Admiration at a Cost

Through the rifles scope I can see her beautiful smile. Her short blonde hair is held back in a small ponytail and she’s wearing a burgundy Christmas dress with a mint-green sache tied into a large bow about her waist. The corners of her mouth are curled upwards as that smile widens, letting her shiny white teeth show – all accounted for which is nothing short of a miracle for such a young child. Despite the cold weather, a group of adults are huddled in a circle on the lawn beside the driveway which is where the child sits holding a plastic doll. The adults are bundled up in sweaters and beanies and a few of them are holding mugs of something hot as steam rises quickly from between their hands. The rest of them are clinging onto glass beer bottles.

Across the street and atop a hill adjacent them, I am perched against the outside of a house enshrouded in darkness. All of the lights are turned off. I can see the warm breath escape my body as each exhale splits the brisk night air. The puffs of steam seep out of me steadily as I struggle to hold tight the heavy rifle. The gun’s metal is even colder than the winds chill, and because of the sweat beginning to crawl down my face due to my exertion, the rifle sticks to my face. Everyone behind me quickly grows irritated the longer their anticipation stretches on.

“Aim for the porch light next to the garage,” Carl says, and he points a finger to my mark. The light bulb burns white from within its fixture, illuminating most of their front yard. “Hurry the hell up, we need to leave.” He walks away from me and through the open door of our house, leaving the others standing behind me with their eyes remaining fixed on the neighbors porch light. One of the men behind me, Chris, is holding a bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand and occasionally takes a chug then passes it to the other man, Jace. Before the gun was brought out and handed to me I was next in line for the alcohol. But not now.

With one eye socket pressed to the scope, I close my other eyelid. This is how they did it in the movies. I had used one other gun before, and that was in a remote desert with nothing but brush and sand to aim for. But I was an excellent shot with a rubber-band gun, and an even better showman as I could spin the gun around a single finger and place it into a plastic holster – all in one very quick motion. Yet, despite fancying myself a more handsome Doc Holiday, this time everything just felt… real.

The sound of swishing liquid from within a bottle drew nearer. “You need to just aim straight and hold it a little higher,” Jace suggests and he begins to contort my shoulders and arms using his free hand. From within our house doors are slammed shut at a frantic pace as Carl goes from one to the other. Taking aim once more, the cross hairs begin to sag down to her face yet again as my arms grow weak and begin to tremble. The little girl is sitting in the driveway still, only now she is fidgeting with her doll’s clothing. My fingers ache from being held in place for so long and my shoulder has gone numb from the pressure of squeezing the weapon firmly. The stucco exterior I am leaning against has scratched at my skin forming a rash. The drunken mumbling from behind me is comforting; I know if anything goes wrong these men will protect me. I want to impress them and be accepted. I can still see the bullets being pressed into the cartridge and the cartridge then loaded into the rifle I am now holding. The copper tips of the bullets felt sharp when pressed to my fingertips. I pause to look back at them: Carl has now rejoined the group outside and the trio look to me and then in unison back across the street – signaling for me to continue.

My mind races so fast that I feel groggy, and many emotions course through my veins with such intensity I feel as though my chest will burst. I fear the immediate effect of pulling the trigger: the rifle exploding sending vibrations deep down to the bones of my body causing me pain. I fear losing my grip afterwards and the rifle falling out of my hands and to the ground. I fear missing the porch light and hitting the little girl and the sound forever echoing guilt throughout my existence. What if it goes off again once it hits the dirt? What if the pressure breaks my shoulder? Most importantly, what if I let them all down? It must be a test of some sort, I think to myself. In an effort to bolster my resolve, I begin to think of how I can brag to my very few Jr. High friends about actually shooting a rifle and drinking whiskey with adult men — as though I too am already a man and have quickly surpassed anything I could ever learn in school. The teenagers during my lunch period will foam at the mouth in jealousy, or so I hope.

“He isn’t going to do it, I told you we shouldn’t have even bothered.”

“Shut the fuck up, he’ll do it just give him some time.”

“It has to be done tonight. That little motherfucker isn’t going to get away with it, and we need to know if Will can do it, so get him to hurry the fuck up.” I keep rigid despite Carl’s lack of confidence, but I don’t want to imagine doing whatever else it is they expect me to do. This is a new development and something I was never made aware of. I was told stories about Carl before, and though embarrassing my brother by failing to do what they ask would be tough on our relationship, I find myself more bothered by the thought that I might actually do whatever is necessary simply to gain their trust and become a reliable part of the group. That and, of course not to piss off Carl. The stories weren’t the prettiest. Movement from across the street catches my attention.

The girl slowly stands up and the wind catches her ponytail swaying it about as she then straightens her dress. She looks around the yard and over to the adults, then to the street and then up to our house. Even though I know just how well hidden we all are, I can’t help but feel naked at the same time. Thinking back in hindsight, she glared at us through a darkness that I had no idea of just how sinister it truly would prove to be. Then, as if she saw nothing, she smiles and turns away from us.

Now is my chance. My biceps burn but I force the pin-point of the scope to be as close to the porch light as possible and I squeeze the trigger slowly. I was only committed to them knowing I fired the weapon, not that I could hit the light. So I let the barrel’s aim fall fast to the dirt a few feet in front of us and far from the little girl just as the trigger fully compressed. I cringe in fearful anticipation and clench both of my eyes shut. But there is no sound. There is no screaming, no blood soaked child sprawled out and no shattering of glass. Not even an explosion of dirt from where I truly aimed. I exhale slowly, relieved that I found a way around their demands. Then I notice the absence of sound. Nothing at all actually happened. The gun is still within my hands. So I open my eyes and look to the neighbors house which remains brightly lit. Behind me no one has noticed my gallant effort, and I am quickly berated for taking so much time. The aches in my body are too much to bare now, and I let the gun down slowly and its barrel rest on the ground. Carl rushes to my side and seizes his weapon from me. “Stop fucking day dreaming,” he says before stomping away. Chris grabs me by my shoulders, turns me around to face them all and presses me back against the stucco wall – which now digs into me even worse than before, piercing through my shirt like a million tiny daggers. Carl goes into the house and begins to lock the other doors and windows getting ready to leave. Jace glares at me and then follows behind Carl pleading on my behalf for a second chance.

