part 20
Subject: alone again, naturally
To: BoPeep
From: MackAttack
Date: 07/01 4:11 a.m. PDT
Dear Aimee,
It was selfish of me to say I wouldn’t write to you anymore. (I know it was a long time ago.) But as I read your letters, I feel drawn into the kind of life I do my best to avoid, and it’s just a matter of taste, you might say. Our tastes clash. Same schools, same cultural and historic background. Hard to understand.
Or maybe I don’t want to understand how you can put as much emphasis on painting rooms as do you about getting raped in the ass. Did you think of calling the police? No, of course not. The revenuers might find the still. I meet your world 8 to 5 on weekdays in the department store. I’m still learning to stop resisting my snotty arty-farty feelings of being much too fine and high-minded for it. People simply hate that about me, Aimee. Center stage in my own life is a dangerous place to be.
Bobby used to like to remind me of the day the regular guys beat the snot out of me on general principles. It wasn’t so tough learning how to be one. You simply rule more and more out of your life as things a regular guy doesn’t do. A regular guy can play the keyboards, but it better be rock because everything else is fairy music.
You never told me you liked me because I was different than them. Seemed to bug you, instead. “Why can you just be normal, Mack? Why isn’t the real world good enough for you, Mack?” None of my answers were good enough for the real world. About the only time I made Bobby laugh was when I said, “Reality is a second-rate experience.”
My parents cared about how I would grow up and there was a time when they were concerned that I wouldn’t be normal. My parents cared about how I would grow up and there was a time when they were concerned that I wouldn’t be normal. Funny how it all channels into a fear that the boy will want to fuck other boys. It’s as if they lose memory that it is normal regular guy to circle-jerk. Kind of gets phased out after sophomore or junior year.
It was even more important to Daphne that I be a regular guy and not embarrass her. She could beat it down with the silent treatment, nagging, sexual embargoes. I could be different only if the difference made money for her to spend. She gave me talks about how I was going nowhere in the corporation because they could tell I was not Totally Devoted to the corporation.
The difference about me – whatever it is – got distorted and bizarre living with Daphne. I call it my soul, Aimee. I couldn’t leave my soul behind. Feminine, sensual, artistic. She doesn’t resist or try to be left behind. That makes her unlike the girlfriend of the real world and the regular guys.
Akiko is gone. She caved into family pressure to leave the white guy. I think she accepted me as I am, but then her real world vetoed it. So the bliss is gone, too, and I have yet to meet a woman who will stay and not demand I change, change, change. So my soul cries at an incredibly deep level and I have to hide that, too — me curled up at night sobbing.
The scary thing about being me is the sense that I will always be alone. I’ve never been too young to think about dying. In the gutter, or wherever. I mean, I do get scared sometimes, especially times like right now. I had a weird episode in the bathroom when I really noticed age lines in the mirror. Some sick emotion of dread swept up, and then my face contorted and I moaned, “No, no, no!” Yes, well, there it was.
Until loves knocks again, I feel dead in the water. But I know you are anxious to hear from me. So I’ll send this, for whatever it’s worth, to you now.
Love, Mack
Subject: Can we be friends…?
To: MackAttack
From BoPeep
Date: 07/04 6:11 a.m. PDT
Dear Mack,
Can I extend the olive dove? Branch, whatever.
Happy Fourth of July.
At the mall I ran into a girl I used to work with, and we got to talking and ended up going out to dinner at Whalen’s. Have you been there? She said it’s really great….to try the shrimp and chicken combo! It’s our “special day” again. Want to go to dinner tomorrow and “celebrate” that we’ve survived this long? I’d love to catch up, you know, like old times. I can’t believe another year has past. Can you?
I really miss you. Feel like you are my “real family” and the others are all imposters.
