The Hedgehog

"You let people take your picture?" asked Tony. "Fuck that, man. You never know who these people are. I wouldn't let nobody take my picture, I was you."

"I don't let anyone take pictures of me by myself. It's always with hot women, and I give 'em an email address and ask 'em to send me the shot. If they don't wanna do that, or they don't agree, then no picture."

"Who the fuck would want a picture with you?"

"Tourists," I replied.

"Come on, seriously? You're full a' shit."

"Fuck, yeah. You'd be surprised. People walk down the street around here and ask us to pose for pictures. I only do it if it's some hot piece of ass from out-of-state who wants to email it to me. Otherwise, it's no good."

"What?" he asked. "People want to get a picture with a bouncer? Who gives a shit?"

"I dunno, man. I guess if you live in Anchorage, Alaska, it's kind of a novelty to get your picture taken with a Manhattan nightclub bouncer, although I can't exactly see why that's a big deal."

"Anyone ever send you one?"

"Shit, yeah," I replied. "I got a lot of 'em. I got a whole file of girls on my computer."

"Sure, who needs porn, right? You're a sick fuck."

"How am I a sick fuck? You wouldn't want pictures of you standing around in a suit with hot girls posing with you?"

"Gives you plenty of material," he offered.

"Exactly. Lot easier than the real thing, don't you think?"

"Sex is overrated."

"Especially at our age," I said. "Pain in the ass."

"Yeah, all the shit leading up to it is better than the act itself. That usually kind of sucks."

"Pretty much, nowadays."

"It's hard on the wrists," he said, extending his arms to show me his palms. "Holding yourself up like that."

"Right. And then you start getting tired, and your arms collapse, and then you're all on top of 'em and shit, and they don't like that, so you gotta get back up in that fuckin' pushup position and keep movin'."

"And by the time they're ready, you're fuckin' shot from doin' pushups all that time, and you're sweatin' your ass off, and it's hard to even get the whole thing over with because you've basically been workin' out for ten minutes, or whatever, and the last thing in the world you wanna be doing at that point is bangin' a girl."

"Exactly," I said. "And then, when you're all fucked up and sweating and out of breath, and you can barely even hold yourself up anymore, they're expecting you to finish up, and if you don't, they get all emotional about it and think it's their fault."

"The whole thing's just a big, fat fuckin' mess, you ask me."

"You know, you don't always have to be in the same position. You can switch that shit up every now and again. Get a little variety into it once in a while. It helps."

"I wanna be like Ron Jeremy," he said, "an' just lay down and point at the fuckin' thing and say, 'There it is, honey. Hop on.' That way, I wouldn't have to do a damned thing. I could just sit back, put my hands behind my head, and not have to sweat like a fuckin' pig every fuckin' time."

"That's what I try to do."

"Yeah, but aren't you always pissin' and moanin' about how you never get laid?"

"Yeah," I replied. "That's kind of my thing."

"You ever stop and wonder why?"

"Not really. Too busy."