This blog is the second part of my story about Uncle Percy's new adventure in Austin.  In case you didn't see the previous blog, called Uncle Percy in Austin-Again, you might ought to read it, just so you'd be up to speed on this story.  The short of it is that Percy lost his cool and beat the crap out of his former son-in-law and a meddling preacher with his trusty aluminum bat.  He also gave his ex-wife a couple of whacks across her big ass, and a judge decided that Percy had an anger management problem and sentenced him to a month of training in Austin.

Percy moved into his daughter's garage apartment, turned Biggie and Jake, his two dogs, loose in her back yard to play with her set of black labs, and started taking his classes.  His anger management instructor, or coach, is a guy named DeWayne Dampier, a social psychologist who teaches part time at the university and has a practice in Tarrytown.  Percy says he's getting along with him famously, even though DeWayne is effeminate, or as he puts it, "As sisssy as whore house piano player." 

Percy has encountered some difficulties with his sensitivity sessions, however.  Wanda Moody, the instructor, is also a psychologist, but she's got a few kinks of her own.  For one thing, Wanda sheds her clothes at most of her classes, and she encourages her students to do the same.  Wanda is a looker, and Uncle Percy says he's having a real hard time concentrating in her class.  And he's had some other difficulties.  On the second day of class, Wanda instructed all her students to sit in a circle.  She had them join hands, then asked them to turn to the person to their right and pass along a compliment.  It could be any kind of compliment.  Percy turned to the guy to his right, then told him that he had big hands, especially for a short guy.  The guy said thanks, but he looked like Percy had just kicked him in the nuts. 

Then Wanda instructed the class to turn to the person to their left and tell them what animal they reminded them of.  Percy said he knew he was in deep shit because the woman sitting next to him reminded him of Petunia Pig from the cartoons.  But he knew he couldn't say that, so he told her she sure had pretty eyes, especially for a fat gal.  She tried to sock Percy in the eye, but he had hold of her right hand, and she was too fat to get the other arm all the way around to him.  That little episode broke up the circle thing, however.  The fat gal started calling Percy "an ignorant redneck asshole," and other things like that.

Wanda had to keep Percy after class and speak to him about his choice of words.  She realized that he meant no insult by being so bluntly truthful, but she pointed out that sometimes being completely honest wasn't the best thing to do.  Sometimes we need to be more accomodating, she said.  It was a discretionary thing, she pointed out, to sometimes tell a small lie for the sake of keeping good will.  Using herself as an example, Wanda then asked, "So, Percy, would you say that I have the body of a 45 year old woman?"

"No."

"Why not?" Wanda said, smiling sweetly.

"Well, 'cause I cain't remember what a 45 year old woman's body looks like, for one thing."

"But Percy, that's not my point.  I go to the gym five times a week, and I eat right to make sure my body stays in good shape.  Do you think most 45  year old women look like this?"

"Well, I just saw one naked 45 year old woman, and that was Nadine, the gal I was married to.  And like you, Nadine was built like a brick shithouse, except maybe her titties were a little bigger and her ass a little smaller.  'Course now, her ass is two ax handles across, and her titties hang past her belly button.  But I'm not saying there's anything wrong with your body.  It looks plumb good to me, but I don't really have no point of comparison, other than what Nadine looked like back then," Percy said.

Wanda's sweet smile disappeared like a snow cone in August, and that's when she told Percy he needed some schooling in the appreciation of nakedness.  She assigned him some homework, which was to start going to a titty bar on South Congress called The Cat's Paw.   Percy's first night at the nudie club was an eye opening experience for him.  He'd been to strip clubs before, but that had been back thirty years before.  If Wanda wanted him to get comfortable around nudity, her plan worked.  Not only did Percy get comfortable with it, he got downright enthusiastic being around naked women.

First off, Percy didn't know beans about titty bar etiquette.  He paid his money at the door to get in, thinking that was it.  Then he saw all these guys with one dollar bills, and what they did with the money shocked him at first.  He'd never remotely considered poking a dollar bill into a gal's g-string . . . but what the hell, it's just a buck.  He ended up getting rid of fifty one dollar bills that first night.  And he even made friends with one of the strippers working there - a cute Latino gal named Renee.  And Renee introduced him to Terri, and Ricki, and Roxie, and all the others.  All those gals thought Percy was cute, and they gave him some lessons on titty bar etiquette.

So, that's all I know up to now.  He's been there for just over a week now, and Percy is hanging in there.  At 75 years of age, he's hanging a lot better than most people would, especially caught up in conditions like he's experiencing.  I can't say how much he's learned about anger management and sensitivity, but I'm almost certain some other folks are learning quite a bit from him.  DeWayne, Percy's anger management instructor, even went to The Cat's Paw one night, just as an assessment thing, he said.  Percy says
he cashed in five twenty dollar bills for ones during the evening, gave all of them away.  He even got a lap dance from Roxie, and on the way home he made a comment that perhaps he'd been too hasty in making judgments about his own masculinity, or lack thereof.  Percy said he didn't really know what he meant by that.

Anyway, Percy's got a long way to go yet.  I'll get back to you.

C. Duhon, 2/27/08