Chapter 1

“I just don’t understand him lately. He’s ... so ... different. I don’t get it. I’m a little worried. Yes, he recently got a new job, and yes, this economy has been tough, so I’m glad that he’s no longer out of work. I just worry that ... well ... that he’ll hang too much with the wrong crowd. Yes, yes, I know this is a bit of a rough neighborhood to try to make the right sort of friends. No, no, I’m not saying just hang out with white folks. That’s kinda hard to do in a community like South Phoenix, trust me. It’s a lot of black and brown folk, and most of them are perfectly fine. Poor as fuck, pardon my French, but nice enough. I’m just ... worried that he’ll start listening to rap or whatever and get involved with the ghetto types. You know what that means. Drugs. Crime. The wrong kind of girlfriends.

“I had a nightmare last night where he came home with this really trashy girlfriend and she stank to high heaven. He wanted to show her off to me and I couldn’t see how he would get tied down to someone like that. He could get stuck with child support for someone else’s baby, even. Girls like that ... you know how they are. You’ve seen Maury. They’ll blame the easiest victim and make him pay years of child support or get married too young. He could get AIDS or something else really awful, like the clap. Anyway, he just came in, I think, so I better wrap this up. Sure, Jill, I’ll talk to you later. Love ya,” my mother ended her call, realizing that I opened the door and might overhear something.

It was too late, of course. I had definitely overheard something. It was more than a little disturbing, not only because Mom had so little faith in my judgment, but also because her overall attitudes were “I’m not racist, but I don’t want my son chasing minority tail” and “if he gets too many black or Latino friends, he might get caught up in drugs and crime.” This was a shocking, jarring perspective from someone who had always told me not to be racist, not to judge people by the color of their skin, or their religion, etc.

It was also rather bigoted to assume that black girls or Latinas would be the first to try to stick me with another man’s spawn. After all, hadn’t her very WASP friend Jill once tried to con her ex into thinking that her daughter Josie was actually his, when it was his brother’s baby, something that turned that family into warring camps ever since? I wondered how Jill felt about the implied disapproval of that behavior, knowing that Mom was well aware of it, or had she decided that it’s only wrong with black girls or Latinas did it? That was the sort of typical First World Problems, white girl feminism that one could expect from a lady like Jill, anyway.

As for me, I had a job that I really enjoyed, working in a bookstore, crazy as that sounded, and yes, I had met some friends there. It was a very estrogen-rich environment, I had to admit, which was surprising, because plenty of guys like to read, too. There was Sahar, my very Persian boss lady, who took my training very seriously and wanted to encourage my love of good, old-fashioned books and reading them. She had escaped when she was just two with her parents from the Ayatollah’s Revolutionary Guards. Which made her exactly forty years of age, and she had aged very gracefully indeed.

Closer to my own age, there was Monique, a very lively, gregarious young woman whose mother came from South Carolina and her father from Haiti. She had a rich, dark brown skin tone, not coal black, but dark enough that anyone and his uncle could tell that she was black. She had the classic kinky hair, too, not that I objected to that at all. She was busty, perhaps a bit on the plump side, but not exactly fat to my thinking. She was also quite flirty, and if Mom had seen her in action, her cortisol levels would have skyrocketed given her racist assumptions.

Oh, there was also Rachel, a delightfully quirky and bookish girl from Tijuana in Baja. She was actually a Dreamer, having left with her parents when she was only five and stayed after their green cards expired and they couldn’t get them renewed. At nineteen, she had only the vaguest memories of Mexico. She spoke pretty damn good English, too, enough that most people assumed that she was an Arizona native. I know that I thought so, too, until she convinced me otherwise. I worried for her and also for Sahar, who had taken a huge risk by letting her work there without the proper documents. Life in Trump’s America was dangerous enough for both of them, just as it was for Monique.

I had just gotten back from working an eight hour shift that Sunday, which included a lunch hour spent at Arby’s, when I eavesdropped on that little rant of Mom’s. I pretended not to hear it, of course, but it was rather discouraging to listen to my own mother essentially declare her fears that I might date someone “unsuitable,” such as women of color. I didn’t think that she was a MAGA type, either, so it was doubly shocking. I tried to put it past me, though, as I headed to my room for some TV to unwind a bit.

