Undies in a Bunch

By Louise Cazley

UNDIES IN A BUNCH, is a collection of true-taled short stories and abstract poems. In UNDIES IN A BUNCH, Louise Cazley recounts hilarious, unpleasant, bizarre and positive episodes of her life.

Whether she is asking her mother to purchase her condoms at the youthful age of nine or expressing a fondness for things usually overlooked by most, Louise does not shy away from exposing herself and enlightening readers with her reflective humor.

Louise verbally illustrates her experiences in a fashion that will force you to contemplate, appreciate and at the very least, crack a smile. This timely comedy and romantic layer of stories will keep you intrigued until the very last page.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456739492

Louise Cazley

Louise Cazley is also the author of Falling into Place. She resides in the Bronx, New York. Visit her website at www.louisecazley.com

Book preview

Contents

I am a Writer

Hair Salon Condom

The Almost Popular Girl

Friday Romance, Sunday Nomance

Birthday Cake

Beggars shouldn’t be Choosey

A Thief in the Night

Visiting Time Expired

French Kissing, Junior High

Calypso

149th & 3rd

Merry Christmas??

Bringing Baibe Home

A Cockroach Here, a Cockroach There

Undies in a Bunch

Laundry and Prostitution

Only Venting

I once had a Friend Named Louise

Low Breast Esteem

This Ugly Feeling

Bellevue Offers Interactive Peep Shows

Goosey Gander

New York: My City, my Love

The Night Sun

I am a Lover

Life Beyond the Finish Line

Introduction

Life Beyond the Finish Line

The Last Day of September

Expressions of Our Love

Edward Lover

Introduction

High on ‘E’

Edward Lover

Still Life

I Wanted You This Way

Between Us

Thirty

Thirty

BLOGETRY

Pharmaceutical Toy Store

Bellevue does Anal

Coochie Wiping Habits

Dancing in Leather

Dominicans

Drunken Valentine Haze

Spanking the Monkey

A Sonnet for Weezy

Have the Password Ready and Your ID’s Out

Internet-fix

Introducing the Cabana Boys

Locker Room Phone Sex

Loose Change

Coochie Wiping Habits II

Relationship Resignation

Nosy Neighbor

Suits

Spanking the Monkey II

Thrill of the Chase

Welfare

The Silver Suit

Goodbye’s are like Springtime

The Two Moons

Desire to Inspire

Ap-ples

I Sleep to See You

Confetti in my Veins

Crazy is

Time by Your Lonesome

Don’t Look in the Eyes, and Tomorrow

Little Spirals

Hopelessly Devoted

Looking at Us

My Best

The Chase

Nothing’s Sacred

Old Habits Die Hard

Open-ended Wound

Perfect

Precious, Pretty

Raindrops

Salsa

Secrets

Whirl-winded

Breath

Sleeping Angry Leaves Me Cranky

Signing Off

Acknowledgments

I dedicate this book to my dreams.

Not dreams, like goals and aspirations,

the dreams that enter my mind when I am unconsciously in Zzz’s.

So vivid, colorful, lively and real.

Even in my sleep, my imagination does not cease.

If I wrote the same story

on a different day,

would the story be the same?

I am a Writer

I don’t remember what age I was when I began writing. I was about six-years-old when my teacher at the time handed one of my stories over to my mother and told her that I was a wonderful writer. It meant nothing to me then.

In that class, we were given workbooks in which we were encouraged to write and illustrate stories. The story that my teacher brought to my mother’s attention was a story about how I’d spent my weekend. My mom’s friend, the one with the big breasts, had braided my hair.

I didn’t write about the breasts; I only illustrated them protruding from her chest, which was behind me as I sat on the chair in my drawing and got my hair braided.

When my teacher walked away, my mom pointed at her friend’s illustrated breasts and asked with a sly smile, Louise, what are those?

I shrugged, feeling embarrassed.

No wonder he likes your stories. She said.

My mom kept all of my stories and drawings packed away until we came to live in America. It was just too much to carry over from London, but I would have loved to read my first written works.

I didn’t embrace it when my fifth grade teacher entered one of my stories in to a writing contest. I won the privilege of traveling with him to a school where they made my story into a book that would be used in their library.

I still hadn’t embraced it when I wrote a poem about the two moons I saw in a dream that I’d had. I sent that poem in to a newspaper contest because my tenth grade English teacher looked at me with admiration after he read it and told me that it was awesome. He saw something in my writing that I had not yet recognized.

I won the contest and my poem would be published in a book that I would have to buy. Right...

I began writing a story about a group of girls in junior high school when I was twelve, but I never finished it. In my teens, I wrote simple poems, short stories in my English classes and journal entries that backfired, but I limited myself by not considering that I could do more.

After I wrote my first book and kept writing and kept writing and kept writing after that, only then did I begin to embrace that I was a writer. And when I finally embraced what came so naturally to me, my mind opened up and divided itself into millions of tiny, electrifying directions in which my writing could take off.

