It was the middle of the night, and I was sleeping soundly, when the window beside my bed slid open. I shot up in terror as the oblong shape lumbered over the sill and put his foot upon my mattress. He huffed and grumbled and when the whole of him had finally made it inside I saw that it was my old friend Gandalf. Gandalf the Grey, we called him in those days. He was a wizard.
Through his long and heavy white beard the old man told me, “We’re going on an adventure.”
“Get the fuck out of here!” I said, and kicked at him furiously while he tried to grab my leg. “Get off me, you queer!”
“Queer, am I?” the old wizard said. That’s when he raised his magic staff above his head and turned me gay for a while.
For the next hour and a half Gandalf and his beard proceeded to do very sexual things to my very sexual body.
First we pressed the tips of our dicks together, head to head, a maneuver the old man called, “Bombadil’s Broomstick.” He then deftly parleyed this bit of foreplay into something he called the “Pippin’s Tickler,” which caused the tip of his pointy wizard hat to brush against the ceiling.
“And this one I call ‘Elrond’s Folly’!” he said. My body was faced away from him as he bent me over and grabbed my dick between my legs, pulled hard and flipped me over. My body spun and somersaulted in the air like a Chinese acrobat as the old man called out the names of each and every new sexual position like a pro-wrestling commentator. Next came ‘Treebeard’s Trick,’ which was followed by
‘Bofur and Bifurcated,’ and the always popular ‘Smeagol’s Shame.’
With his magic cane he turned me into a bird, and we had sex like birds, then he turned me into a fish, and we had sex in the fish tank, and then for a while I was a squirrel, and he fucked me. I guess conceptually this part was more like the “The Sword in the Stone.”
The whole thing was capped off with a stirring rendition of the “Ruin of the Black Gate,” and fireworks went off in my ass.
I could tell you I didn’t enjoy it, but the wizard knew all of the best spells, and when he turns you gay for a while, you really go all the way. Whole new avenues of pleasure were opened to me that I never would have entertained in my previous existence. My whole world was changed, for a little while, and when it was done I hardly knew who I was anymore. “My God,” I said, rolling off of his wrinkled naked body and onto the mattress beside him. “I never knew it could be like that.”
But the wizard just laughed his mirthful laugh and tapped his cane against the wall three times, and then I wasn’t gay anymore.
“That’s a dirty trick,” I said, pulling my clothes back on. “Now just what the heck kind of adventure did you have in mind anyway, and why is it so important?”
“It’s the ring,” the old lunatic said. “We have to destroy it.”
“Gandalf,” I said, “you destroyed the ring years ago in that middle-earth place. You and that Frodo guy.”
“Not that ring, you fool!” the old wizard barked, coughing up semen. “This is a different ring! A totally different thing.” And he showed me a Polaroid. It was just a picture of him in a garage somewhere, standing beside a pink hula-hoop.
“This is just you with a hula hoop,” I said, coughing up semen.
“Someone has stolen it from my robes!” Gandalf cried. “The dark one wants it back!”
“A black guy?”
“Yes!”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I hear they can be pretty rough…”
“Damn your eyes, you fool! Do you know what will happen if the ring is not destroyed before he finds it?”
“Whites will cease to be the majority in this country?”
“Yes!”
It was funny. I never took Gandalf for a racist before, but then strangely it didn’t really surprise me. They didn’t have black people where he came from, and his brain must have been very confused.
I still didn’t know what in the hell any of this had to do with a hula-hoop, but I figured the guy needed help. There was no going back to sleep now anyway, with all of the semen in my ass.
THE PACKING OF THE THINGS
In the driveway was parked Gandalf’s wooden cart that was tied up behind two magic ponies. I mean I assume they were magic. Why wouldn’t they be? One was named Reggie. The other was Bob. We threw our luggage into the cart and climbed aboard and Gandalf took the reins. As the wooden wheels lurched into motion and we started rolling into the road I noticed several of the neighbors eyeing the situation queerly.
How queer we must have looked! After all, it was 1986 and I was in a wooden cart with a big-ass wizard. One of the neighbors called out to me, asking if I needed the police. “Not yet,” I shouted back. And we were on our merry way.
