Assistant Bible Verse 10: Become an emotional ninja. They don’t want to see you or hear you. Keep opinions to yourself. Facts don’t matter.
“Well, dear,” she says, touching my arm, an act of kindness, a sweetness, a chilling and electric signal for me to pay attention. “Don’t get too close to the sun.”
Hey, Siri, my new family is intense.
* * *
“I’m mailing you stuff,” Dad says, the sound of cardboard clamoring and duct tape ripping in the background. “I’m at the UPS Store right now. What’s your address?”
“Wait. What are you mailing me? What stuff?” I ask, balancing my cell phone to my ear, straightening magazines on one of Kathi’s antique side tables, fluffing fresh-cut flowers in a vase given to Kathi by Renée Zellweger after Kathi helped Renée compose a perfect break-up text.
“Stuff from the house. You said not to throw anything away,” he says. “So, what’s your address?”
“What are you trying to send me exactly?”
“Why are you being so sneaky?” Dad asks.
“I’m not being sneaky. You’re being sneaky. Why are you suddenly obsessed with cleaning? What are you trying to send me? Mom’s stuff?”
“TELL ME YOUR DAMN ADDRESS!”
The shouting, I’m still shaken by it. I’m sure it’s Pavlovian. Therapista says it’s common for kids to be stunted by screaming, stunted all the way into adulthood. Screaming is a form of violence and aggression, and children are unable to defend themselves—they’re physically weak, and mentally they don’t have the words. Therapista says sometimes for adults it’s like PTSD. We have to remind ourselves that we are not helpless, that we now have a vocabulary, that we don’t have to accept violence.
“Dad. I absolutely do not—”
“WHAT IS IT?!” he yells.
I give Dad my address and hang up. Even at this age, I’m picking my battles.
As I slip my phone back in my pocket, I wonder where I’ll put all the shit he’s sending me. My kitchen doesn’t even have a pantry. My bathroom sink is the size of a spittoon. My closet is packed. No room for new things. In fact, every time Kathi buys me something, I have to throw an older thing away. Like a body sheds cells and is new after a certain amount of time, such is my wardrobe, maybe my life.
* * *
Kathi is out of bed, groggy but dressed for the day.
“Did you take your meds today?” I ask, as she ruffles through her purse, walking toward the front door, pulling out her car keys, Mom’s locket jingling patiently, unassumingly.
“Yup,” she says.
“Want to write today or are you heading out?”
“I’m heading out, darling.”
Darling?
That’s the first time I’ve heard her say darling. I mean, in the last many months she’s called me everything, even names that are not names and words that I’m not sure are words. There’s Cockring, Cock, Jimmy, Bubbles, Bubbles-Dundee, Nipples, Nipples-Dundee, and Niblet.
I assume nicknames are easier to remember than Charlie. Therapista says a nickname may help her keep me at an emotional distance, help her not see me as a real person. I get it. To really know someone, to really respect a human being with a real name, it’s harder to ask them to do things like pick up your hemorrhoid cream or clean your nose-hair trimmer.
There’s Tinky, Winkus, Daddy, Assfuzz, Cack, and Rosco.
But never darling.
It’s so strange and unsettling. Cockring at least makes sense, at least fits the picture: a strong woman subjugating me, reminding me who’s in charge, who has the power here, a nod to me being gay. But darling, it’s an endearment, a deferment, a kindness that catches me off guard.
“Miss Gracie gave me this—” I say, holding up a wad of cash as Kathi glides toward me.
“Thanks,” she says, snatching the two thousand dollars from my hand.
“That’s for vegetables.”
“As if I would spend it on anything else,” Kathi says.
“But I’m supposed to give it to Agnes for the grocery.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Want some company?” I ask.
“Nope,” she says, leaving the room. Leaving the porch. Leaving me.
Darling.
“Am I still a B-plus?” I shout as she walks away, but she doesn’t hear, doesn’t respond.
I watch her walking to her car, moving her driver’s seat forward because I’m the last person who drove it, exiting that gate, nearly getting T-boned by another driver in the busy crook of Beverly Canyon Drive.
Is she safe out there? Can she be alone? Do I want her to be alone? I think of Jasmine and the other assistants, about being there for Kathi. I should be with her? I want to be with her. I want to be a helper—the best she’s ever had—a protector, apart from the other secretaries who failed and fled and couldn’t cut it. But what about moments like this, where she expressly doesn’t want me along? Am I being if she’s not around? Do I exist without her?
I feel the expensive fabric of the shirt she bought me, the soft pants that she said fit me too perfectly for her to pass up, the designer shoes snuggling my feet, which she said would look just right with my growing hair.
I’m wrapped comfortably in the bribe of my gray cashmere sweater.
I’m thinking, Was the last manic episode really my fault?
I’m thinking, Where is Vegas?
You know Kathi is a drug addict, don’t you? I hear Miss Gracie in my head, telling me the not-secret secret the world knows too well.
Standing in Kathi’s living room, surrounded by art and wealth, it doesn’t feel like the drug den Miss Gracie seems to think lurks under the surface. Sure, Kathi is a mess, she’s a project, she’s part of a tribe of misfits I’ve been drawn to my entire life, one of those types who make me feel alive, amused, seen. I can help her. I’m a good influence: I didn’t have sex until I was twenty-two. I never even saw cocaine until I was twenty-seven and I refused to partake because I was convinced I’d have a heart attack. Surely I can be a good example for Kathi Kannon.
Assistant Bible Verse 11: You know best. But they can never know that. Since childhood, I’ve gravitated to those who are different. Marco was the absolute most effeminate kid at St. Peter’s Elementary School, and he and I became fast friends. Lonnie was hands-down the most obese kid in all of St. Zachary Parish, and we had sleepovers and joined Cub Scouts together. In junior high, I befriended Luis, who barely spoke English and was the first and last exchange student to ever attend my small, conservative, rural school. There was Clark, with his perfect hair and big gay secret, which we never—to this day—have discussed. Paul and I rode bikes and spent afternoons in capes, running around as superheroes in front of his parents, later revealed to be white-collar felons.
These years later, little has changed. I like wild outliers. My mom used to say I was always drawn to people who need love. My father used to scream, “LEAVE THE FREAKS ALONE! UNLESS YOU ARE ONE?!” I’m thinking, Maybe. But mostly I think I’m drawn to differences because I’m bored with everyone else, everyone else with their ordinary, sad, normal lives. Maybe I’m hungry for people who are real and honest, perhaps because for so long, as a gay kid in a strict and rigid household in backwoods Louisiana, I was not. Perhaps I’m drawn to people who are different because I feel different, too. It’s not so much that I want to help them as they help me feel less alone. My therapist says helping others is helping yourself.