So now we enter the Dr. J universe

I’ve structured out the beginning — it stays. I’m not bringing in the lambada. I’m not bringing in the love songs, her living in a state of dance. I’m going to reserve that, maybe for the end, not so sure, but I had to make meaning out of a story like that, and the lambada is a dance famously if not infamously about sex. And they’re Jewish too, so we honored Jewish holidays too in the same house. It was about everything— people thought this was unbelievable, when human history is packed with tragedy and catastrophe and terrible acts. And there I was, a symbol of child abuse, in some insane lie? Which…??? The Jews know. They were killed as children. Anne Frank. What was I supposed to do with that?

I’m just having her come to my house first. I’m not bringing in the song and dance yet. I think that’s later. In general, I’m finding, I think, that I try to do too much too quickly.

On the way to my house, I have her looking over her shoulder — needing to switch lanes — that’s the metaphor for psychological structure, and that’s what fascinated me the most, the existence of it. She had a frame of reference, she has a world that’s traveling through the universe. She knew child abuse existed out there, but never in a MILLION YEARS — and people exaggerate, to bring in a META point about DR. J— did she expect this to come into hers. So will she be able to even SEE it? NOT in her structure. Not in HER world concept.

There’s a reason why self-defense classes begin with tackling your shock response. You can’t freeze. People might not totally understand how they might react, in reality. Your MIND is another topic in these cases.

“Can you imagine?” She tapped her temple at me dramatically. She couldn’t imagine it, but at the same time, she knows and readily believes, “real tears,” my mother cried “real tears,” she insisted.

I get it. But a man can do this, it’s mythical, even, or maybe I should speak to the existence of a collective. I saw that was a real idea. There’s a collective, more than one. We know it happens. It wasn’t THAT unbelievable that a FATHER could molest if not RAPE his own FOUR YEAR OLD daughter. Forget the tears—WHAT? You see what I’m saying? So she shows me, this happens? Okay. Keep going.

It’s just to introduce that this woman is going to get — IMPACTED, something’s coming out of the blind spot that’s going to be a touch too real or apparent.

So I left off, in my last post, when Angelica gets to my house, and Dr. J walks down the steps.

I tend to get mixed up here.

The reader doesn’t know that the story was, originally, that my mother lied that my father was a child abuser. It’s not going to LOOK good when we get there…WHY Angelica decided it wasn’t true. My parents aren’t in the picture yet, which is good. We just know I’m asking her to tell me the story of what happened.

She comes into my house, and she’s alerted upon entry. She took ONE step, froze, and THEN TURNED and saw me. She felt it, and she was amazed herself. “I am from BRAZIL.” The joke.

Once Dr. J comes down the steps, it gets muddled, because her husband’s best friend asked her to do him a favor and pick up his tax return, and it’s going to turn out —that this guy was one of Dr. J’s lovers, which I find out later, in reality, and it’s going to be funny, because he hated ME, you see. Fat Alan. I don’t know if I’m there quite yet. “You didn’t know her?” Not at all. “Never met me.” I’ll stick to the basics.

“I could have been ANYONE,” she shivered. And the FEAR is always sex, child abduction. The fear is always sex, doesn’t matter WHERE you are. It’s just to say. It’s one of these examples to point out what I mean about PEOPLE — THIS story was impossible to people, it could not have happened, but there’s a child rapist everywhere, no matter where you go… right? But people can’t draw these connections. What’s this fear, Dr. J? I saw the existence of a collective, I did.

That’s called a collective fear. One that might be too true. You see? So don’t act, as if there weren’t child abusers if not murderers waiting in the wings of every nation. Truly speaking.

Lots of fear around sex. Got the picture. Please continue. I was nine. Angelica Leibowitz and I had been discussing sex openly since I was four, which is true. But she’s not acting fearful around it, which I appreciated. The fear around sex hurt me, it did. I’m four, but I know I came from sex, no? Is this secret? I’m not asking for details, I’m not exactly… able to retain a thought… enough, I was so confused, really, around the subject of sex, thinking about Dr. J’s lunacy.

I’m seeing truth in her, in other words. Is it really crazy, Dr. J? Our perspective on sex— yes.

Anyway, she comes down the steps. I’ll move her description along… as she was a person who merited being analyzed, but I won’t get caught up. I’ll develop it later.

They were standing next to tea cup sets on pedestals. A mad hatter, Dr. J, for real, she acted as if she were on mercury. One of these details, where you go, really? Just because she was so “on the nose.” Her storytelling was EXTREMELY CLEAR, too clear, like her eyes.

So, the first words out of Dr. J’s mouth disturbed Angelica, (I’m laughing), which brings in point one:

“HERE TAKE HER!” Wee! Dr. J pops like a Jack in the Box, with confetti flying, that’s what she did, and that imagery lands with Angelica. She threw me onto her in a state of extreme joy.

“What did you think?”

“Was she joking?”

You never knew with Dr. J. She appeared to not possess distinctions between lie and truth, like she was one mad universe, or the MEDIA. No one knows what’s what, THEY have an agenda but not my media. The aliens are here, (lol), the military guy is making his rounds in podcasts, Minhaj’s emotional truth. Dr. J is — dee dee dee — speaking right, left, literally, skipping down the middle, sticking ONE foot OUT, one foot IN, you see? “Cha cha real smooth,” Casper Slide Part Two. “Let’s go to work,” and she’s clapping her hands like a monkey with cymbals. She appeared to crack on a particular line. And she’s going to crack her dazzling smile… she’s not reflecting a lie, in fact, if you catch my drift.

You see what I’m saying? The joke?

So here I get lost in my conception of this story.

I’m investigating child abuse, so this has to reveal something, or be leading the reader towards some point about it, which is, Angelica said, “can you imagine someone lying about that?”

But YOU the reader don’t know enough yet, maybe, like, wait what? She lied? So it’s not true about your father? Maybe that’s a good twist early on?

“Imagine someone lying about something like that? About your own husband?”

“But isn’t it already a lie?” I ask. “You must lie.”

I was wondering if Dr. J actually came from an abusive household, if this situation I was in reflected her real past.

Where did this woman come from?

I don’t know if I should do a scene where my aunt and uncle tell me that they had to leave her family house the next day, because it was “too creepy.” You see what I mean? RIGHT out of the gate, I’m expecting CREEPY just as she projected right away. That’s what I mean. I’m seeing the truth. I’m seeing reflections of it.

Dr. J = creepy, not in a few convos. The first. And the second my aunt and uncle walked into her family’s house: “creepy,” first word. Now picture me, a newborn, unable to leave.

