N****e Reconstruction Surgery

So we’re fighting with our tongues, right, mouth to mouth (obviously), with the sheets crumpled up and shoved in some desolate corner of the room because it was hot as balls earlier this afternoon and the syrupy sunlight still lingered, when he grabs the bottom edges of my tank top. I hold his wrists at my hips, really working my mouth now in order to distract him. It’s not that I don’t want him to take off my shirt, it’s just that if he takes off my shirt, he’ll also want to take off my bra and it’s easier to put weed killer down than it is to pull grown-a*s weeds, you know?

“Babe,” he says, panting, “why do you always stop me from taking off your shirt?” He swings his legs over the side of the bed to light a cigarette, still sporting only obscene print boxers.

“Because,” I say, “if you take off my shirt, you’ll also want to take off my bra. I know how this goes, darling; you’re not my first lover.”

     “I mean, we’ve done all the below the belt bits before. If this is some dumb thing about being self-conscious, let me reassure you;” he puts a hand on my bare shoulder like a proud little league coach and smoke pours from his mouth  (jesus christ, no wonder the curtains smell like a*s) “all b***s are great.”

“Thanks." I say. "But no thanks.”

***

He drops it and we’re at the beach a few weeks later. And by beach I actually just mean a s****y pile of sand that happens to be both local and near a less polluted part of the ocean. I’m trudging through the water, wincing as it nears my crotch because it's the kind of numbing cold vaginas shouldn't really experience. I’m pretending we’re on a real vacation, with a blue sky, blue water, and pink bermuda sand, except we’re not. We're literally just a few feet away from the nasty a*s city. The sky is grey, the water is more green than anything else, and the sand is disappointingly brown. Oh, and someone left a dirty swim diaper on the shore.

But in my head, my skimpy red bikini is a wonderful contrast to the tropical backdrop I imagined up, and I am an almost movie star, if only I had a floppy sun hat and big bug-eyed sunglasses.

He runs up behind me, water droplets landing on my back and giving me goose flesh.

“Hey, did you know you look mad hot in that bikini?” he grins at his own goofy attempt at seduction. “I could untie those bottoms with nothin’ but my teeth.”

I laugh, silently deciding that it would be too much work to get all the right parts working in these arctic waters and not entirely worth it either as I wouldn't be able to feel a goddamn thing.

“Hey,” he says again with all goofy attempts abandoned, “this is the first I’ve seen you without a shirt on!”

“Well no s**t. Who the hell wears a shirt to the beach?”

“Touche, but who the hell f***s with a shirt on?” he stoops towards the water to splash me, an unlit cigarette stuck in his smile.

“Me. I do. I f**k with a shirt on, always.”

“Yeah I know. I’m the one that f***s you with your shirt on, but tell me why.”

“Because I’m f*****g great in bed.”

“True, but why do you insist on wearing a shirt?”

I kick my leg, drenching him in the hopes of soaking the cigarette enough it is rendered unlightable. “You really wanna know?” I ask.

He sputters, spitting salt out of  a yellowed grin. “So f*****g badly.”

“Maybe I’ll tell you in the morning.”

****

I’m awake and my first thought is holy s**t, he needs to stop f*****g smoking in this room because these curtains smell like absolute a*s, and my second thought is I hope he’s not awake yet. I peel my top and bottom eyelids away from each other by a millimeter, peering between them as inconspicuously as possible. He’s awake alright, propped up on one elbow, only one leg covered by the sheet and the other adorned in nothing but unflatteringly short boxers (in another obscene print).

Damn, I think, if I got up a little earlier, I could’ve gone out and got breakfast to distract him, damn it, damn it, damn it!

I stretch and pretend to yawn, feigning the ritual of waking up believably, no matter how cliche. “The curtains smell like a*s from your goddamn cigarettes.” I grumble, picking eye gunk out of my eye corners.

“Good morning, sunshine!” He leans down to kiss my cheek, still plastered with my bedhead. I scrunch up my nose, but I don’t think he can see.

“Okay, but for reals, you made my curtains smell like a*s.”

He flicks his lighter on, setting another cigarette on fire. “Sure did.” he agrees.

“I like these curtains.”

He stops inhaling for a moment and looks at me pointedly. “Babe, we got them at Wal-Mart on sale like, a million years ago. It’s not like your grandmother gave them to us. And even if she did,” he takes a long drag, “your grandmother is an a*****e anyways.”

“But they probably don’t carry this print anymore!” I whine like a petulant child.

