text: “A sharp inhale with pursed lips.” My father randomly said that during one of the many silences we shared. It’s how he said a beer sounded when you opened it. He had a bunch of phrases and quotes that stuck with me. “You’re not a drunk if you’ve never been genuinely dejected by the words, ‘Alcohol Free’ on a bottle of mouthwash.” “Everything is, or isn’t, Ice Cream.” “Fuck is the most versatile word in the English language.” He had a point. Verb, Noun, Adverb, Interjection, it’s like the swiss army-knife of swear words. &#x200B; &#x200B; He’d tell stories, too. Like the time he got drunk while on leave in the Army and accidentally invaded Jordan. I can barely picture it. Two dudes, a stolen dingy, and a megaphone hurtling toward the Jordanian Coast Guard while screaming, “Give us all your pita bread!” A lot different from who I knew. Sure the man drank, but quietly. &#x200B; &#x200B; This was the drunkest I ever saw him: a couch between him and I while the TV was blaring. Red was screaming at Blue about something neither of us cared about. He sipped on almost a full bottle of tequila that night, and a point came where he made one of those old man noises. He was only 40 or so, I’m not sure anymore, but he made the noises--the gurgle grump throat rumble noise, and stood up, but when his legs went straight, they wobbled. He tilted forward a bit, and then back. “I’m going to bed,” he said, and then he did. That was the drunkest I ever saw him. &#x200B; &#x200B; “Don’t make me parent.” Something else he always said. Odd thing to say to your kid, but I got what he meant eventually. During one of those tedious parent teacher conferences he was told of my “test taking difficulty,” how I would hand in half blank scantrons or simply walk away in the middle of one. I thought he was upset because he was gonna have to parent. Rather, he explained how he was the same way as a kid. His head would get all fuzzy and his chest would get tight during a test or when a teacher called on him. &#x200B; &#x200B; “It’s not a big deal,” he said. “Whenever you think your nerves are gonna get bad and you feel you gotta run, don’t be a bitch. Just say, ‘Fuck it’, and get your shit done.” That was half of his philosophy. Get your shit done, and don’t be a dick. “Don’t be a dick is second because sometimes you have to be to get your shit done,” he explained. &#x200B; &#x200B; He’d be the first to tell you that he wasn’t good with kids. Too often he would speak to them as adults and expect them to figure it out. It’s why he wasn’t mad when he was called down to the principal’s office the next week for his ten-year-old son randomly screaming, “Fuck it!” in the back of a classroom to calm himself down. He laughed his ass off and called me an idiot, but he wasn’t mad. Fuck ups and stupidity were a part of the process. He only got mad when I lied, or was lazy. Even then, he never used his hands when his words would do. Sure, when I was being a dickhead he would slap me in the back of the head and tell me to shut up, but he never beat me, or anything like that. He did throw me into a brick wall once, but it was for pushing my baby sister so it doesn’t really count. Last time I saw him he reminded me about that. And the milk story. That was always his favorite. &#x200B; &#x200B; I was helping him unload groceries one day, where I climbed into the truck bed to hand him bags as he walked them inside. The last two items were two, one-gallon jugs of milk. I picked up both of them thinking I was the shit and walked to the end of the truck bed. The gap between the bed and the floor was as tall as me, so I just stood there staring down, sincerely perplexed as to how I was going to descend without putting the jugs down. He watched me do half, one legged squats for a few minutes until I realized my legs weren’t long enough to reach the ground. When I finally noticed he was there, this idiot little boy looked up with the most serious face and said, “Dad. I did not think this through.” &#x200B; &#x200B; “That’s when I knew,” he told me, “That’s when I knew you were gonna be okay. &#x200B; &#x200B; \*\*\* &#x200B; &#x200B; Last June I woke up with a broken hand and an anvil on my chest, crying. I rolled over and hacked what was left of my lungs, coughed until my eyes watered and when I was done, they were flooded. Part of me loved it. I thought to myself, *It’s like a weight being lifted off my shoulders*, and then I was furious at how fucking cliché that sounded so I decided to shut it down. Started off small with the classic, *Don’t be a pussy*, but then came, *Fuck, that’s a cliché too*, and then I was feeling more guilty than I already was. Small thinking failed so onto the macro. A quick little, *You have nothing to cry about*, and I was wondering why I’m not thought of as the deplorables. “They’re not sending their best,” they say, as if the best are already here. I am part of “the best.” White, middle class, educated. I have never raped, nor have I murdered, and according to Red these be the sole criteria of what makes someone a good person, as