“Listen, ignore them, if you don’t want to do it then don’t. It’s totally cool man, just calm down and relax.” Apparently my shaking was from far more than the bitter cold and not having a jacket. “Can you do it? We need to know now if you can do it,” he says. I’m confused; am I being asked to help them with ‘that little motherfucker’ or am I being asked if I can shoot out the neighbors porch light despite an entire family standing outside of their house.

I conclude it’s the former and again I am frozen in fear. I think of the little girl and how the texture of her hair looked like my mothers whenever my mom would brush her hair out in our living room. In her sky blue robe reeking of cigarette smoke, my mother would sit on our couch and brush her hair and brush her hair and brush her hair until it nearly fell out. Her hair became so thin over the years it took on an originality I had never seen before. Brittle and wispy, her hair was a light brown and despite the damage done to it it could always be made up into something beautiful and exquisite when she would get dressed up. Their smiles were similar too I thought; my mothers and the little girls. My mother even had a velvety mint-green evening gown she would often wear during the Christmas season. The thought of inadvertently putting a bullet through either of their heads – and anyone else’s, was more than I could take and so in that moment with Chris I told him no.

“No, I can’t,” I said loud enough for the other two to hear. For some reason I felt as though I did the opposite of what the screwed up logic of the situation demanded: and thus by not doing what was expected I showed guts and boldness and passed their test. Alas, from within the hallway of the opened house all I heard was, “Told you he’d pussy out.”
Chris grips both of my shoulders and says, “Listen, good. Good for you, don’t feel bad for that at all. It’s okay little man.” Then he and Carl get into a car. Shortly after, I’m enveloped in a large shadowy silhouette as Jace approaches me. He has a look of contempt that causes me to feel ashamed in a way I had never felt before. “You just lost yourself fifty grand. There goes college and anything you could want. Fifty fucking grand, gone. That was fucking stupid.” He walks away from me and to the car, which is loaded with other weapons and the bottle of whiskey. He gets in and they drive off leaving me alone and in a dismal state.

I go back inside the dark house, shut and lock the door, and then peek through the blinds of a window facing that little girls house. She’s now gone, and most of the adults too. Those adults left gather patio furniture and put it into the garage. They shut the garage door, go inside the house through the front door and then the outside porch light quickly goes black. I walk over to a table in the kitchen and empty my pockets.

Beside a slew of spread out playing cards and poker chips and a bottle of E&J, I toss out some pieces of gum, a crumpled dollar paired with a thrift store receipt, a few beer bottle caps and an I.D. Everything glistens in the starlight shining through a nearby window. The emblem on the I.D. opposite my photo is an angry Jaguar taking a swipe with a paw. It reads:

  Jaguars Jr. High School 2000
William Raynor, 09/19/87

Below my date of birth is a nine digit number and a bar code that, once scanned in the cafeteria allows me one free lunch per day. The photo on the card seems to mock me as I turn over an empty shot glass from the table and pour it full of the brandy, then throw my head back and toss the liquor down my throat. I need to feel something other than embarrassment and the burn from the alcohol seems to help. I slowly and methodically grab a blanket from the top of the couch in the living room and lay down covering myself with it, making sure to lay on my stomach so as not to asphyxiate on my vomit if I were to throw up while in my stupor.

My world was constantly spinning at that age and not just from the alcohol. It took me more time than it should have to finally steady it. Little did I know, holding the gun toward that child would prove to be one of the more innocent things I would be involved in in the coming future. Within a few years time I would be living with an aggressive, psychopathic drug dealer in a carousel of addiction, cruelty, obsession and stuck in a peculiar trance — with an abundance of wealth at our disposal. Unfortunately, it felt like it was the only option available to me at that time and an option that I have since been amazed I worked my way out of.

Piecing It All Together

At an early age sex was a subject I became very aware of but something I didn’t fully understand. I’d seen all of the magazines full of naked women with the occasional penis here and there, hidden between the wall and bed in my oldest bothers room. The magazines were taboo indeed, but only in that I knew their being hidden meant they had a value of some sort. Nudity wasn’t the most pressing issue but rather the fact that my brother was hiding them. The magazines would serve to be a treasure to me with an unknown value, so my interest in them held firm for a while. As time passed — which included many secret viewings, I quickly grew bored with the generic and subtle sexual imagery in everyday life. The soft-core stuff they showed on some of the late-night television shows wasn’t as special, as I had become desensitized to what most my age felt was risque. I was close to eight years old when I found the magazines and their true significance was absolutely lost on me. The imagery never affected me in the way that it would, say, in another four to five years later. At the time, I was just glad they weren’t pop up books like some were at my elementary school library. The most important thing was that I had something to use against my brother if ever there were a need. Despite this, sex was something that never went away and something I felt was solely exclusive to just me and not any of my classmates.