Almost immediately, I heard a tap on the door. It was Mom, of course, and she naturally hugged me very tightly. This was the nicer, friendlier side of my mother, who at thirty-nine wasn’t so bad-looking, after all. She gave birth to me when she was just twenty, so you do the math. Yes, I was still technically a teenager myself. I was old enough to vote, to smoke, to marry, and to go to war, but not to drink or gamble. Tell me if that makes logical sense to you. Anyway, Mom was one of those strawberry blondes that could easily go ginger or platinum blonde if she wished, unlike her best friend Jill, who had sandy hair herself.

“Hey, sport, how are things at work?” Mom asked me, as if I was still ten years old or something like that, never mind that ten year olds didn’t usually hold down jobs.

“Not bad. Sahar said that if I keep it up, I might get a raise in a few months. She seems happy enough with my work. Good woman, Sahar. Very hard-working, friendly, yet still firm when she needs to be,” I pointed out to Mom.

“And where she needs to be? I mean ... sorry, kind of a dirty joke there. But I mean, I’ve seen her pictures. She’s ... a very elegant, classy kind of woman, definitely a lady, but you have to admit that she’s a fox. I’d do her and I usually go for men,” Mom confessed, blushing a little now.

“So, you’re not bothered that she’s ... Persian and all that. I mean, you know, she’s Middle Eastern and Muslim to boot. It doesn’t bother me, but does it bug you, Mom?” I ignored the deliberate bait of her teasing me about my very attractive Persian boss.

“Well, I try not to be racist and we do have freedom of religion in this country. She seems nice enough. I’m a little more nervous about the men than about the women, if you know what I mean. Persian men included. You know, Muslim guys, right? They seem so hateful and bossy, well at least the ones from Pakistan. Really condescending, talk down to you a lot. At least where I work. The new agency manager is from Bangladesh, I think. He’s rather like that. I’ve met his wife and she tends to wear a headscarf of some kind. Is that where Hillary’s friend Huma is from? Bangladesh?” Mom let some of her more bigoted views slip through.

“Huma’s from Pakistan. She married Anthony Weiner and is divorced from him now. I’ve met plenty of men and women who are like that. Very patronizing, wherever they’re from, trust me. You see them a lot in bookshops like Sahar’s. It’s not limited to Muslim dudes, that’s for sure. Sorry that your boss is that way. It’s a shame. They need to treat you better than that. I don’t think that he’d be any different if he got baptized and started going to Mass or church, I can tell you that much,” I observed, making her rethink that stereotype at least.

“Touche. That’s a fair point. He’d be a dick either way,” Mom admitted, making both of us burst out laughing.

“Word of warning. I’m about to watch Game of Thrones, followed by Veep. If you don’t want to be subjected to that, well... , “ I warned Mom, who laughed that off and lightly tapped my shoulder.

“Honey, I’m not worried about that. Maybe your love life, but not that. I’m proud of you for working so far and helping out with expenses. I just hope that you can find the right kind of girl. Or guy, if that’s your thing,” Mom teased me a little, “anyway, it’s supper time first. We need to eat before you settle down to your violent, raunchy TV shows. Yes, I’ve heard all about Game of Thrones, though I’ve never seen it. Doesn’t bother me, just as long as you don’t think that’s healthy in real life. Then again, you’ve read a bunch of wild and kinky novels and comics and have yet to go out and rape someone.”

“Of course, because that’s a story, a work of fiction, not a real-life instruction manual and handbook on how to rape and murder people yourself. It’s not meant to celebrate evil, but to tell stories about the human experience, thoughts, emotions, etc. Storytelling is never intended to advocate a course of action, but to explore and create worlds in the mind, the imagination, Mom,” I reassured her.

“All true. Anyway, let’s eat first. I’ve had some pulled pork in the crockpot for you. I first thought of pot roast, but then I realized that you might be all beefed out with the Arby’s sandwich that you probably ate today. You always seem to do that for lunch on Sundays when you work. At least you let me pack your lunch most days, which is good, because eating out is terribly expensive. Well, that kind of eating out, I mean. The other kind is free, if you don’t mind the taste and smell,” Mom punned, looking at me as if worried that I might get offended at the joke.

“Haha, cute, Mom. Don’t worry, I’m not a prude. Far from it. Hence my viewing and literary choices. Anyway, pulled pork is good, just as long as it isn’t my pork being pulled,” I joked back, taking a risk that she wouldn’t take offense to that.

“Oh, I don’t know. I think that most guys don’t seem to mind their pork being pulled ... in other ways, at least,” she kept up the shockingly risque wordplay while plating supper.