if that’s all there is to it. That’s what they see when they look at me. &#x200B; &#x200B; I wonder what they would say if they knew part of me comes from a “shithole,” that 25% of me had the gall to slither its way into this country to study its practices and heal its citizens, mixing with what it found. Only about half of them even notice, usually along the lines of, “so what else are you,” which begets questions. Does this make me one of them? If I tell Red will they send 25% of me back? If I tell people from my 25% will they protect me? Hell, would they believe me? Or would they correct me and say I didn’t do any of that so I should just shut the fuck up? Would make sense to me if they did. 25% isn’t big enough to place in the pockets of understanding. &#x200B; &#x200B; I don’t know how to combat that feeling. Guilty over something I have no control over, yet immensely benefit from. What should I do? Post a black square on Instagram? Retweet something else someone else said? Virtue signal to the world so I can look myself in the mirror and call myself an ally? As if it’s up to me. I’m as clueless as when I was as a child whenever a white lady would ask me if my father was actually my father. Certainty this stern-faced brown man with what they assumed to be a scared little freckled white boy was something that needed to be stopped. That’s what they saw. I looked up and saw Dad. I hate that white lady now, the sort of person who only thinks of humanity and its ails to distract her from her own... Fuck. &#x200B; &#x200B; \*\*\* &#x200B; &#x200B; A kiss on the cheek shouldn’t be as commonplace as it is. It should be an indicator that someone is so in love, they can’t wait to get to another’s lips. That energy is anything but. The energy of a thousand little red ants crawling over a thousand more to build a bridge, climbing one over the other, one over the other, like a spear flying in slow motion. A bright red spear of a thousand little red ants climbing on top of a thousand little red ants--a kiss on the cheek. Sometimes a hole in the wall. Or a pan thrown at your face. A burger on the floor. &#x200B; &#x200B; I didn’t say anything to Mia at first. I did sing along to “Lovebug,” by the Jonas brothers. Quietly, of course. Didn’t want to make things worse. Just loud enough for her to laugh at how horrible I am at singing. Took an intermission when we pulled up to the drive thru so I could tell the underpaid teenager her order. No tomatoes and no onions. I had already eaten. Didn’t think I was gonna see her that night. I told her I was busy, but really I had been avoiding her for the last few days out of fear. Never made it this far with anyone else, and my head had been telling me to run. Yet, when she called, I didn’t think at all. Just brushed my teeth, sniffed my balls, drove over there, and started singing. After we got the food, I parked the car a little ways away so she could start eating. That’s what I wish happened. That she just sat there and ate the damn burger. Everything was okay until she started talking. &#x200B; &#x200B; “Five years ago,” she said, sobbing. “Five years ago today my best friend, Emily, died in a hit and run accident. She was walking home from my house when a drunk driver hit her crossing the street and just kept on going.” &#x200B; &#x200B; I had seen people talk about death before, but never like this. She was feeling everything she was saying as she was saying it. &#x200B; &#x200B; “She was alive for a while, too. Just bleeding in the street alone. I should have walked her home. Or told her to stay a little longer so my dad could drive her. I didn’t think anything of it.” &#x200B; &#x200B; I was thinking. &#x200B; &#x200B; “Our favorite band was the Jonas Brothers,” she continued. &#x200B; &#x200B; What the fuck was I thinking for thinking? &#x200B; &#x200B; “Lovebug was her favorite song, actually. We had this jar in my room to save up for tickets. We were so close to making it that year, too.” &#x200B; &#x200B; I left the car then. Told her I had to go to the bathroom. I walked back to the restaurant, where I pulled out my phone and searched, *drunk driver kills teenage girl june 2014 Santa Ana*, *santa ana hit and run dead june 2014*, *emily dead santa ana 2014*, and every other variation of it. When I got back to the car I didn’t speak right away. She didn’t either. She was too busy leading me down those streets that T.S. Eliot talked about. &#x200B; &#x200B; “I just wish I could’ve told her--" “I don’t believe you,” I said. “I think you’re lying.” “That’s a fucked up thing to say.” “I know,” I said. “Tell me I’m wrong. Please.” &#x200B; &#x200B; I thought I hated being wrong. I’m so stubborn that I would jokingly tell her that I’m always right and she would point out every time I was wrong. Turned into a little game we played where we would keep score, and the loser had to do something the other hated. If she had won I would have had to do something like go on a ferris wheel. If I had one I would have made her just eat the damn burger. &#x200B; &#x200B; It was the