Having None of It

by Myriam Gurba

  Glen and the woman who had to be Nancy’s mother laughed.

  “I said, ‘No. I have Tourette’s Syndrome.’ He looked at me like he didn’t know what I was talking about so I went to his desk and wrote it down for him on a piece of paper and handed it to him. ‘It’s a neurological disorder,’ I explained to him. ‘Look it up on the internet. I’m fine.’”

  Glen grinned. “This gal is great!” he gushed.

  Nancy put both hands on her knees and pushed forward. “Well, the professor just took the note and put it in his pocket and he put his hands on my shoulders like this,” she held hers up and out, “and he looked me in the eye and said, ‘You. Are. Not. Well. Is there someone you can call to come get you?’

  “I told him, ‘I’m fine, but if I’m being too disruptive to the class, I can go.’

  “ ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Go. You are not well.’ “

  Glen roared with laughter. “He’s the one who’s not well! He’s the one who’s not well, by gosh! What a great story.” Glen turned to me. “You should listen to Nancy, uh, Desiree. She’s amazin’. She’s in City Callege, gettin’ huh AA. The Depahtment of Rehabilitation is payin’ fuh huh education and she’s got a job as a waitress, too. It can be done,” he stressed.

  I twirled my hair ferociously and looked at the smug bastard. He was head over heels in love with Nancy. Or at least infatuated by her perky twins.

  “Thanks,” I offered. “But I’m already graduated.”

  “From whe’?”

  “Berkeley.”

  Silence.

  “So what is it that brings ya heah, Desiree?” Glen asked.

  All eyes on me.

  I stopped twirling. “I think I have Tourette’s,” I said plainly.

  An Asian teenager with pink hair echoed, “I think I have Tourette’s.”

  “What do you do?” Glen asked me.

  “I’m a teacher.”

  “No. I mean, tics.”

  Coming to the meeting had been a big step for me but I wasn’t sure if I was ready to tell a bunch of strangers what I’d been struggling to hide from the whole wide world since I was eleven.

  “Stuff,” I teased. Oh, what the hell. I could tell them a little. “Lots of stuff. With my fingers and hands. My head. Stuff. Words. Usually I hold it in.”

  “It makes you anxious,” said Nancy, “huh?”

  The pink-haired girl echoed, “…makes you anxious, huh?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “A lot.”

  Nancy shook her head back and forth. “It’s from holding in all your tics. It’s best if you just let them out. Believe me.”

  Duh.

  Nancy’s eyes widened, and she moaned, “You’re a nice nigger!”

  Whoa. Okay. Now I knew who I’d heard screaming from the hallway. I looked around the room to gauge the other people’s reactions. They acted like this was normal. I heard spitting and turned to see a chunky blonde boy to my right wiping a gob of saliva tenderly from his tired mother’s hair.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” he apologized. “I love you.”

  She hugged his husky shoulder. “I know,” she said.

  “I know,” the pink-haired girl echoed.

  A cuckoo clock sounded. Nancy. She slapped both her knees and cried, “Thick shit! Shit stick. Shit stick. Shit, shit, shit. Thick, thick, thick.”

  My eyes lighted from Nancy to the fat blonde boy who was now spitting on himself to the pink-haired girl to the other little boys and I marveled at the tic orchestra, so amazed by the variation in movements and gestures and sounds that I forgot about my own repertoire. Parents, mostly moms, took turns talking to Glen and each other about their kids being bullied and placement in Special Ed classes and Clonidine patches versus herbal remedies but I sat silently, never joining in the conversation. I happily tic watched.

  At one point, I could tell the pink-haired girl was imitating my wrist popping. I purposely touched my head. She did, too. “Simple Simon,” I thought. I reached up to scratch my scalp. She did to and she noticed me noticing her and she blurted out, “It’s echopraxia.”

  “Echo what?” I said.

  “Echopraxia,” she repeated. “It’s when you imitate other people’s actions. I have echolalia, too,” she explained. “That’s when you repeat what people say.”

  “Eat shit and die, you fuckin’ bitch!” I said, in order to test her claims.

