Aunt Jerry

All my life, I've had an Aunt Jerry. Aunt Jerry isn't related by blood, but by love, and has always been a fixture, and the one who spoiled myself, and my brother, unmercifully.

Oh, and Aunt Jerry is a man. He's the roughest, toughest old style cowboy I've ever found in north Texas, and he does a fabulous Reba MacEntire impersonation.

It never seemed strange to call the cowboy with the chest hair peeking out of his shirt collar "aunt," mostly because thats what I always knew him by, and my parents never made a big deal out of it. When my brother and I were old enough to understand that there was something "different" about Aunt Jerry, and ask questions, he answered them honestly, fully, and always.

I love my Aunt Jerry.

He also has a very twisted sense of humor about his sexuality, when he wants to. Homophobes beware, he'll turn from down home country cowboy to flaming butt pirate in 2.5 seconds, if you can't treat him as a human being.

Most guys my age who have met him, generally push past a slight homophobia when they find out that years ago, he was married to a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, if only to ask him what the hell he was thinking, being gay.

Aunt Jerry claims veto rights on my boyfriends, which is why he rarely gets to meet any of them (ok so they don't always last long enough to make it to that stage...) This story shows exactly why I take care who I introduce to my favorite Aunt....

A few years ago, I was dating a kid from up by Pueblo... not much of a cowboy, but he knew what to say to get my attention, and I was young and stupid. Still am, but I hope I've learned some lessons along the way.

Wes was in need of a job, so I got him in on flagging, and the Farm Parents agreed to let him stay with us until he could get a place of his own. Except somehow it never happened.

He would sit around, drink beer, and watch tv all day, not help out around the house, not pay rent, and generally just leech off of anything he could find. By the time we went to Aunt Jerry's house for an evening, we'd already had a couple of discussions about this. Farm Mom was getting pretty exasperated.

So, we haul him with us for dinner with Aunt Jerry and his boyfriend, on Jerry's ranch out in the middle of nowhere.

As we walked in the door, Jerry brushed aside both of my parents, his long time friends, and picked me up in a big bear hug, exclaiming over how beautiful I was getting, and bemoaning the fact that I didn't dress to show off my figure, as he always does. Then he turned to Wes.

"So this is the boyfriend, huh?" Jerry stuck out his hand to shake Wes's, and Wes, knowing from talking to me how important this man was to me, stepped forward with a smile, holding out his own hand.

Jerry did something I'd half expected, and decided to "play" with Wes.

At the last second, Jerry changed direction, and grabbed Wes's crotch.

He spent a moment feeling around with a puzzled, thoughtful expression on his face.

"Where is it?? Did you leave it at home?? Farmgirl... do you have it?!?"

At this point I was shaking my head over Jerry's antics, knowing he was just playing around, but Wes was terrified. His smile was half frozen on his face, his eyes looked as if he might bolt for the back forty, and his hand was still hovering, outstretched, to shake a hand that wasn't there. A strange man had hold of a favorite part of his anatomy, was insulting said favorite part, and to top it all off, Jerry had thrown in just a dash of his you-go-girlfriend gay attitude.

"I... Um.... That is...."

"That, honey, is not a dick. I'll show you a dick. TONY! Come in here, darlin, and show this boy what a grown up looks like."

At this point, I had to step in, before I had to track Wes across half of Texas when he spooked.

"Aunt Jerry, I'm young and impressionable, I don't need to see that."

"Oh, you're right, fine, fine. But does your boy toy at least know how to use it??"

"I wouldn't know."

"Good girl. Come on folks, steaks are almost done!"

Jerry played nice as everyone ate dinner and had a couple of beers. Later on in the evening Jerry put some music on, and herded everyone into dancing, at which point he decided that he simply must teach Wes how to dance properly.

So he taught Wes a ballroom style dip.

By dipping Wes.

Repeatedly.

When Wes started getting uncomfortable with the whole process, my much loved Aunt looked down at him from the upper hand of the dip, gave him a sultry wink, and said in a low, seductive tone "You're cute when you blush."

Wes struggled out of Jerry's grip, ended up on the floor, and spent the rest of the night sulking because I was laughing too hard to help him up.

He didn't last long after that night, and shortly I'd chalked him up as one of those young and stupid mistakes we all make, and moved on. Jerry helped me realize the mistake sooner than I might have, and I still chuckle to myself every time I think of the deer in the headlights expression on Wes's face when "the gay dude" had ahold of his tallywhacker, making comments to the room at large.

I love my Aunt Jerry.