Eating My Feelings (25 page)

“I have Mary Tyler Moore on speed dial,” I said once we got to where they kept the dogs. “And Sarah McLachlan for that matter!”

“Shut up, Mark,” Bonnie replied.

Bill got Jackie Collins and when he brought him out, he leaped into my arms and began licking my face.

“This dog seems fine to me,” I said.

“Wait for it,” Bonnie said as Bill went back to the kennel and brought out another, bigger dog. The second Jackie Collins saw the other dog, this ten-pound Multipoo leapt out of my lap and began mauling the other dog. I’ve never had children, obviously, but I became overjoyed watching this ten-pound little asshole take down this thirty-pound dog. It’s what mothers must feel when their child takes his first steps. I was overwhelmed with pride. I loved this dog. Jackie Collins (the dog) was such a little bitch. Sweet as pie when all of the attention was on him, but take the focus off him for even a second and he turned into a complete asshole. Sounds like someone I know. When Jackie Collins was done putting the beat down on the bigger dog, Bill returned sans rape-victim dog.

“You see what I mean?”

“He’s fantastic,” I said as I pet Jackie Collins. “He’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a dog. And more.”

“You can’t have him,” Bonnie said. Under different circumstances, Bonnie and I likely would have become lifelong friends, as with every other middle-aged mess of a woman I had met, but right now she was pissing me off.

“So what do you suppose I do?” I asked.

“Get another fucking dog,” Bonnie said. Class act, that lady.

“Mark,” Bill said, “why don’t we call you when we get a dog that we think will be a good fit for you?”

“All right,” I said. “But if you call me and I come here to meet either a two-eyed dog or a dog with all four legs, saying I will be pissed is the understatement of the century.”

I left the Humane Society feeling defeated. That little one-eyed asshole stole my heart that afternoon. According to the city of New York, I am not only not allowed to have a boyfriend, but I am also not allowed to have a one-eyed dog.

When I go home for the holidays these days, my trips are quick and dirty. Kind of like a drive-by shooting, but less violent. The family is usually privileged to see me for about twenty-four hours, nothing more, nothing less. This past Thanksgiving, I sashayed home to see my brothers and sisters and a few new members of the family.

“Look who decided to take time out of his busy schedule to see his family,” my mother said as I entered her home. “You can write about us, but you can’t pay us a visit?”

“Hello, Mother,” I said as I kissed her on the cheek.

“I made food,” she said. “It’s in the kitchen. Everyone has eaten already so you can have the rest.”

“Oh, thanks, Mom,” I said. “Leave the scraps for the former fattie.”

“Shut up and eat.”

I served myself the steak dinner my mother had prepared earlier and sat at the dinner table to eat alone.

“Don’t forget, you’re cooking dinner for the whole family tomorrow night,” my mother said.

One of my mother’s favorite pastimes is talking about what your next meal will be while you’re already eating. It’s one of the qualities I love most about her.

“Yes, I know,” I said. “I’m having lunch with Dad tomorrow, and then I’ll head over to Jamie’s to cook.”

“Why are you having lunch with your father?”

“Because,” I replied, “he’s my father. And I haven’t seen him since his wedding.” For all who were wondering, my father got rid of the serpent he was married to when I was a child and remarried a lovely woman named Carol. This is his fourth marriage. At the wedding, a few months before Thanksgiving, I was asked to give the speech on behalf of his children. I told my father and Carol to do their best to make this marriage work because it was to be the final time I would ever attend a wedding of his. The man is flirting with Elizabeth Taylor territory. Meanwhile, in most states it’s still not legal for my people to get married once, let alone four times. What a joke!

“Whatever,” my mother said. Sometimes when I come home for holidays, I feel like my mother may as well pee on me. She’s as territorial as a dog and gets pissed when I spend time with anyone other than her.

I finished my dinner and quickly went downtown on a bag of peanut butter M&M’s. Since I would not be working out for the duration of my time home, I figured it was my duty to eat as much as humanly possible before returning to work. As I wiped the residue of M&M’s off my face and sat down to watch television, a wave of pain came over me.

