We're going to play a NICE game, Angelica said

I remember watching Nicole tipping past the point of conscious behavior at her brother José Leibowitz. He always picked on her. Finally, the earthy Virgo, snapped, beat red. She punched his arm with all her might across the room. He winced, found it funny, until a point. “Did she know what she was doing?” My mother? People asked me. We can lose a grip. About to switch into another state, himself, I was struck by that—what is that switch? What’s happening? He’s going to lose consciousness. My mother made me aware of states, and I was fascinated, because I saw glimpses of her, wondering about that line, tipping point, what happened to her. Nicole was no longer aware of what she’d doing, and he was about to tip over, and it’s understandable, if you push someone, they might flip out, respond. Like magic, just when she was supposed to, Angelica burst through double doors with her fantastic legs coming out of a tennis skirt. She blew this fight away in Portuguese. The children fled from the flames. I stood there amazed at her, always. How did she know what was happening? That’s a four-year-old. (She heard.)

But Jose and Nicole appear older than they should in my memory, the kids. Maybe I’m wrong. It all happened so fast. That’s where we were though, at some tipping point between conscious and unconscious behavior. They always fought, so maybe I’m remembering it globally, but she exploded — boom, she was angry.

“You,” she blasted. “Me?” In my room now, she said.

I trailed behind her, I got in trouble a lot — I barked at people. But this time, I didn’t understand, as I didn’t do anything, so I don’t know where I am in time as I became known as a problem child. I refused to say “I’m sorry, thank you, and please.” I threw fits, I think. My behavior became a joke, even, how bad I was, so I tended to play into it, later as an adult, which almost ruined me, I think. I don’t do it anymore. How funny it was, I could laugh and laugh, so I played into the comedy of it, because it was also true. It was a comedy, or a comic universe.  

We crossed the foyer, the crystal chandelier, it cast rainbows across the walls at night. I studied them, the beautiful even teary effect of colors. How did it do that? The crystal tears hanging still, the warm glow, the lambada coming on — again. The flecks of rainbows, so light and crystal can produce colors. With my little finger, I discovered light was real, couldn’t quite grasp it, the subtle projection, but I could hold it in my palm, upstairs, mostly, and Angelica would always snap at me, “stop staring at rainbows.” Her son and I, José, the most perfect name, we had matches across this house — no woman wanted to deal with me as I punched, bit, went for the eyes, I think. Angelita jumped on the perimeter, “Jose!” Women screamed “Jose” as I ran through the foyer —it was as if he studied me as if I were an opponent.

These moments, I remember them, but they feel as though they’re already in another dimension, so his legs leap over the ottoman, and the chases became so hysterical to me, picturing him jumping out windows in his tennis gear —  and it might not be that far from the truth, actually, as he had to wrangle me down, so I’ll leave that be. So if I were telling a story of it, he would become my guardian, but that’s not exactly what happened, but even he would understand what I mean. He would explode from his desk. He would descend like thunder, he wanted me to hear him coming. He’d employ confusing footwork to snag me. He STARED at the ground and start throwing his feet in confusing directions to throw me off, and he would try and get me to say “thank you, please, and sorry.” I would throw punches. He’d hold me down, I didn’t yield, why would I want to say these words? Please, sorry, thank you. Picture some four year old who has no idea that she’s SMALL. I didn’t come from a house where I had to say these words. I barked at my father to explain the intricacies of the universe to me. BARKED, “WHAT IS IT?” No one is telling me, don’t talk like that.

They could have tried a softer approach, but I don’t think she thought I was abused yet, I don’t know where we are in time, but I was lucky, wasn’t I? I could have gotten beaten, isn’t that right? (This was how people spoke to me.) Wasn’t I on some weird edge? Unbelievable. How believeable the unbelievable is. I did feel like there was a collective. Some collective well of knowledge, except there’s more than one, and it didn’t mean it was right. But terrible things can happen to a child, that felt pretty known. Like, this could have gone much worse. As far as I know, these moments were dramatic and intense, but no one hit me. And no one was calling my parents? Was that the money, the accusation, both? Don’t know where I am in time.

And look, thinking about that mirror in my room, would they even tell the truth? The truth is, people shape it, especially under the gaze of the public eye, scrutiny, so they could very well lie. That’s just what the truth is. My father’s divorce file said, he came home and I was living with another family, and he was typically gone 5-7 weeks, and I don’t know where we were on that time line, but this situation developed quickly, so am I in phase one, two?

“It happened so fast.”

Once Jose came home—he threw open the front door and all his gear down, loud, right? He wanted me to know, no matter where I was, that he was here. Five women, including Angelita, the hottest one, RAN to him and screamed Jose! For a while, “JOSE!” was the name SCREAMED across this house, because he was the one — no matter WHERE I was, he could feel me, truly, this man. “She got out this time.” So, I’m interpreting this memory, later. I hid and tried to run away. “No no no,” he said, “she’s here.”

Into the living room, I remember seeing his shoes. The ladies called JOSE, no, no! We looked there, but I was crafty, crawling on my elbows and shit. Jose knew who I was. I forgot where I was that time, but he found me in three seconds, it was annoying. WHAT??? These women. HOURS, they searched for me for hours. JOSE — number one in the USA at tennis at 16—fast. I hated him. He hated me.

Nicole on the grass in the backyard: “wind and fire,” she said, softly smiling, pensive. “Yes, it was always going to be that way…” but my moon was in Gemini, she probably still remembers, “so…” As a Dorothy, she explained the elements to me. She spoke of her siblings, softly, airy, in terms of their astrological signs.

He once held a pitcher of orange juice, hiding at the kitchen door, because I was coming around. He poured the whole carton on me. The kids hated me, but think about it? Why I was there? The house turned around this foyer, so I remember standing there and looking into the living room. Jose and Michele confronted their mother. It was an unspoken change, my presence. Michele’s body language communicated that. One day, she walked up to her finally and paused, standing there in the living room. She threw her finger over to me, like it took some courage.

“What is she doing here?”

I was a touch too young, at the time, to be able to interject and add my two cents.

Up the steps of her house, Angelica had six children, a joke. Nicole, the youngest, was the astrology prodigy, I call her, a Dorothy in ruby slippers. I wore gold. My best friend, she’d wince when I got in trouble, she always stood by me. There was Jose Leibowitz, a name you cannot compete with, a few years older. Nicole was clearly a surprise, and then, Angelita got her tubes tied, so she wasn’t looking for a seventh. Michele, the sole blond, was the lethal one, as they always are. She was a pro soccer player along with the sole brunette, Louise, the future lesbian of the family. They were a couplet. Jo— the doctor at Berkeley, she brought me sprite when I was sick once. Andrea, the eldest, already had kids, young, like her mother. I have no recollection of their father, but he worked constantly, but doing what, I don’t know. He was supposedly a travel agent. He was never around, but I remember seeing him for a couple of parties—their world-famous parties— and once at dinner when I refused to take my elbows off the table while I was eating, not that happy about where I was, evidently, but what did he say? Did she tell him? The money, right? It had to be good enough.

Oh, the game, the tennis game, sneakers squeaking, a good volley back and forth. They were trying to throw the other off. Her husband told me — as my elbows were on the table and I was pushing around food, not living at my house, anymore, but who gave a shit? I’m four, I’m not having that deep of a thought process, but I’m upset. I understand, looking back at myself. He told me to get my elbows off the table. He commanded a captain-type respect among his children as if he were the father in The Sound of Music, which is also where I was, as you couldn’t take the music out of the house. A love song could rip through the athletic home at any time, she was dancing sexy regardless. We weren’t talking at the table, as his commanded silence, but his children loved him, adored him. He said to me, on the sly, while eating — get your elbows off the table. Now, to me at four? It’s not happening. He raised his voice, slightly. Get your elbows off the table. No one is speaking. So I just, but just took my elbows, literally, off the table, continued my action of pushing the food around. He said it again, as my elbows were just off the table. I slid my arms down a touch. So, off we went, the two of us, he’s repeating, losing his patience, elbows off the table. I slid down the entirety of my arms, acting all four-year-old about it, ornery. All the way down, until, finally, he’s about to blow, and I put out a single pinky on the edge of the table.

He blew.

OH MY GODDDDDD!!! The Neapolitans. He blew, the father. I tried to tell my cousins, as I spent a few summers with them after this debacle, in Naples, and then I disappeared to them a few years later. I was bad, I was bad, okay? I exploded, uh oh? Feast 2 with these people, Christmas, December 5th —

I had tried to warn them, “I am a woman in love” streaming from their stereo around the rugged cliffs on our way to Angela and Vico’s in splotches. I had tried to tackle it, right? With one foot on either side, seated in the middle in the backseat between them, Franco and Flora, equal parties, I…had tried to warn them. They wanted to know what happened, why I disappeared, and I was at a point, at that point, where “it was always like this!” I don’t know if that’s true exactly, I mean, the fault of it, but who I was became funny. I tried to tell them I jumped out of her car, pushed her door open, and they’re just finding it charming, of course. I’m thinking they’re going to get “something’s off.”

“Aww…”

“No!”

And then, I had to insist — I told a woman to get out of my way, I was practically raised into the air — they put “My Way” Frank Sinatra on, in my honor, a Christmas anthem. You see? The goal in these parts is immortality, so the end of the year? There’s no bitterness, no dreams of the year to come, I did it — my way. That’s the attitude every year — so that’s what Christmas is about in Naples. “My Way.” I pushed — celebration. I pushed the button: this bitch, this little bitch, she told this woman to get out of my way, YEAH! A Christmas baby. YEAH! Applause, songs, tears, pizza coming out of the outdoor oven, it’s all timed to the song, naturally, as these people are so in tune with one another in groups, it was Aristophanes, a true Greek chorus. I had no idea, even, that they put it on for me, so classic, they waited to the end to tell me… it was a shock, a true shock. “Yeah!”

