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keanureevesisbae · 3 years

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But professor… - epilogue

Summary: It's been a year and a half since their little baby was born. How are the two of them doing?

Professor!Walter Marshall x Penny Townsend (Asian ofc)

Wordcount: 1.7k

Warnings: None

A/N: Is it the end for Penny and Walter? Yes, omg i can't believe. I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as i enjoyed writing it. The story took a full 180 (especially because I intended this story to be much shorter lol), but I'm very satisfied nonetheless 🥰

Masterlist // But professor… masterlist // Previous chapter //

Declan has a plan and that is to go outside. I mean, it’s kinda fair, since he spend a lot of time inside today. Not that he complained. No, no, no, he was an absolute angel at the salon—like always—playing with his toys, while I was at work, but now he needs some fresh air after we had a quick snack at home.

This little man is definitely as head strong as his dad, however he isn’t as stubborn as Walter can be.

Declan attempts to throw a ball at me and I can see there is some definite improvement. Just like any kid at that age, he is distracted like that. ‘Momma, momma,’ he says, pointing to a truck that passes by. ‘Dada!’

‘Oh honey, that is not his truck,’ I say, crouching down next to him. ‘Dada is gonna become soon. In his other car. His work car.’

Declan points. ‘No dada?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Dada home?’

‘Almost,’ I say to him, giving him a kiss on his cheek. Declan stops playing altogether, staring at the road, waiting for Walter to come home. His mouth slightly agape, as he focused on every car that passes by.

Finally his car pulls up and I exclaim: ‘There he is!’ When Walter gets out of the car with a smile that is only this wide when he sees us, I let Declan go and watch him wobble over to his dad. With one hand he lifts the little boy up and presses kisses on his chubby cheek. ‘I missed you,’ Walter says, looking his son in the eye.

‘Dada miss, dada miss!’

He chuckles. ‘That’s right.’ He walks up to me and says: ‘There is my princess.’

‘Princess momma,’ Declan says.

‘Give me a kiss, sweetheart,’ he says, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. I press a peck on his lips and melt against his frame.

‘It went splendid,’ I say. ‘I actually got to do someone’s hair for an important interview and afterwards, she came back to the salon and told me it went great!’

He smiles. ‘I’m so proud of you.’

After Declan was born, I stayed home for about six months, acclimatizing to being a mom and those sleepless nights. It was hard, I cried a lot and I was very scared. I think I hung on the phone with my mom about seventy percent of the time, while calling Walter the remaining thirty percent. I have adjusted pretty okayish, especially when Walter went to work, made sure I have nothing to worry about.

No stress, providing for the two of us as much as he can and Declan and I sure are lucky that Walter is the love of my life.

My parents helped me financially to go to cosmetology school, which was an absolute blast. It was around fifteen minutes from my place and Declan was always allowed to come with me.

He sure wrapped everyone around his fingers with no issue at all.

While Walter still is that grumpy detective he was when I met him outside of our house, he changes into a big fluffy ball, shaped like a human the second the front door closes. No matter how tired he was, how long his shift was, he pushes it aside to take care of his family.

We walk inside of our place and I tell him: ‘I made dinner.’

While I’m not a world class chef, I do manage to make some decent meals, especially because I wanted to make Declan’s baby food, since my mom raised me with that as well (though I was no saint and had jars as well stored in my kitchen, just in case).

‘Princess, I’m so lucky to have you,’ Walter says. Once we’re inside, he places Declan in the high chair and scoots his own chair closer to it, a silent message that he will help Declan eat today. ‘Okay, little fella,’ Walter says, ‘you gonna be a good boy and not spill the food over me?’

Declan nods. ‘Deccie, good boy.’

I give Walter a kiss, after placing his plate and Declan’s in front of him. ‘He has been such a good boy at the salon today, so it’ll go great, I’m sure.’

After I sit across Walter, he asks about my day. From the looks of it, he had a rough one. Thankfully enough happened at the salon today for me to talk about. While we’re still working on improving him sharing more details, but I kinda understand. With Declan repeating a lot of words recently, we get a little bit more careful with what we’re saying.

After Dinner, Walter and I curl up on the couch after Walter changed into something more comfortable. Declan places his head on my chest, his eyelids growing heavier before he stretches out his hand to place on Walter’s chest.

I nuzzle against Walter’s side.

‘He is so cute,’ Walter notes.

I smile. ‘He sure is. He has your curls.’

‘But your pout and eyes. How can I ever say no to this kid?’