  Instead of echoing me, the girl said, “Thanks.”

  “Glen,” started the peeved father of the poor five-year-old redhead beside me. The fucker was obviously French and had a mad superiority complex. He repeated, “Glen, eh, do you sink zees,” he pointed at his son’s jerking neck, “can be caused by estress? Een France, vee don have as mash stress. Perhaps putting zee boy in a new environment veel help? Or a vacation in the countryside?”

  Nancy and her mom looked at each other like, “Motherfucker has got a lot to learn.”

  Glen clicked into lecture mode. “Sir, your son has tics. So his neck jerks a little. It’s not caused by stress and a vacation’s not gonna make it magically disappear.”

  Nancy nodded. “I’ll keep my tics any day,” she said. “Just take my OCD.”

  Glen pointed at her. “See. It’s the things you can’t see that torture. So the boy moves his head. It’s something you can learn to live with.”

  The Frenchman didn’t appreciate the new asshole he’d been torn, but even I knew he deserved it. Trying to get all high and mighty on us like in France none of this shit happens. Didn’t he catch the name of the damn disease? Tourette? Its discoverer’s first name was Gilles, for chrissakes. The Frenchie stewed, his nostrils flaring, and to add insult to injury, his wee fidgeter snorted a bad-ass “Oink.”

  Glen looked at the wall clock. Four o’clock.

  “Well, we’ve gotta vacate now,” he announced. “Please, take any of the leftovers.” He gestured at a refreshment table that held half-empty cookie trays and juice boxes on ice. “The oatmeal are delicious, today,” he added.

  A kid in a scout uniform walked backwards to the snacks and stopped when he bumped into the table. His mom stared at him. “That’s a new one,” I heard her mumble.

  I felt a hand touch my shoulder. I turned. The pink-haired girl.

  “You’re a teacher!” she said. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “Wow! You look, like, fifteen. You must have good genes.”

  “Not that good,” I said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Ha, ha!” She sized me up, taking in my formfitting Liberace t-shirt, black leather miniskirt, leopard-print creepers. “You’ve got good taste, too.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I thought I should offer her a compliment. “I like your hair.”

  “Thanks. I have a hair dying tic. I change the color about once a week. Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  “So am I! Where do you live?”

  “Telegraph and Alcatraz.”

  “Really? That’s on my way home. Wanna ride the bus together?”

  “Sure.”

  Me and the enthusiastic pink-haired girl left First Presbyterian together, and watching her skip, twirl, and reach down to touch the ground, I felt like a novice clumsily following a master. We caught the bus in front of a bakery where Rae almost got mugged one night and shared a seat. I ignored the familiar scenery, the Thai and Ethiopian restaurants, the auction house, a fortuneteller’s with a crystal ball in the window.

  “That’s so cool that you’re a teacher,” the pink-haired girl said, and I realized I didn’t know her name. “What do you teach?”

  “English. To grown-ups.” My head shook back and forth vigorously, rattling my brain.

  “Is that a tic?”

  Dizzy, I nodded. “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Freya.”

  “Freya?”

  “Yeah. Not what you expected, huh?”

  I shook my head. Not a tic.

  “Freya’s a–”<
br />
  “–Norse goddess,” I finished. “It’s a Scandinavian name.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “My dad’s a linguist.”

  “My step-dad’s a lawyer.”

  “Is one of your parent’s white?” I hazarded to ask.

  “Yeah. My real dad. My mom’s Japanese. I came out looking really chinky.” Freya grabbed the corners of her eyes and pulled them back, exaggerating their slant. Then she pointed at her cheeks. “Look! I’ve got white girl freckles!”

  I looked. She did. I studied all of her face, noticing how pretty and delicate she was. Her eyes were rimmed with kohl. Her lips were thin and her nose had breakable, porcelain nostrils.

  “What grade are you in?” I asked Freya.

  “Twelfth. I’m a super senior. I love school. I’m turning eighteen this month and I still won’t graduate for another year.”

  “How come?”

  “I’m credit deficient. I hated my old teacher so I used to ditch all the time. But the new E.D. teacher is cool. I like her.