first time I hated being right. It was the first time I saw her afraid and the first time she saw me angry. First time I broke an air conditioner vent with my fist, or took a cheeseburger out of someone’s lap and threw it on the ground, and the first time I left someone in a parking lot alone at night. &#x200B; &#x200B; My friend got a new pair of shoes, though. He’s very religious, when he’s not fucking other men, and occasionally hangs out with other people who are very religious. I was at his house a few days later, surrounded by people whose only vices were tea and video games. They asked me if I was sleeping with anyone, had I ever done drugs, what it was like being drunk. They looked at me like I had knowledge of this secret world that they’d only seen on TV. That’s what they thought. That my life was an episode of Entourage where I could drink forever without getting drunk and fuck anyone I wanted. They didn’t understand that after one drink I would start to feel drunk. That the volume of consumption was not to reach a threshold but to maintain one. Or that, devoid of an orgasm, sex is nothing more than two uncomfortable people trying their best not to be. &#x200B; &#x200B; Then they asked me about my hand and I told them all I remember was trying to stand on some grass next to a lake and the next thing I knew, I woke up with a broken hand and an anvil on my chest. My friend filled in the blanks. &#x200B; &#x200B; “Mia called me, worried about you. Vanessa was busy, so I tracked you down and took you to the lake to sober up. Where you tried to fight a pole. That’s how you broke your hand. Said it was trying to fuck with you. But that was after the lake. One of the times you tried to stand up you fell back down and just sort of lied there for a bit. A duck walked up towards you and you mumbled something about it staring at you. So you snatched it with both hands and puked all over it. Its wings were flapping the vomit everywhere, all over me.” “I puked on a duck?” “You puked on a duck,” he said. &#x200B; &#x200B; I puked on a duck. &#x200B; &#x200B; Mia paid for his shoes to say sorry and that was that. For a while. Eventually I would ask another question. At least my friend got a new pair of shoes out of it. &#x200B; &#x200B; \*\*\* &#x200B; &#x200B; My mother once slapped me across the face once when I asked if she needed help doing the dishes. I’m talking a proper, Grant Theft Auto type of backhand with the rings and everything. Said I was being sarcastic. Can’t blame her. She was drunk. That wasn’t odd. The odd came from the fact that I was too young to know what sarcasm was, and once I did, it made even less sense. She always got mad when I told her she was a drunk like her mother or that if I were her father, I would have left sooner, not when I was joking. To be fair, her mom is a fucking nightmare, but I can see how that could be considered rude, now. Doesn’t mean it’s not true. It’s not like he abandoned them for poverty, no matter how much she tries to convince you otherwise. Her dad was a nightmare too, the type of guy that gets pissed off when you tell him the soup tastes like shit as he washes his fingers in it. Though, to his credit, if you’re going to abandon your wife and three children, his was a solid way. He left them on Father’s day, with his wife’s best friend, right after taking his company public. He threw twelve million at them and fucked off. Dick move, absolutely, but the man committed. I’d only like to kick him in the balls respectfully, like a President or a Priest. &#x200B; &#x200B; When I was fourteen I didn’t do math homework for three days in a row and she told me, “I give up. I’m just waiting for you to die now.” I didn’t bring it up for years, until one day she was giving me shit for ditching school. “I thought you were just waiting for me die?” I said so she kicked me out of the house. Didn’t really make a difference to me. I was halfway moved out as is, so I never looked back. Already had a key, a toothbrush, and a parking spot at a friend’s apartment. Officially, it was just him and his mom, Lisa, that lived there. Unofficially, there were about nine to ten different people coming and going out of that place. Immediate friend group along with whomever we thought we loved at the time. &#x200B; &#x200B; Lisa let us get away with murder in that place, but that’s not why I loved her. There were plenty of other reasons. Hands down, makes the best cookies in the world. She used to make these caramel, snickerdoodle shits and they’re better than comfortable sex. Me and her ate a whole tray of those once watching the Bravo channel and those shitty Lifetime movies. Lisa made you feel like being there was what you were supposed to be doing, which made me feel guilty for taking advantage of that whenever I could. Especially since her son treated her like shit. Never cleaned up after himself, constantly asked her for money when she was barely affording rent, blamed her for the divorce. It pissed me off to no end. I tried cleaning whenever I could, or tackling the seemingly