I shake my head. ‘You can’t, honey. I tried it today and it was the hardest thing in my life.’

He starts to chuckle softly. ‘You got nothing to do tomorrow?’

‘No, why?’

‘Can you come down the precinct? I wanna show off the two of you.’

I smile. ‘Oh my goodness, you are so predictable. Of course, I can come by. Maybe I’ll even steal some of my mom’s cookies, tell them I baked them.’

He chuckles. ‘Oh, you shouldn’t be lying when at the police.’

Declan stretches himself and whines a little bit. ‘Momma,’ he says, looking up to see me.

‘Oh, I think someone is really tired,’ I say. ‘You wanna go to bed?’

He nods. ‘Deccie tired.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘Here, sweetheart, I’ll do it. You relax, okay?’ Walter stands up and after I gave Declan a kiss, Walter lifts him up and carries the tired little one up the stairs.

I watch my big buff boyfriend walk back into the living room and he places the baby monitor in front of us, before he sits back on the couch. That monitor basically is glued to Walter’s hand as he always checks up on his boy. I thought I would be the parent that worries the most, however Walter puts me to shame.

The two of them are as thick as thieves and it makes me so grateful that we have a son together.

‘How was work today?’ I ask him.

He shrugs. ‘There was a dad who left his kids in the car,’ he says, ‘in the burning sun, before literally running away. Took us two hours before we found him.’

‘Oh no.’

‘Yeah, it was painful. The kids are gonna be okay, but… It reminds me that Declan is a really lucky kid.’

‘Do those kids have someone to go to?’

‘Yeah, an aunt,’ Walter says, rubbing his face. ‘Come here, princess.’

I wrap my arms around his neck, giving him a kiss on his lips. ‘I missed you.’

Walter smiles. ‘I missed you too. You have no idea how much it means to me to see you two in the yard, waiting for me. Especially after a shitty day like this one.’

‘You know you can always call me,’ I say. ‘Really, I always want to listen to you. You before anyone else, okay?’

He nods. ‘Have I already told you today that you are a very amazing mother and how lucky I am?’

I shake my head. ‘Nope, not today.’

He pulls me on his lap and gives me a peck on my forehead. ‘Just everything you do and say to him… It’s like you always know exactly what to do and you stay so patient and kind.’

‘Oh, Walter, that’s too sweet. I can guarantee: it’s all because you stayed—or at least pretended—to stay calm. Had you not done that, I would absolutely freaked out every time Declan had a funny breathing.’ I ruffle through his hairs and ask: ‘Have I been good to you as well?’

‘What kind of question is that? Of course you have. I’m so lucky that I have you and you and I have a family. There is no one else in the world I would rather have with me for important events.’ He places his hand on my sides, pushing up my shirt. ‘Give me a kiss, princess.’

I willingly oblige and press my lips on his. ‘I love you, Walter.’

‘Oh, I love you too. I want your honest opinion and really be honest, okay?’

‘Okay,’ I chuckle.

‘What do you say if you and I have another one?’

‘Another what?’

‘Kid.’

My eyes widen. ‘Really?’ I ask. He actually wants another kid with me? I mean, I always figured we would have more than one kid, but that would be in the future a little bit further away.

But already another one?

‘Yeah and I mean, if you’re not ready, then I totally understand and I won’t bring it up until you are ready, but I personally would love it.’ He smiles and adds: ‘I mean, two of the most beautiful babies running around here? Together with my beautiful girlfriend, who I’ll make my wife someday?’

I should not be squealing, yet I totally do. ‘Walter, honey,’ I say with a chuckle. ‘I’d love to have another baby with you.’

He starts to smile even wider. ‘Really?’

‘Yes, really. I’d love for Declan to have a few brothers and sisters.’

‘A few? How many you thinking about?’

‘I don’t know. How about three kids? Or four?’

He starts to laugh. ‘Then you and I better get some practice in with some baby making,’ he chuckles. ‘Because this time it’s not gonna be an accident.’

I slap him across his chest. ‘Walter, what did I say about that word?’

‘Oh, right right.’ He gives me a kiss and says: ‘Declan wasn’t an accident, he was our surprise baby. Forgot.’

I place my forehead against his, wrapping my arms around his neck. ‘Forever and ever, right?’

‘Forever and ever.’