So here are the notecards I’m staring at right now:

Her personality — brighter than bright. So how does that relate to child abuse? Is it BRIGHT, Dr. J? Like, Margaret Atwood said recently in the NYtimes, that “very very likely” we’re all getting abused… molested, literally. We have to assume that we’re all going to get molested — and is that true? Here we go. That old question. You see? The crack we are on, with Dr. J? Regardless, what is happening? You see what I’m saying? What are we SAYING?

I saw that in her, long ago.

To bring in an example: when I said it was a lie, I heard without fail, “was it?” And then, when I asked that question, it was “no no…” basically. This what I mean about her basic condition. Is it true? Not true? Can it exist? Only if it IS a lie? A clown show.

“She believed her own lies,” my father said. But so did he. So did Fox News when they said Obama wasn’t a citizen of the United States. They knew that wasn’t true, but they acted like it was. Fake news MUST have fact checkers, but the real news doesn’t have to…

This is where I don’t know what to do next.

Mirror mirror mirrors? Like are you following me? Where I go into her universe of mirrors? She reflected the truth. Mirrors were one of her symbols.

The ONLY way she could be THAT happy? Angelica Leibowitz leveled with me, is if she made love recently, just before she came down the stairs… and should she be disturbed? Like did she get her mind too blown? Jesus. What did that even mean in her case? Why did she act like that?

And that’s just the first interaction with my mother, which might make some men wonder— who is your father?

Now, here, “well she could have…” as she slept with her clients upstairs, often, and so, there’s her legendary sexual behavior. You can’t talk about Dr. J without addressing a real problem in this arena, and here we go, sex. That’s what this story is about, so as long as you have a basic picture of her, a basic haunting idea hanging above it all, I can keep going.

When we left that day, my mother’s vehicle was parked out front (I have pictures). A cherry red mercedes with a license plate that read IRSHELP. She’s getting pulled over for drinking, driving, and looking for sex downtown in that vehicle, as a tax expert, a genius. Her limo pulled up, her solution to her problem, or simply, wee! Time to move up in the world. She was only chaffeured around in limosuines, another lover in the driver’s seat, Michel, “him too, Maria!” Angelica said. And the black tinted windows reflected the sky the color of her eyes… that’s the central relationship in Dr. J, where the light became dark, the dark became light.

I don’t know the steps yet, how to order these ideas.

I know central storytelling points include: did this happen to her once upon a time? And, she reflected the truth… that’s my working hypothesis.

So maybe I should go there first, she reflected the truth, was she laughed at, even? She was almost asking to be laughed at… the way she acted when Angelica just tried to talk to her.

I’m taking in the club, as it was hell, it would have made a great stage for hell, as the terracotta deck, bright red, baked so hot under the sun, it burned your feet right off, you couldn’t walk barefoot. And she made acutely aware of light and dark, heaven and hell. There would be bright spots in hell, wouldn’t there be? Was this the quality of it? Not so much DARK, is this… bright? Like it’s happening right in front of everyone? You see what I mean?

“Very very likely, everyone is getting abused…” in front of our faces. But is it true? Here’s Dr. J again. YAY! NAY… YAY! YAY NAY, time to play twister. How low can you go… I have a lot of fun using her as a reflective object, because she was that ridiculous. And, interestingly, to skip ahead, Trump won’t release the full files on Epstein. With situations, scandals, like these: you expose. You see what I mean? They are TOO BRIGHT. That’s what you do. Like, sorry, you abused children. You massacred people… and there are shades of darkness that are just TOO BRIGHT.

That’s what I’m seeing in Dr. J. My feet dangling. “Huh.” It was all…so fascinating… as if I were “a dark character” turning the lens on the light… as we’re dealing with a reversal of concept, and yes, it’s disconnection, the BUTTON word of today. “Everything is disconnected.” Think about it. Dr. J is scratching her wig, so it shuffles from side to side. This is really the point. It’s going to come down to our nature, our beliefs about our own nature. That’s what I’m seeing in Dr. J, even if I couldn’t totally get there, as a child. I’m SEEING the future, I’m SEEING Jean Baudrillard. I’m seeing a fairytale even inspired by his treatises.

This section is complicated. But, “you’d think?” I’m tossing a paper towel into the bin of bathroom at the BH Tennis Club, in a shady corner… staring at the magnolia tree, or gardenia. It’s about our nature, Dr. J, I get that, something twisted about our ideas about all this… but you’d think, you’d think that “a man is raping a four year old,” would be an automatic goodbye, not a “here’s 11k a month while I figure it out…” like, “we loved each other once…” sounds a little DISNEY, delusional. The knee jerk reaction SHOULD BE— I need to get HELP. That’s NOT what happens. It’s just to say I’m SEEING as child abuse as DISNEY. Is it rated PG, if not G, Dr. J? I was amazed. How?

In terms of the story, this is what I have, first.

I have Joy calling Angelica every day… she’s keeping her close. I asked her to describe these phone calls, and I can start to describe her in more detail here. Like maybe I should push ahead in the narrative.

So she calls every day, she’s keeping her close. Did she KNOW what she was doing, bringing in her BLANK state eyes of SHEER innocence? I don’t give a shit. People asked me that. Do you? Do you know what you do? It’s a question Jesus answered—no. “They don’t know what the do.” But, hm, some might call him delusional, and understandably so, all things considered. Yes and no.

Now, to bring back in Eric Berne, this smells of a game… he believed the games we play reach back into our childhoods, so what is this game, Dr. J? So maybe I should push ahead… action wise before getting caught up in her…

Because the question that’s coming is: did this happen to her?

Then, the accusation gets launched, and Angelica decides to “play a nice game” anticipating that he might call and “act NICE.”

Maybe I should drive the narrative here.

I don’t know where to put these scenes:

At four, in church, I was contemplating “pure regards.” I had to conclude at four, that she might have been abused younger than my age. I knew what rape was, conceptually. I didn’t know the details, but it didn’t look good. It really really ugly. Dr. J has a “pure regard,” which was fascinating to me, because she was so impure, I got it, I just didn’t understand it. Why? I got that sex wasn’t pure to these people, the Catholics, but if I am pure, and I came from this act, why is it impure?

I didn’t even know where this woman came from… so I asked my father, to and fro the club, WHO is this woman? And basically, he reveals a detail about her life, that she was sent away for a few years, because her sister beat her when she was two?

And my father’s “oh didn’t ask anymore questions…” like, I understand it might repulsive, repelling, but was that a cover up? A blatant lie? I get that you don’t know the difference, Dr. J, but I couldn’t help that I could see that I was sort of sent away, so did this situation reflect a real past?