Speaking of my mother. She’s keeping up her pressure on me. I was at work and she called me because she said her car was broken and she needed to borrow mine while hers was in the shop. She had a really nice CD player put into my car, upgraded my speakers, and had sheepskin seat covers put on. There was a little note on the dash when I got into my car. “Surprise, Love Mom. p.s. we’d like a little surprise bundle in return.” I feel just awful. She has all the tact and finesse of a jack hammer. I mean, the car is really nice, and it’s great to drive around. Maybe I should just have a baby and get this over with. She’s not going to give up and now every time I drive my car I’m reminded that I’m holding out on her. I don’t know. I might as well give in. You know? I never win with her.
Mack, I need your advice here. I’m starting to think I’m crazy. Would you do something like this for YOUR Mom? You know, if the situation were different? I know you’ll give me your real opinion. All my roommates just throw it back at me with “well, do you want to?” or “she IS your mother.” They don’t understand at all.
Write me soon, Mack. And, Mack, lighten up….the world isn’t that bad because some Jap chick left you high and dry. She wasn’t right for you anyway.
Love, Aimee
Subject: RE: Can we be friends…?
From: MackAttack
To: BoPeep
Date: 07/05 3:07a.m. PDT
Dear Aimee,
I seem to be going over your head (had suspicions of this — e.g., the last roll wasn’t all that intelligent). Don’t you feel we should be honest with one another? You see, kiddo, things that happen to you could make me very mad. Could. But I would need your help in this emotion, such as you getting mad at them, too. Yet why get mad enough to press charges that you were raped? Or tossed bad-news Davey-the-criminal out on his ear when he showed up and messed up our date. I just don’t, ahem, “get it.” Or the ease of say “No” to being your incubator’s incubator. You just won’t say it and I just don’t get it.
I should “lighten up” to the bland of the sunlit day. Yeah? I should see the mission of life is now a ghost town. Hand-to-mouth, too, paycheck to paycheck. You’re mom will buy you for a CD and sheepskin seat covers? Oh, my God. Just say NO.
Mack
Subject: Fuck you!!!!
From: BoPeep
To: MackAttack
Date: 07/05 7:12 a.m. PDT
You are such an asshole, Mack!
Yeah, you’ll end up alone because all you do is attack and ridicule people who are your friends. You’re a total jerk, do you know that? I think you are self centered and snotty and vain.
I don’t care if you’re normal or not, I seem to have accepted that. What I don’t like is that you seem to think that normal and nice are the same thing. You are just flat out mean. I am sick of that.
Do you know what people hate about you, Mack? That you are an arrogant, self-centered pig parading around in men’s clothing. You’re not high minded, you are a troll sitting under a bridge afraid of everyone and everything. You withdraw and snicker and pretend that you are better than everyone. Well, you are not. Obviously, when the snot was beat out of you, they didn’t beat the crap out, too, because you are really full of it. You are pathetic.
What exactly WOULD the police do about me getting forcibly boinked? I’m not exactly a snow white virgin, and I was in his car willingly….and since then he’s sent me flowers. I’ve come to find out that he has a girlfriend, anyway. Now, what is all this going to LOOK like? It’s going to look like it’s some little girl getting mad at a guy and going to the police for some kind of revenge. They’re NOT going to take this seriously. I’m sorry, Mack, that’s just how the world is. Stop being so naive. Bad things happen, and that’s just how it is. It’s not fair being a girl, and that’s just how it is. I can’t believe you are so ignorant of the world. Did you go to the cops when you had the snot beat out of you? I don’t think so? What’s the difference? I mean, it was ugly and it hurt, but I am not about to go through the legal system and talk about it. No, Mack, I’m not afraid they’re going to find the still….and that is just a fucked thing to say. I hate you!
I won’t tell you about my life anymore. NO, that’s fine. I’ll keep it to myself. I just thought you were my friend and I could tell you, and you’d understand. I guess I was wrong.
The only reason you are curled up at night sobbing is because you are too damn mean all day your soul is torturing you for all the people you crush with you vile words and attitude. Try enjoying life, Mack.
Aimee
Aimee Is A Little Crazy 