Beefsteak Mistake, Jake

By Kelly Jameson

Well, Tourette’s camp didn’t work out so well for me. So years later, when I’m a man, I find myself sitting in a bar—with a bartender who knows me and who doesn’t take it personally when I look him in the eye, twitch, cough, and scream,"You cocksucking monkey fucking music whore I want more!"

Tourette’s typically has an onset at age seven or eight but is rarely diagnosed before age eleven. When I was twelve, my parents figured I must have had some sort of neurobiological condition after I looked at my aunt, started to twitch and spit, and screamed "Fucking cuntsore motherfucker did you wipe your ass!" while my dad carved a golden brown 20-pound Thanksgiving Day turkey. After a few more shoulder shrugs and head jerks, I told her that her vagina was bigger than the state of Texas and she probably sucked cock like a drunken monkey. Then I barked like a dog. And asked for more mashed potatoes. With gravy. I was sent to my room.

Then, inexplicably, I was sent to live in foster care with Jehovah’s Witnesses.

One of the first descriptions of Tourette’s syndrome was written in the 1800s by French neurologist Jean-Marc Itard, who was caring for a girl who developed vocal tics at the age of seven.

What I have is called coprolalia, the expression of obscene words, a form of Tourette’s that is not as common as the media makes out. Sometimes I’m also obsessive, compulsive, inattentive, hyperactive, impulsive, learning disabled and depressed and I probably eat too much Spam. I have a lot going for me. Apparently, though, this coprolalia won’t affect my IQ or lifespan, unless I happen to get into a nasty bar fight involving knives as a result of my uncontrollable obscene verbal spurts.

Let me say upfront that I have no desire to be a role model for other people. I wish I could say I’d done a bunch of shit today.

Anyway, somebody drops a couple quarters in the jukebox. Jukebox pukebox cukes socks. Yes, this bar I’m in actually has a jukebox. Someone’s chosen Billy Joel’s Piano Man. For a few moments, I cease barking. People go back to not paying me any attention. They almost seem disappointed.

Really serious musicians make fucked up faces when they play, so I took up piano. It was a natural fit. Let’s face it, I make a lot of fucked up faces when I’m not playing an instrument. There’s been recent speculation that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had Tourette’s. Apparently he wrote letters to his cousin Maria Anna that contained many obscene words, mostly having to do with bodily functions. He was also hyperactive, suffered from mood swings, and had tics. I don’t know, maybe he just had gas.

Like my tics, life is sudden and chewy and itchy. My parents put me on methylphenidate but my symptoms got worse. I cursed at my teachers. I cursed at my neighbors. I cursed at my neighbors’ dogs and cats. I cursed at inanimate things like mailboxes and toilets and toilet paper. The doctor put me on clonidine. I threw dictionaries in class, followed by five-minute verbal outbursts involving piquant obscenities aimed at my whoreass teacher. Classmates said uncomplimentary things. And here I thought I was making progress. Fog egress press un-chess King me random bitch, I confess.

Well my Jehovah Witness foster family in all their divine wisdom took me off all medications, because you see, they had prayer. Prayer fair pay the fare. They told me God would fix me.

I listen to Mozart—Douche Bag Ass-Fuck Butthole I need some hair pie Sylvester Stallone Sly!—all the time. Mozart. What a beautiful man. He wrote love letters to his cousin Maria Anna. He said things like “Oui, by the love of my skin I shit on your nose, so it runs down your chin."

So, here I am, in Texas, thinking about how cool Mozart was and swearing an orchestration of obscenities out my butthole in a bar that smells like piss and Pabst Light. When I’m good and loaded, I start walking until I find a nice neighborhood, go up to doors, knock, and give out pamphlets with titles like “Soon all suffering will end.” The brochures have pictures of families sitting on picnic blankets next to some wooden buckets of wholesome apples. I wonder if any of them ever lost a tooth eating one of those hard-core apples. I realize I should’ve pissed before I left that bar.

It’s almost a hundred and ten fucking degrees outside and I’m wearing a sports jacket, a tie, and jeans. What an asshole. The street is tree-lined. Felined purloined built up suburbanized galvanized sanitized foul oh it’s just the cat’s meow. I walk up to the first house and knock on the door. An overweight middle-aged woman with a glass of red wine in her hand answers. She is draped in expensive jewelry—jewelry foolery spoolery--and wearing cowboy boots. No clothing of any kind. I try to keep my eyes on her face.

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