  “What’s E.D.?”

  “Emotionally disturbed. That’s the class I’m in. It’s all kids who can’t sit still or give their teachers a hard time or don’t ever do their homework. I’m the only girl in the class. I get a lot of attention.”

  “You go to Berkeley Classical?”

  Freya nodded.

  I pulled the string to ding the bell. We were at our stop. I turned to her.

  “Are you coming?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  I led us off the bus and heard the white heels of Freya’s go-go boots click against the floor behind me. We clattered down the steps and walked past the gas station to my apartment building. I took out my keys to open the gate but put them away. The door was already propped open by a stack of phone books.

  “Come on,” I said.

  Freya followed me through the small courtyard, up the stairs of my complex, which looks a little like a ski lodge, and huddled on my worn doormat was El Tecolote, holding a dozen long stemmed roses in one hand, a bottle of champagne in the other. Impatience was written all over his face but when he saw me, he lit up.

  “Meez Garcia,” he said in English. “I bring for you geeft.”

  “You already gave me a gift,” I reminded him. “The poem. At my birthday party.”

  “Dees eez my real geeft.”

  “How do you know where I live?” I demanded.

  “La quiero68,” he answered.

  “Tecolote. Soy lesbiana69.”

  “No,” he said adamantly. “Joo are too bootiful.”

  “Soy lesbiana.”

  “Tu novia70?” he nodded at Freya.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Esta fea71,” he said.

  El Tecolote had gone to the wrong place. Freya was good. Freya was genuine and naive and honest. At her tender age, she had the balls to wear a craziness on her sleeve that I’d tried to kill and bury and hide and suffocate. Fuck E.T. I got dizzy. Just from pure anger. I felt hooting and fuck yous building up in my vocal chords, and punches and kicks in my limbs.

  “Fea,” he repeated and pulled the trigger in my brain.

  I barked like a seal and rolled my eyes back in my head and bit so hard at the air that I felt a tooth crack. I knocked E.T.’s crutches out from under his arms and blew a raspberry in his face. Then I slapped him.

  Stunned, but without any major physical impairment, E.T. leaned over and picked up his crutches. His roses were all over the ground, petals smashed. The champagne bottle had fallen too, but miraculously it was unbroken. With his crutches tucked below his arm, he cried, “Pinche marimacha local!” and stormed down the wood stairs, taking them two by two, sailing out the front gate.

  Freya ticced, “Pinche marimacha local!” in a Smurfette voice. “What does that mean?”

  “Fucking crazy dyke.”

  “Oh,” she said, unphased. “Look,” she pointed with the toe of her shoe. “The bottle’s fine.”

  “I know,” I said. “Come on in. I think I have some ice in the freezer inside.”

  Tit for Tat

  This morning, I put on my new favorite t-shirt. Rae got it for me for my birthday from Planet Consignment, which is billed as “an upscale thrift store.” This new shirt’s got perfect symmetry, it’s white with black letters, and the letters say “Tit for Tat” across the chest, one noun on either boob, a preposition in between. It’s too perfect.

  I wore the shirt to San Francisco with Freya. We took the BART there and hung out at the shops around Union Square. Then we hiked up to FAO Schwarz to play with all the display toys and went dumpster diving behind the Sanrio store, looking for defective Hello Kitty merchandise. We found plenty and loaded it into our purses like pillaged pirate’s booty.

  Knee deep in garbage, I’d justified my dumpster diving to my OCD this way: I won’t get sick exposed to all the germs and funk living in the trash because the universe knows my rooting around in it is a noble act. I’m saving things. I’m resurrecting them from an early grave. Seeing perfectly good junk being tossed out gives me anxiety and I feel like I’m watching things be buried alive. My rational side, however, recognizes the erroneousness of these thoughts. Hoarding is yet another symptom of OCD and everyone knows a hoarder, an old woman whose house overflows with cats, a man whose car is packed with crushed paper cups, used rubber gloves, cigarette butts.

