Life As I Blow It (3 page)

My head exploded.
What the hell are they thinking?
My relationship with Kevin was really starting to flourish. Just the week before, he had apologized for not taking me to the Valentine's Day dance. He finally agreed that it was weird that I went alone and that when I got there he ignored me. He was really sorry! How could I move away and go to a new school when we'd just worked through our first huge fight and were going to be stronger than ever? I was really starting to make some headway here, and for once I'd stuck up for myself. I made him promise not to ignore me in public anymore. I even told him that if he did it one more time I wouldn't allow him to ever walk me halfway home from school again.

Shortly after I got the news that my life was being dismantled, I walked up to Kevin's house to tell him. I was envisioning his tears and heartache; it would be very dramatic. When I got close to his yard, I noticed that Kevin and his
brother were throwing something around like a football, so I assumed it was a football. As I got closer I stopped in my tracks. The football was making a lot of noise. It was meowing. The football was a cat.

I ran to him in tears and demanded that he stop throwing the cat. He laughed and continued to torture the defenseless animal. I managed to step in the middle, which only made me become part of an involuntary game of keep-away. I'm not sure keep-away is ever voluntary; I just know that it's really frustrating. After a while I managed to get the cat away and I ran with him in my arms to my house while shouting back over my shoulder that I was going to call the ASPCA on him. I was really impressed with myself for knowing what the ASPCA was. Eric had told me.

I ran home and tearfully told my mother the story. She looked at me with sad eyes and patted me on the head for saving the cat from those assholes. She didn't say anything, not because she was speechless but because her mouth was still wired shut. We fed the cat some mystery meat dish that my mother had made the night before—she's got a lot of great qualities, but cooking is not one of them, though many say the same about me—then dialed the number on his collar and returned him to his owners, who promised they would never use him as a football.

When I got to my room I noticed that Kevin, my goldfish, was floating at the top of his bowl. He was dead, and now to me so was the other Kevin. It all came full circle. I buried the goldfish in a little box and dramatically said goodbye to Kevin my first boyfriend and to Kevin the Goldfish. The next day I found out through Jennifer's taunting that I could have just flushed the fish, which pissed me off further at Kevin the boyfriend for once again wasting my
time, since I blamed him for the death of my beloved fish. Even though he had nothing to do with it.

I gave up on my fight to stay in Fayetteville at Happy Hollow Elementary. Since I had broken it off with Kevin, I had little reason to want to stay in that school district. Now I was the one ignoring him and it was really awkward for everyone in our homeroom. I was ready for a change. I had so many other things I wanted to do, places I wanted to see, and relationships I wanted to develop. It's like when you're in your thirties and you realize you haven't done half of the things you always said you'd do … but you're eight.

I
currently live in Los Angeles. I work on a late-night talk show and I do stand-up several weekends out of the year. I don't have kids and thus far the only person I've felt really comfortable living with is myself. And sometimes I'm not a big fan of her, either.

I live what some might consider to be a pretty great life. Others probably think that it's selfish, or that I'm missing something. It's tough for me to say who is right and who is wrong. Because where I come from and where I am now are two very different places.

In Los Angeles, I often go to the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf with my friend Jackie at noon on Saturdays because we know that the firefighters from Station 19 are going to be there at that time for a coffee fix. They're fun to look at. In Farmington,
Arkansas, firefighters look different. They look like my family. Mostly because they
are
my family.

If your mother's entire family was deeply involved in a volunteer fire department, you probably would have moved away from Arkansas, too. At one point my grandmother, Phyllis, was the fire chief, and she wasn't even a lesbian. She just liked being in charge. Everyone else in my family, besides me, was a volunteer firefighter. It's something they're all very proud of. As a teenager who just wanted to get felt up, I found it all pretty annoying. As a semi-mature adult, I'm now proud to say my family saves lives. So maybe stop judging me now and let's try and get along for the rest of the book.

