by Isobel Irons
But Miss McKibbon, god love her, she was pretty fucking progressive.
Instead of doing the professional and detached thing, she marched right over to our house and told my mom what was happening to her precious little daughter, right under her own nose.
That was when Mom and Miss McKibbon hit a little snag. Because telling someone how to raise their kids, while standing on their trailer park turf?
Bingo. Clear violation of Rule # 1.
Even if it turns out that you're in the right, even if the other person is wrong or blind or just plain stupid, you should've minded your own god damn business.
They say bad news travels fast? Well, scandalous news travels even faster, and at BE, it sure as shit didn't have far to go. Miss McKibbon had knocked on our door at 6:47 PM. By 7:15 PM, Mom had showed her to the door, using her 'outside' voice. By 7:20 PM, our phone was ringing off the hook from concerned neighbors, wanting to know why their trailer park Jackie O's perfect little angel had done to earn a home visit from a teacher.
By 8:00 PM, everyone knew the truth. Including the fact that I'd accused Gretchen Cader of basically being a child molester. (And yes, I've often wondered where those nosy bitches were when I really needed them. Probably tying up the phone lines ordering limited edition American Girl dolls off of QVC.)
After the phone stopped ringing—or in other words, after my mom jerked the cord out of the wall—she took a sleeping pill and sent herself to bed.
Taking my cue from mom, I decided the whole Gretchen thing wasn't as bad as Miss McKibbon seemed to think it was. So the next morning, I woke up and fixed myself a bowl of cereal, and took myself off to school. As per usual.
This brings me to Trailer Park Rule #2: snitches get stitches. I know, right? Again with the delightful prison analogy. I amuse the shit out of myself, sometimes.
Long story short, Gretchen's dad had heard about the things I said, and he’d beaten the living hell out of her the night before. So of course, she passed the message on to me.
Afterwards, I picked myself up, wiped the blood off my nose and walked to school, as usual.
I'll bet you're now wondering what the fuck a 5-year-old kid was doing walking to school, aren't you? Seriously? Again, you're focusing on all the wrong details, genius.
When I got to school, Miss McKibbon took one look at me and called the cops. Child services came and took me into custody. They put me in a room with some hard-ass cop with a full on uniform and a gigantic mustache. He scared the shit out of me at the time, but in retrospect he was probably a nice guy. He just had the world's shittiest job.
So we'll cut him some slack for being one grim ass motherfucker. But we won’t cut him slack for what happened next. What happened next was, he pointed to the stuffed horse I was holding and said, “Show me on the horse where Gretchen touched you.”
I looked at him, then at the adorable, fluffy stuffed horse. Then back at him again.
I was five, but even then I understood when someone was being a dumb ass. At that point, even though this was well before the show Punk'd—and even if it has existed, I wouldn't have been allowed to watch it, because MTV was ‘too mature’ for me at my age (go ahead and laugh it up, you lovers of irony)—I was pretty sure I was being Punk’d by Officer Moustachio at that moment. So I looked around and, sure enough, there was a video camera mounted to the wall.
"Is that on?" I pointed to it, asking him—quite politely, I might add—if I was being videotaped against my knowledge. I don't know why, but for some reason that struck me as creepy, even after everything that had happened.
"No," he told me, with a straight face. In spite of the fact that there was a motherfucking blinking red light on the thing, which even a scared, idiot child would know means that the camera is fucking on.
In that moment, Officer Moustachio lost what little trust he'd gained from me with his official looking uniform and totally badass nose ferret.
After lying point blank to my face, he repeated the question about the horse.
"Show me where the babysitter touched you."
But even if I hadn't just been betrayed by yet another grown up in my life, even if I'd trusted him enough to talk, I think deep down what my little mind was really rebelling at was the thought of violating that innocent, fuzzy little stuffed horse in the exact same way Gretchen had violated me.
And no matter how much I wanted to be free of her, I couldn't be like her. Not ever.
A couple of days later, child services gave me back to my mom. Just like that.
