The Return Of The Emotionless Robot

A few years ago, a close friend of my mother's died. Keep in mind that this close friend once shoved my mother off a barstool and broke her shoulder. These are the only kinds of friends my mother has.

I was living in Vermont at the time, and my mother called to invite me to the funeral. She called the day before. Naturally, I told her I couldn't make it.

About a week later, I receive a package in the mail. Batteries, toothpaste, condoms, blank CDs, an orange, and the program from the funeral. And there, inside the program, was a poem. My poem. A poem I had written when I was fourteen. A poem about nuclear war that I had written when I was fourteen. So, not only was it horribly written, it had nothing to do about the bitchy misanthrope who'd thrown herself in front of a truck rather than grow old.

I mention this because a few weeks ago, my mother e-mailed me to complain about how I never keep in touch with her anymore. I just read the e-mail this morning. In it, she actually took a stanza from a poem that I wrote a couple of years ago, about not being good at staying in touch with people.

I was impressed. This is a woman who says things like "That's six of one, and a dozen of the other." and "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bath." And she's not trying to be funny. My mom is Biff Tannen.

Ok, seriously, what is it with my parents getting married without telling anyone?

I suppose, barring the death of their spouses, that this is the last time one of my parents will have the opportunity to get married (barring their embrace of Mormonism) and then casually drop that fact in conversation after the ceremony is over.

Now that I think about, I suppose my birth parents would each have the opportunity to do this to me. Let's call that another reason why I have no plans to get in touch with them.

I've been doing a bunch of high school poetry shows over the last few months. And, usually, at some point during the workshop, or during the slam, I'll look at all the kids around me and think, I wonder how the kids at my old high school would react. Then I remember the teachers at my public high school.

My geometry teacher, Miss Nichols, was a frumpy fifty-something former nun who would have made an incredible first grade or kindergarten teacher, but was entirely too condescending to deal with bored ninth graders. Every day she would mark the floor-to ceiling blackboard with brightly colored chalk outlines and ask questions that no one would raise their hands to answer. And when she realized that none of us gave a runny shit about what she was trying to teach us, she would grab the flowy part of her mumu, and announce "If you're going to sit and look at the floor, I'm going to sit and teach on the floor." And the rest of the class would be peppered with "Hello?"s every time we failed to respond to her inane questions. In my final report card of the year (I got a D-), she wrote that I would be "best served in a remedial math course." When, the next year, I was moved out of my pre-calculus class to ADVANCED CALCULUS AND TRIGONOMETRY (I got an A-), my mother photocopied both my boarding school report card, and the one that Miss Nichols had wrote the following year, along with a note suggesting Miss Nichols would be "best served in a remedial teaching course."

My Life Science teacher, Mr. Hickey, was an arrogant, gassy sixty-something former scientist. He made alphabetical seating charts, because he hated learning kids' names. Every class, my friend Brian and I would count how many times he yanked his tie, or threw chalk at people. And whenever he made an audible fart, we would chuckle, prompting Mr. Hickey to say "Stone, do you want a detention?" To which I replied "No." To which he replied, "Fine. Stanton, you've got a detention." This same teacher tried to give me a D on an embryology project because I couldn't for the life of me draw an attractive looking graph, chick, or egg. When I pointed out that it was a science class, and not an art class, I received my first detention, which I skipped. When my mother gave a copy of my embryology report (along with Hickey's comments on my artwork) to the principal, my detention was rescinded, and my grade was upped to a B-. The principal hated and feared my mom. As did I.

My French teacher was a nice enough lady, but she didn't teach me anything. I don't even remember her name. Ditto the man who taught history.

But poetry workshops are organized by English teachers, and its my Freshman year english teacher I choose to remember now. Mrs. Wallins was the bland, moderately friendly wasp you'd expect to teach high school English. She liked to drill students on the difference between metaphors and like similes. She favored the kids who read out loud well, and thus I was, for the first semester, one of her favorite students. As long as I didn't question her, we got along fantastically. Our midterm assignment was to write a short fiction piece about Valentine's Day. A week before the assignment was due, she'd gone on a rant about how much she hated second person narration, how she thought it was demeaning to the reader. So, naturally, I wrote my fiction piece in the second person. It wasn't fantastic. It won't change the face of literature, but it was pretty fucken good for a piece of crap high school assignment about love. In her comments, she mentioned that I would have scored much higher had I written the piece in a "more traditional voice." Since I'd made the decision to rile my teacher consciously, my mother refused to back me up.