Most of the other members of the Wedington Volunteer Fire Department (the name Farmington was already taken by the town's professional fire department; we had to settle for naming ours after a street) served on the mysterious “board.” They had monthly meetings and if someone didn't show up, my mom sure talked shit about them. I knew that being a volunteer meant you also had to have a real job, so I would suggest to her that some people were probably just too tired to make it to the meetings after a long day at work. My mom would argue back that those people probably should not volunteer to fight fires, then.

“Would you want to depend on someone who can't even show up for a monthly meeting to save your house if it was burning down?” she'd ask me.

“I guess not.”

The whole thing was pretty cutthroat, and way too much of a commitment for me.

There were several side projects that the fire department had going in order to keep afloat, one being the fire department
cookbook. As we got older, my sister, Jennifer, began to contribute recipes. I did not. Like I said, I've never been much of a cook. I cook for myself sometimes, but it doesn't taste very good. It actually tastes pretty awful. I prefer to dine out. My family likes to make fun of me, indicating that being able to cook is part of what makes a woman a woman. I disagree. Getting my period makes me a woman. Cooking just makes me bored.

Most members would submit a recipe, and all these fabulous recipes were bound together in a flimsy little booklet with a yellow cover. I think they sold them for ten dollars, which was a huge rip-off. I can't imagine how many people got the book home and realized that “Virginia's Secret Creamy Mac and Cheese” was just fucking mac-and-cheese. I mean, the recipe actually included buying a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese, then following instructions. That seemed like cheating to me.

My mother contributed her famous original recipe for “Kung Fu Pasta.” It was something I ate a lot growing up, and I'm not going to lie … it is delicious. It's the one thing she made really well. It consists of spaghetti noodles, diced carrots, diced pork chop, and something green. The “Kung Fu” part came from the fact that she topped it off with soy sauce. It wasn't until I was in my twenties that it dawned on me the name of that pasta might be slightly offensive to people, like people who do kung fu.

There are some responsibilities while living under your parents' roof that you just can't get out of. For me, one of those things was the fire department's pancake breakfast. It was held at 6
A.M.
a few Saturdays a year. My mom keeps telling me now that it was only once a year, but I know she's lying to try to make my childhood sound more fun.

When the breakfast rolled around, I'd be forced to get out of bed, put on a bright yellow T-shirt that said
WEDINGTON VOLUNTEERS
that was three sizes too big, and serve pancakes and sausage to everyone I knew. The only other thing I did as humiliating was work at Hardee's, but at least that paid.

My best friend in high school was Lindsay. She played basketball and I was on drill team. We liked to do the same things, like drink Busch Light and smoke Marlboro 100's. After first seeing the movie
Thelma & Louise
, she and I started drinking Wild Turkey. Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis drank it while on the run from the cops for a crime they really shouldn't have been in trouble for, and they seemed to enjoy it. Wild Turkey is 101 proof, which means its alcohol content is over 50 percent, which was more than triple my age when I developed a taste for it. I liked to chase it with Coke, then when I'd run out of Coke I'd drink it straight—just like Thelma and Louise did.

Discovering bourbon at fifteen didn't do much to help my mood when I had to show up, work pancake duty, and deal with the annoying crowd. At the time I believed that the only people who
should
wake up that early to stand in line for food that's made in mass quantities were homeless people. But I wasn't dealing with people in need. I was just dealing with people who were overweight, cheap, or both. And I was usually hungover.

But before all that, it took me a while to fall in love again. I was still healing from having been duped by a man who was abusive to animals and I wasn't about to let myself fall for another liar. Men obviously pulled you in with their charm and good looks, then one day, wham! You find out that it's all been a lie and there you are on
Maury Povich
trying to warn other women of the signs that their man might be leading a double life. This is exactly what my mother must have felt like when my father left. I was really beginning to understand marriage, and I didn't like what I saw.