THE GASSING OF THE ASS
Our first stop was to a gas station so we could stock up on Red Bull and beef jerky. Gandalf said he’d handle the gas while I got the food. I didn’t know what he meant, and when I came back out of the store he was just standing there with a blank expression on his face, staring into nothing, gasoline leaking out of one pony’s ass. He didn’t really understand how things worked in this world, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him. I walked over to the pony and removed the pump from its asshole and quietly placed it back into the handle. I reached for Gandalf’s shoulder, startling him badly. He snapped his magic staff in my direction, ready to transform me into any number of ungodly creatures. “Hey!” I said, hands up. “It’s cool! I got the beef jerky!”
Presently Gandalf came back to himself, became aware of his surroundings again. He sniffed at the air. “Jerky?” he said. I nodded. “Beef, did you say?”
“That’s right,” I said, reaching into my pocket. I had taken the liberty of transferring the jerky from its bag and into my pockets, as was the style at the time. I pulled out a fresh salty strip and dangled it before the old coot as you would a carrot to a carrot monster. This got his pointy wizard shoes moving again, and back into the cart. He chomped the meat with great relish, and we were back upon the road.
THE SWAMP OF FORBIDDEN PLEASURE
Later we were in a swamp. A magical swamp, I assume. Why wouldn’t it be? The moon swam in the dark sky above us. The air was thick and wet and the songs of many insects and bullfrogs were our music, while the radiance of the fireflies lit our way like so many dying candles. I noticed a mosquito on Gandalf’s cheek, and pointed it out to him.
Instantly he slapped at it, crushing it. He peeled the bloody bug from his face and inspected it in the light of his lamp. “Is that a mosquito?” he said. “Is that a fucking mosquito?”
“Jesus,” I said. “Calm down.”
“Oh, my God!” he cried. “I’ve got AIDS!”
“What?”
“AIDS!” Now Gandalf scrambled from the cart, practically tripping over his flowing wizard robes, and went screaming about the carriage and ponies like that King Kong lady.
“Gandalf!” I said, surprised he even knew what AIDS was. “You probably don’t have AIDS!”
“What are you, a doctor?” he said, still sprinting around the cart in a circle.
“I don’t think you can get AIDS like that,” I said. “Just malaria.”
“Malaria?” Gandalf said, finally slowing down and catching his breath. “I have a spell for that!” Then he gave himself a spell to cure malaria. Meanwhile about a dozen other mosquitos had gathered on his face. I didn’t say anything this time.
The wizard was coming back into the carriage when he halted suddenly, his head cocked toward the marshes like a dog. “What is it?” I whispered, trying to glimpse a clue through the soggy reeds. “Do you hear something?”
He sniffed at the thick night air. “Orcs,” he muttered. “They’ve come for us…”
“Orcs?” I said. “This is New Jersey.”
“We must hasten,” he said, retaking the reins. “The ring must be destroyed!”
But it was too late. They had found us. No, not the orcs. There was no such thing. We had fallen prey to something far worse that night in the swamps: red necks.
You might be surprised to learn that there are red necks in New Jersey. I was surprised too. But for some reason there really are a hell of a lot of them.
They came upon us in their plaid jackets and hunting caps, some of them wearing shades even though it was two in the goddamn morning. They lumbered around the cart like zombies, bows and shotguns in hand. They barked at us in mocking tones and spoke to each other in a language only their kind understands. I gathered only the words for ‘beer,’ ‘queer,’ and ‘democrat.’
“What do we do?” Gandalf said, halfway to panic.
“Don’t look at me! YOU’RE supposed to be the wizard!” I said, cocking my thumb at him.
The terrible creatures were almost upon us. Their staggering forms clattered against the wooden planks of the carriage and brushed against the frightened ponies, their plaid-covered arms reaching up. They snatched Gandalf from the cart first; the old man went kicking and screaming. I watched in useless horror as they pulled him into the reeds and beat him senseless. One of them came up wearing Gandalf’s wizard hat, and pretended to be a wizard. This elicited a great bout of laughter from the others, and for a moment they all clapped along together merrily, watching their idiot friend dance about however he imagined wizards do.
But then the dancing started to go on a little too long, the man in the cap unwilling or unable to give up the bit. “Okay, we get it,” someone said. “It’s over now.”
But still the man would not stop dancing, certain in his apparent belief that if he just kept the bit going a little while longer it would become funny again, perhaps even funnier than before.
His name was Andy, and he had a slightly more evolved mind for comedy than did his peers. But they couldn’t appreciate that, and they didn’t, and then one of them called Andy a queer.