As most children have done at some point in their lives, I walked in on my parents having sex a number of times. I was a pretty dull student and never learned to just quit opening their door – besides, my issues were much more urgent. Yet for some predetermined reason, there comes that first time in our lives that as children we awake just a few minutes earlier than we normally would. On that one particular morning we stumble out of bed in a haze. Walking much akin the stagger of a Hollywood zombified-mummy amalgamation, slowly getting ready to take on that days’ worth of adventure – which for me typically included building sand dunes in the backyard using miniature Tonka tractors, we hear the strange grunts from within our parents closed bedroom. Curiosity being the alluring creature that it is, beckons us to turn that doorknob and take a peek. Of course the peek is never enough to fully see what it is that’s really going on, so then that door widens and widens until — it stops. And, oh, does it stop rather abruptly. Soon after comes the painful awkwardness that that moment will forever bestow – once youthful eyes gone blind burning the images a thousand times over; the groaning silenced and their positions held frozen in time and then the quick slamming of the door that ends up echoing through even the deepest of childhood nostalgia. Next, they come out of the bedroom and pretend nothing ever happened. They even have the audacity to make eye contact with you and in such a way it convinces you that what you think you saw you didn’t really see. At least, this was what happened to me. I learned to just call out to them from behind that closed door and never under any circumstances open the damned thing.

With all of this “experience” now under my belt however, being self-educated on all things sex brought forth in me a confidence that no other peer within my age bracket rivaled. In my fourth grade class I once chose to impress my classmates, and in particular the girls, with my vast knowledge of such mature and complex material. There was a portion of the school day dedicated to spacial and creative learning that involved using an array of laminated paper cut-out shapes called Tangrams. We were each given a small bag full of these shapes and the freedom to create whatever it was that our little innocent minds could muster. Some students created such phenomenally beautiful and intricate designs such as: Stop-signs, beehives and even unisex versions of humans that wowed our very attractive teacher into a meditative slumber. In her lifeless eyes I could see the boredom swallow her soul; having to witness a limited number of designs children could create with a limited number of shapes over and over again, provided no spark and excitement for her. Understanding her pain, I took it upon myself to separate from the herd and prove my uniqueness. Well that, and an overwhelming desire to see her as I did the many women in my brothers magazines, of course. Somehow, some way, in my very naive brain I imagined that impressing her with my Tangram ingenuity would woo her. For whatever reason why I didn’t know, but there was an overwhelming impulse that I had to obey. In doing so, I became a Tangram God of sorts; I gave sex and individuality and life to the plain and boring human designs by putting large and small triangles on them to form breasts, and the thin slender triangles between the legs of the others to serve as what I would then call, wieners.

Upon completion of my work, I heard gasps from behind me. Some of the girls blushed and smiled. Some of the boys laughed and began to copy my ingenious designs. I smirked and held my head high, feeling as though I were royalty standing among a sea of peasants. But something felt off — one of the gasps was a pitch higher than the rest. This was more a warning than anything affectionate. I looked over my shoulder and a young boy who too had his sights set for our lovely teacher, quickly schemed to win her affection over and thwart my attempts by tattling on me. He and I long held a war of attrition, and he was seconds away from one-upping me. His reaction clearly meant that I had done something wrong, so I knew I had to stop him. Obviously, he knew what I did not at that time and the proper conduct for a class room environment: that pornography of any kind was not tolerated. As I quickly made my move to stand and subdue him, he was gone in a flash and already tugging at her blouse. As he whispered into her ear she looked to me with such a pretty face and warm smile that I felt comforted and that everything was going to be alright. But ever-so slowly that smile turned sour. From within her gaze I felt my hair singe and skin begin to burn; my face felt as hot as the sun and I began to worry it would dissolve. I knew my cheeks turned a bright shade of red as the very girls my age that I desperately wanted to impress began to giggle and point at me. The pint-sized Benedict Arnold smiled widely as he went back to his seat, confident and pleased with his betrayal against our male-based camaraderie. Even enemies have respect for one another, but this, this was something new and cruel and unusual altogether. Guerrilla warfare had now been initiated. Et tu, Geoff?? I should have known from the spelling of his name that he was destined to be a little punk-ass snitch devoid of respect and honor.

I quickly destroyed the evidence by rearranging the Tangram portraits, but the damage was done as the woman I had a crush on stared right through my body and soul. She knew my intentions and everything I ever thought or was going to think; she saw everything I had ever done or was going to do and she stared bullets through all of it. She saw me as a dirty sex-crazed teen just hitting puberty, and no longer as the innocent and curious child I thought I was. I sat alone and defeated, putting the stupid shapes back inside their stupid bag. I was never approached nor spoken to about what I had done, and I believe it was due to my look of utter fear and shame that my teacher saw that day. Nonetheless, I learned that the knowledge I possessed wasn’t mine alone and  that the other children within my age group knew what I knew concerning sex. It was all misery and depression; the travesty I fell in love with was taken from me in an instant. All of my wallowing however, grew into anger and resentment for my personal Brutus.

I devised a plan to get back at Geoff. I began to stalk him and catalog his habits and patterns. On the day I exacted revenge, I followed him to the restroom. It was after school and all of the children were well on their way home and the playground was empty. Trash bags and leaves blew across the black asphalt, and tether-balls jostled in the wind as the chains they were attached to creaked. From my research I concluded that embarrassment would be the harshest revenge, and there wasn’t a better way to invoke it than to violate the most intimate form of privacy: the bathroom. I followed him in and hoped he would choose a stall rather than a urinal, and I also prayed that there would be many witnesses. I chose to do the deed after school because it was easier to get away with, though I had to sacrifice a larger number of spectators. I lucked out and there were a handful of other children, and Geoff did choose a stall. This was the moment. I kept my face away from the others who were either washing their hands or using the urinals, and I walked up to the stall Geoff was in and as I got into position, our eyes met from between the crack of the door. The toilets were a good distance away from the door so he would have to get up in order to close it. Perfect. My heart beat faster and I laughed out loud; his eyes went wide and begged me not to do it. With all of my might I kicked the door in and it burst wide open and there, petrified in agony, sat my nemesis. All of the other boys in the bathroom burst out in laughter as he was stuck between deciding to either finish using the toilet, stand to close the door, or pull his pants up and let everyone see him in all of his glory. Just for insurance, or as a calling card of sorts, I gave him the middle finger before wildly escaping.