"Sorry we took your kid, lady. We tried to make her sing like a canary, but she stonewalled us, so...I'm sure everything's fine here. Enjoy the rest of her shattered childhood. Don't forget to tip your babysitter." Waka waka.
Oh, I'm sorry. Does my glib tone offend you? Do you think I'm being disrespectful, joking about my fucked-up life? Well that's just too goddamned bad. I've earned the right to laugh about this, if I feel like it. I fucking lived it. Just because I usually don't feel like laughing doesn't mean I don't have the right to.
And God, I wish so hard that I could laugh about this next part. And I wish even harder that it wasn't true. That I'd made it up, just like people will probably say I made up the rest of this story.
But it is true, and I'll never be able to forget what my mom said to me that day, about an hour after I got home from child services:
"I hope you're happy, Natasha. Now we have to move."
So we did. Across town. To another school district, another trailer park.
This one was called Lazy Acres. (I'm telling you, you cannot make this shit up.)
Luckily for me, no one in LA—the abbreviated trailer park, not the city, obviously—had a relative or anything in BE.
Not so luckily for me, I was now so fantastically broken that it didn't matter.
Everywhere I went, it seemed like people knew. Everyone I met seemed like they were blaming me for something I didn't even know I'd done. Worst of all, I'd become like a homing beacon for other people who were broken. People like Gretchen.
By the time I graduated middle school, it had happened three more times. Once with a boy named Christopher down the street, a few weeks after I moved in. Once with the father of a little girl I babysat for—again, irony is a son of a bitch—when I was twelve. His name was Doug.
It even happened with a stranger; a guy who was literally just driving by my house one day. I was playing in the sprinklers in front of our little blue double-wide, and he stopped to ask for directions. He never even got out of the car, just made me watch through the rolled down window while he touched himself. I ran back into the house, but by then it was too late.
At that point, I'd finally figured it out. All the adults in my life were right to look at me the way they did, to judge me. There was something wrong with me. I did deserve all those things that had happened to me. It WAS my fault.
That day, I decided for the first time that what Gretchen had told me was the truth.
I was dirty.
Part II: “Nasty”
There’s this thing people do, when they don’t want to face the truth about themselves. Psychologists call it projection. My mom calls it ‘lashing out.’ The school councilor will probably tell you it’s my way of getting attention, or spreading my angsty teenage misery around.
But really, I think it’s more like a real life Picture of Dorian Grey situation.
Oh, you haven’t read that book? Why am I not surprised? Allow me to educate you. It’s about a guy who cares so much about what people think of him, he’s willing to sell his soul to the devil. So he has this painting of himself, and he wishes that all the bad things in his life—like aging, getting fat, making mistakes, all of that shit—will happen to the painting, instead of him. And it works. To all outward appearances, Dorian is the world’s most well-adjusted, happy, unfuckwithable guy. But the painting gets uglier, nastier and more twisted by the day.
Until one day, he can’t even look at it anym
ore. Because he realizes that it’s really just a reflection of his soul. And he stabs it. Because that’s the only thing he can think of that will make it all right. Only, instead of killing the hideous creature in the painting, it kills him. All his sins come back on him, and he dies.
Fucking deep, right? And whoops, I guess I probably should’ve said ‘spoiler alert,’ because now when you go to read this amazing book, you’ll already know the major plot reveal. But who are we kidding, butt munch? You weren’t going to read it anyway.
At any rate, my point is this. Nobody wants to see themselves for who they really are. But the person we are and the things we do, the mistakes we make? They’re one and the same—inseparable. No matter how well we lie to ourselves, we can’t escape them for long.
CHAPTER TWO
"Natty, come eat!"
I roll my eyes so hard it hurts. My mom is the only person in the world who calls me that, and it makes me want to blow chunks every time. And not just because it's uncomfortably close to the word Nasty—which you'd better believe will be the first thing the bitches at school will call me if they ever find out my mom calls me Natty.