My mind is like a relay race. Notice how the person receiving the baton always starts running before the person handing it off catches up with them? That is my mind. It’s a wonder that my head only contains one brain. My mind is always going, always churning, always turning. When I’m awake, when I’m asleep. One thought begins before the other is completed. Sometimes I sleep with paper and a pen close by because when I am in a zone, I want to capture each thought in jars like fireflies as they slowly float by.

I know for a fact that writing is what I would be doing no matter where I landed on this earth when I was born. Writing was born with me. It was born in me.

My opinion is a little biased, but I believe that my writing is good. Pretty damn good in some cases. I also believe that it could be better. My writing could always be more detailed, more intricate and it will be, because I will never stop. And when you are possessed with a joy, with a love and a passion for something you are good at, you can only improve. You can only increase.

Writing is my love. Writing is my art.

I love the freedom in the abstractness of it all.

It beats in me, it flows through me.

I’ve got the alphabet flowing through my veins.

Each piece has its own life and I see them, my treasures, before they are born.

I beam inside when I capture the essence of perfection with my words.

With words you can take your pain and make it beautiful.

With words you can make a simple piece of paper come to life.

This book is a product of my jumbled brain.

I am a writer.

I own it.

I am a writer.

Hair Salon Condom

One day my mother and I are walking through a pharmacy located inside the Port Authority Bus Terminal. On our way out, we pass a string of condoms located at the register. Why weren’t they in boxes?

I point at the string of condoms and ask my mother, loudly, if she can buy one for me. There are people lined up at the register, but I am too young to be conscious of any reactions to my request if there were any.

I have no idea what condoms are or what they are used for.

My mother turns to see what I am pointing at. When she sees what I am asking her to buy me, she abruptly turns back around telling me to stop asking her to buy me things.

Something in her tone tells me not to ask again.

I was notorious for embarrassing my mother with my ignorance. Like the time there was a lull in a conversation she was having with one of her respected friends and I decided this was the perfect opening for me to inform them that my friend’s mother had PMS. I can imagine that my mom wanted to plant the back of her hand onto my mouth at that moment, but I’d already made the atmosphere uncomfortable enough with my topic of conversation.

Later, after scolding me for jumping into an adult conversation when no one was talking to me in the first place, my mother educated me on what PMS was. Oh, how I regretted opening my trap.

My mother is a very proper lady and does not discuss topics such as mood swings that have to do with bleeding vaginas, she does not discuss anything that goes on inside the bathroom and the word ‘fart’ does not exist in her vocabulary. She certainly was not discussing condom usage with her nine-year-old.

Why was a nine-year-old asking her mother to buy her condoms?

Well, one day I was going through my mother’s bedside drawer and discovered one of those balloon-like rolled up things. Upon further inspection, I found that when unrolled, just a tad, it fit perfectly onto my Barbie’s head making her look like she was at the hair salon.

The Almost Popular Girl

I always had a thing for the popular girls but I was never meant to be one. One of them would always latch onto me because I was nice and I always had little trinkets and knick-knacks that I would share with them; but I was never meant to be kept around for long.

The thing that drew me to them was their style. Their hair and clothes were always outstanding. One girl, Eileen, who was of black and Puerto Rican descent, had the most beautiful hair. It spiraled into tight ringlets that sprung into the air and around her café au lait face. She was tall and very well spoken for an eleven-year-old which gave her an advantage among the teens. Everyone wanted to be around this girl.

Natasha was Puerto Rican and very pretty. She had dark, wavy hair, dark eyes and full lips. She was so lady-like with her colorful headbands, watches that matched her outfits and dainty bra straps peeking out from under her shirts.

Those girls always looked nice and I wanted to be around both of them all of the time. I was not yet into boys so I was as excited about these girls as I would be about boys in a few months.

My mother, who was able to read these girls for what they really were, disapproved of their character.

I don’t understand why you would want to be around those girls! They are not nice. Why don’t you become friends with Joanne?

Joanne was nice, and she later became a very good friend to me, but I saw her as a dork so I was not interested in becoming friends with her. Joanne wore her oversized shirts tucked into her high-waisted jeans which were slightly baggy on her skinny frame. And she wore her wavy, blond hair in a style that was almost, but not quite, a mullet.

It took me some time to recognize my place alongside her and accept the fact that I was just as much a dork as she was.

Natasha and Eileen became my best hangout buddies. My only stylish fashion piece was my Gap denim jacket and it did wonders for my outfits. With the Gap jacket, I really looked like I belonged.

I was having a ball being the almost-popular girl when some envy began brewing. Whenever they could, Eileen’s parents would give my family a ride home after church. Sometimes we wouldn’t go straight home. Instead, we would have dinner at a restaurant before heading home. This quality time I was getting with Eileen didn’t sit right with Natasha at all. I was small potatoes to her. She couldn’t care less whether she had me around or not. Eileen was the one she really wanted to be friends with. With me out of the picture they could go skipping off into the sunset together.