The roaring echo of laughter shot out of the bathroom and seemed to chase me away. My route was perfect: around the bathrooms and across the playground, behind the giant shipping containers our school used for storage. No one ever went there, and I would sit behind them in hiding. Only, once I got there I realized I had to go to pee. What a goof! My kidneys hurt so bad I doubled over, and because I was laughing hysterically thinking of what I had done, I was close to peeing my pants. So I did what all men do at one point or another: I peed outside. I had to, I knew I was going to die if I didn’t. Literally. Afterwards, I peeked around the corner and looked to the bathrooms. It was still quiet, and had been about ten minutes. The chained basketball nets played an array of soothing music much like a group of wind chimes. I exhaled and smiled. Then, all of a sudden, my name was announced over the loud speaker. What?! They never do this. How in the hell did they know I was still on campus? My thoughts raced, as I searched for an excuse as to protect my revenge. No one in the bathroom knew me, nor did they see me, but they saw what I was wearing. I took off my sweater and tied it around my waist. Boom – instant new identity. I slowly made my way to the office in a very calm and collected manner. Once inside I was surprised to see Geoff sitting in a chair with his eyes red and his face damp. I made him cry! I was ecstatic. And evil, apparently. But he was now a rat.

I was given a clipboard with a referral on it and told to fill out what I had done. I panicked and claimed to have not done a thing. Geoff smirked and the receptionist refused to help me. She said I should know exactly what I had done. So, I filled out, in pen of-course, what I did to Geoff. I couldn’t fight it – clearly I was busted and there was no way around it. But overall, I was happy that I embarrassed Geoff and it was especially fulfilling that he knew it was me; no punishment could ever be able to deem the crime unworthy of committing. I wrote with a smile on my face. Once I finished explaining the details of my triumph in the restroom, I returned the clipboard back to the receptionist and sat back down. A minute went by and she called me back to her desk and gave me another clipboard with yet another blank referral on it. Clearly upset, I asked why the last one was wrong. She told me that what I wrote wasn’t the reason I was in there, that I was in there for publicly urinating on campus. My world came crashing down for the second time in just as many weeks. Two referrals! Two! With one I could wiggle my way out of the ensuing beating that was to come later at home from my mom. But two?! I was a dead man walking, and the worst part was that I made my own gallows and put the noose around my own neck! And that little shit Geoff glared at me from his chair. He hadn’t said a word to anyone about our incident, and I was the one to turn myself in. This was to be the height of our war.

The subject of sex never went away for me, it only became more evident as I grew older. It certainly caused me more heartache, grief and sorrow, but it also showed me a different side to humanity — one full of genuine connection and maturity, and of love, commitment and encouragement. I learned about vulnerability and a deeper level of friendship and invigoration, and most importantly, I learned of all the things the magazines my brother had lacked.

The Wind Cries Mary

We all stood in silence around her bed. She didn’t look real to me; her skin was a gray-ish yellow and leathery to the touch. Thick hollow tubes were taped to her mouth, and ran down her throat. The machines behind her bed were a collage of electrical lights — greens, reds, blues, and they all hummed from the electricity flowing through them. Her chest moved up and down with contractions shadowing some of the beeps that were inaudible to her. None of us looked at the other, at least right away. Our focus was on her and the moment we now found ourselves in.

I always knew my mother was going to die someday, but when I was seventeen and still in high school, and a mere six months after my youngest brother took his own life — was certainly shocking to say the least. But not unexpected. You see, my mother, Mary, always would tell my siblings and I that if anything were to happen to any one of us she wouldn’t know what to do. This ultimately proved to be most true. After Matthew died, my mom struggled to not shut out the rest of the world and hold onto the strength, compassion and curiosity she had in life. She had a special way with people that I have yet to see replicated in any being since her death. She could be confounding at times; part biker-chick and part social-worker, she could break your arm if need be yet be the only person to care for you afterwards. People were drawn in to the magnetism about her, and would want nothing more than to listen to her stories and to laugh. And that was it, the key to most everything. If you can make people laugh then you possess quite a powerful quality.

Mary’s humor was best appropriate after the children went to sleep and she had had her first beer. But that’s the best kind of humor — adult-oriented is more reality based and often deals with issues and pressures we all face in some form or fashion on a day to day basis. Often times these issues are something we all need a release from and this is where many found my mother to be most helpful. But she could be quirky and full of cheesy jokes too. Once she was literally in the middle of whipping me with the belt and she stopped mid-swipe. I opened my eyes and slowly turned to face her, petrified and fully expecting to see smoke rising from her pores and her eyes full of an angry red. However as our eyes met, she lowered the belt and began to chuckle. Obviously perplexed, I quickly grew more afraid. Had this woman gone mad officially? Was she enjoying this? I grew angry at that thought, and hence I grew more courageous. I asked her what the hell was so funny. One of the first times I ever cursed toward my mom. My anger and how ridiculous she was behaving vindicated anything I could have said in that specific moment. She laughed some more before replying that my ass crack was hanging out of my pants. Seriously? Lame potty humor at a time like this? Though my backside was numb at this point, seeing her chuckle like one of the girls at my school, I just couldn’t help laughing either. It wasn’t one of those made for TV moments, but it was ours and I have missed it and the many like it ever since.