#walter marshall #walter marshall x penny townsend #walter marshall x oc #walter marshall x ofc #walter marshall x asian ofc #penny townsend #asian ofc #henry cavill #henry cavill fanfic #but professor

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ak8shi · 4 years

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Jobs that the HQ Boys would have in college

a/n: I’m tipsy and idk what this is.,,,,many thots head full

ATSUMU: oh my god… he would work at Lulu Lemon and also be a campus rep for the brand, he looks really good in the clothes ig,, 🙄his manager fucking hated him for the first month of working there because they put him on the floor thinking he would attract people with his athletic build and good looks but he was so judgmental towards the customers, they had to put him behind the cash register LMFAO😔😭, he’s still judgmental behind the counter about the colors people pick for things but he knows he has to stfu to keep the job.. when dudes check out and have anything longer than 5.5 inseam shorts he always mumbles under his breath about feeling bad for the dude’s girlfriend 💀

BOKUTO: ALSO a Lulu Lemon rep but more of a floor/customer service person lmfao, HE SELLS things like CRAZY, people just listen to him and his expertise when it comes to the apparel because he’s so enthusiastic about it and looks so good in it, he’s the type that has 5 million different random jobs here and there : I can see him working at the campus gym as an instructor or just someone who oversees the machine area, LMFAO he’s the one who organized recreational games and sometimes referees rec volleyball!! He loves it and people ask him for advice all the time. He also stands outside of hollister shirtless on Black Friday LAMAKISKSMS, He ALSO is sponsored by one of those companies that delivers snack packages directly to college dorms HE IS SO CUTE PLEASE

SUNA: He has a job at his college campus’ library! He literally loves it because he doesn’t really have to talk to anyone besides the elderly ladies who work with him and the occasional lost underclassman, and he can do his homework on the job. Girls go to the library that he works at specifically to stare at him, and the twins come in to annoy him often too (that’s the only way they would be in a library setting) GIRL he has to KICK them out for being so loud god. He also gets the occasional offer from the campus’ student ran fashion magazine to model but he’s too embarrassed and knows he would get absolutely CLOWNED if he accepted🥺. He also ubers on the weekends sometimes and he as a 5 rating because he’s hot and never makes weird conversation with his passengers

FUTAKUCHI: MAN he would work at the mall at one of those hair kiosks LMFAOO Listen, he’s honestly the perfect person for the job because he’s pushy, confident, and h*t… when people would usually object on getting their hair done by some random at the mall, they usually say yes to him because…. Its him ugh I hate him ALSO HE’S ONE OF THOSE SKETCHY PEOPLE ON FACEBOOK THAT SELLS SCAM BEAUTY PRODUCTS (“hey girly,” PLEASEMDMF)

OSAMU: He would work a typical bus boy job in college tbh, you usually have the start from the bottom in the restaurant business and he likes the fact that the hours are pretty flexible, and that he can show up hungover as fuck and still do an okay job. Occasionally his friends will pay him to cook a meal for them, or bake something that they can impress a girl with (sometimes he purposely burns the baked goods 😭LMFAMDM) Works late a lot of times and you can catch him downtown in the parking lot scarfing down his dinner at 2 am

SHIRABU: I have no idea why this one was so obvious to me but he 100% works at a Starbucks on campus lmao, his pre-med self is just always stressed and needs coffee to stay awake, and honestly he kind of enjoys being a cunt to all the students he encounters as an outlet for his frustration (sir…💀), He’s constantly screaming at Goshiki behind the counter, and he honestly doesn’t have the patience for any Karens or those girls who complain about their order because they ordered something they didn’t mean to. He’s genuine and friendly to his regulars though and if you tip he’ll put an extra shot of espresso in your order😙

KUROO: Also another obvious one for me, he’s giving me paid lab member by day, bar tender by night vibes from a million miles away. He honestly gets offered the job in the lab because of his grades and immense understanding of chemistry in his classes and labs, and he loves it!! God.. he’s really so nerdy and you can’t tell me this man doesn’t get published multiple times in academic papers bc he DOES! The lab is great and everything but he’s only there for a few hours per week, so he seeks out a nightlife job at a bar, let me tell you that’s where he cashes out,,, 🤑 like he gets tipped really well because he’s good at conversation while not being creepy, he’s HOT as FUCK, and he makes the drinks actually strong. Truly everyone and their mom’s favorite bartender !