“As much as you love these godforsaken curtains, you love me more so deal with the a*s smell.”

“Fine.” I sit up, sweaty and wishing our trailer had a more effective AC unit. The one we have now barely cools down our den where it’s kept, and it’s louder than coyotes in heat. However, neither of us are really the shopping type, and a new AC requires us to go to Wal-Mart for something other than pop-tarts and cheap champagne.

“If you think I forgot, I didn’t.”

“Forgot what?”

“You know exactly what I didn’t forget.” I groan.

“Can I shower first?”

“Can I shower with you?”

“Hell f*****g no.”

“Then no.” He stubs out his cigarette with a silent giggle.

“C’mon. I didn’t shower after the beach yesterday.”

“Well apparently the curtains already smell like a*s, so what’s it really matter if you also smell like a*s?”

“You’re an a*s.” I dig around in the crumpled mess of sheets trying to find my socks that I must have kicked off in the night. My feet aren’t cold, I just want to waste time. I find the white one on his side, all the way in the bottom corner, and the pink one under my pillow.

“What the f**k?” I say, slipping them on my feet.

“That pink sock is from, like, three nights ago.”

“No it isn’t!”

“Yes it is; you went to bed last night with that white sock, and a stained blue sock.”

“Well it doesn’t matter because I smell like a*s anyway because you won’t let me shower!” My feet are really hot now, and I rub them up and down his calves, then, when I get no reaction, I put them in his shirt.

“Are you wiping your sweaty unshowered feet on me?”

“Yes.” I say, moving them up his stomach and onto his chest.

“Just checking. Now tell me why you never let me take off your shirt. We’ve been together for practically ever. Why.”

I take my sweaty unshowered feet out of his shirt. In a serious tone, I begin, “when I was sixteen, I fell in love with a rose-breasted cockatoo named Richard.”

“Are you f*****g still trying to avoid this conversation?”

“Do you wanna know the f*****g story or not?” I snap. “This whole thing f*****g starts with Richard the rose-breasted cockatoo!”

He sighs over-dramatically and roll his eyes. “Okay, okay, tell me all about Richard the rose-breasted cockatoo.”

***

Richard the rose-breasted cockatoo entered my life in the form of a pet shop owner getting busted for selling heroin out of the local pet shop. Like seriously, anybody who walked in there would’ve been able to tell because it’s not like she wore f*****g sleeves. I swear to god, that woman only owned hot pink tube tops and eyeshadow as blue as her tracks.

There was one time my best friend from high school was smoking outside, just a few doors  down from her store. “Hey!” she croaked, jingling the keys in the lock, hands audibly shaking even from some feet away.

“Yeah, hey.” My friend called back, but she sucked in too fast and ended up coughing and sputtering after.

“You know, you shouldn’t smoke.” Her keys continued to chatter in her hand as she wobbled up the sidewalk towards us.

“The f**k? Don’t you, like, shoot up heroin?”

“Yeah, but I don’t smoke because the second hand s**t is bad for the animals.”

“Yeah. Yeah, um, I’ll get on that, you know.. quitting.” Then she lit another cigarette and flipped the old hag off as she hobbled away. I mean, in the poor lady’s defense, she was right.

Well anyway, the police eventually sacked her for selling to this thirteen year old kid. But it wasn’t really her fault; the poor thing was just trying to be nice. Plus, she cut the kid a real good deal.

Obviously they had to get rid of all the animals. The shelter had limited space and most people were skeptical about taking in animals that were previously cared for by a heroin addict/dealer. But come on, it’s not like the animals were on drugs. She did take really good care of them.

I was sixteen and lonely so I went to check it out. The temporary warden was grouchy. He was there to basically make sure nothing was abused or stolen or whatever. And to oversee everything was given away to semi-decent people. That’s probably not how things work in nice suburban areas where they have PETA members and s**t, but that’s how it’s done in the ghetto. And it’s not like they even found a respectable police officer to serve as the warden. No, the guy was a total dick. There was only one other person there besides me and the warden; a homeless man who was probably looking for his next meal instead of a pet.

“Yo, fucktard.” The warden said from behind the now empty register.

I turned around.

“Not you, the other fucktard.”

The homeless man made eye contact with him and I could practically see the lasers being passed between them. “If y’all can’t feed ya self, how you expectin’ to feed a animal, huh? Get the f**k outta here!” And with the warden’s fist slamming on the desk with a thud, the homeless guy left without protest.