I’m going to stop for today.

Did this happen to her…?

Mirror mirror mirrors on the walls… do I go into the mirrors now? She reflected the truth.

A later story development is: how do we become who we are? As this situation is going to fall on me, or my mother is — even if it’s outrageous! Outrageous to put such a fate on someone so young.

I’m studying abuse.

And I launched a psychological experiment in the fourth grade, which is a scene I feel like I need to put in… just because, I tried to understand her, destroy her, at the same time.

In any case, I’m currently confused, but I’m figuring it out. It’s starting to feel “thrilling,” which is what I want.

I just don’t know how to order THIS because it’s not going to sound like a lie, you see, I’m pretty sure.

The beginning of Once Upon a Time on Miracle Mile

I’m staring at notecards.

I’m looking at groupings.

“She was sent away like me…” so I see that maybe this present situation I was reflects a real past. Then I have “mirror mirror on the wall…” where I go to her room of mirrors.

Then I have over here: can you imagine lying about that? About your own husband? But isn’t it already a lie? Wouldn’t it require lying? So, how could you lie about that? Right… as I’m wondering if she was sexually abused when she was a child… specifically by someone in her home. Like, I read about the woman in France who confessed that she lied that a boy raped her because her brother did, and this expert in the NYTIMES said, “that happens because you can’t accuse a member of your family.” I’m already on that channel. It requires lying.

Then over here, I have her eyes — as her physical appearance deserves analysis, but her eyes in particular. Her eyes were the shade of the sky, and in short, “we tend to think of the path of a villain as a fall from grace, but JOY showed another way was possible… up up up into the sky the color of her eyes not down down down the inevitable fall…” so there’s a reversal of concept. The light becomes dark, the dark becomes light. Her eyes aren’t GREEN, they are DISNEY blue.

Okay— I will develop the DISNEY thread as it relates to child abuse.

I have that next to “pure/impure” as I was four contemplating child abuse and sex in Catholic Mass. I was studying “pure regards” at the time. Dr. J had a “pure regard.” There was something pure about her… which struck me because she was so impure, I got the picture, though I didn’t understand the “tremolos” and the “tra la las” so to speak. Now, I could deduce that I was pure because I was four. I could deduce that in a Sunday hat. I also gathered that sex was impure to these people. So if I am pure, and this is impure, and I came from this act, why am I pure and why is it impure? I was confused, fundamentally.

I don’t know how that adds up to anything yet, except that this relationship — our ideas about dark versus light, were insane. At four, I saw that quite clearly. That, to me, Dr. J’s problem was twisted as our ideas about all this are twisted, really. She was twisted, but this was twisted. Huh.

I have this notecard down here: how do we become who we are? That’s a development. I know that. I was studying criminality, of course. Because, already, it will become clear, that I am going to be told very young that I might become my mother, which was shocking to me, considering who she was. And I’m going, “wow,” putting FATES onto people before they are even born… wow.

I have “I was at a disadvantage as a child, I knew that…” looking at my mirror, hers, out of the corner of my eye. I believe she reflected the truth, Joy, in her universe of mirrors. So that’s probably going to have to come pretty early on. Although, I’m at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club, and the first scene I think stays, so I might be rushing ahead. No Dr. J yet.

Scene one: Angelica tells me what my mother accused my father of: rape, molest, beating. The works. Right now, the next scene is me watching the tennis match, and giving context — this situation fascinated me… that’s clear. Psychology. I reference Eric Berne and his book from 1961, The Games People Play. I was already on that channel. And because it was about child abuse, essentially, I was amazed by the logic in it. What was this game? It terrified me, fascinated me. So I launched an undercover investigation into the psychology of it. It was a passion, it really was.

I’m still on step one though, so I can’t rush through the steps. You have no idea what’s going on as the reader, but hopefully you’re on board with me, this kid with a mushroom cut, for I had met “a couple of Delilah’s already.” Angelica Leibowitz refreshing herself with her Diet Coke. First, I needed to get the basics straight. I was not doing this “thing” called interpreting. I had no idea. That I knew. It’s just hilarious that Angelica Leibowitz is on board. You’ll see why.

Probably, I need to establish the story before going into Dr. J, that’s a development. So, sequentially, in reality, it begins with “did I really live with you for four years…” I asked that over and over and over again. I intended to record her. I knew people changed their stories, for sure, I was Dr. J’s daughter, especially when “shit got real.” Isn’t that right, Dr. J? There, we’re going to see shuffling across the court, loud squeaks. I asked her the same questions, all over this deck, as if I was holding onto the racket too tight, like I could rapid fire — she said THIS THERE and THERE and THERE while eating her SALAD, WHILE she regarded the people in the jacuzzi. THEN she smiled. She was my opponent, savior, caretaker, complicated.

I knew I was at a disadvantage as a child. I was automatically at a disadvantage. Adults weren’t necessarily going to tell me the truth, the whole truth, so I had to record it as best as I could, also interested in studying memory, as I was studying many ideas at the same time. I had different files so-to-speak in a drawer labeled “undercover investigation” in a fourth grader’s handwriting. “Incest, child abuse, imagination, intention, the truth, memory…” In short, I knew that it might not all make sense to me, so I was going to have to take it in… and maybe one day… I’d reopen it as an adult, or with one, and it would make sense. I just wasn’t prepared for what happened the day that I did—— this is a different aspect of the game.

It’s not what I BLOCKED out, it’s what I couldn’t connect. Meaning I had these memories, I just didn’t realize I had them, exactly, and I’ll get there, as this relates to my family, so there are ties, simply. And then, forget it, it was brutal in the world out there. I had nothing but opponents. You’ll see. I’m going to get enraged. Tennis.

That’s for later.

I’m just going to leave that. I think that’s fine, another cliffhanger. Not being prepared for the day that I did.

“So what happened when you came over to my house?”

That’s where I got. I’m not AT Dr. J yet. I think that’s good.

I’m going to leave it at that and take a FRIGGIN deep breath to reference my New Jersey roots, for the LOVE OF. I’ve had a wickedly difficult time just getting here. It’s all I needed to do. Notecards. But then, you’ll see, it took me my life thus far to get here. So, I took a walk, I went up to the Christmas tree vendor, and I told her I have never bought a Christmas tree, so how does this work? I thought I might start small, because I need to buy some ornaments.

This is life to me. This would have been the psychologist I wish I had. Not like everyone celebrates Christmas, but get into it, actually. Buy a Christmas tree once a year and collect ornaments. I laughed thinking about Obama, once again, as he ended up being a great guide through the Dante-sque journey I had… getting annoyed at my angsts with the world.