That’s what the end of the year is. It’s a chance, not a romance. And I would receive applause from these people for saying that. “YEAHHHHH,” party favors, bravo being slung, flung, blown — man, these people know how to blow you away with BRAVO. BRAVO! The Neapolitan baby told this bitch — get out of MY WAY! These were middle-aged men in cashmere sweaters. So they put on that song at Angela’s in my honor, and when we sat down to eat, they kept wanting me to — tell them, how I told this woman to “get out of my way,” as they understood the sentence, due to Frank Sinatra. Angela kept saying, “ESCI, ESCI,” because my Italian was limited. “Exit,” in other words, “EXIT…” Giggino tapped the dinner table, conclusively. We did a little reprise.

“My way.”

They didn’t understand, okay? Are you laughing at FRANK SINATRA? And I could be attacked, yes, even by members of my own family, HEY! YOU? ARE YOU— boom, MY WAY again. In revolt. Fuck you. And then, we’re kicking our feet, but Frank Sinatra is another mood entirely, this is DEEP. This is bravo — firing like canons, DEEP metal, people, deep.

I ended up flipping out, they pushed me too far —  “I was BAD, okay? I was not BRAVA.” UHHHHHH? They kept wanting me to do it, looking at me like this JEU, or play is unnecessary — “show us how you told this woman to get out of YOUR WAY,” right? They had the same teeth, they adored them in me, at the dinner table. “Get em.” I insisted, “okay?” They received my insistence. “UHHHHH?” I insisted, I was bad —"OKAY?” They weren’t into it—FOUL, bitch, because they’re NASTY, at the table, they’re IN THE PLAY, they’re charging the field, they’re RESPONDING.

“I was BAD!” To an Italian? “YEAH…” sure… enough of that.

“A bad baby?” Angela asked.

“You know,” um, acting stupid, trying to find the word, “monster?”

UHHHHH, the crowd responded, UUHHHHHH.

I was on some edge, getting up from the table, and YELLING and THEY DON’T GIVE A SHIT — they’re commenting, disagreeing, having side convos, telling me WHAT THE? I’m pointing to fruit, “when this bad…” Silence, uhhhh, the crowd is ADJUSTING. “It is NOT GOOD for eternity…” I searched for the word for “spoiled, brat,” when “A BABY IS NOT GOOD.” A bad baby? Has she lost her mind? “Uhhhhhhhhhhh…” They’re calling my foul, watching me act out, perform, but dinner in Naples is a match, theater, whatever. What’s the goddamn difference? Charge the field, tear down the set, save the smuggling revolutionary, this is our true thought process. WHAT? “I was bad,” I said, and my cousin Giggino leveled with me, look this comedy routine, he said without words, so I laughed, “it doesn’t work,” he said simply. “It just doesn’t work,” as he believed I was a true comedian. “DOESN’T WORK,” and I’m insisting at the man. I suppose I had a sharp smile—which they were indifferent to — because I got the impression that children got blamed sooner than they should be. But to them, I’m insisting, sort of with a smile they don’t understand, even, understanding I’m trying to MAKE A POINT, but WHAT IS IT?

I couldn’t help what the story was, you know? So, it was a match, it could be.

So then — GIGGINO — boom, he was watching me, in the match I was in, like he didn’t like that I was bad. So he came after me, later, at his house, in the kitchen.

“What are you talking about???”

“Why are you talking about yourself like that?”

Such a “Dad move,” right? The second I stepped onto the floor, the living room floor, GIGGINO would fire: “HEY COMPLICATE!” I was goddamn complicated. I took a deep breath, I was trying to be open to them, but there’s no way they were going to be able to deal with… the story. But he’s not going, “yeah you were bad,” or playing into that I—ME?—was a piece a work, like “my father didn’t stand a chance,” I couldn’t believe that, later. That people said that to me. He hated it, all of it. He sensed it, even, smelled it. He could tell that I became the problem, and he didn’t like that, and then, there was so much he didn’t know.

He didn’t give a crap, “what are you talking about?” They might not understand their own prejudices, gender biases, right? She had them too, Angelica. She favored men, you see, her daughters used to snap at her, and she didn’t deny it. Jose was her favorite. I laughed, I did, I laughed all these years through, at the truth of it, you know? I don’t know, maybe someone will understand, there is an architecture, ideas that are engrained. I felt that way, like my father was favored, that I wasn’t believed because I was a WOMAN, female, yes, also. I MEAN WHAT I SAY. But he was also sentenced, without a doubt. A man could do this, it was so easy for this woman to believe, but “you’d never expect” someone to lie about that… it’s just to a lawyer, they’re going, “I do not understand…” you see. Lawyers want you to EXPLAIN. When did it become a lie? Lies are a tricky arena, and I fell for it too. You think, the biggest liar, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. If you have ever… had any experience with shady shit.

He watched me as I tapped my pinky on the kitchen table, remembering that dinner. “I WAS BAD.” I threw Italian across the walls like mad — amazing, to them — Pollock, it was art, okay? According to my cousins, strictly speaking, what I was doing was Neapolitan art of the highest caliber. Abstractionism, it was art, even important, Neapolitan abstractionism? I’m telling them, trying to, tapping my pinky. GIGGINO said YES, GOOD. I’m trying to tell them about this dinner as if it would EXPLAIN WHY I WAS BAD. GIGGINO was saying GOOD in my FACE. “YES, of course.” Giggino — undercut — “did these people know you were Italian?” He gave me DOUBLE pinches. He gathered his pinches— his pinched fingers.

No one in Naples acts like it’s abnormal to get upset, at any time, basically.

I laughed.

“Show me,” he said, even gallantly, “an Italian who would EAT with their elbows off the table.”

“AH,” Giggino looked at me. He got through. “Telling an Italian to EAT,” his wife said, “si,” “TO EAT,” Giggino leveled with me, “with their ELBOWS off the table.” He called it “absurd.” He couldn’t even deal with it. I insisted. He nodded, okay, let it slide. He FOLLOWED ME, goddammit, he’s nodding at me, “Maria,” as I slid my arms down the table again, he’s FOLLOWING me. He gave me the PINKY — he showed me the PINKY — was it not “vai fanculo?” He gave it to me like a fuck you. Of course. He put it on the edge of the proverbial table. He GOT what I was SAYING. “GOOD.”

He sizzled, brought the intensity down, he was resolved about it.

“Look,” he said, “if you tell a Neapolitan to EAT with their elbows off the table, doesn’t matter how old they are,” he assured me. “This is the reaction.” He continued, a doctor. “Revolting like this, that’s…” he grew fatigued, “that’s just the reaction. It’s just Neapolitan… they’re going to revolt,” he said it as if there was nothing one could even do about it. “BEING ASKED to eat with your elbows off the table…” He was disturbed. I laughed, I really did. I didn’t even know they existed, I was in California. I insisted I was bad, a piece of work. Giggino hated it. That was that.

“Why are you there?”

I can’t help that many truths exist, I don’t know what to SAY. I’m not Italian, I’m from California, and she was actually from Brazil… just to say. I don’t SPEAK in an accent. I’m not Italian to her. God knows if she even knew I was Italian, she might not have been concerned about it, if you would, not in these circumstances.

-

My back to the court, sneakers squeaking, the players in a tense close match, I asked her how much she was paid to do this in the shade of the umbrella.

Not looking at me, she said, “1200 a week.”

“For 24/7?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

I asked her to repeat that. “24/7?”

“Yes.”

What did that mean to me at nine-twelve? I didn’t think about looking up that value until recently, as it was 1989. That would equate to about 11k a month, cash, no taxes. So, never enough, she said, never enough. She went on and on and on …this is money. The pay didn’t even bring me respect, it brought me the opposite. I owed HER for taking care of me basically speaking, she clothed me, fed me, she would list everything she did for me, though she was paid. She agreed to the deal. It’s one of these moments I had, like, look lady, YOU made a deal with the devil, not me. Money. This is money. Her putting this on me, like she clothed me, bathed me, fed me, that’s what she agreed to, and a grateful complex I had prevented me from living a normal life. So that’s the adult looking back in this moment. I had to be grateful? For this? My mother said I was being abused, that she was being abused, so it was only right, tears falling, Joy. I get she was played, but did she think she was actually sort of getting a good DEAL? THInk. WHY else, why else would you do that, though of course, her emotions are wrapped up in her decision making, of course. Thinking about these sneakers needing to be quick and agile across the court. She cared, right? About me? About a child being abused? About some woman begging her, please help me? I’m a fair person, not everyone is. SHE most certainly was not FAIR, not when it came to me. At all.

And so, Angelica said, don’t worry, she agreed to take charge of me while my mother garnered up the courage to leave her abusive husband, and this is what she does. We might not have started at 11k, but that’s where we’re headed for around the clock care.

-

Her bedroom always looked holy to me. This was where the real show was…I would sit on the edge of her white bed, as I had rules. I couldn’t get into her bed, normally, and it felt correct to me. I would watch her dance — to herself — in the mirrors — primetime, the light streaming through her white curtains. Her foot kicking back on the plush white carpet. She turned herself on, dancing to herself in the mirror — Nina. We watched that movie, she would fast forward to the sexy parts, I laughed at her. I usually clapped. She’d laugh and have to sizzle herself down…”love,” her face rose from her hands. “Love,” it was all she talked about. Sex. It was love. Only the best love songs scored this heartwarming story, Lady in Red, too, Celine Dion. I could never get over that it was 1989, the year that the Lambada took the world by storm, a dance so close to sex it was even scandalous, and it began in heartbreak.

