Try it on for size: New FICTION Story

What About Angela?

“What about Angela?

It’s always the same thing, you know, with those types of girls. They don’t know what the hell they want. You try to give it to them, you know, how they’ll like it, how they need it, but the problem is that they complain anyway. It’s a character flaw. Her United Families counselor says she’s got some problems from childhood, missing father, whatever-the-fuck. I don’t buy it. Oh, she’s fucked up all right. One minute she’s bitchin’ about me doing what I like to do, next minute she’s goin’ on about being lonely or some shit. Says I don’t spend enough time with her. Says I’m cold. What the fuck? These girls, they don’t know how to handle themselves. I’m around all the time.

I get sick of her, of her bitching. I gotta set her straight sometimes. Show her a little authority, then maybe some tenderness. And that’s what she likes.

We’re going to the Caribbean next week. It’s gonna be great. I’m paying, of course. Cunt can’t keep a job to save her life. The sunshine ’ll be good for us both. Get a tan on that tiny ass of hers. We’ll fix ‘er up high-class, on my dime.

What else can I do? It’s not my fault chicks like her are so screwed up. But I’ll do what I can, you know. I’m just that kind of guy.”

***

The rain is coming in through the windows. The windows are closed and then they are open and the wind and the water are rushing in. The depth of cold seeps through my body; sinks into me.

Now I am sinking. Underwater in an ocean, submerged beneath the weight of oblivion which presses down, down. My head is small, and now it is collapsing. My brain is a dark space, sees nothing, I am confused. I am knowing, only nothing is what I know. This is sad, sadness flowing over top of my body and in. Where have my hands gone? Where are my fingers and arms? Nowhere. I am small and voiceless in a void but for these words.

***

“I’ve just been a little low-energy lately. I can’t seem to figure things out just yet, you know? We’re going on a trip, so I’m excited about that. I really want to get some sun on my face and feel that salty water of the ocean and see all those colorful fish. I really think they’re going to help me work through this…it’s not even a problem, really. Only a minor setback because of the dreary weather.

And Max is great. Sure, we have our issues, like everyone else, right? But he’s so patient. He’s smart, too. He’s knows what’s best for me, even when I don’t. So sometimes I forget, and I need some convincing, so that I can see things clearer again. He’s real patient, though. I mean, he is paying for this whole trip and everything just for my benefit. I don’t have the money, of course.”

“Do you feel that Max has become a kind of father figure to you, helping you to work though your abandonment issues?”

“Um…I guess so. I mean, yeah, definitely. He is great. He always knows what my problem is…I mean, how to help fix it. I just don’t listen sometimes. I have a hard time with that. In a way it’s kind of like how it was with my father. I always wondered if that was why he left us...

I know that’s ridiculous, but, you know, I never obeyed. My mother had a hard time with me too. When he left, she was really sad. We were all really sad.”

“And you feel that same kind of sad now, Angela?”

“Probably. Yes.

“How did you burn yourself?”

I was just cooking on the stove and a pot of boiling water fell on me. It’s getting better though. I’m so clumsy, dammit. Max drove me to the emergency room. I’m so glad he was there for me.

Sometimes my friend Meg says she wonders about that, though. She says she’s worried, and that Max doesn’t seem good to me all the time. She thinks it’d maybe be better if I could get a job doing something I liked, instead of just hanging around and having him support me.

“Do you think that would be something you would like to do?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve been thinking it’d be pretty nice to work with some kids somewhere, play with them and that kind of stuff. I like kids. Max doesn’t like kids though. He doesn’t want any. Fine by me. Says it’d be too hard on me, and that I’m fragile. And clumsy. That’s true, I guess.

It probably wouldn’t work out anyway. I don’t do so well with long-term jobs, you know.”

“Do you feel that Max is restricting you from doing things you’d otherwise like to do?”

“No, no. I mean, like I said, he always knows what’s best for me in the end, seems like. I get so depressed, and he tries to toughen me up, sure, but he’s also good to me. Like the other day, I was foolin’ around in the kitchen. I knew it’d be time for him to come home soon, and that he gets so hungry at work and it’s the least I can do to have a good meal ready, right? But that’s me again, I was playing around with some stupid sewing project—a dress for our trip—and he came home and I was just heating up the water for some noodles, and—“

“Are you all right, Angela? What happened? You look upset.”