"In a minute," I yell back. But only because I know if I don't answer she'll just yell it louder. And maybe the neighbors will hear. Can’t have another nickname added to my rap sheet, not when the latest one is so fresh.
I kick my way out of bed and lunge across my tiny bedroom, running my fingers through my hair. It’s feeling a little greasy today, and I know I should probably shower. But I’m already late, so instead I run into the bathroom and sprinkle the top of my head with baby powder.
That's one great thing about having platinum blonde hair. The white powder disappears into each oily strand, and by the time you comb it out it looks like you just blow dried it fresh. The downside is, of course, your head now smells like a baby's ass.
As I brush out my long, straight and now clean-ish hair, I contemplate my looks in the mirror, as girls the world over and cheesy romance novel heroines are wont to do.
(Caught that, did you? Yeah fine, I'll admit it. After plowing my way through the classics, I went through a three year sci-fi novel phase where I lost myself in alternative galaxies filled with asexual life forms who had bigger problems than getting made fun of at school. Like interplanetary warfare, with lasers and shit. Now though, to my ultimate shame I seem to be hooked on cheesy harlequin romance novels. My addiction is serious, too. I burn through like three, four books a week. Thank god there's no shortage of overblown literary smut in the world, or I'd have to find some other way to bury my head in a reality that has fuck-all in common with the world I actually live in. Like drugs. Or live action role playing. And damn, that was a long parenthetical digression.)
“Natasha Doreen Bohner! I am never making you breakfast again if you do not get your behind into this kitchen right now!”
“Fuck.” She made me breakfast. That means I’ll owe her. I hate owing her.
Also, I probably should've mentioned this earlier. My last name is indeed Bohner. That's right, even though it's actually pronounced 'Bah-ner,' that doesn't change the fact that it's just one letter away from 'boner.'
It's like I'm god's gift to playground bullies. And believe me, those assholes have taken full advantage of that fact over the years.
But let's get back to the nickname thing, while I get dressed in my signature outfit of tight black t-shirt, denim skirt, patterned leggings—today it’s the black ones with the white candy skulls, my favorite—and red Converse shoes covered in all different colors of ink.
Nowadays, I call myself “Tash.” I figure it's more androgynous, less exotic, than my real name. So it should, theoretically attract less attention, right? I've considered doing the butch haircut thing too, a couple of times. You know, just going full lesbian power coif. But in the end, I always talk myself out of it.
See, I’m pretty tall—five ten since the sixth grade—and no one has ever called me skinny. Margot says I’m built like an Amazon with a boob job. With short hair, I'd run the risk of looking like a bull dyke. And despite all the shit that's happened—which, you being an asshole, let's be honest you were probably thinking it—I'm not gay. I don’t wish I was a dude, or think that I was born in the wrong body because I have D-cup boobs in an A-cup vs. porn star world. That's not how being gay works, you insensitive dipshit. Fuck's sake, read a book, would you?
Honestly, though, I know I'm irrevocably fucked up in a sexual way. And if I could, you'd better believe I would cut out whatever part of me makes the creeps of the world sit up and take notice. But I don’t really want people to think I’m ugly, either.
I just want to be left alone. I want to be unapproachable. Aloof—that's what I'd like to be. Like a Disney princess, who inspires true love at first sight in the type of guy who sings his feelings. Or like a movie star, who most guys lust after and admire respectfully, from afar. Or secretly wank over in the privacy of their mom’s basement, without causing any real harm to society.
But I’m not that kind of girl. And no matter how hard I wish it could happen, I never will be.
Instead, I’m the kind of girl who gets nicknames like ‘Skangly.’
Because I know you’re wondering, that’s a brilliant combination of the words ‘skank’ and ‘gangly.’ Though, I don’t know how they could’ve missed the obvious rhyming opportunities with the name Tash and the word trash. Or some clever derivation of ‘trailer trash’ and Tash. Or hey, since I’m so gangly, why not ‘Sas-tash?’