I took a seat in my chair. Angelita brought hers in front of me. She was different this time. She wasn’t angry with me. We made each other laugh, so that usually broke up the tension, but this time was different, her mood was. I could never see my father again, she dipped down, in sweet little girl tones. The light came through her window, a heavenly glow. “Why?” I asked. “You’ll never see your mother again,” she said. But I wasn’t seeing her, but I didn’t say that. “And you’ll never see us again, do you want that,” sweetly. I was four, five, so I wouldn’t have known how to approach that question, but of course, I bonded with these people, I’m designed to. “No.”

“Shush,” Angelita shushed me, bringing herself back up.

“We’re not going to tell him what we know…”

“We going to play a nice game…” with this piece of shit, she spat on his name. But — she didn’t ask me any real questions, and I don’t think I would have been much help. As far as I knew, at the time, it hadn’t happened to me. Now, I don’t know.

The phone rang.

-

**I included a scene with my cousins because I’m working out what the book is, and something has to change, as I’m going to wake up to all this, so I might move that later. I see some pieces in it that might be better later, but I’m just going to leave it as is, and keep moving through it, because maybe it’s not necessarily too soon, like introducing the dancing here, the love songs, but I might just need to rewrite it, depending on how the rest goes. But around here, as I began waking up to all this, I might need to make some kind of transition, but it’s coming, so the phone rings… it’s my father…

So right now, I’m going into my first tennis lesson next, which is related to a love song, as my instructor started singing “Maria” from Westside Story to me, which was — a no no. I chucked the tennis racket as hard as I could, I even threw my body into it, so I caused a scene, but my tennis instructor was so truly enamoured with me, “that’s a good backhand…” no love songs!!! I am four! I flip out, and Angelica and I talk about how my behavior signaled to her that it was true, too. I had to put together her side, as I was writing about it, so back in her bedroom, perhaps, I’m thinking ahead, I asked her questions about sex, right. “You’d never expect someone to lie about that,” she said, but I see the truth of it and the lie of it like mirrored images, isn’t it already a lie? And I’ll conduct my psychological experiment in the fourth grade that I did in school, needing to understand how someone could lie like that. I’ll make sure to put in the crazy case of a pedophile lying left and right, about what happened.

This is where people, and even I, could get confused. The lie.

I conducted a couple of psychological experiments in the fourth grade, tough year, on lying. And there, you’ll see that my father was actually sick, literally, but sick with what? And then I’ll go into the game — kick it off. Overall, thus far, I just have to work the language, style, with that tennis game. But there’s a build, the game getting nastier, right? Something. Thanks for reading.

I think, overall, I can’t quite shake that no one reading this is going to necessarily think it’s not true, so I’m not sure if there’s suspense there? Any point in acting like that question isn’t there from the beginning? I’m trying to just speak about it from the place I am in now.

"So I started living with you just like that?"

Whoa whoa whoaaa—I am a woman in love! And I’m talking to you. I played Barbara Streisand in my head as I watched the game —You know I know how you feel… a player step-ran to launch for the ball — to realize the attempt was futile. It’s a riiiiiiight, she wails. The racket slid down his grip. On the court, you can flip out, huff and puff, lose your composure, and roar with a shaking fist. Drama. We are capable of expressing ourselves largely, in movement and song, we have range, but in which direction? Ah, people I spoke to had trouble there, though we know anything is possible. Dr. J could dash towards the IRS to the same soundtrack… ready to save a man in a white mink? Imagine, her pushing some door open at the IRS? It’s a riiiiight. It’s all in the same universe of intensity. But, Dr. J, was a strange one indeed. I agree. Unusual direction. I guess.

The ball bounced off the fence.

We were facing each other off the courtside table at 1 and 5 o’clock.

“And I started living with you,” I asked, “just like that?”

Her sandals hit the ground. She brought her fingers to my face and snapped them, so I could see the reality of it up close. “Just like that,” she fell back into her chair and crossed her arms, looking off and shaking her head in regret, hatred. I gave her the space.

I remembered it as overnight, but in a court of law, I couldn’t prove it factually, so no point in trying, but that’s how I remembered it. She confirmed my understanding of it. However in a court of law, she would have to define what a snap meant. To a lawyer, they might mock it, so-to-speak.

“One day, two days?”

“What’s a snap mean?”

“Literally overnight?”

In a court of law, you’re looking for the actual sequence of events. People did it to me so often, it drove me crazy. They gave me their opinion, interpretation, as if it would hold up in a court of law as fact, which was the governing system I lived by, as the way people could express themselves in real life reflected Dr. J. I lived with that mediator of thought, you see, in my mind at all times. Why don’t you live with a legal system in your head? That was always my question.

Money. It’s a hook that snags you right on the smile line, like a fish, it’s primal. Dr. J was an ecstatic fountain of cash changing colors complete with a sexy woman holding a slinky snake — Joy’s in a business suit, clapping like a monkey with cymbals, hanging off Michel her limo driver/lover, getting sincere, so sincere, suddenly, for a man is in trouble, needs saving.

Elaboration aside, her personality was actually along these lines. But people exaggerate. However, that impulse or that state of invention within a normal context doesn’t take over the whole self, but it’s expressing a kind of truth, in that, it felt that way. They’re trying to be interesting, or entertaining, so did she have a condition? She was a moving exaggeration, not a normal person, and I hope I don’t have to defend myself. I had to defend myself — “I am not exaggerating,” but I understand people exaggerate, so why do you? Because it was real, it felt, sometimes, that I would bring up “this thing” people did, but did they exaggerate real crimes, like if someone said murder, to present a blunt case, would these people be wondering if they were exaggerating? Describing a serial killer, even? Who were they expecting? What did they think someone who’d orchestrate something like this would be like? Joy. Confetti. High-powered. A combination of traits that made no sense. I can’t begin to pull out all the crazy people who ever walked the earth, meaning I cannot confirm that everyone who’s nuts would follow her lead, but Angelica couldn’t compute it, it was foreign, outside the known world, so she couldn’t necessarily see it. She couldn’t foresee what was coming, impossible.

Before I go into these phone calls with Dr. J, I’ll give you a preview of it as you would have to keep in mind that the offer of money mixed with an innocent request, as that’s what it was, regardless of the timeframe—is coming out of the mouth of Dr. J — a chaotic system. Her speech was bizarre, my mother was a visibly unhinged human being. She had a physicality that even communicated it. She offered her, I’m guessing, hundreds, “oh my, kiss kiss, so excited, all smiles, so sorry, saving a man, you don’t even know, maybe a compliment to her, maybe all those thoughts at once, 500 hundred,” and she said yes. I don’t remember going home.

Another wall that I ran up against —a wall in people I told the story to, wanting to get sentimental, projecting sentiment all over me, not hearing what I was saying. I was practically twisted out of sense because of it. The people who claimed to know me, know what this story was about, came from parents they sought to be around. Home wasn’t that pleasant for me. I wasn’t exactly itching to go home. Someone tried to manipulate me later, unfortunately, over this stupid story, and he said, “don’t you think you were scared?” Dr. J was scary. Angelica Leibowitz and co. were not frightening basically speaking, I was four, responding to my environment. This was a warm-blooded group of people. My house could be scary.

The exact timeframe was between 5 to 7 weeks, or a span of a few weeks, as my father typically went on his stupid work trips for that length of time, while his wife is drinking, driving, and looking for sex downtown. But Nick, dopey Nick, is going to act like the innocent guy. And yes, I came to learn, with family, with people, they could exhibit similarly offensively blind behaviors that they don’t even see. There’s no way that the situation would have been possible if there hadn’t been real money involved, another reason why I call it a sex scandal. There was a deal made, and it began at step one. Angelica was a woman who had a weakness for money, so though I don’t know the factual truth, I believe a night snowballed.

By her bitterness, if I were reading it correctly, she even thought that she was getting a nice influx of cash. I can picture her trying to refuse the money, Dr. J whipping up her tornado of sparkles, insisting on it, only right, so sorry. Dr. J was spouting money, chauffeured in limos daily, a glorified tax attorney. Even the people I attempted to speak to about all this couldn’t compute the story from step one, so imagine if it was happening right in front of you, and if I’m being brutally honest, many people might not respond appropriately to something blatantly happening right in front of them. They might not be able to see it. She was hard for translate in real life. She didn’t sound real. This did not sound real, just like Twin Towers going down— didn’t feel real, did it??

Angelica didn’t dress me up like a doll, I didn’t like those clothes. I didn’t want to wear this stupid dress, I wanted to play, feel softness against my baby skin, t-shirts, easy.

As I heard “did she call?” fall from people’s mouths at least three times, beginning at Barbara Streisand, her voice returns to my mind. My emotional journey, over and over again!! “Call?” “What?” “Did she call?” For a long time, I could not lie, not at all, so when people asked me, “did she call?” I could get entangled ever further, because I would have to admit, sitting forward with a smile on my face, a sincere one, because I was angry, needing to take another step forward into this and defend myself. “She did,” it’s a riiiiiight…they’d usually go “oh,” as if there were hope, maybe. “All the time,” I smiled. “Never asked for me.” Their faces of puzzlement, confusion, that’s impossible. I tried to say, “this is not one of those stories…” everyone was designed to find an exit, and there was no exit. “Nothing I’m going to say is going to make you feel better,” I tried. In the beginning, Dr. J called every day, “and…” these people over the years, “she didn’t ask for you?”

Taking a breath, by this point.

“No,” I’d say, like, are you listening? Sometimes, I could act like a dumbbell, with hands falling on either side of body, “why would she do that?” They would look at me as if I were an alien because I played it for real, “why would she do that?” As if their innocence didn’t appear just as perturbing. “Why would Dr. J call me?” That’s not on her vocabulary. She’s not a normal person. The psychology of it escaped people. My mother was a case, the actual story did not register. It was hard to become real because of it. Amazing that words mean something, real, reality, yes. Reality is real. There are many. But we’re not always gifted at seeing across realities, as we’re hierarchical in design. Psychology. I remember, I was four, I would hear the phone ring, and I knew it was Dr. J. What is she doing? I was living somewhere else now. I remember peeking round a corner, just to catch a glimpse of her body…

“Can you describe this phone call?”