I’ll buy the Christmas tree soon. I need to get a stand, a skirt for the needles. I’ve seen people set up their tree, I’ve helped out before. I just don’t like the sentiment that comes with me simply expressing that. I had to just step over that. It’s all good. I’ve celebrated Christmas, relax, I’ve gone to people’s houses, I’ve gotten out the ornaments… it’s not like I haven’t celebrated Christmas. I’ve just never done it on my own. I chose not to. I wasn’t someone who cared about the holidays. I feel like I took on some emotional pressure that I didn’t need. So I’m going to buy my first Christmas tree. I went once with my old roommate, I pitched in, I think, and helped her carry it. But now, I get to do it myself. I’m going to get a Christmas tree, I’m going to decorate it, and I’ll even buy myself “a nice Christmas present” within my means, type deal. Earrings, classic. I remember “the diamonds” yes, hilariously. My second surrogate mother finally got her diamond earrings, the real ones, and her daughter and I raised our brows at one another, elbowing each other, and beginning to play announcers again. I spent the holidays elsewhere. She’s my cousin’s wife, now that I worked out these issues. She’s my cousin’s wife. Progress. Just because, this situation caused me nothing but complications moving forward.

Okay, I feel solid about that.

What were you listening to? Julio Iglesias?

“Were you listening to Julio Iglesias? On your way to my house?”

She laughed at that, looking away.  She crossed her arms, took it, a good sport, Angelica. She knew I was making fun of her. “Was it?” She wasn’t sure, Maria, come on. I knew it was Julio Iglesias, 90 percent chance. By her response, she knew it was true.

“Which one? Me Va Me Va? Or Agua Dulce?” Picturing her red Cadillac coming round the bend of La Brea, speeding uphill, switching lanes, chasing an IDIOT who had cut her off around x. Pulling up alongside him at the NEXT red light, the STORK would wave NICE and fake at the guy to FLIP this “mother FUCKER” off with a strong middle finger.

Back in the action — she was headed for Ladera Heights, dancing and singing behind the wheel, able to SNAP without hesitation. It wasn’t just anyone who came over to my house that fateful day — it was Angelica Leibowitz, the musical. She did not drive, she did not walk, she moved. In song. The first note that opened the sex scandal was celebratory.  

She told me from the start, “I am from BRAZIL.” She MADE a point, like she could obliterate you on the court. You do not understand. She didn’t SOFTEN her culture, not for anybody, chewing her GUM like a fucking cow, to make a point. “I am FROM Brazil.”

The stork searched for an opening, she had to switch lanes, and there was no way she could have seen this coming, speaking of psychological structure. She was operating within a framework. I was fascinated by the existence of structure. What she could not SEE, how this situation happened, how her pride, or ego, would be bruised, hit, because she couldn’t even imagine finding herself in this situation. She knew, as she didn’t doubt my mother’s story, “real tears,” I understood, that child abuse existed outside her car, in the universe, but she never thought in “A MILLION YEARS,” and people exaggerate, thinking about Dr. J’s psychology, as she was a walking exaggeration, to make a META point, that it could enter her world.

Down the boulevard of bottlebrush trees…with its red flowers that looked like pipe cleaners, Angelica was looking out her window for the address. She didn’t know this neighborhood, so she was grooving, smiling, athletically looking at the piece of paper with the address on it. Her husband’s best friend Fat Alan asked her to pick up a tax return as she happened to be in the neighborhood that day. Mistake.

No kidding, crossing her arms.

TIME TO PUT ON A NICE SHOW FOR THE S** OF A B**CH!

AD GRIPPED THE NEON BALL as if his hand were a claw. He bounced that shit. Couple times.

*

The phone rang. I was tucked beneath a window that framed the backyard like a Jasper Johns, an American classic. The sprinklers spit, set the beat. Picking up, “hello?” She chimed. “Oh…” she smiled, looked down at me— just as she predicted. He called. “How nice,” she said as if she could slice his dick off with the ICE in nice. “Look who it is…” she was delighted to hear from him. “To what did she,” even emotionally, she asked him, “owe the pleasure of his phone call?” God smiled upon her. Ohhh, looking down, a sports coach, right right. He wanted to play nice. He didn’t know her.  Two can play that game, she thought. “How nice,” she said. She paced the kitchen with white sneaks seeking his balls, the subtext being: we’re pretending that we don’t know why your daughter is living with me now. “New Jersey and Italy? How nice…” She didn’t help him, you see, she didn’t mention me, but neither did he. Isn’t that right? Nice smile on her face. She was a shark darting back and forth, back and forth. She loved everything he was telling her, but she dropped the mask, suddenly, and squatted real low. She stuck her finger in her mouth at me: yuck. Popping back up to standing, an agile woman, she was the mother hen now, her chest puffed out. I guess, she wanted to communicate that she was pretending — big time.

“How nice…” but there she got a little dirty, a sports coach, as if revealing the underbelly of the smile… as she had no problem with ellipses. Suddenly, desperately, she stomped, actually confused. “What?” She needed to hear to him, the warmest woman. “I did not hear you…” She needed to, “please, what?” She was so sorry, just so sorry. “Maria?!” A revelation. “Is she aroun?!” How hilarious! She couldn’t stop laughing at that question — I was right here! She was so sorry! She blamed herself, she hadn’t brought me up, right? She laughed, she really did, for a long time. The good witch. She skipped over her words as if she were in a fairytale. She always keeps the babies, she said, drawing the line of sight between her and them—right where she can see them. “Doesn’t leave my sight,” haha, she was even generous about it, her laughter, reaching for him. “She’s right here!! Let me get her immediately!” .

I fiddled with my fingers.

She dropped the mask a little bit, “never been safer.” She meant it, you know. With her whole heart and soul, she reassured him: “don’t worry, please Nick, don’t worry…” poor man. Gazing across the grass glistening in the sun freshly watered, she spoke of wonderful times, “so many children, a dream.” She delighted at the invisible babes playing at her feet. “They love me,” she said, “…as a safe person.” Nothing but laughter these years. “Nah,” she dropped mask, she didn’t think so, didn’t think I wanted to go. Not so sure. “Can you what? So many kids around,” none were, “I’m sorry I didn’t hear you?” She meant it, she wanted to, hear him that is, she was so sorry. “What did you ask? Talk to her?” She pitched high. “Of course!” She sizzled as she dug her fingers into her eyelids and shook her head—for a while. Her face rose, open, generous. “So sorry.” She hadn’t even thought of it. Her responsibility of course. She was so sorry, she laughed, she was really a bull. “So many kids…” The subtext was: why wouldn’t you be able to talk to her? Not like you did anything, right????? Innocent man???? Laughing, right? She laughed for a while. “She’s right here, one moment.” She couldn’t wait. She bent down real low and called me over with her finger. I was pinned under her beak— her eyes fell out of her face. She couldn’t believe it, mouth agape, brows raised. He invited me to go on vacation with him. She couldn’t move, couldn’t wipe the shock off her face.

