Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang (3 page)

Just then my father walked through our front door in his ridiculous rain boots that he wore all year long regardless of the weather. He had three newspapers trapped in his armpit, which I knew meant trouble.

My father believed that he was a Thornton Wilder type of character and never tired of impressing upon us how important it was to read. He would bring three newspapers home every week for me to peruse--the
New York Times
, the
Boston Globe
, because he thought that was a very well-written newspaper, and our local paper, the
Star-Ledger
. Once a week he would expect me to write a report on my favorite current-events story in each paper. As if in the third grade I gave a shitstain about how Reagan was reaching across party lines or, even worse, whatever 7-Eleven they were remodeling in a neighboring town. These weren't exactly hot topics for third-graders. At that point in my life, I was looking to reach across my own party lines, and the clearest way to do that was with one of these goddamned Cabbage Patch dolls, not an op-ed piece in the
New York Times
. It never occurred to my father to maybe put down the paper once in a while and actually get busy looking for a legitimate job that might take him out of the house for more than two hours at a time.

I leaped up from the sofa and announced I felt a bout of diarrhea coming on, which was really the only ailment my father ever took seriously.

"What did she eat?" he asked my mother.

"Cat shit," I said, running out of the room. "The kids at school made me eat cat shit today, because I'm wearing jeans from Sears."

My father believed at the time that reading was the only way for me to succeed in life. "You must not let your mind get weak." He never mentioned anything about not letting your bladder get weak, which turned out to be fortuitous for him and the hundreds of pairs of pants he's ruined since.

My mother came into my room later to ask how much the dolls were, and when I told her, she told me that my father would not be happy. By this time in my life, I'd had enough of their shenanigans and bargain hunting, and I definitely felt like I had plenty of stored resentment to make a case for myself. I walked into the living room, where my father had parked himself with a corned beef on rye, and stated my case.

"Here's the deal, guys. I can't go on like this.
We
can't go on like this. You two are a joke. I am nine years old, trying to make the best out of a situation that is unlike any of my peers'. I have five older brothers and sisters who seem to have fared better than me, mostly because you birthed them when the two of you had a clue as to how to raise a child. I am competing with people in this neighborhood who have access to swing sets, and in-ground pools I can only dream of, and cars that work the first time you try to start them. This isn't a good foundation for the rest of my life, because I will only end up never feeling like I'm enough or of any worth. I will depend on my looks, which will turn me into a shallow, eating-disorder whore who will end up selling her body just so she can buy herself an eternity ring. Reading the
Boston Globe
is not helping my cause. I can read the
Boston Globe
when I'm twenty. Right now I need to read
Sweet Valley High
and watch
Family Ties
and have sleepovers where we get 'the feeling.' I don't even know what you guys do for a living, which brings me to my next topic: Does either one of you have a job?"

"What's 'the feeling'?" my father asked.

"Don't worry about it," my mother interjected to save me. "It's a game they play with peanut butter."

"That's not the point, Dad. I need a Cabbage Patch doll. They're $49.99, and I need one.
Do you copy?
"

"Yes," he said. "I'll go first thing in the morning. You've made your case. Now, take all the papers into your room, and in exchange for one of these lettuce dolls I'd like you to review what you think of Reagan's trickle-down theory."

"I can tell you my answer to that before reading anything. If it means that people like us are eventually going to get free Cabbage Patch Kids from wealthier Jews in the neighborhood, I'm telling you right now I'm not willing to wait for that leak. I think we already have enough leaks in this house."

"Would you stop it with the complaining all the time? I told you if you see anything leaking, grab some duct tape and pitch in. Weren't you just talking about an arts-and-crafts class?" he reminded me.

"Fine, Melvin," I told him, grabbing the paper out of his hand. "But it has to be the one with brown hair, green eyes, no freckles, and one dimple. One dimple! I'm going to write it down for you. No redheads!"

"What if that's the only kind left, Chelsea? These dolls sound as if they're selling like hotcakes. We can always get a redhead and Mom can color her hair."

"Their hair is made of yarn, Dad. Okay, this isn't one of your Buick LeSabres that you can just spray-paint another color in the hopes of raising the price an extra hundred and fifty dollars and turning it into a 'classic.' Please get real."

"All right, enough already, we got it. No redheads."

Before I retreated to one of the kitchen drawers to retrieve a stained piece of paper that contained some forgotten grocery list that I had probably authored and wrote down the exact description of the doll being demanded, I told them, "And thank you for acknowledging your misstep in having me."

"Jesus Christ, Sylvia, you'd think she was raising us."

"Yeah, no fucking kidding," I mumbled on my way to the kitchen.