“And you.” he growled at me. “You ain’t just treatin’ this shithole like a zoo, right? You here to take somethin’?”

Of course I was treating that place like a zoo, but the dude scared the piss out of me so I nodded.

“Good. You better take one of these goddamned animals. Take a bird, the things won’t shut the f**k up.” He pointed to the back of the store and I obediently walked into the bird room. There was tons of cages with finches, lovebirds, conures, amazons, parakeets, african greys, literally everything. There was a huge a*s cage as big as me for a beautiful scarlet macaw. If I had to get something, I might as well go big, right? But when I tried to open the cage, the f****r tried to take my fingers off! I was about to say forget it, and lose my life by walking by the warden empty-handed, but this adorable pink bird caught my eye.

Everything else in the room was suddenly black and all the noises stopped. My heart skipped a beat in a class rom-com movie sort of way. It was love at first sight, right then and there in a former pet shop owned by a heroin addict. I looked at the cage tag:

ROSE-BREASTED COCKATOO

Cacatua roseicapilla

I opened the cage cautiously, and desperately hoping I’d keep my fingers. The bird didn’t even flinch as I stroked its neck.

“Good bird.” I cooed. I closed the cage to go tell the warden I was taking that one. When he saw me, he started in on a lecture, “No, no, no. You walk your a*s back in there and take a damn animal bec-”

“I picked one! I did, I picked one, I was just wondering if I could take the cage and some food and everything?”

He started massaging his temples. “Literally take anythin’ ya want, okay? And then leave.”

So that’s what I did. I put three bags of pelleted food in my backpack and rolled the cage down the street. The cage was about the height of my waist to the top of my head, but the stand it was on made it even taller. The wheels kept jamming and getting stuck on the sidewalk cracks, which required a lot of swearing on my part, but I managed to get home with the bird.

My grandmother was passed out on the couch again, empty half-gallon of orange juice just out of reach of her limp hand. Probably not orange juice. This dude who lives, like, two blocks away had an illegal still in the backwoods that he inherited when his father upped and left to live with some new w***e in South Dakota or some other irrelevant state. Anyway, his grandfather went into the deep end after that, whining all the time about his “good fo’ nuthin’ sack a’ s**t son!” He’d give my grandmother free booze to pacify him. Don’t ask me what that entailed because I don’t know and have no intention of ever knowing.

But long story short, Grams was passed out, far beyond drunk, and so I moved the bird into my room without her screeching at me.

My room in high-school was bare. There was a bed with a single green duvet cover. No sheets or nothing. Grams said they were a splurge. There was a cardboard box where I planned on keeping tacky sentimental s**t in some day, when I acquired tacky sentimental s**t to fill it. And then I was only gonna take the cardboard box with me when I moved out. It was gonna be dramatic and nostalgic. I planned the moment out exactly in my head- but it never happened because I never made the high-school memories that one ever wants to keep in some s****y box. But at the time I had it lying around.

There was a closet where my few clothes were crumpled on the floor (no hangers to be found in this hell-hole), a window that always had to be kept shut no matter how hot summer got because a squirrel ate the screen. Grams always said I had to keep it shut because she was afraid I would fall out- but honestly I think she was just afraid of squirrels taking over our house.

I kicked all my clothes outta the closet and shoved them in my cardboard box. I put the bird cage in the closet, leaving the door open nice and wide. The closet door was always open anyway because the clothes were always overflowing, making it impossible to shut. The closet door was on the same wall as the door into the hallway, with the shoddy door swinging to cover the closet entrance every time it was open. That way, Grams wouldn’t be able to see in unless she walked into my room, which she never did unless she decided to yell at me. And if she decided to yell at me, I could just shut the closet door and keep Richard out of sight. There was still extra space on the sides of the cage to keep the bird seed and the other supplies I grabbed.

“Well.” I said to him. “I guess it’s me and you for life, huh?” I closed the bedroom door (which I typically avoided because the room was already so small) and let the bird out. He stepped up onto my finger as if he had already been trained to do so.

“Richard!” he said, slowly, getting significantly louder on the last syllable.

“What the f**k?” I jumped, astonished that he was talking.

“Richard!” he said again.

“Well f**k, I guess your name is Richard.”

A few weeks later when my best friend came over, he said it again.  “What the f**k?” had been her response too, and then, “It sounds like he’s moaning. It sounds like your bird is having a f*****g orgasm.” I made a disgusted face, totally dreading having to explain my horrendous mistake.