  I’ll need to stop salvaging unless I want my home to end up like Langley Collyer’s, America’s most notorious hoarder. In 1947, amid stacks of newspapers stretching back to 1915, police serving a warrant at his Harlem apartment found an impressive collection of useless things: a Metropolitan Opera program from 1914, a Model-T, Langley’s brother Homer’s corpse.

  I got home around five and unpacked my new toys and set them on a living room shelf. I was yawning when Mom called, but I talked to her anyways. I could tell she had something big to tell me and when she asked “You know what?” I knew she was finally going to cut to the chase.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Fe is getting divorced. Eusebio was having an affair. Can you believe that?”

  I recalled my uncle’s roving eyes.

  “Yes.”

  “And your cousin Nito is getting married.” Mom went silent, pausing for dramatic effect. “His girlfriend already had their baby, though. A girl. Guess what they called her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Desiree.”

  “That’s disgusting, Mommy.”

  “I knew you would say that.”

  “Well, it’s true,” I argued. “That’s just crummy.”

  “I knew you would say that,” Mom said. “I knew you would say precisely that.”

  I smiled, “Did you?”

  “Yes. I did. I knew you would, mija.72”

  The word didn’t sit right. “Mommy,” I purred slowly, “can you say mija again, please?”

  “Ay, Desiree. Why?”

  “Because. I need to hear you say it.”

  “Mija.”

  “Again?”

  “Mija.”

  “Again?”

  “Mija!”

  “Okay. That was good.”

  “Desiree…”

  “I know, Mommy, I know.”

  “Mija,” she said again and giggled.

  I moaned. We were going to have to start all over again.

  About the Author

  Myriam Gurba was born in Santa Maria, a small, semi-rural California town located a stone’s throw from Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch. The daughter of well-educated Mexican immigrants, Gurba spent her early years as an unruly punk teenager and then as a sad gay Goth.

  Diagnosed with both Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Tourette’s Syndrome, Gurba still managed to graduate with honors and a BA in history from UC Berkeley. Her writing has appeared in many anthologies including Best American Erotica (St. Martin’s), Bottom’s Up (Soft Skull), Secrets and Confidences (Seal), and Tough Girls (Black Books).


  Gurba currently resides in Long Beach, California, home of Snoop Dogg and the Queen Mary. This is her first book.

  1 old lady

  2 Mexican ghetto slang for chick

  3 That hag

  4 family

  5 fucking

  6 Dummies

  7 Mexican country bumpkin

  8 Spanish equivalent of the ‘n’ word

  9 Aunt

  10 like a snake

  11 neighborhood

  12 Chicano for clique

  13 Hope, come help me with the tortillas.

  14 the most watched Spanish-language variety show

  15 cops

  16 Little Black Flower

  17 the weirdoes of this world

  18 Put away your damn breast, bitch!

  19 Aunt Faith

  20 Uncle John

  21 donkey

  22 my girl

  23 How come?

  24 Grandpa?

  25 The dead, the dead!

  26 the little saint

  27 Oh, that Nito. That boy is a hippie.

  28 A traditional Mexican stew consisting of broth, hominy grits, and pork

  29 The House of Mother Faith

  30 the famous lake

  31 soap operas

  32 Little girl

  33 Forever Natalie

  34 Love

  35 a Mexican sandwich

  36 roundabouts

  37 Come on, little women!

  38 One Coke and two screwdrivers.

  39 Bottle openers.

  40 It’s tough to be a baby!

  41 gibberish

  42 I came? I saw? I conquered?

  43 a stew similar to pozole but with tripe

  44 a hangover

  45 Hello

  46 Enjoy

  47 milk, water

  48 miracle

  49 a song within a genre of traditional Mexican music, often focusing on love, patriotism or nature

  50 bye

  51 Mexico, my soil, my fatherland…my heart!

  52 my house is your house

  53 What’s up?

  54 Hurry!

  55 Get out.

  56 No Spanish spoken.

  57 Fucking evil bitch

  58 Spell

  59 Her.

  60 The Flowers of Evil

  61 European and Spanish

  62 Forgive me?

  63 For you

  64 Formally, godmother; informally, a lady-pal