endless mountain of dishes. But if I’m being honest, I did more harm to that place than help. I could’ve done more. Chipped in for groceries, maybe. Hell I was there so much I probably should have paid rent. Fuck, I miss her. &#x200B; &#x200B; When I showed up at her house with a garbage bag full of clothes all she asked me was if I knew how to open a bottle of wine. I told her I taught myself how to when I was a six so I could empty it into the sink after my mother passed out. Told her how it never made sense to me, how they got that cork in there yet no one can ever get it back in, the foil around it all. I didn’t understand why they made it so difficult to get to. I didn’t understand a lot of things back then. Why the couch cushions got flipped around a lot. Why some nights Mom was quiet and stable and others she was loud and clumsy. Just thought she was unlucky. Always spilling and dropping everything. It made sense to pour it out. Save the couch, a ton of would be shattered glass and ceramic, and make it quiet again so the refs could hear us during Lakers games. It didn’t take her long to figure out it was me and not just her drinking more than she thought she had. I told Lisa how I learned not to do that again and that’s when I stopped watching Lakers games. I told Lisa everything. Slapping for sarcasm, pans thrown at my head, and waiting to die, but she didn’t hug me. She hugged me the first time I met her but not then. She didn’t tell me she was sorry to hear that because she had heard that too many times about her ex. She didn’t do anything that normal people would do. &#x200B; &#x200B; “Why are you friends with these guys, my son,” she said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t exactly fit in.” That’s the kindest thing anyone has ever told me. &#x200B; &#x200B; \*\*\* &#x200B; &#x200B; For seventeen years I looked out my window and stared at a bench tucked away in the backyard, pressed against a fence I shared with a neighbor I never knew. Its back legs rested on a pile of rocks that were lower than the cement the front legs rested on. It tilted upward towards the sun over the years and the wood lost its color. What was once a strong, hickory brown became an ashy grey, dry to the touch, covered in cracks and splinters. It withered for years as I stared at it. That decrepit, ashy grey, splintery bench. &#x200B; &#x200B; I got sick of looking at the fucking thing, so about a year before I broke my hand I dragged it out from the rocks away from my window to the center of the yard. I took sandpaper that I found in the garage, different grains and colors and sizes, some full sheets, others oddly shaped scraps leftover from when they were cut. I took all of them and I started grinding away, not realizing just how much work sanding a bench is by hand. After about an hour of me sanding the same spot over and over again, Dad peeked his head out from the side yard and I was ready to go. The man always had a way of doing things that rendered everyone else’s entirely wrong. I was ready to tell him to fuck off and leave me alone, but then he left. Returned a few minutes with a mask, a yellow can, a blue tarp, a paint brush, and a paddle with a razor on the end of it. &#x200B; &#x200B; “Step back,” he said. The smell of whatever was in that can nearly knocked me on my ass. It was still burning my nostrils even after the thirty minutes he told me to wait. I took the paddle and sliced off the wet, ashy grey strips with ease, and they fell down to the blue tarp. By the time I was done Mom had shown up with sheets of fresh sandpaper and a bucket of varnish. &#x200B; &#x200B; I spent the rest of the weekend sanding. Every time I took a breath, I would choke on dust. I went over every plank and corner twice, revealing a swirl of colors--yellow, red, brown, orange--all mixed together and breathing comfortably. When I was finished that bench was smoother than anything. No cracks, no splinters, no ash. Like if Don Draper, Shaft, and the Dos Equis guy all had a baby that somehow didn’t get the misogyny gene, type of smooth. I was proud, and didn’t bother hiding it. Thought I found something I was finally good at, too. Mom was excited because it would be nice enough to be put in the front yard again and Dad liked the fact his son had done something without being told. &#x200B; &#x200B; Mia didn’t give a shit. Told me it would have been more impressive if I built it. I loved her as soon as she said that. We were both dating other people at the time. Her a nice boy who opened doors and asked her how she felt. Me, someone who tried her absolute best to support me in every way imaginable. It was a horribly boring time. They were both good people, but Mia and I had common interests. Like fucking each other in the bathroom while our respective partners are downstairs, rejoining the party and pretending that nothing happened. Watching her come up with excuses on the spot and her swallowing Plan B an hour later are the two sexiest things I have ever seen. We lasted longer than I thought it would. The lying and