. The fan rattling in the window. A photograph in soft grain and bad decisions.

He’s not your father in this picture. He’s not anyone’s. He’s just some guy who looked like this before you existed, and you can’t handle that.

There is nothing more subversive than remembering desire.

1976: Carrier Heat

1. “Love and Happiness”

-Al Green

2. “Sarah Smile”

-Hall & Oates

3. “Wishing on a Star”

-Rose Royce

4. “Let’s Get it On”

-Marvin Gaye

5. “Lowdown”

-Boz Scaggs

6. “This Masquerade”

-George Benson

7. “Ain’t No Sunshine”

-Bill Withers

9. “Dreams”

-Fleetwood Mac

In Her Bag:

* Bonne Bell lip gloss

* Bic lighter (with stickers)

* Crumpled ticket stub from Taxi Driver

* A paperback of The Front Runner with a candy wrapper stuck to chapter seven

In His Room

* Fold dress whites on the chair

* A half-finished cassette mix

* An open bottle of HamMs

* A letter home he wrote but never mailed