The Harm in Asking: My Clumsy Encounters With the Human Race

by Sara Barron

  And then I said, “No I don’t.”

  And then she said, “She doesn’t even know how disgusting her butt is!”

  It was not to my taste, this sort of negative attention. True, I could get into a negative reason for the attention—see: a severe case of childhood asthma—but the attention itself I liked to be supportive and adoring. I did not respond well if it was otherwise. Becca Goldschmidt spoke negatively about my butt, and I responded, “You are mean and I hope that you die.” And as justice does not always reign supreme, I was the one who then got sent to the principal’s office. I had to spend my lunch period in there with this genuine delinquent by the name of Benjy Jacobs. Benjy and I sat side by side as I ate a cheese sandwich and he drank four cans of Mountain Dew. Benjy and I sat side by side as Benjy then vomited the four cans of Mountain Dew into the wastebasket between us.

  I was exhausted by the time I got home, eager to sequester myself in my Victorian mansion. I craved the attention and affections of my orphans/models. I dashed to the kitchen for my granola bar, then up to the bathroom. I ate the granola bar. I sang “Uptown Girl” into the removable showerhead. I shat. I started talking.

  “Attention, everyone!” I began. “Who needs to go to the mall?”

  “I do!” said Jenny. “I need new tights and bras!”

  “Tights and bras, yes. I shall add them to my list. Anyone else?”

  Nancy had been working on a landscape painting of our Newport–Barbie doll–Country Time Victorian mansion and wanted my advice on how best to improve it. Kelly cared to dish on Becca Goldschmidt.

  As a prodigy in adolescent education, I was able to balance their various needs. First, I told Nancy that in order to improve her painting, she needed to paint a centaur on our mansion’s front lawn.

  Jenny tapped her toe impatiently.

  “Ms. Barron!” she shouted. “I need tights and bras now. My date with Leonardo is tonight!”

  I answered, “I’m coming, my dear,” and turned quickly back to Nancy. “My point—and then we simply must get going—is that this guy should have big muscles and blond hair on top, but then be a horse on the bottom.”

  I was ten, and so the statement’s bawdy implication didn’t strike me. All I’d had in mind was that part in Disney’s Fantasia where all the strapping, erotic centaurs charge about to the beat of Tchaikovsky’s Pastoral Symphony.

  Kelly asked, “A man and a horse?! That’s fucking awesome!”

  “Watch your mouth, Kelly. Please.”

  Nancy continued. “It is awesome, Ms. Barron. Thank you so much for the helpful advice.”

  “My pleasure, Nancy.”

  “Also, I wanted to say I think your butt and underwear look beautiful today.”

  “You do?”

  “Oh, yes. You look like you are in a beautiful bikini.”

  “That’s sweet of you to say.”

  “Sweet of her,” Kelly clarified. “Not like Becca Goldschmidt, the cunt.”

  “Kelly! We don’t use that word in this mansion.”

  “Sorry, Ms. Barron. I thought, well, maybe I could. Maybe just for Becca Goldschmidt.”

  I thought for a moment. I told her okay.

  “Hey, Ms. Barron!” called Jenny. “Can I French-braid your hair?”

  “You may French-braid my hair. But only once I’m driving. Right now, I want everyone into the car.”

  I reached for a handheld mirror that was stationed atop the toilet tank. I used it as a steering wheel. Then I looked to Jenny.

  “You may French-braid my hair … now,” I said.

  “Your hair is so silky,” she responded. “You are so going to be a teen model.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and rotated the mirror to signal steering into the mall parking lot. “Oh, now look: here we are at the mall. Let’s go to a store with some bras.”

  We arrived at the store with some bras.

  “Oh-la-la! Look at all those fucking bras,” said Kelly.

  “Let’s try some on!” squealed Jenny.

  “Yes, let’s,” I agreed.

  I removed my shirt. I did not imagine removing it. I actually removed it. Then I actually grabbed two fresh rolls of toilet paper and, having imagined them to be the world’s most fashionable bra cups, I actually pressed them to my chest.

  “What do you think?” I asked. “Are you like, ‘Wow! You look like Tina Yothers’?”

  “Yes,” said Jenny. “That’s exactly what I’m like.”