Then Andy said, “Oh, queer, am I?” and with three taps of the wizard’s cane all of his friends became super gay for each other. Hats flew off heads, plaid jackets and denim jeans and long underwear peeled from bodies. Then everyone got down and dirty in the swamp, swamp dirty, a real swampy kind of hump. Nipples were clamped. Pubes were shorn. Sexual maneuvers were invented and refined and ultimately forgotten in the wake of some new orgasmic fad. These men had known each other for a long time, all of their lives in some cases, had gone on many a hunting trip or late night trek through the swamp in search of critters… and yet now here they were strangers, discovering each other for the very first time. They had never truly seen themselves before, had no idea of the true depths of passion and depravity that lurked in the great beating heart of the American mongrel red neck.
They went on like this until the collective sounds of their sucking and fucking rivaled even the cacophony of the creatures of the swamp.
For many of them their worst fear had been realized: that someone or something out there had made them gay.
And still for others there lurked a new fear: that they didn’t want to be straight.
In all of the sexual confusion I was able to reach Gandalf and drag him from the reeds. I was just loading his battered form into the back of the wagon when Andy (who would later come to be known as Mad Andy, Crazy Andy, or sometimes Andy of the Swamp) took notice. He stopped having sex with a man named Kyle and pointed his new wizard staff in our direction. He said to his friends, “Hey, you queers! Those queers are gettin’ away!”
I hopped onboard the cart and cracked the whip on those ponies, and they moved forward very slowly. Ponies, it turns out, are fucking useless. They don’t move very fast and they suck at manual labor. Science has proven that ponies are unable to form meaningful attachments and are generally unfazed by our emotional problems. Frankly their entire purpose on this earth is baffling.
The horde was closing in, penises erect and weapons ready, a dozen bare asses shining white beneath the moon. I saw my death in their eyes. “Gandalf!” I said. “Do a spell!”
“What?”
“A spell, you fruit! Do one of your magic thingies!”
“That guy has my cane,” Gandalf said, pointing at Andy.
“Ah, shit!” I said. The donkeys were still lurching too slowly and the rednecks were almost done wading their naked way through the swamp. They were almost here… and I remembered the jerky.
I reached into my pockets, hoping against hope that it would be enough… I flung the bits of dried meat behind us, scattering it in the dirt road. The rednecks took the scent.
Upon reaching the bank, they all began to dig around for beef jerky. Sure they were still hopping mad at me, and had I been just a bit more in reach they might have done something about it, but right now they had jerky.
I also threw a couple cans of Mountain Dew and Red Bull back there. It seemed to do the trick.
“But my hat!” Gandalf said, watching the men shrink behind us in the distance. “And my magic wizard cane!”
“We have to stop at the next gas station anyway for more jerky. You can get another magic hat and cane there.”
This seemed to settle the old man down. He put his hands in his lap and pouted.
And no, I don’t know if Andy ever turned his friends straight again. That part of the story is over.
GARAGE OF DOOM
About a year later we found the hoop. (Many adventures, trials, and tribulations were had, but none of them particularly worth talking about.) The hoop was in some guy’s garage all along, the same garage pictured in the wizard’s photograph. “We probably should have started here,” I said. Gandalf wasted no time. He moved across the garage in three quick strides and plucked up the unholy instrument of the white man’s doom. “So what now?” I said. “We gotta melt it in a volcano, or something?”
But Gandalf was already twisting the hot pink plastic in his rough old hands, bending it all out of shape, trying to snap it in two. He seemed to be having quite a time with it, so I offered to help. But he insisted he could handle it. He said it was his duty. “Okay,” I said.
The door to the house swung open. The owner stood there, a portly man in a robe and boxer shorts, a troubled look on his haggard face. “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” he said. “Not you again!”
At the man’s very appearance recognition flashed in Gandalf’s eyes. “Dave!” the wizard greeted him merrily. “How are you?”
“Like I told you before, fella, get the fuck out of my garage!” His eyes then went to the strangled hula-hoop in the old man’s fingers. “Hey, what the fuck did you do to my hula-hoop?”
But Gandalf seemed oblivious to the man’s tone or demeanor. “Dave,” he said, “Do you have a pair of scissors? I have to cut up this hoop in order to save Whitey.”
The man just stood there, fuming. He ran his chubby hand through his unkempt hair, across his heavily stubbled face. I imagined he’d not been employed for some time. “That was my favorite hula-hoop,” the man said. “Do you know what you’ve done here? The championships were next week…”
Gandalf, still not clocking the gravity of the situation, said, “Dave, I could really use those scissors.”