Angelica’s hand came up to her ear, holding an invisible phone, dramatically, “ahhhh,” she hit the high note, for shits. The tennis court behind her in soft focus, a man pulled a funky move to fling at the ball. She sighed “I love you” fourteen times. My mother would throw I love you at me, too, in happy daggers, in a poof powder of sweetness, it made Angelica cringe. “Disgustingly sweet,” Dr. J.  And sighing around, professing it. “You’re so wonderful, my baby, my lovers, you don’t even know, you’re my best friend, here’s like 1000 bucks.” Lavish praises, sticks, nonsense. Punch of sex, like, Angelica’s face, splattering it at me in her chair at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club. “Why is she talking to me about her lovers?” She bought herself a confidante. “Ohhhhh my baby…” She even mocked motherhood. “Oh my baby, my poor baby, anything for the world,” her eyes reaching the stars, “for the baby. Only the world for my baby.”

“And she didn’t ask for me once?” I asked.

Another point I had to argue with the audience, if you can imagine. I would have to repeat myself, deal with their disbelief when I have Angelica Leibowitz walking me through it. They had no idea that they were stabbing me every step of the way, putting me down, belittling me, and all I had to do was tell them off. And I could not do it. Why I put myself through that, I don’t know, but going through the world with a background like this was a nightmare. With Angelica forever seared into my brain.

“Not once,” she said with a finger between us. “Not once,” she was taken aback, clearly.  So, once again, she confirmed my understanding of the situation. I remembered that. I remember her figure in the kitchen downed in light, her tense reception of this call, even her confusion over why she wasn’t asking for me. Have you ever been in a situation that afterwards becomes clear to you? That’s what it feels like to be manipulated. Where you don’t even know what happened, how you got there. She got hooked and tossed into groundless nonsense with cash, that influenced her decision making, as that was a real hook…

My father’s sister, Jane, told me about a time that Dr. J called her about her cancer as Dr.  J was a fan of that disease. She was taking all these medications, she told her, Jane relayed to me. She exhibited the same haze across her face as if she had just gotten hit, and she had no idea where she was. I wondered, as Dr. J was a major pill popper, if she was trying to justify her drug habit to herself? Or, was she strictly seeking sympathy as she appeared even starved? Why the phone call to her husband’s sister randomly about her cancer medications that she wasn’t taking? I had to reiterate points such as these to people. “Did she have cancer?” “No,” but no one could follow. Jane couldn’t even respond. Chaos. She’s not calling Nick, my father, and going, “what the hell is up with your wife?” She’s not asking Joy, “what are you talking about? You have cancer? Hello?” No reality, no response, like, “hello?” Calling someone and flinging cancer in their face. So it was easy for a normal person to lose sight of reality — wouldn’t this be behavior to respond to? —wondering if this reflected something about Dr. J once upon a time.  Where did she learn this type of behavior? She went on and on about her terminal illnesses, she was always dying, but again, the package was so bright. Jane’s hazy state was reflected in Angelita—the haze. What was this haze?

Boundaries dissolved, we were lost. Like shock, it should humble us to consider how vulnerable we are, that you can be thrown and not totally be aware of it. They couldn’t make connections. She told the eyewitness in church she was had ovarian cancer, and even she fell for it. She’s dying, that’s for certain, Dr. J was always dying… my father becomes increasingly bizarre as a vague entity as he remained vague for the majority of my life — I projected all sorts of stories onto him that fell in a breathless drop — on one of these freefall rides, the stomach drops, once I started putting this together as an adult. Who was this man?

The money had an effect, though, as it does, or it can, as a force powerful enough to bend one’s perception of reality. The hook was shiny: money.

I didn’t remember going home, but I remember a birthday party at my house.

When I started waking up inside this story as an adult, I became aware of this memory, but any suggestion that the story wasn’t true, you see, the weight of a lifetime of people — who were ready to destroy the story made this a living hell. I’d have to grab onto the dish soap, quickly grab onto the facts or else I felt as if I were going to split in more than one direction. “She said this, I remember this,” through a field of disbelief. Once I was able to handle a new detail coming into my awareness, I could simply state it, but that was a harrowing journey.

I remember a birthday party.

Angelica described me as “the biggest bitch that ever was.” I would point and Joy would pop like a firecracker and there would be an explosion: balloons, cakes, and clowns, and of course, my mother’s breasts. If I started living with her in a snap of her fingers, however, where am I pointing? Or was she exaggerating in that moment? That these parties happened all the time? I don’t think I slept at my house anymore, but invention, to be honest, one of these words you’re not supposed to use, looked like a rather normal process in a person. People do invent, and they might not even know it, you see. People do, they invent. In the name of truth, too.

So the beginning of this fiasco might hold ambiguities and questions, like, why is she throwing a birthday party? Or, maybe she’s appearing with one because I demanded one, so every situation progresses. They would have had to meet to exchange the money.

Angelica’s anger in her chair, it sucks to feel vulnerable, to get in touch with that aspect of self as money was, at least in her case, a hook, and when it comes to vulnerability, it’s often just beneath your grasp. It’s not fair. A jury would most likely be on her side that money has that power, it’s nature, even. Now we’re skidding up basic ideas that we hold… she had six kids, but two were out of the house already, the first had married well, even, to even out that aspect of the analysis, that the number of children that she had influenced her decision making.

It was a hook for her.

But this phone call, these phone calls, sound like a game, don’t they? Dr. J. Riddle me this, riddle me that. A psychological game. Why she’s playing this game as the keeper of taxes, the savior of the fiscal world, I don’t know. It begins to inspire Moliere. It begins to inspire images of rococo ballgowns with no underwear underneath on swings with silk shoes and powdered wigs —a total farce. She’s a manipulator. I tried to explain that to people. She’s keeping her close, she hooked her with money, so technically, she worked for her now. She’s crazy, but she’s a “high-powered woman,” and she forked over serious cash. Joy might sound like a fiction. People seemed to have a hard time imagining someone could be so calculated, but we can be, and there are, in fairytale tones, as I felt as if I were talking to people who lived in a kind of fairytale, psychopaths, sociopaths, even rapists. Child abusers. Pedophiles. These people live and breathe in the world. They have a system of functioning just like anyone else. Do they know what they’re doing? The people I told this story to searched for a reason, but did they search for a reason for child abuse? Rape? Reflections. Do you give a shit about the reasons? Dr. J’s flapping her wrists around like some buffoon of all this flashy unawareness, blindness, scurrying to her limo… IRS. What a buffoon. Dr. J doesn’t care, I assure you, though she may act like she does but ACT, really ACT.

Later, I read Eric Berne’s seminal short book published in 1961, The Games People Play. As a transactional psychologist, he described the realm of human relationships as a transactional space. We’re not interacting, in other words, we’re getting something out of it, which I wished I had kept in mind, personally, over the course of my life. He went through our “hey how are you” transactions with our neighbors, to “do you know so and so” at parties, so we’re getting closer in other words. Finally, the death match —when we begin to get close. He believed that “the games people play” rooted from intimacy, either trying to avoid it or get it. But would that framework apply to, I don’t know, non-Americans? Is it true in the absolute? I found that many people believed they possessed the absolute truth, and though everyone isn’t like that, it’s a hierarchical stance. It tends to apply. People could ACT as if Berne was absolute, when it might not apply to another culture, but there does seem to be a fair amount of truth in it.

He said, “the more deranged, the harder they play,” and Dr. J is most definitely playing fucked up games. He believed we learn the games we play in our childhoods, and they aren’t trite, so what was this game?

It was almost as if the tennis players started acting…strangely. They’re playing a game, but it becomes unrecognizable. They could hop on this court precisely, follow a rolling neon ball side by side, intensely. There would be rules, in other words, and they’d be showcasing how absurd rules can get, as the absurd is a systemic response, the human responding to a strict system…immigration, for example. Bouncing on his foot on that tiny middle divider on the baseline almost like a dancer, he’d launch, yes, to make it more ridiculous, the ball with his hands. Just a twisted game, there’s room for humor. Interestingly, this warped game triggered a strange reaction in people as they were listening to the story — this would be where people acted as if they understood what it was going on, insisted on it, even, in all seriousness to me, just as absurd, as the players fly into the air mimicking fish. They would insist that they knew what it meant. “She did it because…” A cop would never respond like that, the cop is trained, theoretically, to pursue— “what is going on here?!” That would be the entry point. “This is silly. You can’t act like that.” That was the person who did not exist in my life.

They would not know what it means, they would have to investigate, not assume, but that isn’t always the case. Do they know what they are doing when they are targeting Black men? Nothing normal about kicking down doors, shooting innocent people, and yet, there are terrors out there, real terrors, it’s unbelievable what can happen to a person. I didn’t know it was shocking. At times, exhausting. What people know, don’t know, forget. The truth, the subject, is complex. There isn’t just one, obviously.

"The time has come for YOU to pay attention," Angelica Leibowitz said.

Tipping his body forward to tip himself back, player one threw the neon ball into the air, pointing at it, swung his racket around. He delivered it fast and fierce over the net at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club. I loved watching bodies move, my stupid sneakers dangling above the terracotta tiles…isn’t it amazing what we can do? With the time given to us?

*

Angelica threw her BH tennis cap to the back of her red Cadillac. Her hair fell over red leather like feathers, and she said it for the very first time. “The time has come for the time has come for you to pay attention.”

“Do you know Julio Iglesias?”

