I have not thought of the future in several weeks. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t exist.
You don’t exist, the past doesn’t exist, and the future is invisible. There’s only Sunny and me, spinning awesome enduring unforgettable love circles around each other.
Thank goodness I found a tiny little bachelor in the basement of some old lady named Gretchen Hanover, who only wants a few hundred dollars a month. I can do that. I got a new job at a fast food joint in the mall, only steps away from my new place. An independent urban lady on her own, that’s me. Flipping the bird to my parents and teachers and everyone else. Told you I could do it.
Everything costs a little more than I expected, of course. I had to get a telephone line, my bus pass is expensive, and groceries are ridiculous. But luckily I can eat all the leftover food at Frydom, where I work now. It’s the perfect job. I don’t have to go in until eleven in the morning because who eats French fries before that? And when the fries have been sitting in the bin for more than a half hour, I get to eat them. Same with the old hot dogs in the chute. So that’s what I live on. Stale french fries and hot dogs. Most days I get breakfast, lunch and supper for nothing.
On the days I’m not working, I make do with peanut butter sandwiches and instant noodles. Sunny worries about my health and she loves to cook, so she’ll come over a couple times a week and make me some kind of gourmet green bean platter with boiled eggs on the side.
I love having my own place, even if it is small. Sunny can sleep over whenever she wants and I can go out whenever I want. Dad made some small murmurs of protest when I kept my promise to move out, but they were only perfunctory. Underneath the surface, he was deeply relieved not to have to deal with me and my druggie ways and my rapacious lesbian lust anymore.
Now, he and Iris are talking about renting an apartment closer to the city and they’ll have to kick Charlie out. I don’t feel sorry for him. I’ve barely spoken to him since he staged that stupid intervention. He had the gall to suggest we get a two-bedroom place together to save on rent. Why, so you can drill a hole in my bedroom wall and watch me getting undressed for sleep, watch me fucking my lovers? Gross. He can go live in a garbage dump, for all I care.
You’ll be proud to know I’m keeping up my school average. Even if I’m not going to university next year, it pays to have good marks in case I decide to apply for the year after. Also, I hate to admit it, but it still gives me some amount of pride to excel at school. Sometimes I go to art class on acid, yes, and usually I skip at least one afternoon a week to get stoned and fuck – but at least I get my assignments in on time and I score high on all my tests.
I may be a teenage runaway and a lesbian, but I’ve still got my smarts.
Mom won’t talk to me at all. I have phoned her many times since Christmas. Sometimes it rings and rings. Twice, she’s picked up and I only hear a click as she hangs up on me the moment she hears my voice. I guess it’s because I’m such an unworthy sinner now.
I just don’t know why Christians are always going on about forgiveness, acceptance and grace, but as soon as someone steps outside the morality box they are ostracized and shunned with cold malice. Most Christians are not loving at all; they’re just part of a large yet very exclusive club.
Harold still seems to love me, though. He called me on my new number, which he obtained from Charlie.
“What is going on over there?” Harold demanded, sharply at first, and then softer. “We didn’t even know if you were still alive.”
Hearing his voice say “we” brought a flood of memories from Howey Bay. It sounded like he meant the whole town, including the Mennonites, his wife Sharla and their baby, my old friends Pammy, Cammy, Jennifer, and of course Myname. I used to be part of that “we”.
It all feels like a long-lost dream, now. When I remember my childhood there, I feel a certain sense of nostalgia. But it’s mingled with relief at being far, far away from the boredom, the emptiness, the small-minded gossip. The “we”.
“I’m fine, I just had a big fight with Dad and decided to move out. I’m practically eighteen, so it’s normal for me to want my own place.”
A wall of resentment was building inside me. It’s not that I hate Harold, but I have a deep sense of protection around me and Sunny, and my whole life here.
“Nothing is wrong,” I say.
“Nothing is wrong!? Your mother stood up in front of the congregation last week and asked for prayers because you’ve become a lesbian.”
A slow hot flush spread from the top of my head all the way down to the heels of my feet.
“She did what —?”
“Are you a lesbian?” he demanded. “Since when?”
Now the wall of resentment turned into steel. “Do you think you have the right to question me about my sex life?” I asked him. “Do you and everyone else in Howey Bay have some kind of jurisdiction over who I decide to love?”
“Ah — err,” Harold stuttered. “So it’s true, then.”
“It’s none of your business, is what it is! Who do you think you are? You and Sharla and Mom and everyone else . . . You don’t even know me,” I yelled.
“I like to think I still know you. And when I did know you well, you didn’t seem like a lesbian to me,” argued Harold. “You were boy-crazy, even. So what’s come over you? What are you trying to prove?”
“I have nothing to prove, except that I make my own decisions,” I hollered.
“Does that include your decision to do drugs?”
“Where are you getting your information, Harold? Maybe you should go back to being a father to your newborn and leave me THE FUCK alone.”
“Your Mom spoke to Charlie and he told us all about what happened with your Dad, and you moving out,” Harold explained. He was being quite patient, given my scathing tone.
“Did he also tell you that he likes to jerk off right in my face?”
“Now, Ellen —” Harold stuttered again.
“Now, nothing. Why is it that I get flack for falling in love with a girl and smoking up once in a while, when Charlie gets to look like a goody-two-shoes even though he’s practically a rapist, chasing me around and trying to put his dick or his fingers or whatever into me all of my life?” My anger was boiling over and Charlie was lucky he wasn’t present. I would’ve gladly jabbed my fingers into his eyeballs.
“Homosexuality is wrong, Ellen. The Bible says so.”
“Does the Bible say anything about brothers trying to screw their sisters repeatedly for their entire childhoods? I suppose not. Because that’s okay, right?”
“What happened between you and your brother is a private family matter,” he said calmly. “But you being homosexual, that’s going beyond the pale.”
“I happen to be in love with Sunny,” I answered.
Everything in my body became cold and icy, as I realized that Harold was yet another person I would have to shut out. I sank back behind my eyes, observing the thick wall of steel now erected between me and him. It protected me from his rigid Christian moral stance, but also it stood there blocking out all my positive memories and my warm association with him.
“You’re not in love,” he said. “Real love happens between a man and a woman. This is just a phase.”
“Thank you for your opinion,” I said, then hung up just like that. Click.
The heat and cold mingled in my body, becoming a swirl of great anxiety. Falling down on my bed, I cried and cried. I cried so loud that Gretchen Hanover came down, knocked on my door, and asked me to pipe down.
“I know you’re young and hormonal, dear,” she said in her pristine British accent, “But some of us need to get our rest. So be thoughtful, please.”
She made it sound very simple. But she was unaware that my rage, grief and hatred were big enough to burn down her whole house. She didn’t know that it took everything in me to cool down my painful feelings.
And in my effort to cool them down, I became a little more hardened.