the sneaking around lost its appeal and we each did the mature thing. Broke up with our partners and lied to them about why. &#x200B; &#x200B; Then it was just us two. It stopped being exciting and started getting serious. That bench was where I told her we should stop. That we were doomed to end in a big, beautiful, angry way. A burger on the floor and her alone in a parking lot. She didn’t agree. Told me it was fate. Talked about time being dead and sound freezing when my lips were pressed against hers. How we could say things to each other on this bench that no one else could hear. &#x200B; &#x200B; “People who die skydiving,” she would say, “kinda have it coming.” “My favorite thing,” I said, “is watching a kid eat shit on a skateboard.” &#x200B; &#x200B; Everything we said was met with enthusiasm and relief, and slowly but surely the little red ants climbed. A bright red spear of a thousand little red ants climbing on top of a thousand little red ants--I missed and kissed her on the cheek. &#x200B; &#x200B; \*\*\* &#x200B; &#x200B; I think about that bench all the time, now that I have the time. The guy behind the glass at the gas station was excited to see me because he hadn’t since last June. He told me how crazy it all is, asked if I still had my job, blah blah blah. I wasn’t listening, really. Kind of hard to hear behind the masks. As loud as the world is to us, we are more muffled to each other than ever before. &#x200B; &#x200B; Nothing registered until he said, “I don’t know when this is gonna end,” like a sack of potatoes. He added a sincere “stay safe,” and I gave him a nod then walked away. Couldn’t even dignify the man with a response. I stared down at the pack of cigarettes and thought that if this was a movie, I would throw them away. One of those people that you see on a daily basis but never bother to ask anything else, the man who pours your coffee, the woman who takes your order. One of those familiar strangers shows me compassion and my character would decide to be someone else because he realized we can still connect with people, even if it is from six feet away. I haven’t decided who I want to be yet. &#x200B; &#x200B; I find myself thinking about Dad more. Mainly about all the funny little quotes he would’ve made, what he would’ve thought of everything. I like to think Mother Nature got sick of us screaming at each other so she put everyone in time-out. Gave us all something to share again. I think about Mia too, about how fucked up it would be if the hospital made a person like her work through this shit. Her asthma hasn’t been a problem for a while, but still, I can’t help but think the worst. Speaking of which, I hope Mom is okay too. Haven’t called her since it all started. I made sure she stocked up on all the essentials and my sister drops off groceries weekly, armored in makeshift masks and gloves she stole from the restaurant where she works. I wonder what that bench looks like now, too. &#x200B; &#x200B; Then another day comes and I’m glad my father’s dead. He would’ve gone stir crazy, anyways. I’ll think that Mother Nature wants to tear us apart for good. I’ll text Mia but only to ask if she’s still alive. She tries to tell me about how the hospital let her go so her and Pops are barely hanging on. I want to give a shit but I also don’t know if she’s telling the truth. “Just don’t die,” I tell her. My mother, on the other hand, can go ahead and croak. Better just to rip the band-aid off now and get it over with. Then I could finally go back and get rid of that goddamn bench. I’m not sure. I notice myself going back and forth and I hate it. &#x200B; &#x200B; I notice the backwardness of a cruel April and a warm winter, as I flip through the notes and read the likes of Baudelaire and Marvell, Dante, of pearl eyes and the lyrics of love. *Perfer et obdura, dolor hic tibi proderit olim*, he tells me. But how can I have patience as the ground splits beneath my feet? As I go back and forth? I do not want to be screaming across a chasm, nor drown between two, or forget the other existed. I want one foot in four facets like I’m a monument. I want the TV to shut off and flood with Purple, for the ones and zeros to go fuck themselves so we can write eight billion new algorithms for eight billion new people. I want to be a son, a lover, a craftsman, a friend, and a dishwasher. I want words like “ally” and “woke” to become obsolete so words like “Me Too” and “Mass Shooting” can surprise me again. I want this to not sound as ridiculous as it does. I want to care enough to do more than just notice things. &#x200B; &#x200B; Instead, I open another one. A sharp inhale with pursed lips slices the air and I think to myself, that when I woke up last June, with a broken hand and an anvil on my chest, I should’ve taken a bat to that fucking bench, instead of running and kissing her on the cheek. I wish I could feel the sawdust and planks slapping me across the face as I stare down at the ashy grey pile of splinters and cracks, so I’ll never have to wake up and think of this shit ever again.