I stood at the foot of her bed as she laid unconscious that afternoon, and as the beeping increased. Afterwards the sky seemed more blue than it ever had before to me, and the clouds crept across it slower than they ever had before. My older brother and I drove home in silence, each of us focused on our loss and the best moments we’ve had as a family and independently with her. And we focused on the moments we would never get to share with her. The grandchildren she would never meet, nor get to see develop. The weddings and birthday parties, even the fights we would never be able to have. It’s funny that even some of the negative things in life we quickly come to cherish in mourning. My older brother was tasked with the burden of signing her off of life-support so he had a little extra guilt riding him that day and every day since. It seems so easy to sign your name on a piece of paper — children do it everyday. But this piece of paper held such an importance in it; it represented a crossroads for each of us and the extinguishing of a rather bright and extraordinary life. And it took one hell of a person to sign it. Two lives had been stripped from our family that year and the wounds were to never heal.

She helped my older brother when he was jumped by a gang in school one year. She hid in the bushes after school and as three of them pounced on him she came roaring out like a crazed animal screaming and flailing. She grabbed each one by the arm or backpack or leg and pulled them away throwing them to the ground. The funny thing is, my brother didn’t tell her he was going to be beat up; that isn’t him. He was ready to fight the whole group, but she had somehow found out and made sure to see how he was going to react first before she got involved. Once she saw he was swinging away at them as best he could, only then did she appear. My mother was more about the real-life-experience-school of thought more than the rules-and-obligations school. Whether or not one condones her actions, it is still very difficult not to think how crazy and funny this must have been. Of course this happened in a time where people slept with their doors unlocked and walked to school barefoot in the snow, etc. etc. etc.

She used some of the very minimal insurance money she got from Matthews death to help buy me prom tickets and a suit. After most of the money was spent on his funeral, she handed me what was left so that I could go to my senior prom. And I hated dancing. We talked frequently on the phone after my little brother passed away, but at that point our conversations were full of alcohol and prescription pill ramblings than they were of any real substance. Her yard became overrun with weeds and she began to get notices from the fire department, so I went over and helped clear away as much as I could. I was a reckless teen, as most seem to be, but I worked my way out of her house and into my older brothers. Within the same year I moved out, she and Matthew died. But she was still as sharp as ever, and sometimes that shone through the melancholy of the final few months. I was working in the yard with my brother the week before she passed, and I mentioned to him that I felt like I should call her, and he said to do it as often that can become something one later regrets. I have many regrets from that time.

In the hospital room, the machines were turned off by the nurses and everyone began to look to each other and hug and cry. Except me. Tears filled my eyes but I refused to blink. As hard as it was I didn’t blink once the final ten minutes it took, as what was left of my mothers life escaped her body. I stood there and stared at her, and remembered each and every detail. Her fiancee was at her left in a chair holding her hand. My aunt beside him. He didn’t sob much either. My cousin was to my left and looking to me, and full of sorrow. My brother was on the other side of her bed, opposite my aunt and soon to be step-dad. My brother and aunt shared a connection and once the machines were powered down, he kept to himself mostly, but would occasionally look to her. The room was down lit and shadows ran across the walls as we all shifted on our feet. I knew she could beat it all, and that the machines were wrong. She would surprise us all and not leave us and the doctors would be forced to put her back on life support.

Packing her house up we came across a box full of notes and thank-you cards from clients she helped by either going against her jobs protocol or personally visiting and helping. People wrote to her thanking her for finding ways to allow them to keep receiving aid or for getting them flowers after a loved one passed away or for something as simple as helping their parents through the lengthy and exhausting process.

We would often rent movies and she would naturally choose the adult drama, complete with the same court room scene they each seem to have as well as some sort of medical emergency and surprise villain. The movie I chose however was a goofy kung-fu one that made fun of the martial art genre altogether. Well, my mother was a smoker but would always go outside to smoke. Yellow and black lungs were one thing, but she’d be damned if she were going to have yellow walls in her clean house — especially if company was coming over. During this time, she paused her movie at the height of its tension and went outside to smoke. I closed the blinds prior to this so she wouldn’t see inside, and I then switched her movie for mine and paused it at what I felt was the greatest moment: an infant escapes its captors by rolling down a mountainside in feudal Japan. Only, the baby is clearly switched with a stiff, plastic thing young girls get at their local toy store. In the movie, the baby pops into the air over and over tumbling yet never shifting its physical position. On top of this, the scene was intentionally made to last near five minutes. Imagine five minutes of watching a plastic baby roll down a mountain passing the same objects over and over. All the while, expecting to un-pause a movie and finish a vital jury decision. I opened the blinds and as she came inside, I crept outside. Distance could be my best friend in times of an impending spanking. I peered into the house to gauge her reaction. She sat down, un-paused the movie and continued to watch it. Her forehead wrinkled and she picked up the VHS box and stared at it quizzically. She turned it over and read the back of it, as the baby on the television began its seventh decent. My laughter rang out and I tried to hold it in so that she wouldn’t know it was me, but it was too much to handle. I couldn’t choke it back any more and laughed so hard and loud a neighbor even asked if I was alright. I had to get on one knee to hide under the window. Once I gained some control however, I looked back inside and there she was sitting on the couch watching… my movie? What the hell is this?? My mother refused to be one-upped and knew I played a prank on her, but she just went with it. So I was forced to come back inside, and ask her why didn’t she switch the movies back. She said she hadn’t noticed, but it was a good movie and asked if I wanted to finish it with her.

