by Rowan Massey
Girls were boring to me most of the time—even more so than the guys at school—and annoying the rest of the time. Sometimes I wished for a female friend who I could just hang out with and be utterly platonic towards. Being friends with guys, no matter their level of attractiveness, was more complicated for me.
I downloaded a couple of apps so that I could follow Lottie’s accounts and sat browsing her posts. Clay’s first impression of me couldn’t remind him of her. I didn’t want to seem like other people my own age at all. I needed to lie about my age in case it made him uncomfortable. There would be one first impression, and I couldn’t fuck it up.
Examining pictures of her guy friends, I decided to get a haircut, which wasn’t something I did often. My hair had grown past my jaw line, and it made me look too young and carefree. What did a serious, thoroughly adult haircut look like? When I went to the barber, I usually just pointed at one of the pictures on the wall and said, “like that”.
I thumbed back to a portrait of Clay and took a look at his hair. It was short with almost the same length all over. I could copy it, but no, I didn’t want him thinking, hmm, that guy has the same shape head as me.
This all sent me down a rabbit hole that wasted almost an hour discovering the minute details of haircuts, down to the history of the undercut and its ties to Nazi Germany, how it was different from a bowl cut, and on and on. I discovered there was something called a business man’s haircut, which was basically the haircut of every man on every golf course ever. But it seemed versatile, and I could have it long on top so that I’d still feel like myself.
I couldn’t believe I’d just spent that long picking out a haircut. If this was the way I was going to do all of my planning, it was going to take a year before I met my father. I dropped the hand holding my phone onto my lap and rubbed at my eye sockets. My headphones were cranked up to full volume—which wasn’t nearly loud enough—playing a playlist called “Swagger”. The attitude of the music put me in the right mindset. Fiddling around on my phone again, I made a list of quotes that I thought were worth thinking about.
Quotes:
Lying is done with words and also with silence.—Adrienne Rich
A good memory is needed once we have lied.—Pierre Corneille
“The slickest way in the world to lie is to tell the right amount of truth at the right time-and then shut up.”―Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
“I believe in my mask
The man I made up is me
I believe in my dance
And my destiny”― Sam Shepard
My back leaned against the wall by my bed. Instead of plastering my walls with the typical cars, band posters, and scantily-clad people, I’d ended up keeping the walls bare, which was probably a mistake since there were a lot of dirty spots on the paint that could have been covered up. At different times, all sorts of things had gone up on the walls, but everything would quickly start to bore or annoy me, and I’d take it all down, replacing it with more crap many times over. In the end, I’d gotten into a big mood and ripped everything off the walls and tossed it in the garbage. I’d liked the way the blank walls had felt. I would leave it that way for good. The just-moved-in look gave me a sense of peace. The potential of the space was unmarred. It was just me, the mattress, a dresser, and my mess.
I needed an outfit for when I met Clay. It meant a trip to the Goodwill nearest the upper class neighborhoods. That’s where you could find the nicer stuff. But then, how could I figure out the finer points of what might turn Clay’s head? The clothes might be a big deal. I needed so much more information on him than I had. Maybe Lottie would be a good source if I met her. There was just so much risk to it. If he saw me hanging out with her, it could ruin everything. Where or when could I meet her with zero risk of running into him? Jesus, if she lived with him, that could complicate things. How would I hook up with him if neither of us could host?
Alright, that was task number one, ahead of giving myself a makeover. I had to find out where she lived. I absolutely had to know how she would effect the plan. Maybe I could find out his address ahead of time while I was at it.
I hunched over my phone again and nosed around profiles and posts for the second time. The website he worked for didn’t seem to have an office. Maybe it was one of those things where everyone worked remotely. And Lottie wasn’t dumb enough to have that kind of specific information listed, but she did post a picture next to a friend whose T-shirt read “Trinity Academy Patriots”. It was no guarantee that she was a student there, but it was a good clue. I could skip school as soon as classes started again, go over to her fancy academy, spot her, and either introduce myself with some kind of ruse, or just follow her home. Contemplating how things might play out, I was leaning towards following her home, waiting around near there watching the place, and trying to figure out if he lived there too. But if that didn’t work out, I could just comment on her stuff online and try to strike up conversation. The online option would be so much easier, and I asked myself what the risk of such a simple, low key plan was. As soon as Lottie told me what I needed to know, I could ghost her.
Of course, it all depended on her being interested in talking to me. What could I do to get her interested? There were different approaches to consider. Since I was a guy, she might automatically think I was into her, and if she was into me, I’d be getting into even more weird incest shit. If she wasn’t into me, and I told her I was gay, then what reason would she have to chat with me? Maybe the strangeness of incestuous flirtation would be a good thing though, like jumping into a cold lake versus wading in slowly. I preferred wading.