For National Poetry Month, Mrs. Wallins had organized an open mic in the cafeteria, featuring all the students that would be included in the school lit journal. I had two poems accepted. They were terrible. Awful. Should have been banned from the English language. At the time, though, I was proud of them, and I showed them to one of my friends, Jeff, who wasn't in my class. He turned the poems in to his English teacher, who also submitted them to the lit journal. I was one of the first people to read, so I read my poems to a mixed reaction (the poems sucked, the kids were forced to be there), sat down, and prepared to get a "well done" clap on the back from Mrs. Wallins. Instead I received a whisper in my ear "We need to go to the principal's office. Now."

The battle over who wrote the poems wasn't pretty. Jeff argued that he'd written them. I cried. Parents were called. My mother played the stern, supportive woman who frightened high school principals, and Jeff's mother played the crazed psychopath who knew, KNEW that I'd been out to destroy her son since we started hanging out in fourth grade.

In the end, since neither of copped to the plagiarism, or had any proof that we'd written the poems first, we were both removed from the lit journal. And for the rest of the term, every time I turned in a piece of writing, Mrs. Wallins would ask "Did you write this?"

This year, for national poetry month, I have been asked to run a slam and poetry workshop at my old high school. I will be reading a series of poems in the second person in Mrs. Wallins' honor. I'll tell her how the last time I saw Jeff, I gave him permission to use those poems whenever he wanted (remember, they sucked), and that I recently googled Jeff to find out how his writing career was going. Curiously, when I googled his name and poetry, I didn't find anything. But when I googled his name and "police log", man did I get a bunch of hits. I was initially impressed by his career as a law enforcement agent, until I read a few of the pages and discovered he wasn't so much a police officer as a frequent suspect in a series of low-grade crimes. Apparently, he's gotten really sneaky at the breaking part of his criminal life, but his enterings frequently attract the notice of local police. Maybe I'll start doing a few prison workshops and readings so we can get back in touch.

Ben is on the phone with his mother. Speaking all falling leaves and sunshine. He is planning on spending a weekend on a commune in upstate New York. He wants to get in touch with nature, and spend some quality time with Lisabelle. He does not tell her that he really wants to go because he found an acid connection, and he wants us to do acid together before it starts snowing. And then I hear him say something about Ani Difranco.

"Wait, your mom likes Ani Difranco?" I ask.

"Yes." He says, then relays my question to his mom.

"Your mom, who likes to wear flannel, and fixes all the appliances in your house when they break, also likes to listen to Ani Difranco? Your mom is such a dyke."

"My Mom is Not a lesbian." He says. Then he listens to the phone. "She says she's a non-practicing bisexual. And she says that if she ever meets you, she's going to kick your ass."

"She is sooooo a dyke."

Ben scowls, and takes the phone out of the room.

I've been living with him for two weeks. Nothing's happened. Everything has happened. I quit my job at the coffeehouse and went back to my old job, waiting tables at Kookaburra Canyon. I got an e-mail from my mother's boyfriend telling me that she has cancer, and she's coming to visit me in Boston this weekend to discuss her will and other things I really don't want to, but know I need to, deal with.

"I'll go with you." Ben says. "You never talk about your mom, I'd love to meet her."

Thus far in my life, my mother has only met three people I've dated: Jennifer (who hates my mother because...well, my mom was a total bitch to her at every opportunity), Ryan (though it was before we were dating...he liked her, but he liked everyone), and Elvis (who she instinctively knew was evil, but she actually tried to be supportive as possible until the day I finally got rid of him, which she claims was one of the happier days in her life). Even my really close friends have never liked my mother. She was emotionally abusive to Liam and Riley. She made CSB quiver whenever she came into our house. Earlier this year, when angry at her for something stupid, I toyed with the idea of inviting my previous crush, Dmitri, to spend some time with me at my mother's house. We were going to claim he was a fifteen year old street kid addicted to crank that I was "taking care of". It seemed funny at the time.

I don't know about her meeting Ben. I just don't think it would be fun for either of them. It would give Ben some new material for his "Letters to My Exes' Mothers" song, though, since we're not even dating, I'm still a future ex at this point. I bet he'd do a fantastic impression of her, but she'd also eat him alive. Oh he wouldn't cry about it, I just imagine, as we left the restaurant, him saying "Jesus, well that explains a lot about you." Also, I'm not sure how bringing my not boyfriend to a discussion of my inheritance and my responsibilities, in the context of her estate, would go over.