The hospitals staff asked us to leave as they cleaned her up and tried to make her more presentable to us. Once we were allowed back into her room, I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel. It is an amazing thing to see, death is. Though I was crippled with the loss of my mother, I felt that everything was going to be okay. Her body turned a wax-brown complexion and she seemed even more frail than she already was. The tubes were taken out of her, and she was tucked into bed. I waited until most everyone left the room before approaching her. I whispered to her and held her arm. Then I thanked her and kissed her on the forehead. I didn’t want to leave that room, it was the hardest thing Ive ever had to do.

In the truck on the way home from the hospital, the radio played on low volume. Jimi Hendrix played his guitar and my brother and I drove down the long highway unsure of what to do or where to go next.

Though I still don’t speak of her much to this day nor show emotion about that year of my life, it is and will always be constantly in my thoughts. I miss my mother greatly not just for who she was to me, but also for the person she was.

Star-Struck

“Anybody want some chicken-fried chicken?” Charles asks after turning on the stove. With the frozen block of what looks like gray fish food that’s coated in a brown substance clutched tightly within his left hand, he sways back and forth in place then finishes the last of his beer. His eyes seem to be stuck wide open, yet tiny creases around them contract and release over and again as though he’s trying really hard not to shit himself.

He’s always had this look after a few beers; his eyes become covered in a thin gelatinous film, his cheeks and forehead all become a light shade of red, and his speech impediment resurfaces with alarming precision — as though he meant to speak like a toddler.

The new accent doesn’t help in any way to make the meal seem more appetizing. In fact, the “chicken-fwied chicken” has slowly leaked through the wrapper meant to contain the gravy, and smeared on the concrete slab floor of our kitchen. The redness in his skin expands over the rest of his body as his blood-alcohol level increases and his uncovered arms begin to blotch. He looks sweaty, as though the heater in the house is set to one hundred degrees in the midst of another brutal Southern California summer. Despite these realities, he seems to think he looks as fresh and dignified as one of the male models that adorn the many GQ and Esquire magazines strewn across the kitchen counter in front of the four of us. It’s the models’ poses he’s trying to emulate, acting as though his stupor hasn’t already given him away. Only, presently, Charles has forgotten that that is all meant for some fantastical realm that exists far from where we do; a place where dragons and Yeti and David Beckham reside. But not here and not now — back in the real world.

As he strains in creating a new yoga pose complex enough to put the Kama Sutra to shame, the click of the stove igniting jostles Suzanne from her stool opposite him. The many turned over shot glasses atop the counter clink against one another after her brief scare.

Her eyes are heavily stenciled in black just beneath perfectly trimmed eyebrows that are punctuated with ringed piercings at the ends. She also has that same kind of rosy makeup on her cheeks as those of porcelain dolls — as though she too is fragile and delicate. Suzanne was meant for our mantle with the other valuables and trinkets; she belonged there with the things that never receive more attention than they get on the day you place them. This is exactly what she is to the person who brought her over tonight. She is someone we’re to understand as being above not only the rest of us, but certainly above a TV dinner Chicken-Fried Chicken meal. She’s wearing very tight and low cut white jeans that seem to have a latex quality. Her midriff is moderately exposed, just enough to show quick glimpses of the lines of her hips. Her lips are coated with a dark magenta lipstick. To me personally, it was all far too overdone. When I answered the door I wasn’t sure if Charles had ordered an “escort” or not. But Suzanne did have a naturally beautiful glow beneath all of the smoke and mirrors too.

She flashes a forced smile toward Charles — the kind of smile that’s meant to ward off predators. Her thin lips pull tighter together as her head drops and her eyes lift. Charles shrugs and gives her a wink.

“You’ll regret it, trust me,” he says.

“Mmkay,” she replies with a roll of those cats-eyes. She turns her back to him.

Here’s the thing: he realized he was under the protection of that invisible contract guests implicitly sign upon entering another person’s home. He felt comfortable making her uneasy, as if there were no repercussions for some shameless flirting. There is a silent dance of sorts most people, most guests, experience after entering someplace so private to someone else yet so new to the guest; it generally makes for forced conversations and a distasteful situation altogether. Still, Suzanne was allowed to appear visibly annoyed for the sake of self-preservation.

She finishes her beer and Charles offers her a new one, and he does so on one knee, and with a hand on the bottom of the bottle in presentation. His subtleness is not appreciated, and she takes the bottle from him with a grimace, and under her breath she mutters, “Seriously?”

It hadn’t started so awkwardly. Suzanne was dating our friend Kadence, who asked to come by the house we were renting for some drinks and to just “hang-out.” This of course, was another of those implicit cues, only this one meant, “Show off my hot and famous girlfriend who models for the Suicide Girls.” Charles and I had no issue with her tactless display of pride, simply because at the time, the Suicide Girls were one of the most notable businesses flaunting scantily clad women who were required to be tattooed and/or pierced, and who just so happened to be the kind of women we were interested in. Whether she was in a relationship or not, Charles was intent on proving his machismo by swaying Suzanne back to men. His actions were more of a compliment than anything to Kadence, because they supported her heavy ego and so she wasn’t bothered by his antics. Besides she had grown accustomed to such behavior over the years. His charismatic-boyish charm could be deadly if used properly, and we were all well aware of this. He had the power to convince us that he only meant to sleep with Kadence’s girlfriend out of the goodness of his heart.

It was close to eight o’clock at night when they arrived, and Kadence couldn’t have been more excited. Alcohol was quickly consumed and laughter inevitably worked its way into our conversations. Formalities were tossed aside in exchange for pot and booze, which initially calmed everyone’s nerves. The pool table that sat in the middle of, what was at some point long before I moved into the house, the living room, was now host to empty bottles, shoes, purses, tampons and a cluster of makeup. Oh. And a dildo.