No, she just shook her head no.

“No,” I said—easy. I was four, five.

“I love you Maria…” He reached for me.

I didn’t know what to do, her face practically cartoon. I just started saying it back. “I,” she grabbed that phone—right there. She brought it to her ear l, her elbow pointing high. “Thank you so much for calling, really,” she said as genuinely as she could. “Thank you so much, for calling…” all the way to the receiver. She hung up on him, nicely, and cursed his existence in Portuguese like a bull. “And what are you,” she pointed down at me, brightly now, “going to say to the lawyers?”

“I want to live with my moder because…” I had a script, we rehearsed it, often.

“High five!” I slapped her hand. She clapped; it was time to dance!

A spin on the living room dance floor. She had six kids, grandkids, so a birthday, Wednesday, soccer game, excuse, there was always a party. We switched like that.

Then, he requested to visit.

She dimmed the lights.

In the foyer, she diffused the play at hand like a stage director meets sports coach with a vision. “We’re going to put on a nice show, a big big show.” Her arm scanned the kingdom. “The house is yours…” We had to act happier than happy, never been happier without you. This was a woman, by the way, who ended up creating a fake AOL account (years later) to contact her boyfriend (after her husband died, and I know, I know the question is: where the hell was he?) pretending that she was her cousin, to hit on him, literally. She wanted to see if he would cheat on her… so Angelica had a dark side. The front door was our target. We had to be loud, very loud, laughing, screaming, playing like crazy when she gave give us the signal. “But you have to ignore him, okay?” She said to us little girls. “Pay attention,” she pointed, the good, snappy witch. Me especially. “Not one look, okay? Not one. He does not exist,” she meant it. Just give her a magic wand, and she’d be a hilarious Disney character, as a Brazilian mastermind in a sports coach. Knock knock. Her arms flew at the front door—go. Nicole and I jumped, laughed, and shrieked in glee. Hand at her ear, she couldn’t hear us, already, you see. “More,” a conductor. We unleashed our voices with nightmarish funny faces—“ahhh!!!” Her hand marked it: level one. She pointed up, we had the stars to reach. Trick or treattttt, she cracked open the door to our voices laughing and yelping in a forced jubilee. Her bird-like face appeared in the crack. She peeked over the threshold — is that you, really you? Opening the door all the way to the wall with her mouth agape. I recall these moments, almost peering at them as if I were a spectator, because this was really happening. There was nothing to hide here, you see, she communicated. She even dared him to “visit.” Like she was going to let a child molester into her house…“Here she is Nick!”Nicole and I flew by as if we were a roller coaster ride or pas de deux in state of wild abandon. AHHHHHHHH. Nicole screamed “IMMA GET YOU!!!” AHHHHHHH. AHHHHHHH. Angelita stood guard in a tennis skirt with her arms crossed. Titling her pelvis, rocking herself on her feet, she relished the sight of babes running crazy, wild, free, but most importantly, “safe.” A little bounce off her heels, oh! She popped down low and waved to us as we ran past on a thrill ride across the house. She requested that we raise our voices with her hand like a conductor and cupped her ear like a master of ceremonies. He didn’t even try to step foot into her house. He watched the happiest show on earth, an ecstatic nightmare. “YEAH!” Throwing fists.

I am a woman in love! And I’m talking to you! You know I know how you feel, what a woman can do! Only love songs scored these years. Only the best. “Pay attention,” she told me many times. Okay, you see, what the hell was I supposed to do with this? I’m telling you, these idiots over the years, to get a little rough, sports rough, telling me to feel my feelings? Look— what is even happening? I don’t even recall the man trying to step a foot in her house, so one might analyze that he was knocked off his feet. I just don’t understand what I’m looking AT. It took me writing a book about these years, not even understanding what I was doing, to wake up to what was happening. I used to say, around here, to the ONE person on earth I ever spoke to about this section, which only sounded like nonsense and some woman opening a door to — my fists thrust in the air at Astor Place Starbucks in NYC, “YEAH!” No one understood what was happening. My friend, Nate, with big big eyes had no idea… and I would say, “she was crazy,” my mother.

“Why didn’t you call the cops?” I asked Angelica back at the Beverly Hills Tennis club, the players deep in, I asked her, why? I meant it. But I was nine, ten. We faced one another, seated at noon and six as at a real desk. Cloudy day. The umbrella was down, probably. Or am I shaping my memories now according to the story? We do that, we shape, it’s normal, thinking about Dr. J, as her psychology fascinated me so deeply because of what it reflected about us, normal sane folks.

She didn’t want to send me to foster care, she said. And BINGO was his NAME-O. The spectacle rang true, didn’t it? Which I knew. I felt that at four and nine. There was something TRUE about all this, but what? What did this reflect, Dr. J?

YOU KNOW I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL! WHAT A WOMAN CAN DO— bring it back, Barbara Striesand, as the “dances with wolves” Nicole and I were putting on, even artfully, could be scored to that song. You could have cut the track, and our play could have sustained the same level of intensity. I can’t even totally deal with the flashes of sex, like we’re screaming in ectascy… disgusting.

I remember I came to on the stair one night as these “Spectacular Spectacular” performances straight out of the film Moulin Rouge had a good run. This situation lasted four years. I remember we did it more than once. It was the pitch of Nicole’s scream. I was crawling over her legs. I had to do that. I had to keep touching these moments, like her leg. I was crawling up her legs that night, it happened. I sat up, what am I doing? In two places at once, yes, at four, and then thirty four.

When I started writing about these years, I started growing up, because if my child, so forget wisemen, was in this situation, I would roar. And that was the key, for me personally, in terms of getting out of hell, psychologically.

I walked downstairs and stood there to take in this snapshot: a broken man at the door, that was the message he communicated, encased in the shadows of the porch and this woman standing guard. Horror.

At the time, all I could do was wonder: was it really like this, Joy in a way? Would no one do anything even if it were real, was it that unreal? Later, I learned that families typically pretend like it didn’t happen, and the horror of it, was it a JOKE? And a sexual trauma specialist told me that I might not have known that it was happening, because I was so young? And is that true? Isn’t that the QUESTION du jour? And her foster care comment. A joke. Am I’m seeing the truth of that being reflected back at me, even the truth of reality TV, or the flimsy nature of it all. I’m sensing a past, too, no? At four.