  9. THE GARTH ALGAR TRIANGLE SHAPE

  I felt feminine and reenergized in my toilet-paper bra. Still, though, I had the issue of my hair to contend with. It was positioned in what I like to call “The Garth Algar Triangle Shape.”

  The position meant that I now faced competing needs.

  On the one hand: I needed to get up, to get a comb, to fix the Garth Algar Triangle Shape. But on the other: I had just taken a shit. I knew the proper course of action was tending to my ass before my hair. But in this particular instance, the pull of the hair was too strong to be ignored.

  With my stretch pants still around my ankles, I stood up. I hobbled to the medicine cabinet, set down my toilet-roll brassiere, and took out the comb. My ass—exposed, unclean—now faced the bathroom door. I took the time I needed with my hair, pressing and prodding until it was more Tina Yothers up-do than Garth Algar Triangle Shape.

  “You look beautiful,” said Nancy.

  I nodded to myself, about myself.

  “I do,” I said. “I really do.”

  10. ANGELINA IS ASTUTE

  I believe it was Angelina Jolie in her title role as Mrs. Smith who said, “A happy story is only one that hasn’t finished yet.”

  It was on this particular day that I forgot to lock the bathroom door. The attack on my butt, the injustice of how it was dealt with. The principal’s office. The vomit. It had all been too much. And I had lost my bearings. And forgot.

  So it was that while teasing my hair into the requisite up-do the bathroom door swung open.

  Wanda stood behind me.

  “Wanda!” I yelled, and promptly dropped the brush so that I might cover my chest and crotch. “I’m in here!”

  Wanda spotted the hand-mirror-cum-steering-wheel sitting on the bathtub ledge. She noticed the toilet paper rolls-cum-bra lying on the floor. She studied me. You’d think a person might turn her head out of pity, at the very least, but no. Wanda just stood there, calm. Unflustered. She pointed to the brush.

  “You drop you brush,” she said.

  “Duh!” I said. “I know!”

  Wanda shrugged.

  “Okey-dokey, baby. Listen,” she said, and pointed at the various items, at the occupied toilet bowl. “You go ‘La la’ to you friends. You have nice times, fun times. But I scrub bathroom super already before. So you be clean. Keep clean. Okay okay?”

  “Yes,” I huffed. “Okay.”

  Wanda left and I locked the bathroom door. I looked at the clock. It was 4:45 p.m. I sat still for a moment. I listened to hear if Wanda would tell my mother what had happened. Was that even her style? And if it was her style, what exactly would she say?

  “Missus, you baby is crazy. The big one. Look out!”?

  The situation felt terribly unfair. I’d been so nervous Wanda would find me pelvic-thrusting at any number of objects, and I’d worked to avoid this, and for what? So she could find me while filthy and primping? I was in the market for attention always and forever, but why must it come to me like this? Why part and parcel with such profound embarrassment? I wanted to be coddled! Special! Unique! And that’s a different thing from being caught when you are filthy. Filthy and primping like some attractive orphaned teen.

  11. THE FUTURE’S SO BRIGHT I GOTTA WEAR SHADES

  Wanda had seen me for what I was. And what I was was filthy. After the reveal—after my reveal—I felt consistently, upsettingly exposed whenever Wanda was around. This did nothing to satiate my need for attention. It rather stoked the flames. The cruel elements of an un
fair world had made me forget to lock the bathroom door, and I craved compensation. I had suffered An Offense! I now deserved A Treat! I wasn’t picky, either. Anything would do provided it presented me in an attention-worthy light:

  1. Sam’s asthma could go away in the same week I contracted a temporary but nonetheless frightening disease from a sewing needle.

  2. Sam could get so fat from his steroid medication that my parents would stop loving him.

  3. I could be asked to do a modeling shoot: “Excuse me, but would you like to do a modeling shoot? We need someone to sit naked in a bathtub eating peanut-butter cups.”

  But months passed by and no such dreams came true. I held out hope that one day maybe they would, and told myself that in the meantime I should do as I had always done. I should turn to my imaginary models.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Barron?”

  “Yes, Nancy?”

  “I did some new paintings I thought you’d like to see. Since, well, you are very good at painting judging.”