Before I could respond, her hand reached for me over the seat, her nails red, “I didn’t think so—believe me.” She cracked herself up. “Yes I do,” I said, the baby of the whitest woman alive. “Oh???” Leaning her back up against her car door, she crossed her arms dramatically and took a good look at me, a little princess. “Oh really?” Her brows rose.

“Yes.”

“No,” she shook that away.

“Yes.”

Dismissing that like a tough bitch, “No, no, you don’t,” she said.

“Yes.”

“No you don’t,” I didn’t. “Stop it,” she snapped. She pointed at me as she assumed her position behind her red wheel as if she knew how to handle a big one, baby. “But you will, believe me.” The stork who came to snatch a baby back, me, was ready to take flight, in other”words, getting down already.  “Pay attention,” she warned me, sincerely. “It’s time to listen the words,” and the way she said words was delicious. “It’s time to listen and learn.”

Braz Dos Santos and partner Isabel winning the ‘campeão dos campeões’ (Champion of Champions) competition at Boca da Barra / Mano Ribeiro Wikimedia

“Me Va Me Va” by Julio Iglesias began to flow from the stereo. She clapped, moved her booty in her seat to the intro, which was the perfect take off song. We were going on a journey most definitely, baby. Checking her rearview mirror, she took on a tone that adults can take around young children, as taking on a young persona, even to reassure me, “we’re going to have fun,” she said, checking, like a bull-athlete-dancer, all blind spots. ”We’re going to play…” she said, as she thought that was all I needed, some amusement. Beginning to merge onto a wide, empty boulevard, you never know what’s coming, and it was funny, wasn’t it? A streak flew past her window, a car. You never know.

Tipping up the volume, “pay attention” was the name of the game, baby. “I like I like,” she flashed her brows and wondered if I knew what that meant, not thinking that I did. I did, she was referring to sex. Hand on the dial, chest forward, the big band instruments rose in volume. She grooved down La Cienega, smiling, getting sexy, thinking about sex, mostly. A driver did something stupid. She snapped — turned her body to check traffic out the back. She maneuvered this boat for a car — to switch lanes and speed after him.

Pulling up, coming to a halt, she honked long and hard. She waved with a nice fake smile in her fire-red Cadillac. She let it rip — she flailed about like a mad bird and gave a strong middle finger, hurled FUCK YOU at him like a bull. Now she was down low, tipping back up the volume, “pay attention… are you listening? Listening to the words? Do you understand what they mean?”

Around Ralphs, we finished the opening number… and now, it was time to take it to the next level but differently. A little Bee Gees flowed from the stereo, sung by Barbara Streisand. “I am a Woman in Love.” Clapping in her seat at a red light, we were going to deepen our understanding of life, even, love, of course, love love love above all. She spoke of nothing else. “Pay attention,” she said, with her pointer finger, for this song was important. She didn’t sing me the song, she taught me the song, if not the value of Barbara Streisand this day. Tipping up the volume, as if she had a tick, “pay attention,” she leaned over the armrest and began to diffuse the wisdom to me in her angel voice… here we go…

“Life is a moment in space…” she began, “pay attention, when the dream is gone,” she tipped it up, as her fingers were now glued to the dial, “pay attention, it’s a lonelier place. Why? Pay attention.” She turned it up. “I kiss the morning goodbye,” she waved it bye bye across her body, “but down inside,” she tipped her head down, “you know we never know why…” but she did, she made love all morning long, she communicated, cracking herself up, getting turned on. I laughed, she snapped. Hey, “Pay attention.”

Facing one another over the armrest, she looked as though she were telling a little girl a fairytale. “The road is narrow and long…” She drew the sight lines down La Cienega, barely able to sit still, “when eyes meet eyes,” her fingers demonstrated her eyes meeting these eyes out the windshield, “pay attention,” and she gave it to me with a fist, “and the feeling is strong,” and she was, “strong,” she repeated it, made sure it was clear with her instructional finger, okay? “I turned away from the wall,” She wailed, softly, in her angel voice over the middle rest.. “I stumble and fall, but I give you it all…” She kept teaching me the love song, with this degree of intensity. The wheels rolled on…. into West LA. “Pay attention,” she said, her eyes hazily on the road.

“I am a woman in love…” here, right here, she delivered her passion to me that rose WITH Barbara Streisand’s EMOTION, “and I do anything to bring you into my world,” another sex reference coming my way, “and hold you within,” I got the picture with the way she gathered her fist. “It’s a riiiiiiiiiiight,” she declared, “I defend over and over again…” she really asked me, “what do I dooooo?” Ahhh, the story was developing. The question would be answered in the next stanza.

“Pay attention.”

She turned it up.

Navigating this ride once again in my mind, turning, switching lanes, remembering her fantastic performance, the song even today sweeps me away down an old boulevard. She never gave up her lesson— “in love there is no measure of time.”

*

“She didn’t call?”

“Who?”

“Your mother…”

“No.”

People always asked me that.

*

I tried to tell those who listened to this story over the years, as it tended to hook people, which didn’t help me, speaking of not foreseeing dangers down the road, that it was a love song. They didn’t tend to understand. It just was, a love song. I could not help it held dissonant chords, and that I could not resolve them. People got affected by this story because it held the right blend of ingredients…

“In love there is no measure of time…”

As people believed this story sounded more like something you’d see on TV, on the big screen, the love songs would be just the emotional drive through it, and I wouldn’t have to explain why even if it was perplexing, an idea it’s taken me a long time to digest and comment on. This was a love story… don’t you see? I’d say, and what did that mean? “Whoa whoa whoaaaaa, love!” Fist on the DASHBOARD, “I am a woman in love,” checking traffic behind her, stroking her Brazilian prayer bracelets hanging from the rearview and bringing her fingers to her lips, as she performed this small act of devotion, prayer, good luck charm. Love, she spoke of nothing else, and yes, it was sex, and yes, it was good, goddammit —“I am a woman in LOVE, hey!” She cried. “I’m talking to YOU,” she directed to me, “YOU,” as in me, “you know you know how you feel? What a woman can do…” and isn’t it true? As she was ripping the air into her a fist, she’s DOING it, over and over again. Swept away to Barbara Streisand sustaining the note, I saw the sign: Miracle Mile, a neighborhood in Los Angeles famous for dinosaurs sinking in tar and do not stand a chance. I knew of miracles, from church, and I could sort of read already because I could compute letters as pictures. Miracle Mile. I remember remarking that sign once upon a time, like a marker along the road, the big mythic road. SHE was ENRAGED…the were windows down. Barbara Streisand poured out the car. She was sharing her love baby for the world to see, sure, she didn’t give a shit, cursed like a salior, could. The Cadillac veered into the left-hand turn lane,  “It’s a riiiiiiiiiiiight,” and melting into it, she turned the wheel… “over and over again….”

At any time, she could flip out at a car, driver, and she could very well pull something.

carnival in rio - brazil 2005 - Ciska Tobing / wikimedia

“I am a woman in love!”

Into a driveway, she kept instructing as she made a U-Turn, still insisting that I pay attention! “I am!” We pulled up to a perfect house on the greenest patch of grass you ever saw. I jumped, to her surprise, her key still in the ignition, out the door. I bolted across her lawn, engine still running, to the end of the song…the heels of my patent leather black Mary Janes kicking up blades of grass. There was a world, and I was in it —I launched myself at her door, pushed it open and according to Angelica, at the club, I was one of the cutest babies she had ever seen, so I was a cute baby. Time to see it, in my cute opinion, then, as a torpedo in a princess dress and a matching bow. Wow… I twirled in a black and white checkered foyer, under a stunning crystal chandelier, with I am a Woman in Love filling my body and soul… if you picture that song continuing to play as I let it all go, twirling under this chandelier.

Her youngest daughter, Nicole, came to the banister up above a little puzzled; some girl was twirling with her arms outstretched in the foyer, and her mother was tripping over the names of her six children as if sneezing, trying to get to mine! It made her angrier! She combusted somewhere on her lawn and cursed to herself in Portuguese, yelling at a spot in the grass. “POHA!” Dammit! She said to herself. She had sort of a hazy stare. JESUS. “YOU! GIRL!” Maria!” I left the door open, and she wasn’t looking for a seventh child. “HEY!” Oooooh, I thought, oblivious to her, I saw a backyard through the threshold of the kitchen and out a window, as the bottom floor of this house revolved around the entrance foyer. But a woman stood in my way…a little taken aback by this little explosion that came through the door. I marched right up to her and said, “get out of my way.” I’ll never forget her face as she took a closer look at me down there. “Excuse me?” In a Brazilian accent. I believed I was clear, but I said it again to make sure. “OUT…of my way.” Angelita grabbed my arm, “what about please, sorry…?” It didn’t seem like I knew these words, so she got a little firmer, shook me a little, like spit it up girl, not squeezing me, but holding onto me, “PLEASE, SORRY???” I flipped out. Boom— quick—Angelita backed up like a real beast of athlete, told her cousin to BACK UP! Her sneaks squeaked across the foyer while she looked at me very clearly like are you kidding me girl???

I am a woman in love!

A moment of silence, shock, between these women — keeping their distance from me— her cousin looked at me as if I were the tazmanian devil.”Who is this person?” I made a run for it. Angelica’s mouth fell OPEN. She reached for her cousin with her hand, stretching from her. Her bird-like face almost laughed from surprise at my outburst, but her emotional response, as she had a proverbial whip at her disposal at all times, was about to whip back around — gaining momentum, even — a force of nature this woman— I could almost see “the whip” fly out of her and retract like the cord in old vaccuum cleaners and SNAP back into place. “HEY!”

Stomping her sneak, anytime she attempted to say anyone’s name, she would trip over her six children’s names, trip over at least one, if not two, three, even, POHA! Her sincere hatred for herself was hysterical. She could never really quite forget them, they were close to her.