Suddenly I felt about as sick as I was when I found out that my father had sent me to fat camp. I darted to the bathroom, stuck my head in the toilet, and violently threw everything up that I had just eaten.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN THERE?” my mother yelled. “You’re so loud! Jesus!”

“I’m sorry,” I said with my head in the toilet bowl. “I can’t stop throwing up!”

“Well, could you keep it down?” she yelled. “I want to finish watching the rest of
Army Wives
before bed!” I left the bathroom, opened my mother’s bedroom door, and peered into a dark room seeing nothing but the glowing light of the television.

“
Army Wives
?” I asked. “Seriously?”

“YEAH, SERIOUSLY! SHUT IT!” she yelled.

“I THINK YOU POISONED ME!” I shouted.

She laughed. “Poisoned you? Why on earth would I do that?”

I went back to the bathroom and threw up again. As I wiped the vomit from my mouth, I lifted my head up again and yelled, “YOU’RE DOING THIS SO I WON’T HAVE LUNCH WITH DAD TOMORROW!”

“What the fuck do I care who you have lunch with?”

“I DON’T KNOW,” I cried. “Maybe you’re doing this out of revenge. You’ve always wanted me to move home!”

“MOVE HOME?” my mother yelled. “Why the hell would I want you here?”

“I DON’T KNOW!” I cried. “I’m dying! Do you have any Pepto?”

“No,” she barked. “Now quiet down, my show is almost over and I can’t hear a damn thing.”

I felt like I had thrown up everything I had ever eaten. Just when I thought I was done, it just kept coming up. After about an hour, I made my way back to the couch. My mother, God love her, had had a rough couple of months. A few weeks prior, she had suffered what everyone had thought was a heart attack. Turns out she was having horrible chest pains as a side effect to the Boniva she was taking for her osteoporosis. Needless to say, Sally Field’s in-box was flooded with e-mails from me that month with the subject reading: “How on earth, Norma Rae, could you forsake my family like that?” With all of this drama going on it was no wonder that my mother’s cooking was on a downward spiral. I couldn’t hold it against her.

As I sat on the couch, the room began to spin and I saw my life flash before my eyes for about the tenth time in my twenty-seven years on this earth. I pictured my ill-fated attempt at blackface, meeting my former stepmother, a woman who would change my life forever, and my trip to fat camp. I reminisced about falling in and out of love with Blake, Tony Horton, and a dog named Jackie Collins. Then I briefly thought I saw Jesus. Turns out, it was my brother Kevin getting a glass of water—his hair was just out of control that night. I felt like I was clinging to life. Since my mother had attempted to kill me, I felt it was my duty to wake her up in the middle of the night and tell her as much.

“MOM!” I yelled as I entered her pitch-dark room.

“What the fuck?” she said with a start.

“You tried to kill me tonight. I don’t appreciate that,” I said
seriously. I was standing there in the dark like some sort of pedophile.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I am trying to sleep, so could you please quiet down,” she said. “And if you’re going to throw up, please do so in the kitchen sink. Your bowels are very loud tonight.”

“THAT’S NOT FUNNY!” I yelled. “I’m dying and all you can do is make fun of me.”

“OH MY GOD, MARK, GO TO BED! It’s 3
A.M.
!”

“I would go to bed, but I’ve been vomiting out of my mouth and ass for the last three hours, thanks to your cooking.”

“Get out of my room!”

I sat on the couch and quickly text-messaged all of my friends from my deathbed.

“We all knew it would come to this,” I wrote my friends. “My mother has tried to kill me. I will do my best to pull through, but if I don’t make it, please be sure to carry on my legacy. Love, Mark.”

Shortly after, I received a text from my friend Ron: “OMG, girl. I miss you so much. Come to L.A. to see me. The guys are hot, hot, hot!”

I immediately responded: “If I make it through the night, I’ll make my way out there.”