I was soon educated on the vitally important role dildos play in the life of the modern-day lesbian. One should never leave home without their trusty pink ribbed, multi-flex instrument of pleasure. As though when the moment strikes, fuck being on a public bus sitting next to an old man with the flu who slightly resembles a more homeless-looking Tim Curry suffering from lionitis, who happens to smirk with a face that not even Cher — nor Sam Elliot, could ever love — you just can’t go another moment without an orgasm. Hey, so what if the turkey-necked Amy Winehouse lookalike with psoriasis adjusts her orange beanie in repulsion to your facial scrunches replete of ecstasy? Maybe this all was just what I had hoped. Somewhere deep down, the contradiction of committing sexual acts while trying to be hidden in public have always been a turn on. And psoriasis. But never Amy Winehouse. Alas, I was told dildos can also serve as weapons more accessible than pepper-spray because one doesn’t have to fuss with the locking mechanism that accompanies a bottle of pepper-spray. This was the true reason behind the dirtied appendage being in their possession, glistening in the light just above our pool table. If Charles or I acted out of line, we were threatened with a bludgeoning.

“Guys versus girls?” I offered, motioning toward the pool table. The initial reverie had begun to wear off as Charles and Suzanne began to constantly jab at one another, so I felt obliged to shuffle things.

“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” Kadence beamed. “You’re going to lose, badly.” Her last word hung in the air. She and I shared a clairvoyance of sorts; both of us occasionally flashing smiles toward one another that were attached to knowing-glances. We were both acting the part of spectator to what had started to unravel. We loved destruction and chaos and could appreciate the uneasiness in the room. Neither Kadence nor I were victim to the other two’s bickering – but rather culprit, as we gently stoked the flames of their anger.

With a laugh, I racked the cue balls. Typically when you have someone whose sole piece of furniture in their living room is a pool table, it can be safely assumed that they must be pretty good at the game. I couldn’t contain my confidence. “Remember, there’s no crying in the game of pool,” I said.

Outside, the moon rose higher, and a pack of noisy dogs scampered by, yipping at anything and everything. Back inside, the feeling was mutual. “Maybe you ladies should check your makeup,” Suzanne says after sinking yet another consecutive ball after the break.

“Careful, there aren’t any bumpers in this game,” she teased as Charles scratched the cue ball. She began to poke his kidneys with the fat end of her pool stick as she would pass him by. After a few more rounds of this, he had had enough. He stood straight, tried to regain his posture, and a switch went off somewhere within him that meant: time to shut this girl the fuck up. On our next turn Charles began a streak that still hasn’t stopped.

Mid-way through the second game, they quit. Even Kadence grew annoyed with us, if only briefly. There was a lot of bickering between the women with a few not-so-nice things thrown our way. Prior to their quitting however, with each turn Suzanne grew more impatient and angrier, and the source that fueled her was Charles.

“I’ll tell you what; maybe you can try with the dildo. It might help,” he recommends to Suzanne, “Or would you need to be shown how to actually use that thing?”
Silence.

Glaring at him, she slams her pool cue against a wall and then excuses herself to the restroom. The unexpected turn of emotion within her was as drastic as a gunshot. The bathroom door slammed so hard we had to secretly check it for splintering. Back in the living room, like a wolf in the midst of a hunt, Kadence pounces in toward us, and despite her very feminine appearance whispers, “I’m fucking that tonight.” Then she sits back on her stool and not-so-delicately drinks her beer smiling gingerly between loud slurps.

The oven timer rang out just as Suzanne returned, signaling an official end to the game. Charles walks back into the kitchen, and the now drunk model has seemed to lose her sense of composure as she, very unladylike, lifts a leg and flips him the middle finger beneath her thigh, wobbling violently. “Fucking tool,” she gasps. She takes her seat beside Kadence and sloppily grasps a handful of boob. The two giggle amongst themselves, utterly disregarding our stares.

Before their arrival, Charles pulled out all of the stops in his preparation: he wore basketball shorts that clung to his body proudly displaying his manhood (to which I advised that, for Suzanne being a lesbian, she could very well be irritated by such a violent visage. But he shrugged me off: “Not after she sees what I’m working with, bro. Trust me, it hypnotizes them. They just can’t stop themselves. It’s a curse really,” he said while swiveling his hips, and then giving a tortured look to the gods.) He wore a white tank top and had a silver cross around his neck, then sprayed a bit of cologne – but not too much as he wanted that sexy-right-out-of-bed look that women desire.

Bum-chic.

He vacuumed his room, straightened the bed, and lit about thirty vanilla scented candles, just in case things got hot and heavy. He was the first to answer the door, and was not disappointed, as Suzanne was one of the models he recognized from a quick internet search just minutes before.

I wasn’t really certain whether it was the challenge of “converting” a lesbian, or genuine excitement at meeting a celebrity, albeit, a D list celebrity; but either way, his initial excitement had returned and it was infectious. I couldn’t help but accept his glass of Hawaiian Punch and a slice of Chicken-Fried Chicken.

Suzanne scoffed at the meal, clearly unimpressed. It wasn’t the usual fine dining she was accustomed to – champagne bottles and candles framing the regally plated meals that are more about aesthetics than flavor. Plates full of scattered bright pink and blue droplets of some source, with the exotic Bengal tiger breasts that aren’t large enough to feed a single pigeon yet skillfully encrusted with twigs of barley. No, our simple meal would not suffice.