I pushed the screen door open. I was a strong baby—with a pop of my shoulders, destined to be a gymnast. My shiny black shoes kicked up blades of grass as they charged through a backyard out of the American Dream towards a plum tree towering into the sky the color of my mother’s eyes… I grabbed a plump purple bum off the grass encircled by fruit. She had whipped back — anger — “hey!” She was coming for me, and she’d say it many times: “I’m coming for you…” Through the kitchen, I heard her coming, tripping over her six children’s names with her cousin who seemed to just let this go —the screech of the back door opening, the white in her eyes as she roared expanding. “NO!” She threw herself forward losing her balance! It slammed shut.

I am in a woman in love!

“DO NOT EAT THAT PLUM!”

And I’m talking to you!

I SNAPPED AT HER. “IT’S MINE!”

What a woman can do…

“DON’T EAT THAT!”

….Riiiiiiight I defend!

The love songs, through this…

If she took a step towards me, I screamed, I believe. I remember if she’d try to take a step, she couldn’t, didn’t, so she expressed her body largely to COMMUNICATE TO ME, and she was a bombastically physical woman — talented, birthed sports stars. She was spilling OUT. The stork who snatched a baby back, as I called her that, looked comical in her tennis outfit meets grandma sweater spotlit in direct sunlight. She SCREAMED! “DO NOT EAT THAT PLUM!” “MINE!” “IT WILL MAKE YOU SICK! NO! SHE PLEADED WITH ME. “SICK!” I DID NOT BELIEVE HER. “YES! IT WILL.” “NO!” “YES!” “NO!”THE TREE IS SICK.” TAPPING HER TEMPLE, her voice sounded like the tennis sneaks squeaking across the court, she PLEADED with me TO NOT BE STUPID. “DIE.” I growled at her, “STAY AWAY!” “DIE? YOU WANNA DIE????” I stared her down, held my ground, my plum in my hand. I got bratty, and she got BITCHY. I just stood there, staring at her. I didn’t try to eat the plum, so she turned her cheek and crossed her arms, a bull this woman. She let me be, rocking on her heels, her pelvis the seat of her power, a swinger, not literally I believe, but a power who led from here. She didn’t know what she was looking at with me. She studied me, observed me. I was observing her as well, I came from a house of liars, so was she lying? Huh, right? From her perspective. What is this girl doing? I was holding onto this plum, looking at her…

In squeaky tones, her arm shot to — tree, tapped her temple, girl. Don’t be dumb and eat that plum.

I came from a sick tree as if this story were more like a parable that gave me the answer right at the start as well as a question to work out. Did the fruit fall far from the tree? Did it only apply to apples? (That’s for the Catholics.) What do we inherit, what do we have to inherit? Are we bad or good? What’s true? I never lived this moment down, who I was when I was four. Blades of grass turned flew over Angelita like confetti, so unreal.

Out the back door, the one and only José Leibowitz, twelve, pimply, hormonal, slipped into the backyard to back his mother up.“What? Excuse me?” The door slammed shut behind him, he had green eyes like laser beams, and Angelica snapped at him, “DOOR.” The pre-teen pro-athlete kicking his feet just like his mother did asked his mother who I was, who THIS was, and she could hit Jose with a roller up piece of paper, type deal, to which he would wince, because she was harmless, just annoying. Nicole, sweet and soft as grass, already over José as he picked on her, appeared through them, a seven-year-old Dorothy in ruby slippers sparkling in the sunlight hyperreal, bright white. Calmly, simply, she walked right up to me. “You can’t eat that,” she said. I didn’t say anything. I just eyed her not knowing if she was a liar. I couldn’t, she said, referring to the tree. “It’s sick.”

“Louise,” Angelica stomped at Nicole, “Mich-Andrea,” Angelica flipped, “José!” He snapped, “what?” “Not YOU,” she was FED UP. “Nicole!” She cried at her “wispy” child, obsessed with astrology, which annoyed her. “Do not eat that plum!” With her arm, Angelica cleared an invisible shelf, cast its contents to the ground. “No one goes on the slide! The bees!” The treehouse had been usurped by a colony of bees. Well then, where were these bees? Looking at this woman, suspiciously. I didn’t trust this woman’s story. “Nicole, Maria, Nicole, Maria.” Angelica told Jose, that she didn’t know who I was.  “I was just here to play for the day, Alan.” Something about Alan. “Enough of this bull!” She barked, he went quiet.

Nicole suggested that I give the plum to her because I couldn’t eat it. It was simple. I didn’t know what to do. “Or,” I could just drop it, she said. It would make me sick, but by the looks of it, you’d never know, just like the bees, sickness lurked here, though it appeared so perfect. Nicole was diffused and gentle. I dropped it. Did I want to play? Okay, I nodded. Earthy, airy, peering at me, she wondered what my sign was. Like I knew what this was. She explained it was related to the stars, our connection to them. “Andrea, Jo,” Angelica stomped, shook these names OUT — SPEWED their names SO ANNOYED at herself. “LOUISE! MICHELLE!”

“You have a match!” The third and fourth children came out the small gate in the back with their soccer balls —the sole brunette and sole blond couplet in soccer game, black and white. Louise was kind and the darkest in complexion of the bunch, the Brady Bunch now Brazilian, which was funny, meets The Sound of Music. In baggy soccer shorts and in a ponytail, she was the future lesbian of the family. Laughing at me, she spun her ball, and asked her mother in Portuguese.“Who’s the doll?” Michele, the lioness, scanned me bitchily, as she was the bitch in the family, but in the best way. Lethal, too, as blonds usually are. “Who’s this chick, Ma?” They were training to go pro. They were both professional soccer players. Angelica snapped at her, as she always did, but not in the same way, or Michelle was a whip, she just had a presence, that — made it unnecessary to wield it, it was contained in her, you didn’t want it to come out. “I’m just playing, relax,” Michele fixed her ponytail, gave her bitchy eyes, and kissed her cheek. José, Michele, and Louise—after a head nod at me, an “Love you Moooom, you’re the cutest! Nicole, you smell, later alligator!”—ran towards the mini-van waiting out front. Nicole dimpled at Louise. “Good soul…” Softly, expansively, she brought her green/blue gaze back to me. She informed me that her eyes could go between the two, nodding, resolved about it. “When’s your birthday?” I told her, not knowing why she was asking me that question. “Oh, horse and human,” she nodded, softly smiling at me, “I see that. I’m a Virgo.”

“What’s that?”

She, cutely, a seven-year-old, explained that I was “fire,” and she was earth, “a maiden….” and now, we had to figure out the rest of my signs…. I was a saggitarius, yes, but that was a simple way of approaching astrology. She always had her astrology book, a complex system, we’d sit on the greenest grass in our sparkly slippers and she explained this system of thought, referring to her siblings, like Jose is a Getmini, so he’s air, she nodded, smiled, as he pissed her off, bad. That was why we, of course, didn’t get along, "I was fire, he was air,” so it was a bit volatile there, airy. She’s a maiden, but Nicole could get very angry, especially with Jose.

-

“And I started living with you just like that?” I asked.

Angelica snapped her fingers in my face, “like that,” by the pool at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club. We were courtside in the shade of the umbrella with chic battlement for trim. And chic, the battlefield, of love, became, though Pat Benatar wasn’t really her speed, and if I had to pick one from that artist, I would pick “Weeee—belong!” As Dr. J was “a wee person.” The rhythm of that song is like horses charging down the plains….the intensity is right, that’s how Angelica Leibowitz loved, that’s what she was talking about, teaching you, you see, she was teaching the love song, every car ride, more or less, there wasn’t a moment that this woman wasn’t listening to music or embodying music, she lived in a state of dance, a libra, Nicole showed me the pictures of the signs in the grass. We would have matching sparkling shoes, soon, as we became the very best of friends. Mine were gold. I really was in a fairytale.

I started living with her just like that, Angelica said, magically, overnight. She kicked the chair in front of her putting her feet up on it, called my mother a sick bitch. Now, one would have to make space for her vitriol as that was pretty fucked up, and there are situations that you just gotta call as is, it was. She had every right to be furious. Her Adidas sandals were a nice touch, as if she were a God, and why does that touch of banal resonate as divine? I don’t know, even the brand names she’s wearing resonated mythically to me, almost if there was a world to come…a world that was coming… I did see Dr. J as reflective or prescient, not a genius, exactly, her obsession, but prescient, yes, but what was that exactly? What was coming…? What did this reflect? Since it rang as true….somewhere out there… she was the villain for today, Dr. J. A true Joker. A real one. She belonged to this clan of archetype, if you would, psychologically, which dawned on me as an adult, later, as “sitting down to write about this time,” that idea, woke me up to what happened, so I am not the same, now, as I write this, as if this were a fiction, which it was, meaning, that’s what it sounded like to people to bring it back to basics. It didn’t sound real to them, and they didn’t totally understand what they are saying. It was a real fiction—fascinating. A invention of the mind, obviously, but it really happened. That was the fundamental gap I had to bridge, and one I would have to make totally on my own, as people could not even do it, for me, you see. Into the Looking Glass. Unreal. This song was… important to her… we listened to it… its meaning ripening like wine, better with time.

“No truth is ever a lie,” she barked, this time, in her Cadillac, turning up the stereo, Jose and Louise finally snapping at her, Mom, with their gear in the backseat, and I would be laughing through this, as some primal force was unleashed within her whenever this song came on… interesting line, to me at nine, what was the truth? Conceptually? It’s a riiiiiiight I defend, over and over again….