"Don't worry mom. He hasn't done speed in..." (whispers in Ben's ear, Ben whispers back) "ok, technically it hasn't been that long, but he hasn't really been a drug addict in months. Plus, he has a job. I know. I know he looks like he's fourteen. He's not. He's twenty two." (and here Ben would add, "Twenty two, and one month.") "Yes. Twenty two and one month. No, I haven't IDed him. Mom, he really is twenty-two. And one month. No, I haven't been spending loads of money on him. In fact, he's been really supportive of me. No, no we're not...I'm glad you like my haircut...No, I...Ok, well...it's not...I should really go to work."

It's just too much for me to contemplate. But as fate or luck or whatever higher power you belive in, would have it, my mom and her boyfriend come for their visit while Ben is at the commune buying acid.

The lunch isn't nearly as awkward as I expect. Turns out, my mother doesn't have cancer. The cancer was a ploy to get me to meet with them to discuss the will. It sounds awful, but it's not terribly surprising. When I was living in Arifuckenzona, I went a little over a month without calling or e-mailing them, so my mother called and left a voicemail on my phone, letting me know they were taking a trip down to Florida, and that they'd left their wills on the kitchen counter, so that if their plane crashed.... It's a cruel game. Avoidance and guilt hop-scotch.

After the meal, they drive me back to Ben's apartment, where an obese man in a too tight t-shirt is knocking on his door. "Do you live here?" he asks.

And because it's Ben's apartment, and his landlord doesn't know I've been staying here, I say "No. I'm just catsitting."

"Too bad." He says. "I gotta cut your power."

Out go the lights, the computer, the refrigerator, the fan. Everything's off. I feel like it's my shitty luck infecting Ben's life.

I take a bus over to Celeste's apartment, and tell her the story. "I hope it's not a metaphor, like Ben's way of saying Here are the keys to my life, you are always welcome, but you have no power. And then I read the little card the NStar guy gave me, and it says they turned the gas off, too, so I thought, hey, if I'm going with the metaphor, it means that he also thinks I'm not gassy."

"Oh, dude," Celeste days, taking my hand, "that's not what it means at all. It means he thinks you're not hot."

I have awkward carries. You're supposed to lift trays above your head, support dishes on one arm, and hold utensils in the other. Whenever I start a new job waiting tables, people think I must be inept. I rest trays on my shoulder, juxtapose dishes so they always look like they're about to succumb to gravity's kiss. But they never do. I've never broken a plate, or dropped a dish full of food. I've lost a couple of mugs, but mostly because they came straight from a hot dishwasher, and then some idiot filled them up with ice and handed them to me, and the bottom fell out. Sometimes, I was even the idiot in question.

Tonight, my second night back at Kookaburra Canyon, several of the rookies asked if I needed help, because they thought I was on the brink of dropping everything. I'd just smile, and walk out into the dining room.

The weight of my life is distributed unevenly. I've got financial burdens lined up one arm, my failure to deal with my housing situation on the other. An urgent e-mail from my mother's boyfriend is wrapped a little too tightly around my neck. I've got Ben dangling from one of my fingers. Celeste's suggestion that I'm too focused on Ben is balanced precariously on my head. Surely, something has got to give.

As I walk out of the dining room, arms full of lamb and mashed potatoes, my boss (also a Ben) shouts "Sack smack!" and lunges for my testicles. I've missed working for a twelve year old. When I walk back into the kitchen, he yells, "Catch!" and throws a full pitcher of water at me, which I somehow catch. When he laughs and turns around, I kick an empty mug rack on wheels at him. It hits him in the shins and nearly knocks him over.

He knows I'm waiting for a call about my mother. That I don't know if I'm overreacting to the boyfriend's e-mail. So he's fucking with me to keep me in good spirits, and it's working. Everyone around me is yelling at each other and complaining to me "What's the fucken deal? Salads are taking forever tonight. They've fucked up every order that's gone through the kitchen tonight." Not mine. The actual work part of my night was flawless. I didn't make as much as I'd have liked, but it was nice out, and there was a Red Sox/Yankees game, so I didn't expect it to be busy.

When the rookie server who's been there three months tells me I'm not carrying things properly, and I'm taking too much time at the soda machine, and maybe I'm a little rusty at serving, I calmly turn and say, "While you're back here complaining about how hectic things are, and trying to tell me what I'm doing wrong, I'm back here filling the ice machine, filling the bread oven, getting fresh mugs, and all my tables are happy, and I'm happy, so really, who should be telling who how to do their job?"

And at ten, I call Ben and ask him if he'd like me to bring any food home. And then I think home? Ben's apartment, while it is where I've spent most of my time for the past month, isn't my home. This is followed by Fuck, what am I doing? We're not dating or sleeping together, yet I'm at his house almost every night, using his computer, keeping him up late talking, and slowly turning his asscat against him. And, let's not forget, confessing how much I love him and how much it hurts that he doesn't love me back.