And in the end, just like a show, she closed the door from the wall—in no rush. She thanked him so much for coming… what a time we had, she thanked him for “the memories we made.” It was heartfelt, even. He got the door slammed in his face more than once, nicely. What is this man doing?

Giving us her hand, we leapt to slap her palm, hard. High five! “And what are you,” pop quiz, “going to say to the lawyers?”

“I want to live with my moder…” I blurted with fists. Another high five for me—yeah! She clapped, kicked her feet back, did a little sensual move to advance, time to dance! Legs leading the way, we were really going to get that, “asshole,” she hurled in Portuguese. The three of us scurried across the foyer as if we were in a play, because we were. Games were afoot.

When I asked my father — I was nine — why he didn’t just pick me up? He says, “you hated me and I didn’t know WHY,” emphasis on the WHY. So, wait, I’d get up in the mornings, I’m sorry, so you understood the SUBTEXT? So now, put yourself in his shoes? Absurd. I’m playing like mad! Angelica Leibowitz is standing at a wide open door. And what to do with his secret dementia…that’s coming in six years…? His secret illness he kept to himself… later. But of course, at the club, his throughline totally disappeared. Why is he acting like a lunatic? No wonder, why she believes it’s true, and my father didn’t going to CHANGE his operation. Not at all.

I saw so much truth in Joy’s blue eyes, it was even spiritual, it really was. Blue as the sky. The dark became light, the light became dark. People thought it was so unbelievable, and yet, a child that’s already being abused, or taken out of their home, could be abused, even, again! Statistically, their chances are higher. It was, spiritual.

Reading the article in the NYTimes about Alice Munro’s molestation and her mother’s strange and detestable response — Margaret Atwood said, “very very likely Alice Munro was abused, if only because it is so common…” a ridiculous statement, so hold on. THAT’s WHY she acted the way she did, because it happened to her?

In this world today, nothing is real, but everything spiritual, so why not do it to Enya? You couldn’t take the music out of that house, as these years were scored exclusively to the best love songs… but in this case, let’s do it to Nicole’s favorite: ENYA, as family became mysterious to me, I guess, I’m supposed to say that, which I also didn’t need to, I don’t know. But she was my PAS DE DEUX partner in these soirées of — leaping, screaming, and charging through the house acting SO HAPPY IT’S CRAZY WITHOUT YOU, while her mother stood guard beside a wide open door.

So, the reality of it is difficult to believe. The spectacle of it is hard to believe. Amy Griffin, actually adds to the convo: how could you forget? WHAT is repressed trauma? As I don’t know what I’m FACING exactly, and no offense, I met idiots — pretending like they know, who led me down a road that maybe I didn’t need to go down?

Cue Enya. Let us turn the foyer on Miracle Mile with a crystal chandelier, Jose Leibowitz the star, into a night to truly remember. Remember the other NY Times article about “the mother who abandons her child being the anti-heroine of the moment?” Here’s the buffoon piece about it.

We were already in a theatrical conceit, and I learned something very true about the truth, as if it was one of my proverbial files in my drawer with a fourth grade label on it: undercover investigation. The truth— what a subject. Some things are so true, you have the license to push it over an edge — so make these FOYER performances even better, more choreographed, because that way, I could at least make a statement.

The Catholic priest in it played by Jose Leibowitz. He’s Jewish, sexy, sure, able to dance between his mother’s Jesus and Mary candles. Oh they were Jewish, ohhhhh.

There was something much deeper turning, as we danced these years through — through the same rooms — as Dr. J, to me, reflected that our perspective on sex, or our nature, needed an update, forget our software. Whitney Cummings going right up to teachers, “are you a pedophile?” The comments I received from people I knew — no no, not true—before I even finished the story were alarming. And was it unbelievable? In a Jewish house, too? Considering what happened to them?

“Very very likely” everyone in the USA is getting molested. That was stated casually. So, according to Atwood, my mother did this because IT happened to her, and we should understand HER. It’s really okay, Jose Leibowitz flashing his palm, backing up, like it’s all cool, gravy, right?

So the door opens on another night, another show. Jose Leibowitz in sports gear and a gold chain. Angelica had six children, and they were all born to dance and they know that. Nicole and I are chasing after one another, peeking around banisters, and Michelle, the blond, coming around the wall, as if we were in The Sound of Music, but really. “If you really want to,” Enya’s “Only If.” And to that song, after we move through the foyer as if some splendid meaning were to be found in domestic scene, we could assemble around Jose Leibowitz in formation — and they could start dancing as if in a pop music video, backing up, embracing their sensuality like pop stars in unison, “if you really want to, you can seize the day,” or bend reality… with Jose Leibowitz’s HEAD. They’re honoring the bodies their mother gave them, dancing real cool. I would be among them, one of them now, and it made them laugh, that I could dance, so. Children are sacred… to la la da..ahhhhhhh.

There was so much music in that house, that it splashes in my mind — Lady in Red, Through the Years by Kenny Loggins… but the lambada reigned supreme, king. The lambada was an overarching canopy, as I ended up in this house the year that Kaoma’s Lambada took the world by STORM! 1989. It was the closest thing you could do to sex with your clothes on…and as this is all happening, these “soirées” of playing HAPPY for some dunce standing at a wide open door, we’re partying all the way through…we’re dancing…and it was the lambada regardless of the song. And in this house, sex became good, so much more than just the act itself, but the force… the force that brought all these people into this room, so it was spiritual. Lambada, eh, lambada… my mother’s name was Joy, you know.

The Lambada, I read, was born out of a time of oppression. It was liberation. Angelita Leibowitz, she’s going to have to do some BEYONCE battle dance — to Enya — as sex is sacred, isn’t it? In my opinion, that's the word that’s out of whack. What else was I supposed to do except push the play as far as it could go? This was such a farce. And I’m only at the beginning of the story. Not the end. The spectacle of it? It’s going to be a SPECTACLE from beginning to end.