She looked at me seriously. “Please do not tell me you named the f*****g bird after the hag’s pimp.” I looked back at her.

“We don’t know for sure that he was her pimp!”

“Dude, he was most certainly her pimp. You named the f*****g bird after what she screamed in bed.”

I shrugged, swallowing a small pill of regret. “It’s too f*****g late now.”

***

“Hang on. Back up.” He took a long drag on his second cigarette this morning, still refusing to put on anything but skimpy boxers. “How does this have anything to do with why you won’t let me take off your shirt?”

I blew my cheeks out real slow, feigning severe irritation. “Because it does. You know, I don’t have to finish the story.”

He blew a cloud right in my face and I wrinkled my nose. “Shut up, yes you do. You promised. And it seems sketchy that they just had some dickish officer control a f*****g pet shop while they hauled the heroin-junkie owner off to prison.”
“I actually made that part up.”

“Really?”

“No! I lived in the f*****g ghetto, that’s how they handled s**t!”

“Ok, fine. Keep going.”

***

As I was saying, he ended up being named Richard after the hag’s pimp. And that was literally the only thing he learned to say. I tried to teach him to say, “Grams is a c**t!” but he never caught on. Shockingly. Like I literally said that phrase at least a dozen times a day. Which made me think of how many times the pet shop owner had to scream, “Richard!” for him to learn it. The thought made me feel nauseous.

Despite his occasional, “Richard!”, Richard was a pretty quiet bird. He would whistle softly sometimes, but didn’t screech like the dick warden said the birds would. Which was good, because if my grandmother ever heard him, he’d be a Sunday rotisserie.

Grams wasn’t home very often, but when she was, she was usually too trashed to a.) care where she was, and/or b.) be conscious. So Richard and I had a pretty peaceful existence.

I wasn’t invited to a lot of parties back in the day. The rich kids thought they were too good for me and my crowd mostly hung out on top of this abandoned parking garage and did LSD. I went with them exactly one time and tripped so bad I thought a giant hamster was going to f*****g eat me. That was the end of my relationship with LSD, and drugs in general, except for the occasional edible. My best friend tried to get me to come with them sometimes, but being the only person not tripping balls is no fun.

With Richard, those nights felt more full. I wasn’t really alone anymore. Richard was chill. He’d just sit on my shoulder. If Grams wasn’t home we would walk around the whole house together. Watch T.V. Eat store-brand froot loops. He’d actually listen to me talk. We had a good life.

But it didn’t last very long. I was in the shower one day when Grams was out- and she came home buzzed enough to be in a rage but not drunk enough to be powerless. She ran up the stairs yelling her head off, “IF YOUR GOOD FO’ NUTHIN’ FATHA DIDN’T KNOCK UP SOME S**T, THERE WOULDN’T BE ANY F****N’ DIRTY DISHES IN MY SINK!”

I quickly turned the water off and threw a sweatshirt and boxers on. Too late. She was already in my room looking for me.

“Aw, f**k! Richard!” The closet door was open because the closet door was always open. The only time the closet door was shut was when Grams decided to come in, and the only time Grams ever decided to come in was to yell at me, and the only time she yelled at me was when I was in my room. Except for right now.

      “F**k, f**k, f**k, f**k, f**k-” I whispered under my breath, sprinting the two steps it takes to cross the hall.

“Holy f*****g s**t-” Grams halfway slurred. “You brought a f*****g bird under my roof-” She charged after Richard, flinging the cage door open and trying to grab him.

“STOP!” I screamed, trying to push her away. Richard was flapping wildly and making the most horrific screaming sounds. I finally managed to push Grams away. While I tried to grab the panicked Richard, she crossed the room and flung open the window. Richard would not be calmed, my hands frantically chased him around the cage. Grams wrapped her bony arms around my waist and heaved me out of the way. People like to staple decrptions to old ladies like ‘frail’ and ‘decrepid’ but let me tell you, my Grams was basically Chuck Norris in a seventy-three year old body. Or the hulk. She shoved me out of the way like I was a paperweight, and in my head she grunted “GRAMS SMASH!” My elbow hit the edge of the cage as she yanked me, sending pins and needles up my arm. “NO!” I hollered. Richard flew out of his cage and did a few laps around the room.

“YOU F*****G B***H!” There were tears in my eyes as I tried to fight my way out of Grams’ grasp. “YOU F*****G B***H- I HATE YOU!” Richard flew out the window. Gone. Lost. Probably forever. Grams let go of me. I spun around and punched her in the nose. She fell, swearing and gushing blood. I ran outside before she could roundhouse kick me, thankful it was only midday and the sun was still out. I must have looked crazy, wearing only boxers and a baggy sweatshirt, screaming, “Richard!” as I raced up and down the street. S**t, it wasn’t like he could have gone far, right?