As soon as I'm done with work, I grab my bag full of his food, and get on the subway. At his stop, I get off, buy him a pack of cigarettes, and something to drink. It's 12:30. He is awake long enough for me to get in the door, but then immediately passes out. As I write a lengthy e-mail to my mom's boyfriend, he sits bolt upright and says "Some day my hair won't beehive when I lay down." And then promptly rolls over and passes out again. How could I not love him?

I, unrealistically, expect everything in my life will work itself out shortly. I have a date tomorrow night with an emo musician who isn't Ben. Despite the scheduler forgetting to put me on the schedule at Kookaburra Canyon, I've picked up every shift I could possibly work. Zuzu got my five month overdue check for the last school gig I did without the "Cash first, THEN performance" rule that I've had to institute, since every college and high school in the country seems to think it's okay to keep poets waiting years and years for their checks, because hey, we all know poets are all rich beyond peoples' wildest fantasies. Shit, Billy Collins owns half the state of Tennessee, and Bill Gates keeps calling Sharon Olds to ask her how she manages to handle her finances so well. If she can't tell him, I will. The trick is to line one arm with dollar coins, and the other with hundred dollar bills folded into origami butterflies. Fold your stocks and bonds into the folds of your shirt. Stuff your assets down the back of your pants, and keep your debts resting on your shoes. It's a hell of a way to carry yourself through rough times.

Like most Introductory Courses, we begin with a thesis statement. By the end of this course, I expect you will be able to walk up to someone you barely know and tell them you love them. You will fall in love with a laugh, the way he makes eye contact with a squirrel and doesn't even break it when he rests his hands on the small of your back, the way she makes the word "fuck" have three syllables. You will learn to say "I love you" before you know your betrothed's name. You will learn to actually be in love before, and despite, all those wonderful imperfections that lead to annoyance, arguments, divorce, and, ultimately love. You will realize that while "no" means "no", "you're crazy" means "not yet, but soon".

Syllabus

Week One, Forgetting the Complications of Previous Love Experience: During this class we will discuss why none of your past relationships were actually love. We will tear pages out of your photo albums, and smash all your When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, The English Patient, and all those other nonsensical "love" DVDs.

Week Two, Determining Your Type, Then Overcoming It: We will discuss your fetishes, and why they're wrong. You will learn to forget about hair styles and skin types and how much money people make, and learn to only follow the exquisite twist of stomach and the tingle of hair.

Week Three, Dropping Pick Up Lines in Favor of Honesty: This is not a week to fuck with the professor. Listen, learn. Pick up lines only work on prissies and prostitutes.

Week Four, Field Trip to End All Field Trips: Bring a lunch or money to buy a lunch. You'll all be blindfolded and dropped off at various parts of the city. The weather will be ideal for love. It may be snowing, or sunny, or raining cats and locusts. Whatever it will be will be perfect. You won't know where you are. You will be lost and dizzy. This is what love feels like. While you're pondering this (s)he will catch your ears, your eyes, your nose, your arms. You won't need a diploma. The only degrees you'll get are from the fever. Class difuckensmissed.


***

It's 8:00, and I'm in a bar. As usual. What's unusual is that I'm waiting for someone specific. I know his name, what he looks like, how he smells. I already know that he's often funny in person, that his voice, while not precisely soothing, won't send me running out to the pharmacy for earplugs. I'm prepared.

Who the fuck am I kidding? I'm a mess. My fingernails are chewed off, my bottom lip bears the indentation of my front teeth, and I've run my fingers through my hair so many times, clumps are falling out. God, I can't go bald on my first real date in...this millennium.

After the third Southern Comfort and Coke, I check my watch. I'm not wearing a watch. I never wear a watch. "What time is it?" I ask the bartender with laryngitis. She points to the massive clock on the wall behind her. It's 9:04. Both my date, and my friends who offered to act as moral support (and to keep me from going home with him on our first date) are over an hour late. And I'm, if not already drunk, getting there.

The women next to me have spent forty-five minutes talking about Harry Potter, about friends who have also read Harry Potter, and about shunning one of their mutual exes because he hasn't read Harry Potter. I am about thirty seconds away from throwing my ice at them, and yelling It's a children's book. What the hell is wrong with you? when I see my date walk by the window, dressed in khakis and a blazer. I am wearing blue jeans and a Transformers t-shirt.