And yes, I do crack myself up sometimes. Thanks for asking.
But not today, and you’ll figure out why in a minute. Today, I mutter and curse inventively as I stagger down the short and narrow hallway to our tiny kitchen, and then plunk myself into a chair while ignoring Mom’s latest look of fashion-fueled disapproval. Last night, I came home from Margot’s to find a glittery pink sweater on my bed, from Shoppin’-Co, with the tags still on it. Apparently, Mom wanted me to know that it could still be returned, just in case I was still a complete and total waste of a daughter. I ripped the tags off and dropped it into the hamper in the bathroom.
Maybe she’ll wear it. I sure as shit won’t.
Last year at about this time, she gave me a fake pearl necklace with matching earrings, which she still wears to this day, even after I left them on the coffee table with a printed out definition from UrbanDictionary.com, explaining what a ‘pearl necklace’ was in the words of my generation. She didn’t bring it up—just pretended she hadn’t read it, probably. And thus, the Cold War continued as usual.
I stare at the plate of semi-steaming food in front of me. Eggs. Toaster waffles, even one of those square potato bricks that McDonald’s has the nerve to call hash browns. She’s outdone herself this year. There’s a smiley face on the plate, made out of ketchup. A mother fucking smiley face.
“Where did this come from?” I poke at the potato thing like I’ve never seen one before. The egg smell is already making me want to hurl. I shove them aside and cover them with a napkin.
“It doesn’t matter,” she tells me, facing the sink. “Happy birthday. Eat your eggs.”
But I don’t want to eat my eggs. I’d rather die. And it’s not just because they make me sick. It’s because, these eggs aren’t really mine. They’re my mom’s eggs, created out of denial and beaten by desperation. Peppered with guilt. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe they aren’t even eggs at all.
They’re more like a metaphor for my entire fucking life.
And now you’re wondering how I managed to spend an entire paragraph talking about eggs while I conveniently gloss over the rather vital fact that today is my eighteenth birthday. Well, by all means, please let me tell you about that.
I’ve been waiting for this day since I was six years old.
Now, though, I can’t help but wish it already came and left. See, there used to be a plan.
The plan was simple. Every year, on my birthday, my dad would put $100 in a s
avings account. He kept at it, too. Without fail, year after year, another bill in the kitty. I figured by the time I turned eighteen, there’d be at least $2,000 in there. To my very far-sighted six year old self—who admittedly had little or no grasp of interest rates—$2,000 sounded like an absolute fortune. Enough to make a solid living in some exotic, foreign place. Like Orlando, or Anaheim. (Basically, anywhere with a Disney theme-park would do.) The day I turned eighteen, I was going to empty the fuck out of that bank account, and fly off into the great blue horizon toward a magical future filled with seven dollar churros and Styrofoam castles.
But then, about six months ago, my dad had to go and throw a wrench in the goddamned plan.
Somewhere between Lakeview, Oregon and Denio Junction, Nevada, Dad had a heart attack and drove his big rig off the road. Thank god it happened in the rig, Mom said, a few days later. That way, the shipping company’s insurance paid the hospital bills. Apparently we didn’t have very good health insurance, let alone life insurance. When Dad died of a second heart attack a few days later, after leaving the hospital, Mom emptied out my savings account to help pay for his funeral.
Why would a mother do such a horrible, unfair, short-sighted thing, you ask?
How the fuck should I know? I stopped trying to understand the woman’s motives right around the time she told me our move to Lazy Acres was my fault. Or maybe it was before that, when she’d hired Gretchen Cader to watch me in the first place. I’m no psychologist, and I obviously can’t afford to hire one, so feel free to draw your own conclusions.
The important thing—or the moral of this little glimpse into my past, if you will—is that unlike most LA kids my age, I’m actually stuck here in this perpetual hell. At least until I can graduate high school and get a job somewhere far, far away. I’ve got a little over four months left. That doesn’t seem like all that long, not after eighteen years of this shit. I can handle four more months, I tell myself.