I stayed outside, looking for a flash of pink in the trees for two hours. And then one of the neighbors came outside. There actually wasn’t anything wrong with him. He might have been the only adult I’ve ever known up until this point without any drug habits. I think he moved from down south a couple years ago. There was a rumor that he used to hunt alligators and eat them, but if we examine the other role models I had, that was nothing to be particularly worried about.

“‘Scuse me, miss, but you wouldn’t a be happenin’ tah be lookin’ fer a bird, now, would ya?” I looked at him with crazy bug-eyes.

“Yes! Yes I am, he’s pink and his name is Richard!” I said wildly, restraining myself from grabbing the man by the flannel and shaking him.

“Well ah, he flew righ’ inta ar’ house when we was airing it ou’. We got ‘im inside.”  I almost hugged him. I almost fell to the ground and kissed his feet. Thank the good lord.

I followed him across the street. His house was bit run-down, but so was literally every building in this city. It smelled dusty and the lights were dim. An old lady with white hair was at the stove, hunched over and trying to light a cigarette off it. The old man scoffed, leaning in to me.

“She only took up smokin’ in ‘er old age. Figures it don’ matta now if it gives ‘er cancer ‘cause she’ll already be dead.”  I nodded, significantly uncomfortable being in a stranger’s house and eager to see Richard. We went through the kitchen and the woman didn’t even acknowledge us. There was a small sitting area with a rug and a coffee table. I had a feeling that the rug used to be maroon, but it was now some brownish-grey color. On top of the coffee table, there was a dinky and dangerous looking metal cage that was probably meant to be decorative in some rich person’s home, but was instead found by this couple in a dumpster and used to temporarily house my Richard.

“Richard!” I squealed. I dropped to my knees to let him out. He stepped up onto my finger and said his name back to me. I tucked him under my sweatshirt, preparing to leave.

“Thank you, thank you, so much. Honestly, thank you.” I thanked the man profusely. He nodded, shrugged, and lead me out.  I shivered with relief to both have Richard back, and that they didn’t try to keep me for dinner or some weird southern hospitality s**t.

Richard nestled against my ribcage. The day had darkened a bit to that weird five o’clock greyness. My bare toes were starting to get chilly walking home. Hopefully Grams would be passed out, or out, or something so I could at least put Richard back for the night. I had no idea what I would do after that. I’d probably have to go to the library in the morning to use a computer and put out a personal ad for a sugar daddy who would let Richard and I live with him for the remainder of my underage days. I could most likely con the librarian into helping me take a halfway flattering photo to upload.

I tried the front door. Locked. "F**k," I swore under my breath. I switched hands, so now my non-dominant hand was holding Richard under my shirt. My dominant hand wiggled the knob, confirming what the non-dominant hand already learned. The door swung open.

F**K!

Grams set in on me, eyes flashing to the bulge in my shirt. She tried to swipe both my hands away, hurriedly. Richard was screaming, he tried to flap his wings but couldn't because my sweatshirt was too restricting. Grams started screaming, I was screaming- and in some fucked up twist of fate, Richard bit me.

“MY F*****G N****E! OH MY F*****G GOD, I THINK I’M BLEEDING!” I grabbed my left b**b where Richard had struck, and sure enough, my sweatshirt began turning red. Everything was quiet for a moment. I was stunned, Grams was stunned, and even Richard was quiet, somehow holding onto my sweatshirt insides with his claws and probably trying to untaste my n****e blood.

“It f*****g just bit your n****e?” Grams asked quietly.

“He might have bit it off.” I corrected, feeling a little faint.

“Put the f****r upstairs.” She stepped outside, allowing me into the house. I obeyed, carrying Richard and quite frankly, trying not to cry. It felt like someone ripped my n****e off. Which someone potentially might have actually ripped my n****e off. I said a silent prayed in my head, promising God that yes, I know I’ve never been into a church or talked to him before, or had communion, and I know I sin a s**t-ton, but if my n****e was okay, I would start believing. I put Richard back in his closet cage. He hopped in, finally content. I winced my way to the bathroom and took off my sweatshirt. My left n****e was completely mangled and hacked in half. Tenderly, I cleaned it with a towel doused in warm water, actually crying now.