And Dave shouted, “My name is Sven!”
But Gandalf just laughed. Oh, the mirth, the mirth of it all. “Quit kidding around, old friend! Bilbo and the dwarves will be here any minute, and you can be sure they’ll want some honey and tea biscuits!”
“Gandalf,” I said quietly, touching his arm. “Bilbo died years ago. He was shot over a gambling debt. You know that…”
“Hm?” Gandalf said, turning his hairy old wizard head ‘round. “What’s that, you say?”
“Bilbo’s dead,” I told him. “The dwarves too.”
“The dwarves?” For a moment he didn’t seem to understand. “Dead? How?”
“Afghanistan,” I said.
His eyes went wide with confusion, and I saw such pain in them, such frustration, as though this were a name he should have recognized, and perhaps once did. His lips quivering gently he asked me, “Is that near Mordor?”
“Kind of,” I said.
“Okay,” Sven said. “I can see you two are having a moment, and I can see that the old man is clearly in need of serious medical attention, but the fact is that I bought a shotgun last year and I haven’t had a single chance to use it. Not one. And I’ve looked for one too, real hard, anywhere, for the slightest excuse. So I’m real sorry it has to be this way, but…” Sven lifted the shotgun at our heads. It was a real beaut, very shiny, and I could see why he wanted to use it so badly.
“Well, old friend,” I said to Gandalf. “I guess this is the end.” And I awaited my certain death.
But the old man, his mind long ago addled by dementia and cocaine, still had one surprise up his sleeve. For a moment it was like the old Gandalf was back, with that old twinkle in his eye, and always one step ahead…
He shouted, “No!” and dove out of the way like he was in a John Woo movie. The metal shot bounced off the cement underneath Gandalf as he grabbed me and we tumbled onto the pavement in the driveway. Another shot rang out. This one exploded the windshield of Sven’s car, which he cursed himself for loudly. We scurried like rats in any direction as the shotgun went BOOM, BOOM, BOOM…
And at some point in all of this chaos the old wizard got an idea. He was still holding onto the hula-hoop, and with one fantastic heave the bent and broken circle flew up into the air, spinning, spinning, higher and higher… I had no idea what was going on, what he was trying to accomplish. Naturally I had no choice but to chalk it up to his diseased old man brain again, but even Sven had ceased his onslaught. We all watched in wonder together as the sacred ring finally reached its apex, and then began its descent. Falling back to earth, down, down, down…
At last it landed, landing perfectly about the neck of Bob the donkey. It spun around his head for a bit before finally wobbling to a stop. The donkey never seemed to notice. At once Gandalf cried, “Bingo!” and hiked up his filthy robes so his withered yellow legs could get to dancin’. It was a horrid sight. He danced this way and that, spinning around like a dandy, and when he finally took a break for some imaginary applause, Sven was ready.
He took one more shot with his gun that day…
And hit Bob the donkey instead.
Bob the donkey, who was filled with gasoline.
In a spectacular spray chunks of Bob flew everywhere and pieces of hula-hoop scattered in all directions as we were misted with donkey blood. I looked around us, dazed, bleary. I felt for my parts to make sure they were still there. Gandalf coughed somewhere beside me, sitting up slowly.
And Sven was dead. Smoke rose from his corpse and lifted away. Sven’s wife came out at some point and yelled at us.
SEE YOU IN MORDOR
As we were preparing for our arrest I looked at my old friend, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Well, old friend,” I said. “The hoop is destroyed.”
“The what?”
“I’m really glad I could help you out, but now I think maybe it’s time you saw a doctor.” Gandalf turned to face me, a wry smile spread across his lips. That’s when I noticed the spirit gum. It was the only thing keeping his beard on. “Wait a minute!” I said. “You’re not Gandalf the Grey! You’re actor Ian Mckellan!”
And Ian Mckellan laughed a merry laugh and said, “Oh, so I am! You’ve caught me, dear boy!”
“What was it like working with Bryan Singer?” I said. “I mean did you suspect anything at the time?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“I always thought he would have tried to molest me. I mean back then, you know?”
“Oh, no doubt,” Ian said. “You were one hot piece of ass.”
“Fuck you, I still am,” I said, grinning. Then the old man nodded and we laughed together like only old friends can laugh. “But thanks, man. I really appreciate it.” Then he blew some of that magic pipe smoke up my ass.
And that’s what really happened.