The next day at school was torture mixed with excitement. There was a part of me that was hopeful that my father would in fact hold true to his promise. Like a girl in an abusive relationship who hopes that her boyfriend will suddenly see reason and cease and desist with his attacks, I was cautiously optimistic. It was brutal watching everyone at school carrying their Cabbage Patches around, comparing eye color and dimples, who had bangs, who didn't, the birth certificates with their birth weight and full first, middle, and last names.

Instead of masturbating on the swing set that day, I took my forty minutes of recess to kneel in the woods and pray that my cheap Jewish father would somehow muster the courage to spend fifty dollars on a doll that would be able to provide no income for the family.

When I got home, my father was at the "auction." That was a used-car sort of swap meet for people who made no income from buying and selling used cars. The auction was every Tuesday at a place called Skyline. A more appropriate name would have been Loser Alley. This was the only real work commitment my father had all week long, if you could even call it work. The only other times he left the house were to show a car he had advertised in the newspaper or to go to the grocery store for his pastrami and corned beef stock-up.

Being at the auction meant my father wouldn't be home until seven. My mother kept assuring me he would have a Cabbage Patch with him when he returned. I sat in the front living room staring out the bay window at our circular driveway of cars that belonged in an episode of
Dukes of Hazzard
.

Finally I decided to start working on my Reagan essay, which was really quite challenging, since I had a hard time taking him seriously after my brothers and sisters revealed to me that he'd previously worked as an actor. What a joke. My father fancied himself a Republican, which was another joke. I told my father he didn't make enough money to be a Republican and decided that would be the focus of my essay. "Misguided Politics" is what I would call it. I started off by informing the reader, my father, that in order to consider yourself a member of any political party you first needed to register to vote.

From my bedroom I saw lights creep up the corner of our street, and I almost climaxed. I was so nervous I even picked up Poopsie Woopsie and started violently petting her.

Sure enough, in my father walked carrying the big cardboard box the dolls came in, with the plastic covering on the front. I nearly shit my pants.

"AAAAAAhhhhhh!" I screamed. "Let me see!!!!! Let me see!" I dropped Poopsie Woopsie on my way down the steps to our front door and ran over to grab the box out of his hands. It was a real live Cabbage Patch Kid! Another second went by before I realized there was no brown hair. There was no hair at all. His name was Stanley. He was a preemie. And he was black.

I finally acquired the Cabbage Patch I had yearned for, Gretchen, when I stole it from my next-door neighbor Jason Rothstein, who had no business being around young girls in the first place.

Chapter Three

Grey Gardens

M
y boyfriend and I hadn't been seeing eye to eye for weeks. We had just bought a new condo and seemed to be fighting over every detail of its remodeling. Why he would agree to install an eight-by-eight-foot fish tank and then not fill it with a single dolphin made me want to burn his eyebrows off. I saw a side of him that I had never seen in myself: someone with the energy needed to ask lots of questions, get the answers, and then ask more of the same questions in different, annoying ways.

"Chelsea, if you want to make an aquatic statement like that, why don't we get a small sand or tiger shark?" Ted asked.

"I'm not trying to make a fucking statement, Ted. Dolphins are our friends, and sharks are assholes. Why would I want to buy an animal that could potentially go haywire and eat my ass?"

"I'm just trying to make some alternative suggestions."

"Well, Ted, I think a shark is unreasonable. Why not get an electric eel if we're going to go down that road? Maybe something that can escape from the tank and chase us all around the condo like it was on some sort of vendetta? Didn't you see the fourth installment of
Jaws
, where the shark's granddaughter chased the family all the way to the Bahamas? What would we even name a shark, Ted? Hitler, O.J., Manson?"

"Okay, Chelsea, let's just try to stay focused."

Initially, when my designer told me that some couples break up over the design process, I assumed she meant people who were shallow and materialistic: people who drove Toyota Cressidas but also managed to afford eyelash tinting and Invisalign.

The things we were disagreeing over were so menial and exhausting that I almost immediately lost interest in the whole affair. I'm a girl, but not as much of a girl as my boyfriend, so I decided to fold on almost everything. Except for the dolphin.

When he told me he wanted to take his son to Hawaii for his spring break, I thought it might be a good opportunity for me to stay home and ponder how I got myself into this mess in the first place. Hawaii bores me. There is no nightlife, and whenever I'm there, I wake up at seven. If I wanted to wake up at seven, I'd adopt a black baby.

My boyfriend is similar to a large toddler, the only difference being he doesn't cry when he wakes up. He's very animated and has a lot of energy and wants to exert it all at the same time on a variety of activities, which can be incredibly annoying. Coming from a family that specializes in making plans that will most likely never materialize and then being so exhausted from the prospect of an actual outing that we all have to take a nap doesn't really prepare you for the type of person who gets excited by a tide change. Plus, he's twenty years older than me, which makes his behavior even more suspect.

