1. Can majorly complicate things. Last night was no exception. My knees were no exception. My knees were shaking. I was shaking. Things were very complicated. There was a mission.
2. A resurfacing. A stone-cold mission. A destiny.
3. How can I explain the toughest thing? How can I explain the riddle of my life?
4. The temperature was October, but the night air was covered in flowers, and I smelled hope.
5. Hope! Everywhere I went! I was coming home! Dumb decorations made tinny noises.
6. Frankensteins and Draculas, a mummy hanging on a neighbor’s garage door.
7. Mwahahahahahaha.
8. Kids inside their costumes. Kids trying to scare me. Kids I actually envied, pathetically.
9. What happened? It was nighttime. It was really too much.
10. I wasn’t on the red carpet because last night wasn’t an awards ceremony.
11. Luvox was still working its complicated magic on my system.
12. Instead of candy, I thought about plastic bowls filled with my pills. I thought about little kids eating my pills. I thought about little kids getting a head start. I started chuckling.
13. I was broken. I was broke. I had none of the money in the world. I had nothing.
14. I wasn’t high on mushrooms anymore. I wasn’t levitating anymore. My body was shutting down.
15. Felt like the world was ending! Contemplating amputation! Head, shoulders, knees, toes!
16. I wanted to make a point to her, okay? Suppose I were to present my mother with a solid, visible problem? Perhaps I could throw a cinder block through one of her double-paned sliding doors?
17. It started raining hard. Her gigantic garden got drenched. Even the change in my pocket got wet.
18. In some ways, I regret nothing! I am simply feeling my life!
19. I had all the faculties required of a stalker. I was feeling as bad as a serial killer. I should’ve been reported to the government.
20. Basically, I was still her son. A son is still a son, even on Halloween.
21. Don’t you see?
22. I was standing in front of her house. I was trying to look in. Her curtains were drawn. I couldn’t view her life without me.
23. I felt cheated, staring at those closed curtains. I was the biggest loser in the world.
24. She lives here. I lived here.
25. My mother is larger than life. Larger than my life. Gave me my life.
26. What did I need to do?
27. Needed to shake her. Needed to shake my mother. Needed to shake some goddamn sense into her.
28. Needed to go home right now. Needed to see her. Needed to concede. Needed to cry.
29. Needed to cry in front of her. Needed to apologize. Needed to get this over with.
30. Needed to get down on all fours. Needed her cooking. Needed some classic staples of motherhood.
31. Maybe we could start our relationship over again? Maybe I could start my life over again?
32. Gosh, this is starting to sound like an ex-girlfriend situation. Gosh, I am so ashamed.
33. C’mon. Clean slate. Walk it back.
34. I smelled really bad. She was going to smell me. My mother has a critical sense of smell.
35. My armpits smelled like a donut shop and the rest of me smelled like a hospital.
36. Don’t get me wrong.
37. I wanted her help.
38. Needed her to access her inner kindness. Needed her to jump start my life over again.
39. Maybe I could disappear into my mother? And she could just have me again?
40. I didn’t want her involvement. I didn’t want her grief. Her preaching. Her yelling. Our primal screams meeting.
41. Didn’t want to feel like a teenage girl. Didn’t want her to call me one. A teenage girl!
42. This was going to be awkward, but, if all went well, she could make me a sandwich?
43. I know it’s a cliché, but she could make me a sandwich?
44. I mean, I could eat! I could really eat! I could eat for the rest of my life! I could gain some weight! I could become a great big fat person! A great big fat pig! There would be so much of me to love! These are just called possibilities!
45. If all went well, I could take a shower. I could shower for the rest of my life. I could stay for as long as she’d have me. I’d even do assigned chores.
46. I wanted her to love me again, to like me again. You know, like a friend likes a friend?
47. Okay, I confess: That night in July, I did it.
48. My eyes were wet.
49. And, sure, it’s a cliché, but my eyes were probably bloodshot, too.
50. We had been arguing, but it’s called yelling.
51. The sun was going down and my mom was trying to tell me what to do.
52. I needed my mother to make me feel like a real man. Do you understand? I needed her to hate me even more.
53. Our therapists, both total quacks, were away on vacation.
54. Night! Summer! What a desert! No family mediation services around for miles.
55. I mean, what’s a son to do?
56. I love her more than I love myself.
57. We used to get along. I was very cute. I was a fourth grader with a flashy vocabulary.
58. I was a fourth grader who would put things in my mouth. I chose to put everything in my mouth. I would suck this Cookie Monster doll’s eyeball.