“Fuck off,” Ron replied. “You text-messaged me that you were dying last month and here you are: still complaining. See you soon! Love you girl!”

It became quite clear that neither Ron nor the rest of my friends understood the severity of my condition. I curled up in a ball on the couch and slept briefly. I had the most wonderful dream that Susan Lucci, Jackie Collins, and I were all drinking sparkling cider at Jackie’s Beverly Hills compound.

When I woke up, my mother’s house was empty, thank God for that. I was a complete mess. My insides hurt so much I concluded that the pain that I was in would be similar if I had had a back-alley abortion the evening before. I got up, went to the bathroom, and looked in the mirror. The bags under my eyes had dropped down to my knees and my complexion resembled someone who had jaundice. My body, however, had never looked better, so in my haze of delirium, I decided to snap a few pictures of myself so I could update my Grindr profile. As I finished my makeshift photo shoot, I saw that I had seven unread messages on Twitter from my father.

Why on earth was my father tweeting at me all morning? Ever since that man figured out how to “socially network,” he’s stopped using the phone altogether.

I picked up the phone and called my father.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked when he answered.

“What?” he said.

“Why are you tweeting at me?”

“I was trying to get your attention.”

“How about fucking calling me the next time?”

“Isn’t this what you kids do these days in order to get in touch with each other?” my father said.

“First off, neither you nor I are ‘kids’ any longer. Second, I firmly believe that human communication is making a comeback.”

“Whatever,” he said. “Are we having lunch or not?”

“Negative, ghostwriter,” I replied. “Mom tried to kill me last night, so I think I’m down for the count.”

“Your mother tried to kill me once,” my father said, as if sharing a fond memory. “Those were the days.”

“Right,” I replied. “I think I got food poisoning last night, so I’m going to stay in. I’ll see you next time.”

“All right. I’ll see you around, I guess.”

I hung up with my father, drank a gallon of ginger ale and a liter of Pepto, and began to feel better. As I read text messages from friends wondering if I had fallen off the wagon the evening before, I prepared for my next feast. That evening I was going to cook chicken Parmesan for my brothers, sisters, niece, four nephews, and mother. I had sent out a meeting request on Outlook weeks before to make sure that everyone was available. Getting together twelve people in my family is like rounding up a traveling freak show, but it’s always worth it. As I thought about all of the trouble I had gone through for the meal, I tried not to dry-heave all over the place. I wondered why on
earth everything in my life revolves around things going into or coming out of my mouth. My life has been spent planning meals, burning off the calories of those meals, and occasionally throwing up or getting thrown up on. Is this what life is all about?

That evening, my mother and I drove to my sister Jamie’s house for dinner. The entire ride was spent with me shooting her dirty looks and her refusing to apologize for nearly killing me. Once we arrived, we were greeted by my sister’s children. I was not completely on board with the names that she chose for them, so I refer to them as Shlomo, Chaka Khan, and Emmanuel Lewis. It’s no wonder the only godchildren I have are two Yorkies who live in Midtown.

“UNCLE MARK!” Shlomo yelled as he greeted me with a hug. “How’s New York?”

“I’m hustling,” I replied.

“Hustling?” Shlomo said.

“Eh, you’ll figure it out when you grow up.”

“How’s my little princess?” I asked Chaka Khan.

“UNCLE MARK!” she squealed.

Chaka jumped into my arms and wrapped her arms around my neck. I smothered her with kisses. Chaka then rejoined her brothers in the living room as they watched television.

“MARK!” Jamie barked from the kitchen, scaring the shit out of everyone. I am happy to report that my sister has quickly gone from spastic party girl to spastic mother of three. “Don’t kiss Chaka if you’re going to get her sick. Mom said you had a stomach bug last night. I cannot have a houseful of sick children.” I could barely get through the door without my sister barking orders at me.

“Stomach bug?” I said as I shot my mother the fifteen
thousandth dirty look of the day. “Uh, no, Jamie, she tried to kill me last night.”