  “Why, yes, Nancy. Thank you.”

  “Here is one of Sam. You will see that he is fat and also crying.”

  “Why, yes. I do see. But why is he crying?”

  “Because he lives with foster parents now who tell him that he’s boring.”

  “And also that he’s fat?”

  “Yes. And also that he’s fat.”

  The shame I felt at having been caught in the throes of these conversations had been jarring enough to make me conscious of my volume, and to prompt an unfailing diligence where the bathroom door lock was concerned. However, it had not been enough to curb the impulse to have the conversations in the first place. Bathroom socializing was just who I was now. It gave me the energy to persevere: at school and at home. In the face of Sam’s asthma. Until my modeling career took off.

  I do not know if I was ever again overheard, but I was never again confronted. I figured that Wanda never wound up mentioning my antics to my mother simply because my mother never mentioned them to me. As time went on, as I realized with increasing surety that Wanda had kept my secret to herself, I felt increasingly grateful to her, more trusting and impressed. I was, if not attached, then comfortable. If not adoring, then admiring.

  In short, I was a fan.

  12. STOMACH, YES

  One year into Wanda’s employment, she broke the news that she was going back to Poland. She told us over breakfast.

  We were all together in the kitchen, Wanda, my mother, and me. My mother was eating a bag of homemade trail mix, I was eating Eggo waffles, and Wanda was fiddling with a tiny hunk of cheddar cheese. Eventually Wanda said, “Missus, hear me. Please. Father in Poland is bad sick.”

  My mother turned to face her.

  “Bad sick?” she asked. “Wanda: He is cancer sick?”

  Wanda nodded yes. My mother started pointing to various body parts. “Cancer sick where, Wanda? Brain?”

  “No.”

  “Lungs?”

  “No.”

  “Stomach?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, Wanda.” My mother placed a hand on Wanda’s shoulder. “Missus super sorry. Missus let you go.”

  I could tell from my mother’s tone, and Wanda’s too, that stomach cancer was serious business. I felt a flash of jealousy, but only a flash. For while stomach cancer would trump Sam’s asthma, it would also maybe kill me. And if it killed me, then Sam would get my room.

  ONE WEEK LATER, Wanda left. The van dropped her off for one last time. And for one last time, it picked her up again. She waved good-bye and I waved back. I was sad to see her go. My mother was too, of course. I could hear the strain in her voice as she talked on the phone to her friends.

  “What? No! I’m great. We’re great. I mean, I have been working full-time. And running the house. What? No: My cleaning woman left. Her dad’s got cancer. What? No: Stomach. I know. And, of course … yes, exactly. My little one has asthma.”

  I’d listen in for a while, then go for a shit in the bathroom. I’d occupy myself in the usual ways: I’d look at a portrait Nancy had painted. I’d listen as Jenny explained how although Sam was the one with asthma, I was the one with a future as a model. Although she wouldn’t say it in those words exactly. It was more like, “You’re awesome, Ms. Barron. One day, you’re gonna look good in some bras.”

  I’d nod in agreement, all the while fingering a swollen gland I’d started hoping was a tumor.

  And Kelly would smile. She’d give a thumbs-up.

  “Show that bullshit to your mom,” she’d say.

  “I will,” I’d say, and wipe myself, unlock the door, and hurry down to dinner.

  2

  Bonjour, Delphine

  The Buddhist word “samsara” refers to life’s daily sufferings. The adolescent dynamic between my brother and me suggests my parents had this in mind when selecting our names.

  Our childhood dynamic was, if not stellar, then acceptable. I resented the skill with which Sam usurped attention. I tried and failed to compete. But these resentments were never an active dislike. They were just a desire to be rid of him. A kind of “No personal offense, but my parents find you too compelling. I would like for you to leave.”

  Our adult dynamic is even better. Sam makes a dependable companion in the slow march toward our parents’ inevitable deaths. It is therefore important that I am around when he needs me. Or rather, it is important that he’s around when I need him. So I pursue him via voice- and e-mail. I leave messages in which I say: “Hi there. It’s me. What if Mom dies first? That’d be weird, right? Okay, bye. Call me back.”

  So we get along now and fared okay as children.