ARAN: THIS MAN,,, he’s so photogenic and good looking there’s not doubt in my mind that he would be an influencer on campus (Atsumu really wishes he was him lmfao💀), he has ALL the sponsors and also a huge social media following. Fashion nova men, skincare brands, athletic programs, he has so many sponsors and basically most of his Instagram is payed placement , He also promotes a lot of campus merch and bars!! Like there are definitely pics of him popping bottles with his boys on his insta and he looks so good please😈

SEMI: he would work at a piercing or tattoo salon, and honestly it happens unintentionally ?? He went in for a tattoo and he was looking at the jewelry on display and was like??? this would be so cool to be able to pierce someone!! SO he apprenticed with a worker and had a lot of his friends who wanted piercings come in for practice, also he’s the type of dude that is great at calming/reassuring people who are nervous or anxious before getting a piercing or tat, loves to play his guitar quietly in the background when he’s not busy helping a client🥰 also volunteers at the animal shelter a few times a month bc he loves animals 🥺

SAKUSA: this one is making me laugh because he would definitely work a teleprompter job thinking it would be fine since he doesn’t have to touch or interact with anyone but he ends up hating it because of how rude the people are 💀😭 he somehow gets stuck with the most obnoxious and rude clients he really can’t take it, (the way he has to repeat himself forty times... no) he brings a huge thermos of coffee to the office when he has to work and he leaves with a huge headache every time

#GIRL WHAT IS THIS IM AKAKAKAJNSMSSSMNZ #haikyuu!!#haikyuu imagine #haikyu headcanons #atsumu x reader #osamu x reader #suna x you #kuroo x reader #bokuto x reader #semi x reader #take this shit while i attempt to finish this fic😔#sakusa x reader #shirabu x reader #ch

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lids-flutter-open · 6 years

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goth trans boy YA set in undisclosed PNW college town, chapter 2:

(content warning for: LGBT youth group, discussion of predatory grooming and stalking)

Chapter two

Group night was Wednesday, and that meant at seven in the evening I had to park my car by the library (because of the free parking) and walk down to Eighth Ave where the building for Compton House was. It was on the single street in downtown that was the bad part of town, or at least the bad part of town according to the Hollister set. It was just a block and a half, and it was where the homeless people and oogles liked to sit, but it was bustling with active commercial real estate, too. The gay bar was two doors down, and the same street had a show space and two Thai restaurants and a thrift store and a hair salon and a corner store. Compton House was on the fourth floor of a mixed-use building. It was accessible by elevator for people in wheelchairs as long as the elevator worked, but the elevator was the slowest in the world so anyone who could took the stairs. You had to get buzzed in the front door, because of the hate crime fears et cetera, and not even youth workers like me were supposed to know what the door code was, but I’d been going there so long I knew the code and just showed up.

Tonight the adult facilitator was Spruce, who was nice and like, an old punk, but who I hated because she gave bad advice to tweens. I got ready to mentor the shit out of the thirteen-to-fifteen-year-old set. Ostensibly I was a youth like everyone else and this was my group therapy session, but sometime last year the formula changed and I realized that the shit I was having problems with was no longer anything that anyone in the group could help me with, even the facilitator. My pen pal who I’d had since I was fourteen had disappeared off the face of the planet and deleted his blog and then he resurfaced and it turned out he was schizophrenic and had a heroin addiction, and then he went AWOL again somewhere in Kansas. I didn’t have a way to contact him and his mom, who he had told me beat him, was messaging me on social media and I didn’t know what to tell her. What do you tell a sixteen year old to do about that? Or when Opal lost housing. Nobody was ready to deal with all of that shit and it just scared the thirteen-year-olds when I talked about it, so I stopped sharing the heavy stuff at group and just tried to take care of them. It was exhausting, but also good in a way that I knew would never help me on a college application but was somehow good for the community. Not that I could tell if I was giving good advice or not, but at least I was there, or something.

There were six kids in there when I got in, sitting on the orange couch and three folding chairs and single pink beanbag. One was my age, this lesbian named Gabby that I knew was fucking some dumb college student, or had been, and had issues with compulsive shoplifting that she brought up every time she was in group. Then there was this baby looking trans girl and three baby looking lesbians and/or theythems and/or transmascs, and one scared looking little gay boy. All of the latter set were somewhere between thirteen and sixteen, and none of them had been at the group very long. I couldn’t remember their names or pronouns.

I got out the snacks, which Spruce had forgotten to do, and checked the coffee pot. It was grimy and I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had cleaned it, so I just hid it behind the snack cart in the corner and brought out the water heater and the tea and plugged the water heater in.

“Hey all, have some chips,” I said. “Or tea.”

“Ooh, the tea, miss vanjie,” said the shy gay boy, very quietly. I laughed, to show him that he could in fact say that. He smiled.