My mother, Dr. J, she ran into church to Enya, in my mind, to “accost,” according to an eye-witness, the priest with her rapes. Every Sunday. And think about the “prolific pedophile” racking up 300 charges as Dr. J was THE GENIUS OF ALL GENIUSES. Accost—that was her verb choice, the eucharistic minister who was standing right there. In a white mink coat, the tips of her fur catching the stained glass, this woman decribed her as “Cruella de Vil from 101 Dalmnations,” in haute couture. But he, too, the priest was dressed in rich robes, about to process for Mass, or a holy performance, so they mirrored one another. She’s accosting with her blue eyes, please, begging him? To help her with her rapes? So yes, her performance was outrageous, but next to the Catholic Church’s BILLION dollar lawsuit, their normal routine is even more outrageous. Reflections. A spectacle, indeed. She reflected the truth. And did anyone help out the priest? Nope. People don’t do anything. Remember my father explaining what TAXES mean to a four year old: with hands, “a responsibility we SHARE.” It was so on the nose, this story, it made me laugh.

And then, my cousins brought up, many years later, a DOCUMENTARY about a girl who was kidnapped by the Vatican? Is that true? And we’re discussing this around a dinner table before lunch. Is there nothing sacred anymore? Forget real. What is she a sex slave? Am I being TOO real about it? Is that a joke? Why are you bringing it up as if it were UNREAL? You see what I mean? Dr. J everywhere. We’re talking about CHILD murder, even? Like are they keeping her in a DUNGEON?

CUE ENYA.

“May it be…”

Nicole and I are swimming in hoodies, the lot of us are carrying lanterns through the foyer… Nicole and I then play against the music — skipping through the foyer, moving very fast, very fast, we all gather to move through the song — quickly. We’re earching for meaning in a work out routine… He’s passing out oars so we can row to a new world — let it be… Lord of the Rings, Jose Leibowitz transparently — rowing sure — but thinking about how to create water, better. The feeling, of course. And the music turns, towards the adventure, Jose hands me — tosses me even — over the Louise so he can make his way up the stairs… very very likely, everyone is going to get molested… okay. Who cares? Its airy-fairy, a little Dr. J. Nicole and I are sparkling, skipping, laughing — throwing pillows. Jose unleashes the backdrop he had stapled the banister earlier — autumn leaves, sparkling, otherwordly. Jose is waving a light at the top of the banister… leading us home…

I had to laugh, it’s a farce, the whole situation was, but the response to child abuse, genereally, is deranged, isn’t it? In reading that article about Alice Munro’s daughter: her brother told their father, because he couldn’t handle it, and their father said, let’s not tell Munro, because he didn’t want to get blamed for ruining her marriage. This isn’t a lover’s quarrel. This is a crime. And she reminded her mother of that, when she called the police. You know, in this regard, it’s almost as if TV is more real about it than we are in real life. It’s an automatic rated R. My mother needing “time” — Only Time — to LEAVE her husband for raping a four year old? Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Hmmmmmmmmmm? You’d think that would be an automatic goodbye, hunny. That’s — Jose Leibowitz setting off sparklers, beginning to perform magic tricks. “She really isn’t being SAWED IN TWO.” You heartless bitch.

“LET THE ORINOCO FLOW.”

Market scene. Jose Leibowitz is the fish mongrel, so the cleaver smacks against the counter. He’s tossing the fish to Louise. Ah, the poetry of daily life. It moves…on.

It was as clown show. Slamming the door in my father’s face to ZILS.

Peace, Jose Leibowitz says, with two peace signs.

Time to eat.

CUE JULIO IGLESIAS and Jose Leibowitz in the back seat of the car snapping at his mother to STOP cracking SEX JOKES! Louise—SERIOUSLY!!! Louise would be the one to hold me, by the way, the future lesbian of the family. Like, WTF!

The writer of the BBC article about the “prolific child abuser,” said that the trial didn’t garner the same response because it was about child abuse, so no one cares— what? Was it not as shocking as Pelicot. Did you read? Children are being raped on TAPE — ? HELLO?

I’ve been alone with you…in my mind… Lionel Richie. Sorry no transitions—you’re just going to be SWEPT AWAY. “And in my dreams I’ve kissed your lips,” he’s shrugging, “a thousand times…” That song probably came on, again, Angelica Leibowitz was a GUTSY woman — she’s listening to the power ballads, baby. Not the soft stuff. But I was a Lionel Richie fan. The sentiment, I don’t know, the love songs added a layer of emotion, yes constructed, as you can play the NOTES, arrange the instruments, and the story tended to affect people, given the combination of ingredients. But it’s the SINCERITY of the love driving these songs… how utterly biting they are, that might just — WWF style — punch us in the face.

Jose Leibowitz, the camera beneath him, pointing up, he’s looking up at the Tree of Life to Storms of Africa. I’m in awe. Dr. J’s personality of sparkles of splattered glass, literally, her wonderment, her eyes always in the stars…  and then I look across this subject and all I see is looney tunes — And of course, the question is, “what happened NEXT?” NOT — well, you know, I think, “she gave you away to save you from herself,” okay? Cue Enya, downbeat: SAIL AWAY SAIL AWAY SAIL AWAY… Jose is skiing on step one of the stairs. Our hair is flying in a fan. Jose Leibowitz, legs crossed, thinks we need to let go of form here. The more I woke up through this story, the more enraged I became, personally. Where suddenly, forget the ethereal nature of who I was, as I needed professional help, and our dances with wolves, I’m asking real questions:

Did he really not even TRY? Try to walk into your house? How many times did these “soirees” happen. I remember that they happened for years… when did they stop? And who’s behind me? Cops, probably. Obama, people like this. The Clintons. The politicians, they know what I’m going to say. I spoke to the Russians, yes, about this story, and I said, “this is the Society of Spectacle.” That’s what a Russian is seeing through these lines. They agreed.

I don’t know what we should care about, if not about the strikingly common occurence that child abuse is, or the floaty loss of reality…where we’re turning it into some disconnected stageplay! Skidding into symbolism, somehow, thinking about Amy Griffin, recalling years of abuse with psychedelics, and it DOESN’T MATTER IF IT IS TRUE, NO. Even the THOUGHT, as that, that alone, just the THOUGHT, that someone could LIE about something like this — drove me to investigate it. I believed it was a lie my whole life to discover I could have been raped anywhere and everywhere. Molested, even. So did this actually happen to my mother? You see what I mean? Running into church and making a mockery of it — and what does this reflect? What kind of illness?

I picture this sexual trauma specialist on a BIG SCREEN in the back of the foyer, enjoying the dancing, like a deus ex machina— what are we doing? Around this subject? And it’s true, I don’t know what to say, about this subject in particular, because — a billion dollars — May it Be, cue Enya again, in holy tones… they abused a billion dollars worth of children. It was spiritual. It is.

So here we go, through this debacle, let us continue… holding my hand in the foyer in tights and puffy sleeves, a Medieval play.

Angelica Leibowitz my snappy bitchy Braziliian back up. She’s going to mesmerize you and attack you in dance — let us, pray.