My guts squirmed. I needed to shake something off. I hefted my stiff body up off the mattress and stood to stretch. Spotting myself in the mirror behind the door, I ran a hand over my hair to help myself imagine what I’d look like with my haircut. I caught my own gaze and couldn’t stand the freaked-out, crazy look in my eyes. I covered my face with my hands and rubbed at my cheeks as if I could rub the insanity off if I tried hard enough. Maybe in another universe I would be able to massage my skin and mold it into a new face, then walk away as a new person.
I tried to refocus. A handful of scenarios went through my head. I imagined Lottie becoming the female friend I’d never managed to have. Close friends hadn’t been a thing in my life for a long time. She could be someone to hang out with just to stave off the boredom and loneliness. Then we’d get into mild scrapes and frustrate our parents. I imagined us being kids together and our dad and moms taking us to a water park. We would have thrived on dares and competitions day in and day out, and the water park would have been the perfect place for those kinds of games. I would have dunked her under the water one too many times and pissed her off. She’d make fun of my block head too often and hurt my feelings. We’d go home and sit in front of the TV, exhausted and eating sandwiches leftover from the cooler we’d taken with us, still smelling strongly of chlorine, badly needing showers. But we’d each fall into bed in our adjacent rooms, bathing suits damp in the crotch, oblivious until morning. That could have been my childhood summers. Maybe I would mistake those fantasies for memories later, and I hoped I would. I wanted to believe for a few minutes that I’d been an untortured boy in an torture-free world.
Avoiding looking at myself in the mirror again, I wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge, staring into it but not seeing. If Mom walked in and saw me there, she’d push the door shut. That was her way of nagging me about the electric bill.
I’d thought at first that she’d probably tell me to get a job as soon as my birthday came around. Maybe she would bring it up when she was sure I’d gotten over my latest breakdown. But I knew she’d speak up soon. I’d be forced to find a job and start pulling my weight, especially since I didn’t expect to go to college and was therefore rapidly transforming into a mooch. Even a two year school seemed like a stretch. I knew I should try to work enough to pay for my car insurance and phone bill on my own,
then pick up more hours after I graduated from high school, but if she didn’t bring it up, maybe I would put it off indefinitely.
Swinging the fridge door shut, I poked around in the cabinets, grabbed a handful of frosted animal crackers, and wandered to the front window, stuffing my face.
My idyllic, imaginary scenes with Lottie were becoming too realistic to my twisted mind. Fake memories about Lottie could ruin things. If I contacted her feeling like I already knew her, she would sense that I was a weirdo and block me. I reminded myself of the solitary way I’d actually grown up, took myself over some of the scenes that stood out most—church, getting angry at school, my mom’s big breakdown, Killy the Knife, living in a car, and all the drinking.
Taking my thoughts back to the problem of Lottie, I figured I needed a couple of profiles that weren’t the real me, because the real me was a loser. With a new sense of purpose, I went through the house and out to the back patio. The sunlight would be good for pictures. It would make me look like the kind of person who went outside for fun activities.
Mom’s ashtray on the dirty glass table was overflowing. Making sure to keep it out of the background, I held up my phone and took a dozen shots, trying to keep it casual and not forced. It was good practice for lying so I put on as many expressions as I could. I wouldn’t post most of them or I’d look like an idiot. I just wanted to see for myself what my face could do and how real I could make happy surprise look. But the pictures were all useless. My hair was garbage and the neck of my T-shirt was stretched out. My skin was greasy.
Frustrated, I poked at the cigarette stubs and picked one out, then got the lighter from the nearby windowsill and enjoyed a couple drags. I wasn’t a smoker, but I liked to pick one up now and then so that my lungs were ready when I had the opportunity to hit somebody’s bong.
I was impatient. I wanted to take action on the plan right then, that day. Mom wouldn’t kill me if I took enough of her emergency cash out of her purse for a cheap haircut. After that, I’d come home and dig around my closet for shirts that would look okay for photos. By evening, I’d be dropping a comment or two on Lottie’s posts, then I’d need to be patient and wait for her to respond.
By five o’clock, I had the haircut and had updated an old Instagram account. I made a fresh Facebook profile. Sitting in the middle of our old, rotting sofa in the living room, I was restless from being cooped up. The TV had already been on when I came in the room, showing old Law & Order episodes, and I left it that way. It was just for noise.
I already used Snapchat a lot. I updated it with new pictures and a silly video of myself with my headphones on. It had needed something more cheerful than my usual bullshit pictures of myself and my so-called friends giving the camera the finger, smoking, getting drunk and refusing to go home at night. I got rid of some of those and left others. It was the app where I was most hopeful about talking to her because I used it more than anything else to talk to people from school, and my guess was it would be the one she was most comfortable on too.
I’d stolen two food pictures off a vegan subreddit because she was always showing off her vegan cooking. My schoolmates might be surprised but nobody knew me that well, and they would just tease me a few days and then drop it. If I pretended to be into animal rights and the planet and all, maybe she’d want to talk to me. Anybody who had a subculture lifestyle was always on the lookout for people who were like them. It was a good way in. She also had a pet leopard gecko along with the cat, so I found pictures of corn snakes, careful not to show shots of multiple terrariums. I even found a picture of someone’s arm with a snake wrapped around it. It easily could have been my arm. That one would be more in keeping with what my friends knew about me. Nobody ever came to my house, so I wasn’t worried about proving I had a snake.