“Oh, nothin’. I mean, he just put me in my place a little, right? He didn’t mean for the pot to come off the stove and spray me. He had to let me learn my lesson.

***

“I haven’t been able to sleep lately. Our trip is comin’ up and I’m worried about it kinda, even though it seems silly to be worried about a vacation, I guess.”

“Angela, you look like you need some rest. What has been bothering you?”

“I’m so scared. I know it’s all my fault and I’m scared. I don’t know what’s good for me; I know that. I try to keep it together, to do the right thing, to make Max happy so he doesn’t have to teach me anymore. And then I go and do something stupid again. I’m so damned stupid. But I’m scared and I don’t want to go back there sometimes. And then I’m scared not to go back, you know? Where the hell else am I going to go? Anyway, listen to me. This is crazy talk. Please don’t tell Max any of this. I love him. I need him. He is good to me.”

***

The howling of the wind hits a crescendo, and there are shards of glass falling all around me. Cutting me. I am bleeding thick red blood all over my new summer dress. I cannot bleed on my summer dress, ruin it. I cannot.

My hands are here in front of me, but they are pushing me away from myself. I am an image in a mirror and I cannot get out. Now the glass is breaking again. I am released, but I am bleeding. Suddenly drowning in a river of crimson blood that is mine, not mine, choking me. The man in the white waistcoat with the New York accent beckons me. “Come right this way.” A needle pierces my skin, but I feel nothing.

I look down at my lap and see that I have written something on long scrolls. It is in an ancient language that I can read instantly. It is a symphony, the most beautiful music I’ve ever known, and it has been playing since I was born.

***

“When my father left I wasn’t sad. I was happy. It was my mother that was sad. And she was mad at me, because it was my fault. But I am glad I did it. I am glad that I was bad.

But I never did escape from that hell. His presence has overpowered me long since he slammed the last door.

I want to know how to get out now. I don’t care how; I need out. I have bad thoughts. I want to hurt Max. Maybe I’ll throw him overboard—no.

He has hurt me. I don’t know what’s good for me anymore, but at least I know it isn’t him. He doesn’t love anything.

I can’t leave because I don’t have any money. Isn’t what he has half mine anyway, since he’s kept me locked in that awful house in the middle of fucking nowhere, like a cage with only television and cigarettes to keep me company, for so long that I’ve got nothing of my own?

What is my own?

If I could be someone else for a change, someone who knew what she wanted and how to get it, I could survive. But who could I be? I have nothing.

I wouldn’t know what to do. What would I do to get myself back again? What if I am gone?”

“I’m sorry, our time is up.”

***

“Bitch says she wants to leave again. Yeah right. We’ll see how long this lasts. She knows she needs me, she knows I’ve got what’s best for her, what she craves. Bitch can’t control herself. I just gotta help her, that’s all.

You know how it is. These girls are all the same, if you rub ‘em the right way. And I do know how. I’m somewhat of a charmer, right? Like Rico Suave or someshit. And she’s no princess, either, even though she acts like it. She’s dirty, really. A bad girl. They all are. You just gotta tell ‘em that.”

***

Max is holding me in bed. Now he is holding me too tightly; I can’t breathe. His skin is leathery and solid all around me, and then he is a chain that has been fastened around all of my body and pinches at my neck. My arms are here, but they are so closely tied that they are immovable.

Now I am telling him to let go of me. I tell him, “Let go! I want to be free!”

I realize that I am music, and that music is flowing around the both of us. The chains turn into jump ropes and small children toss them around and around. Double-dutch. And I am jumping and laughing. I see their faces as my sister and me. We are happy.

I am myself, my sister, and notes so melodic and silvery smooth that I have never heard any such sound. There is a joy floating that is the feeling of being found but not captured. I am also that joy.

We are together. I have fingers and hands that are new and old. I have both the bodies of a woman and a man, but they do not cancel each other out. I see myself as a mountain and that mountain moves me on. I see the faces of all my family drifting, bobbing up and down on ocean waves in the distance, and recognize them, and none of them makes me feel ashamed.

As I wake, I open up my eyes and try not to let the answer slip away.