Needless to say, I was euphoric at the idea of spending a weekend alone in my condo with zero responsibilities. The only plan I had was something involving barbecue sauce at my friend's house Saturday night. I was going to spend all weekend planting a tomato garden in my bathtub.

Friday night I went over to a different friend's house and got back home at around two in the morning. Perfect, I thought. I'll sleep in, get up, go for a run, write all day and maybe into the night, and then, depending on my productivity, maybe even make a field trip to Dunkin' Donuts as a reward.

The next morning I woke up at eight-thirty and couldn't go back to sleep. I was pissed. I knew myself well enough not to get up and start being productive. I was thirty-four now. I was a long way from when I first started drinking at around eighteen, and would wake up the next morning super early with a false sense of energy. Then, two hours later, I'd be exhausted, thinking, Why the fuck am I in a canoe?

I went to grab the remote control and thought if I watched a movie, I'd fall right back asleep.

I called my boyfriend in Hawaii.

"How do you turn on the TV?" I asked.

"Which remote do you have, the Time Warner or DirecTV?" he asked with the excitement he usually reserved for fabric swatches or an episode of
Dancing with the Stars.

Our house is technologically rigged with gadgets and remotes and settings, all of which I have somewhere between slight and zero interest in. When it comes to math or electronics, I am somewhat more advanced than a six-year-old who's been homeschooled by Levi Johnston.

Ted had tried to show me on several occasions what each button on all three of our remote controls did: which operated TiVo, which one was for the toaster, which one massaged your balls, et cetera. It's true what they say about patience being a virtue; it just happens to be a virtue that I choose not to pursue. Quite honestly, I'd rather just get someone else to turn on the toaster.

The bonus of this little setup is that Ted loves his electronics and happens to have an excessive amount of patience, so as a result he loves to tell me all about each gadget, even though he knows my frustration will most likely end with me throwing one of the remotes against a wall or running it through the dishwasher. Since I am also unable to operate the dishwasher, this option is less frequent as it would have to be coordinated with a visit from our cleaning lady, Maria, who comes only on Tuesdays and Fridays. In Ted's never-ending interest in television, he had also recently installed television screens in every ridiculous oversized appliance or mirror that would allow it. There was a TV screen in the bathroom mirror, one on our treadmill, and one in the microwave door. The last proved to be the most confusing of all, because any time you popped something in the microwave, you didn't know if what you saw inside was a roast beef or Al Roker.

Once he guided me to the movie channels, I found my way more easily. I would have to stay within the selection in front of me for fear of losing my place forever, so my options were somewhat limited, but more numerous than before I placed the call to the island of Maui. The upside of this is that I am open to watching almost any movie ever, especially if there's an overweight child in it. I love anything overweight.

I scrolled down until I hit
Nim's Island
. From the looks of things, I could tell that it was ending soon and
Definitely, Maybe
would be starting in twenty minutes. It was safer to commit to a movie I knew nothing about than to browse around looking for other channels, because having the TV backfire on me and my losing my place altogether was always a threat. I'd rather watch something I didn't care about than screw with the remote and gamble with being lost forever in the sports department. I had already lost a weekend the previous fall to women's basketball finals, when I watched a two-hour profile on a six-foot-six black female player, all the time wondering to myself if she would ever achieve half the success of Kobe Bryant and manage to get an entire line of beef named after her.

The first scene I saw of
Nim's Island
was Abigail Breslin swimming underwater at an inhuman velocity in order to rescue another sea animal who looked a lot like Jodie Foster. Jodie had apparently been thrown from a boat but managed to keep her eyes open and breathe for a ninety-second montage. Obviously they were both playing dolphins. "Too soon," I said loudly enough for both of them to hear, as I jumped out of bed to head into the kitchen.

The sun was blinding when I opened the bedroom door. Not realizing how nice a day it was in the main part of the house was extremely irritating. I grabbed a pair of sunglasses and a visor, looked out the windows, and spotted hundreds of boats coming in and out of the marina.

I pulled all the drapes shut. I wanted to be alone and lie in bed for a long period of time. I didn't need to be reminded that other people were outside swimming through life like Nim and Jodie Foster, making the most of their Saturdays, doing cartwheels and high-fiving each other on Rollerblades. I also didn't need anyone looking in my window and seeing me wearing nothing but a visor with the E! logo, sunglasses, and a bra I'd bought three years ago from Walgreens. At this point it was more like a backpack.

I considered taking an Ambien to knock myself out, but just like with women's basketball, I hadn't had the best acquaintance with this nighttime drug. The last time I tried it, I woke up early one Sunday morning in the backseat of my car with an empty tank of gas and a Crock-Pot of half-eaten spaghetti in the passenger seat.