"Oh my God!" Ben says when I step outside. "I love the Transformers. I'm writing a webcomic about their sordid sexual proclivities. Oh," he puts his Galouises in his mouth, and shakes my hand, "sorry I'm late. We had this call from a woman claiming to be her daughter, and it was so" I think he's talking about his work, but my mind keeps looping the phrase Where's Celeste? over and over. If my support network doesn't show up, I'm liable to go home with him before we even order drinks. Well, before he even orders drinks.

"Adam!" someone shouts from across the street. It's thank God Celeste. She's with her boyfriend, Trick, and...I don't remember her friend's name. I think it's Steve. Most of her friends are named Steve. There's Steve the Bassist, Steve the Drummer, Anarchist Steve, Socialist Steve, Starbuck's Steve, Steve Jackson, Irish Steve, and THE Steve. I know this isn't THE Steve, but apart from that, I don't have a clue. He might not even be a Steve. "Sorry, I'm late." She says. "You remember Steve, right?"

"Of course." I say. "And this is my friend, Ben. Ben, Steve. Steve, Ben. Ben, Trick. Trick, Ben. Celeste, Ben. Ben, Celeste." Introductions make me dizzy.

Somebody Steve shakes his dreadlocks. "Safey and I were almost roommates." Oh, that Steve. "But I ended up getting my own place. It's much easier."

"Well that's not very socialist of you." I say. Celeste, Trick, and Steve all laugh.

"Steve is a socialist." Celeste explains. Ben laughs. Politely.

When we are all back inside, Ben takes off his blazer, revealing a wife beater. Now we look like a unit. Socialist Steve in his black jeans and Misfits hoodie, Celeste in her pink bunny shirt and skirt made of ties, Trick in jeans and a navy blue t-shirt, me, and Ben. If the waitress hadn't seen me sitting at the bar for an hour and a half, we could have been a group of scenesters coming from an all ages emo show. Something free. I can tell, as she takes our drink order, that she's calculating how much we're likely to tip her.

Socialist Steve orders an obscure lager that I've never heard of. Celeste gets a hard cider. Trick gets a Guinness. Ben asks about a good ale. I forgo the Southern Comfort and Cokes for a Midori Sour. When the waitress puts it down in front of me, a couple of minutes later, Ben says "That's the gayest drink I've ever seen."

Celeste asks "Where's the umbrella?"

And then Ben is bullet point talking at us. Celeste throwing in the occasional story which may or may not have anything to do with whatever it is Ben is talking about. Talk talk talk talk talk, meandering story, talk talk talk talk talk, meandering story, talk talk talk talk talk, Socialist Steve makes a dry remark about his beer, meandering story, talk talk "Mind if I try some?" Ben asks, reaching for my drink.

"Not at all. Here."

He takes a large sip from my straw, swishes it like wine, and swallows. "Too fruity."

In those two words, he's summed up the reason why I've fallen out of crush with every fag I've known since I started whoring dating.

When the food has been digested, and the check has been paid, the five of us head outside. Celeste gives me the Is It Okay For Us To Leave You Two Alone Eyebrow. I reply with the It Is Nod.

And we're alone.

"I don't think Steve paid enough to cover tip." Ben says.

"I don't think he paid enough to cover his beer." I say. "I put in five extra bucks."

"Me, too." He says.

"Stupid socialists."

There's about ten seconds of comfortable silence, and then Ben's tongue turns Gatling gun again. "You know the French are so mad about the way George Bush is ruining this country, that they're refusing to export Galouises here, which means I'm either going to have to quit smoking or find another brand. It sucks because I just started smoking Galouises a few months ago because my mom used to smoke them in high school and they're incredibly smooth, and I just really like them. I don't think I can go back to Marlboro Lites. It seems like every time I like something, it instantly disappears, like there's some vast fucken conspiracy against me. Well, bring it on Universe, I can take it, I can find another brand of cigarettes that I'll like even better. And"

And I should kiss him. That might just be the one thing that stops his nervous babbling. But I don't. And I don't care to analyze why.

"and I totally had fun and everything, and it was really nice to be on a date with someone who wasn't just trying to get into my pants on the first date or anything. Like my last exboyfriend, who's totally HIV positive. I'm not, by the way, I've been tested recently, and we haven't had sex in over a year. But he is, and I think I want to ask him to marry me, because then I can just marry him and do the whole 'til death do us part thing, and know that it won't be that far away. Though, honestly, I'll probably marry the first guy who asks me to."

And before I can stop myself, the words "Will you..." leap off my tongue, and cartwheel over the tightrope of desperation that serves as the only common thread between us. I can't marry Ben, I don't even know his last name. "Will you―really?"