And I picture myself, growing up through this, listening to Foreigner “I want to know what love is….” in headphones, or something, beginning to dance, sort of making fun of her, to this love song, as it was one after another… she’s dancing in her bedroom. Her kids barking through this or trying to communicate with her….and she really couldn’t care less about their needs…. not in these moments. The love song was sacred, sexy, yes. She truly celebrated her sexuality… her sensuality, but it was love 24/7, and she was referring to the act of, to her. In order for a song like this to be born, in other words, it could have only come from sex, right? In her mind, and I laughed at her, I really did, and she sort of laughed at all of it, actually, a woman, moving her feet, clapping, checking herself out as she pulled a sexy move in the mirror, maybe getting hooked by her own body in space and she’s going to get pulled in… taking her dance… deeper. I laughed.

"Can you describe Dr. J's personality?"

Photo by Laura Marks on Unsplash

*sensitive content warning, again—

The tennis players got off to a good start. They moved in smears around our table, grunting from the effort of chasing the ball with strict focus. Their sneakers squeaked in bright tones that broke the day, just like Joy. 

“Can you describe her personality?” 

My bare feet dangled above the ground. We were close to one another now, positioned around the table at 6 and 9 o’clock in the shade. The ball streaked back and forth between our bodies as the tennis court was beside us, the match a poignant backdrop for a psychological drama.

Angelica mimed bringing a phone to her ear. “Ohhhhh,” she sighed like a princess in a meadow. “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you,” she rattled on, fourteen times, not four, as if love were even a joke. One of the problems I ran into was —the concept of exaggeration. Dr. J was a walking exaggeration, and people exaggerate, they do, all the time, so it was another one of these reflection moments where I wanted to ask people —listening to this story — do you exaggerate too much? This is some relinquishing of control, or some spill over into some inventive area of the psyche, perhaps, and one of my questions about Dr. J had to do with her psychic makeup. In any case, Dr. J threw “I love you” at her in quick succession like happy daggers. “BULLSHIT.” Angelica was a bull, not just a bird. “The biggest — ” She got up in my FACE. “Whore, piece of shit.” I nodded, “right,” given the circumstances. It passed. She reflected that this situation was vulgar. “The fakest human being I have ever seen.” Her eyes were demonic over her beak. She froze. Bumblebees buzzed around the flower pots.

“Not one REAL thread…”

She pinched it and showed it to me as if it were real. The fire blazed in her eyes.

“…in this bitch.”

She damned that unreal strand to hell.

My mother’s fakeness was — enraging. Made of powder poof powder, Dr. J, a record that skips made of a talc — intangible and harsh.

Riiiight, of course, I thought. A situation like this would produce a violent reaction—Angelica was embodying the gore, the messy guts of the scandal. Of course she would flip out — she’s not going to remain calm. Forget that I’m a child, in fact, it appeared too easy to forget entirely,. “I am from Brazil,” she said. She reminded me many times—she was who she was, so she’s not going to be polite, chewing on her gum and flashing a NICE fake smile. She was not going to behave well, because it was not well, and a jury, in a court of law, would probably be on her side. She acted as if she’d even reject the notion that she could act “evolved.”

She actually got wrapped up in a sex scandal. My mother wrapped her up in a sex scandal over some four-year-old girl she took home for one fucking day, so she cursed. She had a foul mouth, but it was foul. She was told that a man was raping his four-year-old daughter. A situation like this — it’s similar to tyranny, it’s a mad government. It’s insane. “RAPE,” she fired that word at me many times. “Maria,” she pointed at me, “this bitch told me rape.” Her flesh burned, because sex was real, it was really really real to this woman, so you don’t go around talking about raping a goddamn four year old and acting like some Disney princess on steroids.

I supported her divine response. I made room for her vitriol, in fact. It passed, her truth. Valid. Her reaction was valid. “The biggest,” Angelica kept her voice down but not her intensity, “liar on earth!” Yet she reflected so much truth.

The ball hit the net, “no.” A fist of defeat from player one. He bounced the ball back to the service line with his racket.

Angelica tipped her head down. A tennis player prepared for the serve. She delivered the operatic exclamation that Dr. J could fire at any time silently: “AH!” She popped, confetti, fireworks, Dr. J, on the phone. “AAH!” Dr. J called her every day for a while. Angelica mimed the phone to her ear. Never asked for me.

“DISGUSTINGLY sweet,” pop, she let it rip. Angelica flicked my mother’s sweetness off her and spilled out in her chair to pop pop — in quick succession, nothing but skill — she exclaimed, quietly, “breath like death! Maria! You died.” And then, yes, her breath. “Legendary…” Angelica looked at me with EYES, practically bringing her chair forward towards me as she spilled over. 

“Maria,” she whispered down low, LOOKING at ME, “Maria, look at me. Maria.” 

I could laugh, what a performance, you see, even from Angelica, a real personality.

“She breathed, and she could kill flowers…”

Angelica paused and looked the flowers in pots, bees buzzing: “dead.”

“Is there a DEAD ANIMAL in there?” 

“Did she EAT a dead animal…?” 

“And she wouldn’t stay away,” Angelica clutched onto the arms of her chair and shot fire out of her eyes over her beak. “She would walk right up to you and breathe all over you.” Sincerely, in a red bikini, looking hot, lol, Angelica had to ask, “Why, Maria, why?” With a fist, “why is she making it more pronounced, why isn’t she staying away?” She spurted yuck from her body, caressed the air, herself, as if my mother were made of slime. She flicked her off — her body. Handsy, Dr. J. She didn’t appear to have a sense of physical boundaries — in listening to Angelica. She kicked the chair, practically, “this bitch,” in trying to rest her Adidas sandals on the edge of her seat. Her performance was sort of genius and animal in her chair, sticking her finger in her mouth, accompanied by a ghastly, deathly sound. Haunted.

She opened her legs, even, by the jacuzzi once. She opened her legs to show me how my mother smelled down there with a kind of amusement, almost a smile, on the crack of a joke. It was funny, to be fair to Angelica, like you couldn’t really help but laugh, out of sheer shock. It was graphic, important, and even art—our conversations — because we were at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club. It was grotesque. That made sense as a style, huh, I thought. She gave me a fleshy idea of how loose and smelly my mother’s anatomy was. “Every man…” Angelica said it, with feeling, every time, eyes side to side, leaning toward me, “every man.”

Dr. J was a picture-perfect grotesque. A beauty, fashionable, girlie, disjointed. Her wrists were like flimsy hankies flopping at you. “Bye bye for now,” she’d say. Even the garlic cloves, “her candy,” the whole picture —  her persona was in this style. She was a grotesque creature. Her ingratiating sweetness. Was she not bathed? I peered through this scenario. Was she a product of extreme neglect? Why was she abject? I thought, if she came from the darkest, sickest of backgrounds, why would I look away? There wasn’t a darkness too dark I wouldn’t face for a child, thinking about my mother. She was one, once upon a time, so what happened from there to here?

The jets went off. Angelita, perky as a bird, adjusted her seat to face the guests who were getting into the jacuzzi with a smile. She knew them.

I moved to the sun lounger, so I could face her. A row fanned out behind me, almost like a parallax. The players congratulated one another on a game well played, nice, smiles. We all have that mask or defense or reaction — of friendliness, or that everything is okay: a smile. Dr. J led with it, and the crack of it haunted me. Plastered on her face, it was so pretty that it was hard to tell how tight it was. She wasn’t a soft or tender person. She was, in my mind, the Joker — next generation. Her mirrors, her eyes as blue as the sky… so clear…expansive… not a spot of darkness in her. The Joker card was an unusual card to find included in the deck handed to me at the beginning of my life. But there’s good in it, there was something useful in it, I thought, for its vulgarity too, because the subject was vulgar, not ethereal. And yet, Dr. J reflected that it could be treated as such.

She even looked like a Joker. But she was a beauty, you see, not a disfigured face — that came later. She ended up being a little Portrait of Dorian Grey, actually. Today, she looks visibly twisted, hard. She was always insane, but her ugliness is pronounced. Her eyes, they were always wells, but in a picture I saw, they looked as if they could devour the whole world and still be hungry. I showed it to my cousins — “does this not look like a Joker?” They didn’t even hesitate. “Yes it does, she really looks like a Joker.”

The sky above me on a sunny day, the night sky felt so clean and cool next to her. “We tend to see the path of a villain as a fall from grace…” but hero hero, another way is possible for us all, she’d say, Joy gets it. The light could be dark, dark could be light, and there was truth in it, profound, as sex is, for instance, viewed as dirty or shameful, when it’s good, our earthly nature.

The Joker today isn’t Heath Ledger. She’s going to crack a smile without a flaw on her face. She’s even Tiktok, complete with sparkles and hearts around her figure. The Joker today is surrounded by cameras, dazzling, holding up a Bible at a protest, like Trump did. She knows what the audience is. The smile is societal — why so serious? Her white fur, business suit, rushing to the IRS — it was desperate, hysterical. Our fiscal responsibility — wee, out a limo, Joy. You see? The sweetest of them all. She gagged, Angelica… she was spectacular, a kite flying high, loose, disconnected from Earth.

There’s real truth in the yin and yang, thinking about the balance between light and shadow. It’s more about how we qualify these ideas. That was the problem with Joy, I think. She’s like the priest that molests children, in that, she’s an extreme version of innocence — the most chaste woman in the world with her eyes like an erasure that wants to devour, but if you’re looking closely, this is a diluted being, who will then show up naked and throw herself on you. It is, hm, this phrase: mentally ill, indeed. There was so much truth in it, actually, thinking about the Catholic Church’s offenses, and this sensational rumor that they kidnapped an eleven-year-old girl on her way to a music lesson…there’s even a documentary about it, and is that true? Did they? Or is that just a fun story? Dr. J—reflecting more truth. How sensational it is. Then, my cousins, in Italy, discussed it at a lunch table right before we were going to eat… as if child rape, if not slavery, or murder were not the subject at hand, as she’s never been found. Did they hear what they were saying? So, in the Joker’s tone, why so serious? Some girl is locked in some Vatican dungeon… I don’t know how to describe that disconnect. Joy’s denying it, of course. She’s never had SEX, practically, only to have me.