“So ... you do know that most of my friends are girls lately, right? Doesn’t make me their gay buddy or anything. It’s just that I work in a bookstore with a bunch of nerdy ladies and that tends to be my social circle of late. At least they’re bookworms and not, you know, uptight, snooty, popular types. I could never be close friends with that kind of gal. These women have more in common with the guys that I went to school with than with such girls. Not shallow and vain, you know,” I observed, testing Mom’s reaction.

“Hey, just be careful that the other guys don’t get jealous. They might try to seize your man card, just because they see you as a threat. Then again, they probably don’t think that far ahead. They probably just assume that you are gay, after all, since you’re hanging out with a bunch of girls, even if they aren’t the fashionable, high maintenance type. But ... well, not to be indelicate, but are any of these girls ... into you?” Mom asked me, quite seriously, trying to hide her worry about the issue.

“I don’t know. I can’t read women to save my life. Probably means that I’m doomed to be single from sheer uncertainty and suspense. I suck at reading women’s body language. A woman could be sending me a million signals either way and I wouldn’t have a fucking clue. Pardon my French, but it’s true. It’s just how I am,” I replied as I poured the drinks and took my share of the potato chips that she set out for the picnic style dinner.

“Well, that’s where living with Mom comes in handy, sweetheart. Think of me as your wingwoman here. I do worry about the sort of ladies you might pick, mind you, but deep down, I just want you happy. I just worry that you might get involved with the wrong type of girls. I mean ... I know that sounds racist, because of where we live, but ... I guess that I tend to assume a lot of things. You know ... the type that you see on TV all the time. Skanky girls and I guess that most of the ones that I see on these shows aren’t white, so ... I don’t know. It’s so fucking embarrassing, but I was just talking to Jill about this. I should ... I should have talked to you about it first, I think. I think that you’re making me feel foolish,” Mom confessed, having the decency to blush now.

“Why do you feel foolish now? Because the girls are nerds? Be honest ... do you feel that nerdy girls are safer? In some ways, I guess. In other ways, not so much. A lot of them are pretty radical, just saying. Politically and in other ways. And, yes, one of them is black and the other is a Latina. And, yes, I’m into them. Both of them. Mom, I’m kinda ... polyamorous. I can love more than one person. I just can’t tell if they love me back,” I laughed at the contradiction there.

“Well ... you’ve got more layers than an onion, that’s for sure, son. You’re even deeper than I thought. Frankly, I always thought that you were weird, but at least you’re smart and you own your eccentricity. There are worse than your kind of brutal candor, I guess. I does worry me at times, but maybe I should take a step back and stop worrying so much about ... oh, how I look to my friends. It’s not like they’re great prizes, either, and you’re my fucking son. If they judge you, that’s their loss. Who can judge you? Jill? Beth? Annie? None of them are half the people that you are. That’s just a fact,” Mom admitted at last, much to my shock.

“Mom, I can’t ... I can’t believe that you just said that! In the past, you always acted like ... you know, I was a bit of an embarrassment to you at times ... because I was so different from your friends and the rest of the family. I know that Dad found me embarrassing for sure. He wondered if I was really his, which is part of why he left us instead of just leaving you,” I observed, even if a bit concerned that Mom might take offense to that.

“Yeah, well ... I was a bit defensive about that whole thing. Your father left us because he ... stopped trusting me when I became friends with Jill. The more that he resented it, the more that I befriended her for spite. It was a vicious cycle and I have to own up to it. Yeah, he was no prize, but she’s frankly ... a bit much. I suppose that by then I cared less and less about him already, so it was easy to ignore his doubts and misgivings.

“When he told me that you weren’t his, though, all because he found out that Josie wasn’t Jill’s husband’s ... I basically told him to go to Hell. The fact that he continued to mistreat you didn’t help, though it took me forever to see that she didn’t always treat you well, either. I’ve made some really bad choices there, and by now, I’ve sunk so much into this friendship, it’s hard to let go of it. I don’t know ... you can’t always just give friends up,” Mom confessed to me now.

“Actually, to be frank, by the time that Dad left us, I was happy about it. Well, not totally. I mean, no kid wants to be rejected by his father, but that was happening, anyway. It was good not to be constantly reminded of that fact. If he wanted to believe that I wasn’t really his, if that gave him permission to just walk away, then good riddance! I really don’t miss Dad at all! He’s a cretin, a jerk, a complete dotard. Part of me wishes that I wasn’t his at all, even if that wouldn’t speak well of you,” I bared my soul to Mom, much to her astonishment.