  Adolescence, however, was war. Adolescence was samsara.

  THE PROBLEM STARTED my freshman year of high school. I had been encouraged by my parents to join an extracurricular club. I was trying to decide between the Student Coalition for Animal Rights and the Student Coalition for Awareness. I eventually decided on the Student Coalition for Awareness after realizing I was too passionate about bacon to do much in the way of animal rights.

  The purpose of the Student Coalition for Awareness was to allow its members a sense of superiority to all non-members. Beyond that, we worked to raise awareness around the issue of modern-day sexism. Our mission statement read, “Feminism Forever, Sexism for Never.” We’d attend weekly lectures on female oppression at nearby universities. To keep myself from falling asleep during these lectures, I’d imagine that I was the one delivering them.

  Other activities included choral performances at battered women’s shelters. These I saw as an opportunity to channel my desire for attention into my individual choral performance. We would sing rousing standards like “Freedom Is Coming” or Bette Midler’s “The Rose.” Song choice depending, I would sing either very high or very low to ensure the battered women could hear my voice above those of my fellow club members.

  By the end of one semester, I’d been inspired to replace the word “women” with “womyn.” I’d advise friends and family, strangers and enemies, to do the same.

  “So I ran into this woman I knew from …”

  “I’m sorry. But are you spelling that ‘whoa-MAN’ with an a or ‘whoa-MIN’ with a y?”

  “What? Um, oh. I guess, well, I’m spelling it like … you do. Like … with an a.”

  “Right. Well, you might want to not. Unless, of course, you think womyn—WITH A Y—are undervalued slaves in a patriarchal society.”

  “But I …”

  “What’s that? Right. I didn’t think you did.”

  AROUND THIS TIME, Sam turned eleven. He was enjoying the slow burn through puberty, and while normally an older sister wouldn’t have to clock such horrors, I did, and that was thanks to Sam’s problematic lack of self-consciousness coupled with his poor taste in home decor. Somehow, somewhere, he’d scored five life-size posters of Carmen Electra, and used them to wallpaper his bedroom. In each and every one, Carmen’s tanned and glistening body had been dressed
in a bikini and posed on all fours like a dog.

  Sam’s behavior conflicted with my burgeoning feminist tendencies, and a civil war erupted. It began with frequent, high-pitched screams.

  “You’re an asshole! You hate womyn! You hate me!”

  Or perhaps: “You degrade us! You exploit us!”

  Sam’s favorite joke—owing to a recent social studies lesson on the Navajo tribe—was to respond to me with various Navajo-inspired nicknames.

  “Shut-up, Yelling-Stupid-Whore-on-Couch.”

  “DON’T CALL ME THAT, YOU SEXIST PIG!”

  “Fuck you, Dumb-Slut-Red-Hair.”

  In the early stages, our parents’ method for handling an argument was to refuse to get involved. My mother would tell us to be quiet or to go outside. So we would go outside. But then a neighbor would inevitably complain about having to hear us. There’d be the eventual knock at the door.

  Neighbor: Lynn, listen. I’m sorry to bother you, but your kids are out there right now and they are screaming. About … my God, I don’t even know what. Sam just said something about a “fat bitch pig with a cowlick”—is that a thing?—and then Sara said Sam was a “fat fucking Jew who should die.” And anyway, listen: You know I love you. You know I love them. But I’ve got my own kids at home. I can’t have them hear that sort of thing.

  MY MOTHER WAS a reasonable woman when spoken to reasonably. If a neighbor complained, she would apologize to the neighbor and come outside to get us, to bring us back inside. At that point, we’d be forbidden from watching TV, and so at that point, we’d try to behave.

  But not for long.

  Eventually, inevitably, Sam would peek his head into my bedroom and say, “Carmen Electra has big hot boobs and Sara Barron is a big dumb bitch.” Or I would peek my head into Sam’s bedroom and say, “I’m hiding your inhaler, by the way. And if you have an asthma attack, I will like to watch you die,” and it would all start all over again.

  Sam and I stayed stuck in this cycle for ages and then instead of getting better, it got worse. The anger I felt toward my brother was compounded over time by my parents, who condoned his sexist posters by permitting him to keep them up.