***

"You didn't." Celeste says, when I relay the story to her later. "That's soooooo lame."

"I did."

"What about Dmitri?" She asks.

"What about him? I'm not going to wait for some confused gay guy in Chicago who has had the same boyfriend since he was fourteen. That's slow suicide."

"But he's a med student." Celeste says. "Wouldn't your mom be thrilled if you were marrying a nice, rich doctor?"

"Sure." I say. "If I were a woman." When my mother calls to ask how I'm doing, she always asks Do you have a new boyfriend or, her voice swells with hope, girlfriend? "I think she'd be content with me marrying a hair dresser, as long as the hair dresser has a vagina."

She rolls her eyes. "So, the proposal thing. You only proposed..."

"I didn't propose. I very nearly proposed."

"Wev, dude. You only very nearly proposed because you were drunk, right?"

"I guess."

"How many drinks did you have?"

I tap the tips of my fingers. "I lost count at four." The problem with mixed drinks is the problem with boys: the fruitier they are, the easier they go down, and eventually you lose track of how many you swallow. Not that either Ben or I did any going down or swallowing on the night I nearly almost proposed.


***


"Will I really what?" Ben asks.

"Marry the first guy who proposes."

And I wait for him to ask if that's a proposal, or if I'm kidding, or for him to say anything to end this awkward, depressing silence. "I don't know." He says, taking the last drag off his last cigarette. "Depends on the guy, I guess."

"Well, I'd hope so." And I throw in a fake laugh, that I hope sounds sincere.

"I should go." He says. "I don't want to miss the last train."

And I almost detain him just a long enough so we end up going back to my place to share either a great fuck, a huge mistake, or both. But I don't.

There's no conceivable reason why ACDC's "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You" is stuck in my head. No one around me recently has sung or referenced that song, no one has rocked (or appeared about to), and I have not seen someone salute anyone since I shaved off my Hitler mustache in the mid nineties (I'm kidding, I'd never shave off my Hitler mustache...I mean, I've never had a Hitler mustache).

All week long, the wrong things have been popping into my head: that horribly catchy Maroon 5 single, Manamana, the word "phlebotomy". At work, a softspoken man was trying to order a raisin scone, and I kept hearing him say "bra strap, bra strap, bra strap" over and over.

The crazy quotient in my life keeps escalating. My mother called last week to tell me she heard an ad for a job on the radio that would be perfect for me: bag checker at Logan airport. When I tell her that I'm not the least bit interested, she asks if I'm content to bag groceries for the rest of my life. I've never worked in a grocery store in my life, but now I'm considering it just because I think she's prejudiced against supermarket clerks.

Yesterday, she called and asked if she could visit on Saturday. Just as she hung up, Zuzu called and suggested driving to New York City on Saturday to see a poetry event. When I reminded her that Dmitri is going to be in town on Saturday, and that he might not want to spend ten hours of his visit in a car, I realized that the real issue was that I didn't want to be trapped in a car for ten hours with Zuzu, Dmitri, and Zuzu's latest "boy toy", a guy who, within the first five minutes of my first conversation with him, brought up both how easy it is to murder someone AND how complicated his life has been since he was released from the mental institution.

Today, I received an e-mail from someone saying that they were removing me from their friends list because I mentioned in an entry that I don't like cunnilingus. If you've read enough of my journal to decide to add me as a friend, and you don't realize that I'm not going to be a huge proponent of cunnilingus, I just don't know what to say except: "Penguin lust."

My father moved to Martha's Vineyard while I was away at school. It wasn't remotely traumatic. It wasn't even a remote island (I'm cockslapping myself for that joke, don't you worry). I started spending on average about three weeks of the year on the island. I felt like a Clinton.

But despite all my vast Martha's Vineyard experience, I'd never been to Nantucket. Sure, I'd drunk the Nectars, I'd recited the dirty limericks, but I'd never actually been there. I was overjoyed when, in April of 2001 I won a two nights stay at The Jared Coffin House, complete with round trip airfare for two from the Cape.

In July, I was hanging out with some jailbait who was crushing on me, and who I was...desperately trying not to crush back on (I barely made it...he was sooo cute/funny/smart/completely illegal), and he asked if he could come with me to the island. No. No. No. Hmmmmm...No. But it did remind me that I had to book the trip at some point. I was going to Seattle in August for the National Poetry Slam finals, and I was broker than an old pop culture reference, BUT I didn't want to go to Nantucket during the winter when it was all cold and desolate. So I called and made a reservation for September 14th. 2001.