I was going with my own first name—that is, Zander—since there was no reason she should think anything of it, even if someone had told her about me as Lysander. The goal was to get to Clay and fuck him, not to worry about what Lottie would think if she found out we were siblings. If it came to that, I’d ask her to keep quiet because I wasn’t ready to talk to our dad. So, I didn’t care enough to create a brand-new identity. Besides, keeping the lies to a minimum was a priority.
I’d written list of things I would lie to her about specifically, since I might end up telling Clay some entirely different stories. On the list were things like snake named Bob and vegan, then I had a bunch of qualities I wanted to make her think I had, like extroverted, optimistic, excited to save animals and the planet, flirty?, and love pop rock.
I’d sent friend requests to some of her friends from her school, trying to make it seem like I was going there or knew people she knew. I made bland comments under a few people’s Instagram photos. Under a picture of some vegan brownies she’d baked I wrote, “Recipe? Looks amazing!”.
As soon as I hit Post, fear branched out from my chest—which was suddenly tight—and chilled my limbs. What the fuck was I doing? Why couldn’t I meet my family members in a normal way? I was making all this effort to fuck with my father’s head in the most depraved way when he obviously didn’t give a shit about me. Why spend all this effort? Why not just message him and meet up? I could tell him what a shithead he was if I wanted.
Honesty, maturity, morality, sane thought processes: I always knew exactly where I was lacking, but awareness of my faults had never stopped me before.
I gripped my phone and hit myself in the forehead a few times with the palm of my other hand. A groan rumbled out of my throat. God, I hated myself. Look at how utterly sick and obscene I’d become. Why had I always been such a fucking freak? I couldn’t seem to stop being a freak for even a minute.
I kept hitting myself, harder and harder, until it turned into a frenzy of thuds that echoed in my skull. The pain of each impact shot through my wrist and arm. My legs flexed and kicked out, aiming themselves at nothing in particular, but hitting the edge of the coffee table, pushing it across the rug. I hissed through my tightly-clenched teeth.
But it stopped. It was just a few seconds of self-hatred. Happened all the time. It wasn’t like the night before, when I had to chain myself.
I sighed and made myself relax. A teacher had once taught me to close my eyes and breath, letting my muscles relax a little more on each exhale. I liked to imagine I was an all-powerful god, standing on a beach, letting every thought wash away with the waves, because when you’re eternal, nothing ever matters.
I turned sideways of the sofa and pulled a throw blanket around myself. The sun was setting and I would be happy when it was dark again. Sometimes darkness was a hug of acceptance. Sunlight was for other people, not people like me.
Going back to my phone, I saw that a stoner guy I sometimes shared the cost of weed with had commented on one of my pictures.
GeeGreg: dude your hair lol lookin good
Zandurr: Stop hitting on me. For the last time I don’t want you to suck me off.
GeeGreg: ouch that hurts after the way we made love last night
He sent an emoji of an eggplant and the one with water drops—a dick cumming. He wasn’t into guys, but he was a laid back pot head, and I could joke with him without him getting uptight.
I switched to a private message.
Zandurr: Do I look like an idiot?
GeeGreg: who are you trying to impress all of a sudden?
Zandurr: Your dad.
GeeGreg: poor dad
GeeGreg: you look good tho
GeeGreg: go get em
I sent him a smiley face with sunglasses on, then started typing out that I had a few extra bucks and we should smoke up, but I erased it. Already back to the addictive rush my planning gave me, I resolved not to smoke or drink until everything was accomplished. I needed a clear head at all times, and I couldn’t have smoke smell on me. I was pretty sure Clay was a clean living kinda guy. How would I make sure I said the right things at the right moments with Lottie if she messaged while I was high or drunk? N
o, I had to stay sober.
Two seconds into my sobriety, and it was already hard as fuck. It made me feel cramped and urgent. My fingers started typing again to ask Greg if he could steal a little wine from his house like he had once before. The small amount he could steal would let me loosen up without having the option of trying to obliterate myself. Heck, maybe I could get away with taking some of Mom’s wine, but she usually kept tabs on how much she had left. No sense risking trouble over it.
I held the phone between my hands in a praying pose and summoned all my self control. As despicable as it was—as scary as it was—I wanted to make my plan work. I needed to discover I was gloriously good at something, even if it was something unspeakable. Clay would be amazed at how well I’d fooled him.
But what would I do if I was found out before I’d completed my plan? How horrible to be looked at with deep disgust and creeping fear, not because of what I’d done, but because of what I’d tried and pathetically failed to do. I imagined myself being stared down at as if I were a nauseatingly hideous little monster, becoming shriveled, oozing on the spot, manifesting myself as he saw me.