“Wow ... I sometimes feared that you hated or resented me, but you really hated your father, don’t you?” Mom confronted me now.

“Still do. The man walked away from his own son. I wanted rid of him by then, but he had always rejected me. I was basically disowned from birth. He never wanted me. At least at the end he did me the courtesy of dropping the pretense. I think that he never wanted to believe that I was his, because I somehow ruined his life. As for Jill, she’s a silly woman, but she’s your friend, and as wrong as what she did to her husband was, she did us all a favor in one sense. She helped push Dad out the door,” I remarked, making Mom raise one eyebrow.

“You know that Jill lusts after you at times, right? Just sayin’. Part of me wants to protect you from her, but the other part would love to see you get some booty to build your confidence. Of course, she married her former brother-in-law, but she’s not happy with him, either. She never wanted to be with him in the long run, which she tried to avoid by passing Josie off as Clayton’s. Clayton wasn’t that bad, but Leroy is very churlish, and Jill can be such a cunt at times, forever using and manipulating people for her own wishes. Maybe she should be with both men. Maybe not. Clayton is perhaps a bit too jealous for that,” Mom intimated as we wrapped up the supper and she surprised me with a bottle of beer.

“You know that I’m not old enough to drink, right?” I reminded Mom, truly amazed that she had shown some promise after being such a racist bitch on the phone.

“Fuck that noise! You’re old enough to work, to marry, to vote, to smoke, to get drafted, so fuck that! Let’s drink and talk about girls, maybe while you watch your TV show. Game of Thrones, right? Or maybe you want to watch that first, drink some more, and then talk about girls,” Mom proposed, even as she sent some kind of text to someone else.

“Let’s talk for a bit. Game of Thrones will still be waiting for me and you haven’t seen the series at all. This is the Finale. The very last episode. It wouldn’t make sense without watching everything else first. So, yeah, let’s hold off on that and just sit here and talk in our buzzed state. There is a decent chance that I might not even remember watching it if I get drunk enough,” I encouraged Mom, pleased to see the switch from bitchy, racist, ignorant parent to a more pleasant, intelligent, open-minded side of her.

“Well, then, let’s get you drunker still, so you won’t miss it for a while,” Mom laughed as she got me another beer and encouraged me to sit and talk to her for a while longer.

We chatted and drank a while longer, Mom getting goofier by the minute as we discussed relationships, friendships, and whatever really went on in her mind regarding Jill’s ethics. We also discussed Josie, with Mom pointing out how close and protective I had always been with her despite disapproving of her mother. It was true, as I had always viewed nine-year old Josie as almost a little sister.

“Yeah, I thought that you saw her that way. She adores you, too. Sees you as the older brother that she never had. Turns out that we know why now. Who’d have guessed that Uncle Clayton was sterile, right? Mumps, apparently. Jill forgot to check that out first and Clayton forget to tell her, too,” Mom gave me her two cents about the whole mess.

“So, that’s how he found out. The moment that she told him that she was pregnant, he instantly knew that it wasn’t his. A lot better basis than for Dad’s thinking. Notice that Dad never asked for a paternity test for me. I think that it was because he knew that I was his and that he would look foolish. He left us both for no good reason. Good riddance, as I said before. Fuck him!” I cussed Dad out a bit.

“No thanks! I did that plenty and while I don’t regret it, certainly don’t regret making you, I do regret wasting so much of my life and my time pleasing a man who could never be happy. Hank, nothing could ever make your father happy. It’s just how he was. Determined to be miserable and disgruntled with life. The man needs some therapy, both for that and for the heavy drinking, of course. The man’s the worst sort of drunk, belligerent, yet functional. No one has been able to convince him to stop, because he doesn’t see himself as having a problem at all. He’s just a walking bottle of vodka and rage,” Mom rolled her eyes at him.

“Martinis, I remember. Constant supply of vodka, vermouth, and olives. Had to have them, like he’s James fucking Bond or some shit like that. What was really his problem with me, anyway? He always complained about me reading instead of being into baseball or golf or football or whatever. I do like some sports, such as swimming and running, but those were never good enough for him. He was that angry of a jock. Is it because he never got to go pro? Did he really lose a Major League spot because of me or was that totally bogus? Was he really going to be a star pitcher for the Mets?” I asked Mom, just to be sure of that.