“Why do you call it that? And why does it look like throw up?” Suzanne asks. “And why is there a giant cow on this? Look!” She turned to show everyone the rifle magazine our roommate sent away for. The alcohol had obviously altered her attention span.

Charles instantly laughs and takes on the golden opportunity presented to him. “That isn’t a cow, you jackass; it’s a couple of mootheth!” That’s all it took. The room explodes in laughter. Charles takes this to mean his victory was a worthy pursuit, and smiles wide.

“Wait, what the hell are they?” Suzanne asks, finally catching her breath and now discovering his Achilles heel.

“You don’t know what a mooth ith? You’re dumber than I thought!”

We all start laughing again, and eventually it dawns on him why we think a moose is so damn hilarious. His excitement quickly turns to a grimace, and he sulks for a brief minute whispering to himself and working through exercises to help with his minor disability. Suzanne again asks him about the name of his meal.

He begins softly, “Well, it isn’t a damn steak that’s for sure. I mean, look at this.” He presses the plastic tray toward her and the still sizzling food emits a warm vapor that wafts into her face. Surprisingly, she smiled and even took a bite. Perhaps as a display of one-upsmanship, but Charles’s face illuminated in a way I had never seen before in our ten-plus year friendship. His eyes seemed to sparkle as Suzanne placed a forkful of brown chum into her mouth. Finally, a truce! Charles knew he was now well on his way to bedding this woman.

As his heart beat quicker and his posture loosened, Suzanne’s jaw seemed to grind the muck back and forth and then the corners of her eyes wrinkled and her chewing slowed. She quickly drank a few gulps of her beer, and, after dramatically stopping for oxygen, looked to his expectant face. “That’s disgusting! Why would you eat shit like that? You’re nasty!” drawing out the Y as her top lip curled upwards like a lipstick-coated ducks bill.

Everything in the room seemed to freeze. The stereo paused as the television seemed stuck in the middle of an intense scene in some movie where a man was in the midst of strangling a woman. Our proverbial contract had been violated instantly.

She drops the fork into the gravy which splashes high into the air and a speck of it lands onto Charles’s cheek, which causes him to flinch. She then swivels in her bar stool, turning her back to him, again. Assaulted, he instantly flashes me a look of sorrow and betrayal as though he personally created the meal. He slaughtered the animal, picked its feathers and cleaned it then cooked the sauce it came in and packaged it all by himself. She loathed it; his efforts were left unappreciated and he was severely offended.

After grabbing another beer from the refrigerator, Charles corners me and whispers, “That bitch comes to my house and eats my God damned meal and then tells me it’s disgusting?” I couldn’t stop my chuckling which only seemed to agitate him further. “If that shit was made of camel-toe she’d probably dig right the fuck in!” At this my laughter grew out of control. It wasn’t meant to make me laugh though; he was seriously hurt, and, given the carefulness he took in preparing for her arrival, for it to play out so confrontationally was more than I could handle. His romantic evening of grandeur and seduction envisioned earlier had shriveled into a pissing contest.

Charles quickly drew up battle plans in his mind which mostly consisted of asking Suzanne not-so-subtle questions intent on slowly forcing a breakdown full of either sobs or fists. “Hey, do you own a motorcycle? What about a flannel? Do you love your dad?” making sure to utilize all of the unoriginal basics in any decent repertoire.

Suzanne, slowly over time, grew rigid and frequently looked to Kadence, and then turned slowly to face Charles. Her chair squeaked loudly and echoed throughout our relatively quiet home. She wouldn’t like, attack him, right? I found myself questioning, and I began to plot my movements if they lunged at each other. I was sitting perfectly between them so I could intercept her and hold her still, away from him if need be. Certainly his digs at her sexuality could have been taken too seriously I suppose, but Kadence thought they were funny and she’s a lesbian. Alcohologic always makes sense.

She stared through him, but it wasn’t going to be an easy victory. His questions were geared to force her to lose her temper and thus their war. She worked it over in her head for a second and decided to beat him at his own game. “Yes to both, and I even chop wood in my off time.” She flashed a smirk to us all, content with her blow.

Without missing a beat Charles says, “Oh now that’s a God damned lie if I’ve ever heard one!” He finishes the last bite of his meal suppressing his smile. The room again burst into laughter including Kadence, but Suzanne loses her patience and her celebrity soon took hold. She turns to Kadence and shakes her head saying, “Really? You’re an asshole!” To which Kadence replies, “Hey now! You guys are both at fault; you can’t get upset with me just for laughing!”

Turning back to him Suzanne blurts out, “Well, some have more wood to work with. Some.” She sips her beer, letting her eyes fall on the crotch of his shorts. She’s clearly playing for keeps.

Kadence and I put on the performance of our lifetimes, full of ooh’s and aah’s and even a few ohhh no he/she didnt! Charles pours himself another drink without saying a word or so much as showing any emotion. Afterwards he looks up to her, shrugs, and carefully says, “Yeah I guess I lost the advantage of getting to whore it out on the internet. Poor me.” He picks his glass up and stares her body up and down very slowly, then looks into her eyes, and takes a drink. No one thought it would get that far, as it had been a night filled with flirtatious teasing but what he said caused a tension to build that the room never recovered from. Suzanne didn’t give in but was clearly ready to leave. She wanted to be back in Los Angeles and at one of her lavish parties with rest of her pretty people.

The fun had stopped and Kadence could sense the shift in the atmosphere. They left shortly after, but not without leaving a parting gift. Walking out the door Kadence slapped Suzanne’s ass and looked back to Charles and returned his wink from earlier. “See you guys later.” There was nothing left to do but shrug.

After the door shut Charles turned to me and sighed. “At least I can say I got a Suicide Girl to eat my meat, amiright?”