Then I met Ricky Walden. We were in seventh grade together. He had a rattail haircut and he knew how to break-dance. Clearly he was
really
popular. We all gathered around him at recess while he spun around on his back and hit fake home runs with his fake baseball bat. He was amazing. I was attracted to bad boys. It wasn't my fault.

I let Ricky finger me on a field trip. We were on the bus and it was dark. We had a blanket over us and I decided to let him go for it. Thus far the only person that had touched my vagina was me, so it was a big event to let him do so. Looking back, I can't believe the teachers let us cover up with a giant blanket, but maybe they noticed I was a little uptight for a seventh grader and figured I could use the release. I couldn't wait to tell my best friend, Lindsay, the next day at school.
She's going to die! I got fingered!
This was huge.

The next day I didn't have to tell anybody—everybody already knew. Apparently Ricky had taken the time out of his busy break-dancing schedule to let everyone know what he and I had done on the bus.
What a nightmare
. I had really only planned on telling Lindsay. I was a very private person, and I was terrified of being known as a slut before I was in high school.

Once I found out that everyone knew, Lindsay and I had an emergency meeting in the bathroom. I cried hysterically. She reminded me that almost everybody else had already been fingered, except the Baptists. She was pretty sure they
had, too, but that they were less honest about it. The powwow lifted my spirits and I went through the rest of the day feeling pretty good, until I walked out to catch the bus and saw Ricky letting Jimmy Thompson smell his fingers. I waited until he saw me, then I dramatically raised my middle finger and stormed off. Giving him the finger felt like poetic justice.

I heard a lot of oohs and aahs and was pretty proud of myself for once again telling a guy what was up. I went home and took the yellow sweatshirt with teddy bears on it that I had worn the night Ricky and I had our moment, and threw it in the trash. As a side note, Jimmy Thompson used to pee in his sweats. Glass house, throwing stones—that whole thing.

I'm a fan of sleep, and now I don't get enough of it. I can't even comprehend when someone tells me they have to get their “eight hours in” or else they can't function. I shoot for seven, usually get six, and manage to function. I'm not always in a great mood, but I function. I might have gotten the sleep problem from my dad. He tends to stay up really late and yet wake up early. I developed that same habit when I was bartending, and at thirty-six it seems to just be my pattern. As a teenager my sleep would often be interrupted by the scanner. That's the really annoying thing that goes off to alert volunteers that there's a fire. It sat on a long buffet in our dining room. It was always on.

That scanner was an asshole. I swear there isn't anything more terrifying than being woken up at 3
A.M.
to the crackling voice of whoever got the shitty late-night shift, which was usually whoever didn't show up for the board meeting that month. My heart would race as I'd hear the voice screaming “ATTENTION WEDINGTON VOLUNTEERS,
WE GOT A BRUSH FIRE ON OL' MILLS ROAD!” It's a terrible way to be woken up, and it happened all of the time.

When I'd get home from school and was alone, I would sometimes turn the scanner off in an attempt at some peace and quiet. I needed to watch
General Hospital
, and I didn't need any interruptions. It worked out great for me, but not so great for my stepdad, Eric. I had gotten so wrapped up in the Quartermaines' drama one time that I had failed to turn the volume back up on the scanner. There was a huge fire and the only person from our family who didn't show up was Eric. They all teased him the next day: “Sounds like someone had too much pie for dessert and couldn't get out of the recliner!” They were relentless.

I felt terrible. Eric was the newest member of the family and he wanted them all to know he took the fire department seriously. I didn't feel bad enough to tell the whole family that it was my fault, though. Grandma would have killed me if she'd known I'd turned off the scanner to watch a soap opera.

I tried to apologize to Eric. “I'm really sorry you missed the fire at the Millers' house, but Robin Scorpio's boyfriend Stone grew up in the streets. He got sick and was afraid he had HIV. Today was when they gave the results.”

He just walked away and went to bed.

“His test came back positive if you care! I hope they find a cure soon! Eric?”