**

As a note, I just threw this up, as I’m working on a piece about it, but that’s the scene where I just fell apart, all these years later, like was this true? To May it Be… Lord of the Rings. I hate the drama in it, hated it.

I was four at the time, you know, five, who knows. But reopening this investigation, at the Beverly Hills tennis Club, I tried so hard to record it, it was so memorable, even if it much of it flew over my head, and I don’t know what to say… realizing, forget remembering, Angelica asking me, God. “It wasn’t true, was it?” Kicking up her sandals. Pushing through my response as a child — WHAT? I was not the type to get shy, man, if I had someone on my side, I would have — attacked my father. He brought me home to mirrors being smashed off the walls — she did this, my mother, he said, because she was jealous? Imagine?

She lied about you being a child molester, idiot, because she was JEALOUS of a four year old? At EIGHT years old? I can’t compute that. Now, as an adult, the children at St. Jerome’s School know — they know where I’m going— the bat in the back of the trunk. They were startled to discover it, startled to… but I received so much flack for being FURIOUS. Okay? Who the fuck was this man? My father? You know, he saved the article about Dr. J in Neiman Marcus Magazine — same deal, idiot. Who gives a SHIT what this bitch looked like?! Not to start cursing, but I’m emoting right now. My parents were DISNEY characters.

The dance party, the lambada party, they were Jewish, so what can happen to a person… I really was in this situation. That’s what the sexual trauma specialist I found said, “you were already in this situation…” I’m asking this man, “could this have really happened?”

“HELLO????????????”

“IT DID.”

But I had to go through a FIELD DAY of PEOPLE going NO when they don’t even KNOW what happened, okay? No no no no no no. No one asks a question. If I’m being brutally honest, I saw delusion everywhere… since Dr. J was a walking delusion. I saw racism as delusional, it’s totally delusional, saying a person isn’t a person, but it’s real and very true, structural, so there’s DELUSION in the architecture. And around THIS, my story, this one right here, I met delusion in the world… with these phrases like “she did it to save you from herself…” after I said, she LIED, even, at the time, about her husband being a child molester. This woman, Angelica, she’s a temporary insanity plea, don’t hesitate, because she was TOLD that a man was raping a FOUR YEAR OLD and he BEGAN acting like this. And you see, all these years later, as I had to reach beyond my own life to people out there, like OBAMA, to OBAMA? This woman is just acting REALLY REALLY NICE. You see what I mean? What conversations are happening between my parents? Nothing but questions. I’ll continue sharing my conversations with my father about all this — this lunatic.

He’s saying “we tried to make this work…” remembering this DUNCE getting out of a LIMO at the school that was ARRANGED? Nicole and I went to a fancy prep school that Dr. J paid for. And here he is waving… at me? Angelica Leibowitz frozen, look, a COP is going to get that. People don’t know how to respond. We participated in some weird ass photo shoot.

So hear me, as I had to fight my friends, even — I was in a sex scandal. Schools arranged.

And can you hear it… the build?

Through the Years!

The door opens, another night another show.

The sweetest days I found I found with you, through the years!

And these people over the years don’t get it — it’s called STAYING ON TOP OF THE SONG. Not DROWNING in it. I had enough people GETTING ALL ETHEREALLY affected by this stupid story. Jose Leibowitz, hands on his hips, is leaving room for it, as people FLIP out in tennis, and there’s a version, fiction, of JOSE LEIBOWITZ standing on a court with me — in a cute sweatband, so young, swinging this racket around, roaring at HIM. No one cares, not in this context. Everyone is just, enamoured, thinks I’m a special person destined for greatness. Yup, wow. So much force in one so young. Jose Leibowitz becomes my legal guardian because we had matches across his house, my friends. Meaning, you, the readers—my friends. Ohhhhhh yes, I flipped out, barked at people, and JOSE LEIBOWITZ would DESCEND like thunder, I would go running. I tried to run away…

I see.

Looking back on all this.

Okay.

I hid, tried to run away.

The women, the girls, Angelica jumping — they held down the perimeter as no woman wanted to deal with me, to be honest, so Jose had to — I bit, I threw punches. SO these moments were tough, remembering them, because I laughed through them, just laughed, because Jose Leibowitz was practically doing acrobatics, and I didn’t know where we were in the story. SO I DIDN’T SEEM TO HAVE THAT MUCH FUN ANGELICA LEIBOWITZ SINCE SHE SAID, ALL THESE YEARS LATER WHEN I CALLED BECAUSE I WASN’T SURE ANYMORE IF IT WAS A LIE??? She said, “we had fun.” I disagree, though life is COMPLEX, isn’t it?

Cue Caribbean Moon — the tennis player flies through the air reaching for the ball. There’s triumph, there’s disappointment, there’s anger, yes, most definitely scored to Enya. The ball flies across space, and I’m seated, calmly, vertically, in a chair, contemplating all this at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club with these spectacles in the parages of my mind… they’re there… I even felt bad, for my father, you see, as Angelica Leibowitz did. Not me. The game. At times, I wonder about the brain, how we developed as a species, as I saw us as biological machines, of course, looking at Angelica Leibowitz, as if, we’re designed, absolutely, and it’s the subject of sex in particular that got twisted somewhere. Like, the Catholic priest is the symbol of sexual abuse towards children, and they are repressive when it comes to sex. I don’t know if it’s valid, but I was a mini-psychologist there, so if you were to break it down thematically, sex is wrong, if not criminal, and children are innocent, but even our innocence — made stark and bright in her eyes, my mothers, Joy — is seen as evil. Can we trust our nature to Enya? Are we good, bad? Are we savage? And always, the civilized man turns out to be the real savage. And you know, we all have to find the good in what happens to us, I guess, I don’t know how to describe that, but in my case, I’m just embracing the searingly buffoonesque slap in the face in it — where take the soirees to the max, make it a real spectacle — heartfelt, even. If it’s true there are chilld molesters everywhere, or people in a daze… wandering through meadows with Dr. J… seeing it everywhere…making documentaries about this. I can’t tell what the hell is happening. We’re court dancing to Enya, Jose Leibowitz our mastermind.

And all together now, “turn to gold,” the Brazilian Jewish children are embracing their destiny, dancing sexy regardless…. like their mother taught them too. Even as a fuck you. I am a man, you know. A mer-man swimming through a lagoon, part man, part divine. All of us, all of us are —shimmering under the moonlight, my friends. Jose Leibowitz, back on Miracle Mile, believes, even, we should embrace beauty. He thinks we should should — with a hand — putting books on Nicole and my head — practice verticality. Ballet. Mystery.