My brother says I got OCD but fuck him, what’s he know?
We’re twins, born like two minutes apart – or ten minutes? You’d think I’d remember, I heard Ma tell the story ‘nough times. The time I heard the story best we were like six or seven years old. It was hot – so hot. Why’d we have to sit in the sun like that I don’t know. We was across the block sitting in Ma’s girlfriend’s back yard. Ma was having a beer and a smoke with Ginny. Ma’s beer was even sweating it was so gol-damed hot. She’d peeled the label some with her fingernail so the water could drop out onto the tablecloth instead of her shirt. It was a pretty blue tablecloth unfolded into squares, that’s what Ma loved about Ginny she told me once,
“Even in the middle of the hottest friggin month of the year Ginny’s got a tablecloth on her picnic table.”
Anyways.
Ma tilted her long pretty neck up at God and blew some smoke out of her mouth at him then she told Ginny ’bout how Sonny and me was born. “Man, I thought I’d like to ‘ave split in fuckin’ half Gin.” she peeled a little more paper from her bottle. “I was bleeding and spitting and screaming bloody murder for the longest time, ‘course Bill had long since ran out to the street to have a smoke.” Ma lit herself another cigarette, dropped her little pink lighter on the table, and ran her fingers through her curly black hair. This was the same hand she had her cigarette in mind you, that’s how good she was with her hands.
Anyways.
“So yeah it was a long labor having This One.” Ma pushed her thumb at me. “I was nearly ready to slide right outta the bed pushing This One out.” Then she smiles at Sonny. “But it was worth it in the end. Ten minutes later (or was it two?) I got my Sonny.”
Man, it was hot that day. We had Kool-aid. Ginny gave it to us in paper cups with little ice cubes floating on the top. I spilled mine right away but of course Sonny didn’t spill his. I can still see his stupid red lips as he drank it. I put the ice cubes in my mouth and chewed em up, telling myself that this was better anyways – my mouth was nice and cool for a while and all that dumb ass had was red lips. Ha.
Anyways.
Sonny is all a time telling stories about me. I know why that is. He’s the youngest. Jealous, I guess. It don’t matter what I do, or even if Sonny is right there with me doin’ whatever it is that he’s tattlin about us doing I’m the one gets his ass licked. Sonny thinks he’s the smart one. He told Ma I was the one that cut my sheets up with her pink shears. But I couldn’t help it you see. They ain’t like normal scissors. The blades are squiggly – like the border on Charlie Brown’s sweatshirt so I asks her about them and she takes them and cuts a piece of old material with them. “See they are pink shears.” Then she slides them back into the drawer under her sewing machine. So yeah, one night I was thinking on them scissors and I was wondering if they were really pink so I went and got them. The whole house was asleep cept Sonny and me. I had them under the covers looking at them with my flashlight. Just as I thought, they weren’t any color at all. Just metal. Metal and they were heavy. I opened and closed them a bunch of times listening to the snick sounds they made and then before I knew it I had cut my top sheet up like Charlie Brown’s sweatshirt.
Anyways.
Sonny of course couldn’t wait to tell Ma what I’d done. So I got a paddling from Dad. That hurt like hell. So yeah, I took a knife to Sonny over that. I don’t remember it all, just the first part where Sonny was laughing at me as I cried into my pillow after the paddling. He was all “I told you not to mess with those scissors you dumb ass.” He jumped on the end of my bed. “Now you don’t have a top sheet. You’ll just have to make do without one.” Laughing.
Anyways.
So I stabbed him. That shut him up. Thats how we both ended up in this place – him cause he was bleeding all over the place and me cause I tried to kill him.
My brother says I’m a psycho but fuck him, what’s he know?
I told that story about Ma and her girlfriend Ginny to this women doctor last week and she leaned back in her chair and asked me: “How did that make you feel?”
What a dumb ass question. I ain’t no doctor and I’ll admit that I’m not as smart as some, even Sonny but all the same I know that’s a stupid question. “She’s my Ma.” was all I would say.
Anyways.
I went to this church the other day. OK, I didn’t really ‘go there’ but you know it felt like I did – like some dreams do. This guy in a robe greeted me at the door and touched his hand on the back of my head. It wasn’t nothing dirty now, don’t go thinking that. It was nice, like I was a little kid, not nearly all growed up like I am now. He smoothed my hair down and said I was welcome to go into the other room and he’d be in there soon to tell us all about God. So I went in. As I walked in to the main part of the church most people kind of spread themselves out like so I couldn’t sit next to them. I had walked in pretty far when a pretty lady in a sun dress slid over closer to her husband and let me sit down next to her. Her husband said something into her ear but I didn’t catch what it was. After a while she was talking to me about her dog and everything. She was worried that she hadn’t brought him (the dog) inside plus she couldn’t remember whether she had locked the door. Her husband leaned past her and looked at me hard like and then told me that she had stood outside the door and turned the key ten times like she always did. He raised his eyebrows and then rolled his eyes at her like she was nuts. I hate that. So I told him about the houses on my street.
“For years when you came out of my house and turned left there were four houses, an empty lot and then three more. First house is white, then red brick, white again then blue – empty lot, white house, gray house and finally white. I go out every day that I think about it and run down the street and push the doorbells.”
The wife with the dog is nodding her head now. She gets it.
“See I have to ring those doorbells.” The guy in the robe now is getting ready to tell us about God so I hurry with my story. “So anyways see, one day I come out and run down the street to ring my doorbells. ‘First house is white, then red brick, white again then blue – empty lot, white house, gray house and finally white.’
Right?
Except no.
“Somebody had put up a house on the empty lot.” I shouted. Now it’s not ‘First house is white, then red brick, white again then blue – empty lot, white house, gray house and finally white.’ NO. I can feel the guy in the robe looking at me and some a the other people in the church. I gotta finish my story though so I stand up and keep telling the wife with the dog. “No. Now everything is fucked up. It’s a God-damned mess,” I tell her. She’s nodding her head – she gets it. Well, I guess it’s a mistake to say “God-damned” in this guy’s church cause they made me leave.
Anyways.
The doctor lady was just in here and asks me: “Can you tell me who I’m talking to? ”
Another stupid question. That’s why I’m growing the mustache. So people can tell us apart. Yeah it’s pretty thin now but it’ll get thicker, as long as Sonny don’t grow one I’ll be OK.
Doctor lady says again. “Are you Sonny or ‘This one’?”
I don’t say nothin’
She can see the mustache can’t she?
Anyways.
My brother says I’m nuts but fuck him, what’s he know?