September 11th, I was scheduled to do a poetry show in Portland Maine, with the only really Deaf Poet on Def Jam, Ayisha Knight. I was voicing all her poems, and she was signing all mine. We'd also interwoven our poetry into one long show. It would have kicked so much ass, but, you know the planes and the buildings and the dying happened, and it didn't look like the show was going to happen. We were also opening for Folk Implosion that night. Damnit.

After an awkward day of honing my ASL skills on the subject of terrorism, we drove back to Boston, where i was staying with Zuzu the Political Activist. That was fun. Really. I'm being completely sincere. No, I mean it.

After a few hours of nonsensical ranting, I checked my e-mail.

Hey Safey,
Looks like the world is kind of fucked up right now. Are we still on for this weekend on Nantucket? I completely understand if you're not in the mood, but maybe some time away from the real world will do us some good. Hope you're slamming your heart out.

Scott.

Oh, right. Nantucket. Scott.

Scott was the one person who ever replied to my PlanetOut ad (looooooooooooong since removed). He was 23 (I was 24 at the time), a former fatty who was now borderline anorexic, and interesting. Not necessarily in a good way. We'd gone to a PJ Harvey concert together a week before, and had...hmmm...we had something that was almost fun. The concert was good. I discovered he lived on the Cape at the same time I had, yet we had never met. However, we knew about a billion people in common, so we talked about them.

After out pseudo-date we sort of hugged, but not really, and he drove back to the Cape, while I was explaining to Zuzu why, despite our awkward first "date", I had invited him to Nantucket: "No other prospects."

Scott picked me up at the bus station (sexy, sexy), and drove to my mother's. The plan was to park his car at her house, take the cab to the airport, and be on our way. But nooooooooooooooooo, Scott wanted to meet my mother, and have her drive us to the airport. I love my mother, but she's CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZY, and more than a bit bitchy to my friends. Jennifer had suggested running her over with my car, my boss at Kookaburra Canyon would hide in the kitchen when my mother came to visit me at work, and Liam was more direct when he asked me "Dude, why is your mom such an insufferable bitch to me?" She had plotted to have Elvis killed before I figured out that that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Why would I want to introduce her to someone I didn't particularly like, but wanted to have sex with in the near future?

I prepped him. My mom knew I was gay (she had nearly walked in on me and Elvis on more than the occasion), but we didn't talk about it. Talking about it involved crying. This is the woman who just two weeks ago, chastised me for voting in VT instead of MA (that's where my ID is from). "Just think, if you'd voted here instead of Vermont, you could have changed things."

"What do you mean?" I asked her.

"You did vote for Bush, right?" No, she wasn't kidding.

My prep for Scott included just telling her we were friends from College (he was currently attending the community college I had gone to a year and a half before), and that we were going to get away from the 9/11 stuff.

"Actually," he confessed when we were in her house, "I met him on an online personals site. We're going for a romantic weekend." I was so going to kill him.

There is little in life as agonizing as the anticipation of knowing your mother is about to walk in on you having sex with a boy when she doesn't know you're gay. I suppose it could be worse. I could have been being gang banged by the football team when my dad walked in, but I've never had much of an affinity for jocks, and my Dad lived over an hour away. He also had a sense of personal space. Something my mother lacks to this day.

There is no way to make this look innocent. We're two guys in a bed who reek of long amazing sex (you can barely smell the "you're better than my brother" at this point), and Mr. NoAss's Gila Monster is still visible through the sheets.

The tension is mounting on me, and I'm pretty sure it will hurt worse than Rex's cock when I hear the door open and-- It's not my door. It's the door to the spare bedroom.

This is where the sobbing begins to waft under the doorway. I'd been so focused on my pulse moving north from cock to inner ear, that I hadn't noticed it.

I threw on some baggy clothes and knocked on the door. "Mom?"

"Insafemode, you're awake? Of course you're awake. It's only ten. Insafemode, I did it, I broke up with my boyfriend."

Now my blood drains back down from my inner ear, into my feet, and escapes through my toes and on to the carpet. My Mom is breaking up with her boyfriend. My Mom, who owns my house is breaking up with her boyfriend with whom she's been living. My Mom is totally going to kill my fuck factor.

Then my blood comes back with resounding force into my brain and kicks my ego's narcissistic ass. "Are you ok?"

"Yea, Insafemode, I think--" her phone rings, it's her boyfriend. I do the wiggle-your-feet-while-your-mom-is-on-th

e-phone-dance while she sobs, then steels, then says. "Oh--Why didn't you tell me that it--Ok--Well that changes everything. I'll be right over."