One night we are doing our usual ‘hangout after church’ thing when Eileen turns to me.

Louise, I need to talk to you. There are a few things Natasha told me that you have been lying about.

I quickly realize, as my heart rate accelerates, that this will not be one of our normal hangout sessions.

She rattles off random stories Natasha has told me that I have repeated to her. Not bad stories, just silly facts like, the Sunday school teacher wears pink socks instead of stockings.

I look at Natasha, then back at Eileen. Yeah, that came from Natasha.

Natasha looks me dead in the eye and shakes her head, No. It didn’t

Yes, it did. Last Sunday when Eileen wasn’t here, you said…

No. Natasha says with a chuckle. I didn’t

Eileen throws her hands in the air, exasperated. Either way, She says to me. I know that you think of me as your best friend but you’re not mine. Natasha is.

A knife in my heart.

I don’t fight and I don’t argue. I just leave both of them to each other.

I just want my mother. I am safe with her. I find her and we go home.

I am not in the mood for my one-year-old brother. I am hurt, upset and I take my anger out on him. My mother puts a quick stop to my behavior. She sits me down and firmly explains that all he wants to do is play. I should be happy that he wants to spend time with me. I burst into hysterical tears.

My mother just looks at me. She knows that the tears are not about my brother but she says nothing. She just allows me to cry.

Friday Romance, Sunday Nomance

My shortest romance lasted a total of two days. I was twelve-years-old and had the hots for a skinny, Puerto Rican boy (also twelve-years-old) in my church. The way he took extra care to return my niceties clued me in that he was also interested in me.

Finally, on a Friday night in August, he asked me to be his girlfriend. He presented me with a watch to seal the deal. It was a boyish watch, way too big for my wrist, but I proudly slipped that watch on my wrist and claimed my new title as ‘Girlfriend of Skinny Puerto Rican’. We didn’t kiss, we didn’t hold hands and we didn’t have each other’s phone numbers. Things were so uncomplicated back then.

There were so many exciting things taking place in my life at that time. There was a new addition to my family as my mother had just given birth to a baby boy. My other younger brother and I were on a semi-vacation on Long Island. We were staying with a married couple, Bill and Tina, who lived near a beach, while my mother and the baby got comfortable with each other back in the Bronx. And now, I had a boyfriend!

But when I saw him in church on Sunday night, something had changed. He approached me with a girl, a chubbier version of myself with a thick, black braid snaking down her back. His face was blank as he said, I want my watch back. I can’t be with you anymore. I want Jade to be my girlfriend now.

What could I say? I slipped off the watch and handed it to him.

I’m sorry… He said, and then he was gone.

As a crier, it took all of the strength I had not to burst into tears on the spot as I watched the back of his t-shirt and shorts clad body walk away from me. I held it together until I was in the dark shadows of the car driving back to Long Island, then I cried quietly into my wrists using my skirt to dry them every couple of teardrops.

At the time I felt like it was a sin to be interested in boys so I kept my pain hidden.

We stopped at a supermarket and Bill got out of the car. Tina turned around just as the overhead lights came on.

Are you okay? She kindly asked me.

I just have a headache. I lied.

Since when did headaches begin producing tears?

Are you sure? You just have a headache, you’re not crying?

No, my head is just hurting.

O-kay… She replied in a singsong voice, but she left me alone.

I could have told her. Talking about it would have made me feel better. But boys were the devil and I couldn’t risk her telling my mother that I liked one.

Birthday Cake

Thirteen; I couldn’t wait! At twelve, when people asked how old I was I would gracefully place my hand on my chest and say, "I, am a Pre-teen."

I had such visions of what it would be to live life as a teenager. There would be fireworks, parties, breasts (my own of course), kisses from boys - the kind you saw on television, cool cliques that I belonged to… My thirteenth birthday was destined to be the greatest day ever!

My birthday fell on a weekday. A very ordinary day. There were no fireworks, just a question from my best friend, Gia, as we walked to school together. So, what does it feel like? Do you feel any different?

I just knew that when I got home, there would be a party waiting for me. I couldn’t get through the day fast enough.

Imagine my crushed surprise when I got home and there was no party, no present and worst of all, no cake when I KNEW that there was cake mix in the cabinet. I spent the rest of the evening sitting on the couch trying not to show my mother how upset I was with her. Trying not to cry as those two sentences kept running through my head. ‘But there is cake mix in the cabinet! All she had to do was mix it!’

I take my birthday very seriously.

My younger brother and I share the same birthday month. His birthday is about a week and a half after mine. I am filled with such a jealous rage when, later that week, we (My mom, two brothers, my friend, Rachel, and I) are on our way to church on a Friday night, accompanied by a cake box.

How dare she!? She knew that all I wanted was cake. No present, just cake. And she didn’t even have to buy one! She could have made one for free! I knew she loved him more than she loved me.

"I would looove to knock that cake on the floor." I said, only half joking.

I don’t think you want to do that. Rachel replied.