Grams banged on the door. “Is your n****e okay!?” She asked, sounding almost concerned.

“No.” I murmured. “I might need stitches.”

“Is the bleeding stopping?”

“Yes, but it’s swollen and mangled and a mess.”

“If it’s gonna stop bleeding on its own, you’re fine.” She said roughly.

“But it’s cut in half!” I protested. “I really think it needs, like, n****e reconstruction surgery or some s**t!”

“Well, you shouldn’t have brought a f*****g bird into my house, then. You’re fine. I’ll take you to the hospital only if it falls off.” And with that, she stormed downstairs. I heard the front door slam.

I was left alone to pine over my tattered n****e. I never realized that I took them for granted. Richard died a couple of weeks later. The cage the neighbors kept him in was probably coated in lead paint, or maybe the stress finally got to him. Or maybe the guilt of eating my n****e ate at him until there was nothing left keeping him alive.

My n****e never healed right. Which is why I never let you take off my shirt. If you took off my shirt, you’d also want to take off my bra, and then you’d see my nasty-a*s n****e. It doesn’t really hurt anymore though, unless it’s raining.

***

He lit another cigarette. “Oh my f*****g God,” he said in disbelief. “A bird f*****g ate your n****e.” We both looked away from one another. And then he said, “It wouldn’t matter to me even if your n*****s had snakes growing out of them.”

I looked over at him. “Really?”

“Yeah.” He smiled, and suddenly his yellowed teeth were the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

“I don’t tell you a lot and I really should, but I love you.” I scooched closer to him in bed and rested my head on his shoulder. He held his cigarette away from me and kissed my sweaty hair that still hasn’t been washed since the beach.

“Does it bother you?”

“That I don’t show feelings?”

“No, your mangled n****e, you nimrod!”

“I hate it. I never let anyone ever take off my shirt before. Not even you, and you’re the one person who really ever stood a chance. I can’t stand to look at it.”

He paused, sucking on his never-ending supply of cigarettes. “I think you’re the most beautiful thing in the f*****g world, firstly, but if it really bothers you, we can just get you n****e reconstruction surgery.”

I scoffed. “Yeah, okay. Do you know how much that f*****g costs? Like, 34 of our trailers still wouldn’t be enough to cover it.”

“I’ll just pay for it with my inheritance money.”

I paused, almost sort of believing him for a second. “Yeah, okay.” I said again. “Sure.”

“No, for reals.” He stubs out the cigarette in the ashtray on his bedside table.

“This isn’t funny.”

“It isn’t a joke.” He grabs my hands and looks me in the eyes. “My dad was a CEO of this really big company back in his day, and when he got murdered, I inherited a s**t-ton of money. Like, a s**t-ton.”

I stare at him, still holding my hands. “What the f**k?” I croak. “First of all, your dad was f*****g murdered? Secondly, you have a f**k-ton of money and we live in a f*****g trailer and splurge twice a year on box wine?”

“My dad was a f*****g dick. The neighbor killed him because my dad blew all of our leaves into his yard every single fall, blew all of our snow in front of his mailbox every single winter, and just a bunch of passive aggressive s**t like that all the time.”

“Oh-my-God, you lived in the suburbs?”

He rolled his eyes. “Yes, I’m not proud of it. But anyway, one time my dad was walking our dog and he let the stupid thing take a dump right on our neighbor’s lawn as he was driving down the street, and the dude ran him over with his car. Just like that. Gone.”

“Oh-my-God.”

“Yeah. But honestly, my dad was relentless in torturing the poor guy. Only because he put out signs on his yard showing support for liberal candidates. Whatever, though. He was the CEO of this stupid paper cup company and now I have a s**t-ton of money to pay for your n****e reconstruction surgery.” He takes a deep breath.

“But why did you never tell me before!? We could be living in a house right now! With silk curtains that don’t smell like a*s! And drinking Malibu rum!”

He looks around. “But have you ever not been happy here? We didn’t need money, ever. We’re not Malibu people. We’re cheap beer kind of people. And you like these curtains, and cheap cigarettes taste nostalgic. And this trailer is our home. We never wanted anything else, so like, why do anything different, you know?”

He’s totally right. I wouldn’t even know how to make a good mixed drink anyway, or decorate our trailer properly, never mind a whole goddamn house.

“Anyway,” he said, finally getting out of bed and looking absolutely beautiful in his too tiny boxers in the most obscene print, “we would have wasted it and then we wouldn’t have any money to fix your n****e.”