I never did find out what the fight was about.

"I'm so foolish sometimes." My mother said as she picked up her purse, and yanked her jacket off the floor. "I just get so emotiona--Insafemode who's in your bedroom?"

I turn slowly. Each crisis has been thus far averted, so this must be the point where Rex and his serpent wave at her from my bad. But Rex is no longer in my bed. He's fully dressed and playing PlayStation.

"Oh, Mom, this is Rex, he's a friend of mine. He'll probably be staying here for a while."

"Well, lucky thing I won't be needing the spare bedroom then. Goodnight Insafemode. Goodnight Rex." "Night. Good to almost meet you."

And my mother, The White Tornado, spun down the stairs and back over to her boyfriend's. The whole ordeal took about five minutes tops.

"I figured if we had been playing video games it could have accounted for any noises she would have heard."

"Good thinking. Certainly the 'Oh God, you're better than my brother' comment would have been in a better context."

"Yea, sorry about that. Are you any good at Breath of Fire 3?"

My two years at Pilgrim's Academy proved that it wasn't the public school system that was lacking, it was my attention. So, in ninth grade, I began my career as a Freshman at Cranberry Lake High School. The nerdy kids that I'd hung out with in elementary school decided I was too popular to hang out with them now. And while the popular kids appeared to like me, I never felt comfortable hanging out with them. Since I was failing at playing the role of myself, I threw myself into the one thing I felt I was actually good at: acting.

My parents had taken me to an audition for The Bogtown Players' production of Our Town when I was six. Since then, I'd played Linus in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, the narrator in a bunch of kids plays, and even had the occasional small role in shows like Bye Bye Birdie, and the horrendous stage version of the popular TV show, M*A*S*H. Near the end of my days at Pilgrim's, a bunch of actors from M*A*S*H decided to try and redeem themselves by getting parts in the UMass Cranberry Lake production of The Crucible. My mom decided to let me audition, since the show was supposed to be for college students and adults, and the odds of them casting a thirteen year old were slim. Of course, nowhere on the audition sheet, did they ask your age.

I got not one, but two parts. Admittedly, two of the smallest parts in the play, but when combined were...still, one of the smallest roles in the play. But I was ten years younger than the next youngest cast member. I was invited to parties where I got to watch people get drunk. And since I didn't have much stage time, I did some homework, and some writing during rehearsals.

On Wednesday nights, while we rehearsed in the main theater, an acting class took place in one of the studio rooms. The teacher didn't seem to mind if the upstairs actors crashed his course, so I sat in and watched grown men and women perform terrible monologues, improvs, and terrifying acts of mime. On monologue night, most of the students got on the makeshift stage and performed something from Shakespeare or Sophocles. They didn't get into costume or use any props, they just boringly recited a familiar set of lines. I was about to go back to the dressing room to do my homework, when one of the students said "I'm going to do a reading from Tarzan, King of the Apemen." He, then, ripped off his t-shirt, and wiggled out of his jeans, revealing a leopard skin g-string. This was going to be worth sticking around for.

I don't remember any of the lines from the monologue. It was something that was supposed to be funny. But the lines were trite, the jokes were predictable. And while the actor showed amazing energy by leaping around the stage, he had the verbal delivery skills of a tracheotomy patient. He kept pausing for laughs that didn't come. And then, during a dramatic leap into the air, something magical happened. His left ball swung out of his g-string and hung there while he said something stupid. The class began to chuckle. The chuckle grew into a murmur of laughter. Encouraged, the student leapt more frantically, delivering his static lines. Then his right ball fell out. Chaos of laughter. My face was red rocks under a waterfall. The professor was applauding. When the monologue ended, the actor did a sort of half curtsy-half bow, and it wasn't until his head was pointed in the direction of his crotch, that he realized what everyone was laughing at. I caught every class after that, but nothing exciting happened.

A week before The Crucible opened, the director scheduled an extra rehearsal on a Tuesday night. "I don't think I can come." I told the director. "My mom is going to Florida to visit her parents, and my dad has to work."

"Can't you borrow one of your friends' cars?" She asked.

"I'm thirteen." I told her.

"Holy cunting fuck!" She said.

When my mom picked me up that night, the director apologized for all the times she'd swore in front of me. "I thought he was eighteen!" She said. "I knew he was a student, I just assumed he was a student here. I mean, he always goes to that acting class during rehearsals, and I thought he was in the class or something."

"Don't worry about it." My mom said. "I can assure you he's heard worse."