59. She read her women’s magazines to me and I counted her toes for her.
60. I counted her toes while she painted her toes pink. I counted her pink toes while she practiced yoga from a DVD. I counted her pink toes while I sucked Cookie Monster’s eyeballs.
61. My mother had ten pink toes.
62. Those days were good days.
63. Look, my masculinity is ruined, and you know who sucked it right out of me.
64. My mother has been emotionally abusing me for years. We live just down the street.
65. Said that at a party once, and the girl I was talking to just walked away from me.
66. I’m thinking about my gender. I’m thinking about the responsibility of my gender.
67. What was my mother wearing when I hit her?
68. I barely hit her.
69. I mean, she didn’t fall to the floor, or anything.
70. I didn’t cut her up. Her blood didn’t spill out.
71. And, anyway, she deserved it.
72. When I was little, she forced me to play sports. I wasn’t very athletic. As a result, I was bullied.
73. “You have the personality of a star athlete, but you’re not a star athlete,” she said.
74. I went to public school. My mother loves a good public school.
75. She deserved my strike? No, she didn’t deserve that. Did you know she’s my mother?
76. Turns out that all my life, I’ve been swimming in a circle with my mother. Turns out that we are both sharks in a swimming pool. Turns out that this is the world’s biggest swimming pool. Welcome to the world’s biggest swimming pool. This is not where you usually find sharks.
77. Maybe some might say I am unnecessarily demonizing her?
78. Sometimes, I am the kindest soul.
79. Over the course of my short life, I have forgotten my mother, her household.
80. No, I remember my mother. No, I remember her household. Yes, I remember everything.
81. I know what I’ve forgotten. I forgot how she likes things. I forgot how she smells. I forgot her smile. I forgot how she laughs. I forgot how she laughs with me. I forgot her good moods. No, I remember her good moods, I really do!
82. I am still standing outside. I am almost at her door.
83. I wish I was nine years old. I wish I was trick or treating.
84. Her full name? Monica Nicole Phillips. The fullest of names. Her preferences? Tea over coffee. Animals over people. Books over movies. Soft drinks over alcohol. Winter over summer. Buses over trains over planes. Raisins over grapes. Lakes over oceans. The corner store over the supermarket. Vince Vaughn over Brad Pitt. Hillary Clinton over Bill Clinton. She drives a Toyota Highlander. How does she like things? Easy. Clean. Sterile. Wholesome. No drugs. No chaos. What does my mother think about it? She probably fantasizes about beheading my personality. What is my mother’s modus operandi? I am very confused about my mother’s modus operandi. I am very confused by words.
85. I’m a “failure to launch.”
86. That’s the phenomenon of adult children not making the transition to adulthood.
87. That’s the phenomenon.
88. My mother tried telling me about personal responsibility. Over the course of my short life in this house. My mother tried telling me about personal responsibility. Over the course of my short life in this house.
89. Does she know that I’ve changed? Because I have changed. Maybe she’s changed, too?
90. For instance, I was shocked to discover her Facebook account. A Facebook account?
91. I haven’t been here in so long. I already want to ask her if she’s lost weight. I already want to bring an index finger to her lips. I already want to say, If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all. I ring the doorbell. I notice that the front porch is acute. It’s been about two years. My body: so light.
92. Door answered. Teeth whitening strips on her teeth. This is called a pregnant pause.
93. We’re looking at each other. Most of my thoughts and feelings are in the back of my mouth. This could work out just fine. I could break through. We could meet halfway.
94. “I love you,” I once said to a coffee shop waitress.
95. “I’m so sorry––I thought you were my mother.”
96. “You’ve always insisted on being a bad boy,” my mother said, last night, in the kitchen, smirking.
97. In the kitchen last night. Finally. She peeled the strips off her teeth.
98. Granite counters. Stainless appliances. Fridge with a water filter. Magnet of Martin Luther King Jr.
99. She gave me hot chocolate. She gave me a ham and cheese sandwich. She toasted it.