Her personality was SO BRIGHT you had to shield your eyes, so did that indicate a very dark past? That’s what it looked like, but Angelica didn’t see that, exactly. Joy was in a state of emergency. She kept saying, “she’s SICK IN THE HEAD,” and was it in the head? Interesting language. Someone could be saying sex, overtly, even, and no one makes a connection; she might be sick, there, but no one will take it seriously because of the delivery… 

She saw that Joy was sick, but it was not an insult; it was time to get help, but she was stoning her to death. It’s not that it was not deserved, a seductive feeling, righteousness, if not true, and be careful, of course it’s “true,” but a system of punishment was fundamental, structural. This was part of the problem. 

And, well, I always saw Dr. J as patriarchal, you see. MEN aren’t typically seen as “mentally ill” when they behave in parallel ways to her. Reflections. They aren’t considered ill if they’re extreme dicks, if they skip out on their families, if they rape or abuse a child. They’re seen as criminal, even. And Angelica isn’t overexaggerating. We were in a sex scandal; my mother orchestrated a sex scandal.

Why the violence Dr. J? She wants it? She’s provoking it?

Nothing but beating and rape from this woman. It was an outrageous act thus there is, an equal and opposite reaction, though that’s not always the case when it comes to human relationships, depends, people overreact. But in this case, we’re in a sex scandal. What she did — produced this effect. 

I mean, in Angelica’s words: “Maria imagine! Maria, imagine?” She fired her pointer finger at me. “Imagine?” She simply offered Dr. J a playdate, and then got cash and child molesters and her breasts thrown in her face. 

And why did it appear so poignant to me? 

Angelica’s demonic, monstrous performance…?

I thought about it later in my pink room. Her reaction. Her guttural, vulgar reaction — it was good, you see. Sure, it’s vulgar, but it’s true, like, if it’s vulgar, it’s vulgar. But why Angelica’s performance was wise and meaningful, I couldn’t really tell. Not yet. Her demonic, but almost like shamanic, performance: did it reflect a truly gross situation? Reflections. Is that true, Dr. J? Did she actually come from somewhere gross>? Her house?

 She was, she could drink whipping cream out of the carton… Dr. J, not like you can’t, do it, but it’s a strange choice… what is that? Her eating habits were….basically nonexistent, but truly. What happened here?

It was true, you see. It was indeed sick. Wouldn’t it be? Incest? Was this what I was looking at? An abusive home? Abject poverty? Where did that come from? Now, Dr. J might have taken a turn, but my father didn’t really seem to act like she changed all that much, only that “the success went to her head,” which makes me laugh. It’s just that she was so crazy, like she was reaching for the stars. I always saw Joy sort of like an Icarus, an idiot, who thought he could literally reach the sun — burn through your existence as if you were a speck. There are limits, blue eyes. And some of the coddling I received, like, “don’t say that,” was not the just path. 

Sometimes, you gotta call it how it is. Stupid. A judge would be on my side here, calling ORDER, what the HELL was this? 

Flying a little too high there, Dr. J, why did this appear prescient to me as some warning from above, too? There was truth in it, you see. 

The TikTok filters of today, the “you create your own reality,” obsession, the manifestation techniques, the “spiritual ascent,” this desire, by “ridding one of earthly ties…” disconnection, “everything is disconnected,” people say, today, sort of disconnected, already, because you — keep saying it. The age of disconnection? Dr. J. “Wee.” That’s Dr. J to me: desperately getting into her limo, “to the IRS immediately!” That’s the real joke. She’s the keeper of taxes as a Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland. “Step on it Michel,” her driver/lover. I hear my father’s voice over this imagining, when he explained what the IRS was: “Everything works,” he said. “Everyone shares,” he drew the connection with his hands between him and everyone else, “a reponsibility in ensuring society works,” basically speaking. Just picturing the version of her as a real villain, even, she could be wearing a tiny tiny top hat angled to the side… running across a street to GET TO THE IRS… in magazine clothes, as if she stepped off the pages…looking smashing… There was a lot of reality, I’m sure, driving the fantasy of her… but what? It didn’t look too pretty. That broke my heart young. 

Back in my pink room, squinting out the pink blinds, meditating on the mirror in my periphery, as this object reflected vanity, Dr. J was vain, so I didn't like it. I rejected it practically. I would live to regret it, obviously, but I had problems to work out. Evidently, it just came with the territory, unfortunately, truly. I would have preferred not having had to work out these problems — with a smile. But I did. Not wanting to get caught up in the mirror at all, actually. There was, at times, too much about her that appeared true.

I had a picture. One. Of me, as a baby, in the arms of my father’s brother and wife, at Dr. J’s family house. And my father and I were going to the east coast now, now that he was no longer a child molester, supposedly, and I was going to get the only eyes I could find that had entered this home.

When my father and I arrived to my aunt and uncle’s house in an old mining town, we pulled up to a slender street of row houses up real steps. In the inky night, winter, Adele from Malta (Queens) appeared with her simple smile. She was a black haired, black eyed, pale Italian, with “double z’s” for breasts, she even admitted, airing out her shirt, because she was sweating from cooking. She had a lovely laugh, made cannolis constantly. They were the best. She was, in our family, the star chef. Her mother was, professionally.

Gus was a carpenter, so he carved all the thresholds into curving screens. It gave the house charm. He looked like a little boxer, Gus. He was Fred Willard’s old comedy partner, appeared on the Ed Sullivan show, but he had a nervous breakdown, anger management issues, also. He was never the same. His daughters — and Adele, but mostly them — had a hard time with his touring schedule, he was at it, constantly. And then, he had a breakdown. And now, he would, without fail, leave during any family party (primetime) to prepare his stand-up routine which he delivered at the table. He would laugh, forcefully, at his own jokes. Mentally ill, yes. We were a family of comedians, we really were. I, of course, had a tape recorder that I spoke into as if this were really a show, happening before me—real life.

We were eating ziti, tomato sauce. I was a nine-year-old with seniors. My father was sixty when I was born. He was sixty eight, then, and so was Gus. I got to the point quick — sticking my fork in the rich and deep tomato sauce — that they had been to Dr. J’s — you see. “Oh yeah,” they didn’t miss a beat there. “Yes we did.” We went through the game of tennis, where they gave me a sum up of what I already knew, “wanted to meet you.” “Yeah…” I told them what had happened, “she gave me away to Brazilians…” and I suppose I heard a comedic note in it, so I delivered it as such. I was open about it, but no one heard me. And here, it’s one of these moments where my father appears as the focus of my memory, one of these, graining back, all these years later. “Did you lie?” Nick? I wondered if anyone approached him, in this family, I don’t think they did. In any case, I needed in — I needed to know about their experience at her family’s house.

“Tell me about it…”

And in front of my father, eating his ziti, they communicated how strange her home was, first sentence. “Yeah,” Adele’s nasal “yeah,” and Gus’s reply, “creepy.” That’s how he would describe “what it felt like,” as I had asked the question. “Creepy.” In this case, that’s what I was expecting. If I’m being “honest,” a word you’re not supposed to use, I also had a couple of “otherworldly” folders in my cabinet labeled “undercover investigation.”

Curiosities around the field of energy. I wondered if I might be able to feel into this house, get a feeling about it based on them. Tune into them. If I could even get a picture, not literally, though at times, I could get an image, something, as I was listening and trying to connect with their bodies, the impression it left.

“What happened?”

They spoke of walking into the house, they had just gotten there, picturing Gus’s face, as there was a freeze over his eyes, so was it cold? They were in the garage, I asked them to describe, the space. “Her sister…” walked through the door. They were still downstairs, as if they had just walked in. “Started acting strange.”

“Yeah…”

Adele had to crack up. “Yes,” I told them she could call the Mickey Mouse phone from time to time as if she were dying… this woman. “She would call you…” she began, “in a…” “yeah,” Gus interjected. “Creepy,” he said, “yeah,” she said. “Of calling you with this ghoulish sounds,” but it was a bit too involved there, they said, she acted abnormally, and I was cracking up hysterically as a baby in the next room. “Hysterically.” I still do, laugh hysterically, like, they had to leave the next day, they said. I had to stay because I could not move. They had planned to stay a few days, but no way, no way they could stay there. “12 people sleeping in the same room…” and they put THEM in the same room. “There was an uncle, a sleepwalker…”

“Uh huh…”

So fourteen people were sleeping in the same room.

That’s what I’m expecting upfront in this case. A visibly strange set-up.

I went in deep, as I said. 

*

“So listen, listen to me,” I sang on Miracle Mile, my bare feet sliding across her white carpet, “I can feel your eyes go through meeeee… do do do do do do do do…” only the best love songs scored these years, but I permit myself the right to invent, as this fictional thread helped me through the real story. “So listen, listen to me…” the passion. “You know I love you but I just can’t take this,” picturing my fists beside her, she laughed at me a lot. “You know I want to but I’m in too deep,” and I can’t help but laugh, because she was the type of person who would crack a sex joke about that… you see, like, “not possible.” She liked it, crossing her bedroom, deep baby, and then she’d dance a little… she could got carried away. We laughed, we did. But then, is that totally true? Yes, it is, I laughed at her constantly, but this situation was so strange, I was so young, that any affection I showcased for them… wouldn’t that be ill-advised? Wouldn’t I be healthier retaining distance? Nothing was appropriate or fun about it, but life turns out to be complicated, our ties, and as I write these lines, I can feel people agreeing—but were they in a sex scandal? Were they in a situation like this? I always return to this question: what would you think about it as a parent?