I looked down at my thighs and thought it best to head over to the freezer and select a Lean Pocket. I don't know who is responsible for coming up with all the different flavors of Lean Pockets, but whoever you are, you have my blessing. Ted does most of the shopping, and thanks to him I had three different options of breakfast pockets, or I could go straight to a midmorning snack and opt for a ham and Swiss or cheeseburger and light cheddar. "I'll start with breakfast," I told myself. "You have all day." Then I opened up the pantry and grabbed a snack-size bag of Cheetos for dessert. I had made it my business to abstain from Cheetos when in another person's company, primarily due to the aftermath of gas but also because of the bright orange residue, which sticks to your fingers and can be shed only at a Korean spa.

I took my meal back to my bed like my mother had taught me to do, but not without being a lady and ripping off half a paper towel and grabbing a steak knife.

Nim's Island
was just ending, with a scene on the beach where Gerard Butler appears to be paddling toward the beach in a dinghy straight out of the Pacific. This is where he finds Nim, his eight-year-old daughter he's left for several weeks alone on an island who's made a new friend in Jodie Foster. Then they all dance around the beach and start a happy new family like a trifecta of sand assholes. Abigail Breslin is around nine in this movie and, from what I could tell, was turning into a real dick.

Definitely, Maybe
was about to start. I put three pillows behind me and one underneath my knees in my tireless attempt to thwart osteoporosis. I went back to the kitchen and ripped off the top of a cucumber to dump in my glass of ice water for the total spa experience. I made sure all doors exposing any sort of light were tightly closed, turned my air-conditioning to a breezy sixty-eight degrees, and grabbed some lavender-scented oil, just to have the option for a self-administered foot massage later if I so desired. I checked to see if my eyeshades were on my nightstand in case I fell into a deep, therapeutic slumber, hopped into bed, and took off my visor.

My trainer, whom I had renamed Wolf Woman, texted me to see if I wanted to work out. After months of clinical observation and serious assessment, I had determined that the former bodybuilder I paid to train me was indeed two parts wolf, one part woman. I kept trying to lure her back into her natural habitat, the forest, to observe her there, but she insisted she lived down the street in the Marina. Working out with her was never easy; even if I faked sick, she had little sympathy and was fond of saying, "Your body can do anything for forty-five seconds."

I texted her back. "No."

If I had gone to the theater to see
Definitely, Maybe
, I would never have reacted the way I did watching it in bed. I didn't want it to end, and I couldn't figure out which girl he was going to wind up with. I wanted him with everyone. It was like watching the Olympics and rooting for the United States, but then seeing one of the Up Close and Personal stories about some Russian named Oksana and thinking, Oh, fuck it, just give her the medal. If our American loses, at least she doesn't have to go home to that Russian coach of hers who is probably going to make her live outside the Kremlin in a forty-foot snowdrift until she learns how to dismount without kicking herself in the face.

I was bawling by the time the movie ended, and not in a normal way. It was more like heaving. Heavy, loud groaning, drool coming out of my mouth and nose--not very different from the afternoon I lost my virginity to our neighborhood Santa Claus. I had fallen in love with Abigail Breslin. I hated myself for doubting her in
Nim's Island
. I wanted to call her and apologize but pointed out to myself that we had never met. So I made a mental note to make amends if I ever ran into her at a Chuck E. Cheese or Stride Rite.
I love Abigail Breslin,
I scribbled on the E! notepad next to my bed as a reminder.

It was time for another Lean Pocket. Even though I'm leery of any food item that is not an actual burger but claims to have a burger in it, I knew that these weren't normal circumstances, and I opted for the cheeseburger Lean Pocket. I thought about taking a look outside but didn't want to upset myself further with the sunlight. "It's best to get back to your area," I said with a little disdain, and then noticed a houseplant that needed a trim. So I backtracked to the kitchen to grab my kitchen shears and went and cut the plant some bangs.

Four hours and two Lean Pockets later, I was immersed in the movie version of
Sex and the City
. "Not prepared" is an understatement. I had to pause the movie several times during the wedding to gain control of myself. Not only was watching that kind of rejection heart-wrenching, but my face had become so swollen from crying that I could barely see out of my eyes. I also had a modicum of concern that if my tear ducts didn't get a rest, there was a risk of reversing my recent LASIK surgery. I hadn't cried like this since
Norbit
.

Tissues surrounded me in my bed, along with plates covered in Lean Pocket crusts, because I had eaten only the insides. It dawned on me right there and then, propped up in my bed wearing nothing but my bra and underwear, that I had spent the better part of my day hysterically crying while eating out Lean Pockets.

There were spilled glasses of Diet Canada Dry ginger ale strewn next to my bed that I hadn't even attempted to clean up, leaving the carpet with the same texture it would have if the Octomom's water had broken.