“I’m James,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“I saw you before a few weeks ago at group,” the shy boy said. “I’m Don.”

“Sorry, Don, I’m like almost faceblind,” I said. “I can’t remember people very well. I’ll remember you now.”

We went over the rules of the group before people started sharing. Step up step back had been changed last year to move up, move up, because of the ableism inherent in talking about stepping like it was universal and also the need to emphasize that listening was an active skill and not equivalent to nonparticipation. The rule basically meant that if you were talking a lot, shut up and listen, and if you were listening a lot, you should talk. The other rules were, don’t yuck my yum, which meant don’t say you hated a neutral thing someone else liked, and confidentiality, which meant don’t gossip about this shit or name people by name if you were talking shit about them in your sharing, and “this is a racism/sexism/etc free space”, which was a rule that kept expanding forever and needed to be elaborated on but in general meant respect pronouns and don’t say anything racist or say anything shitty about fat people. There was oops ouch snap, which meant that you snapped your fingers to agree with something someone said and said “ouch” when you wanted to start calling someone out. You were supposed to say “oops” when called out and move on, though that never happened. Then there was the rule that was about mandatory reporting, which meant that if the people who worked at Compton knew your name, they had to tell someone if you were being abused. That meant that people could use aliases if they wanted. There were other rules, too, which got brought up as they came up but were too obscure for our rule poster in the corner.

We always divided the time up based on how many people were in the room and then apportioned everyone blocks of time based on that. If there were a lot of people, time was always crunched. Some people shared for five minutes and got feedback for five minutes and were good, while others prattled for thirty minutes. One time when I was first coming to group a girl had read her diary for thirty minutes while a neutralized facilitator watched in paralyzed awe, unable to intervene. We were better at regulating tempo now, if only because people like me were there. Long timers.

The first girl, who was like, thirteen, talked about how she had come out to her parents and they told her that she was imagining it, and then took her to a therapist that asked her to think very hard about whether she was actually gay. The parents didn’t know she was at the group. She had come with her friend, who was wearing a rainbow bracelet. Spruce knew what to do with that kind of share, and in general told the girl that people were here for her and we cared about her. I echoed Spruce, and the other kids in the circle said their bit about how there were other gay people in the world and things were real and we cared about her. The girl, whose name was Eve, cried.

The other kids were pretty boring too, though the little shy gay boy was apparently having sex with his boyfriend, who was his age. Spruce forgot to do the safe sex talk in her feedback so I told Don about places he could find condoms and told him about the books and zines in Compton’s library that he should read about sex and STD prevention and consent. I also had him write down the times he could go get free STD testing. He was so young that there was no way he’d get on PrEP, and I couldn’t imagine he was actually able to get downtown to access testing, but at least he’d know it was a thing and think about correct condom use during sex and he’d think to get tested if he noticed anything off about his partner’s dick or got any cold sores.

Gabby talked about shoplifting. She’d stolen six hundred dollars worth of stuff from Nordstrom Rack and was worried her mom would notice it in her closet, so she was giving it away to friends. She always talked about how she was guilty about it, but I knew really this was the only place she could come to brag. I didn’t really see a problem with shoplifting luxury items for yourself and your friends, though I wouldn’t have chosen Nordstrom Rack. Gabby didn’t mention the college student, which I hoped meant they had broken up. I’d met the girl one time and hated her. Probably because she seemed like she actually shopped and spent money at Nordstrom Rack.

The trans girl, whose name was Venus, was fifteen, and hers was the first situation where I had to actually get intense with feedback. She started out with talking about how her mom wouldn’t let her get a piercing, which seemed reasonable to me, but of course devastating to a girl who really needs snakebites right now. Venus was on puberty blockers, so she had a cooler mom than most kids who needed snakebites, but even trans kids whose parents try to be supportive in the hormone and medical treatment department miss some stuff. Venus’s mom, for example, was unaware of Venus’s romantic extracurricular activities.

“It sucks,” Venus said, “that I can’t talk about my shitty relationship with a boy with my mom because she’s so paranoid that I’m sneaking around doing drugs or getting piercings or whatever and would totally flip her lid if she knew I was dating this older dude. Like I want to ask her advice about it and because I can’t get it the whole thing just keeps getting pent up and I explode at her about stuff that doesn’t matter.” She twisted her head around the room and looked at all of us without making eye contact, gauging our reactions.

Don, the gay boy, snapped his fingers. I knew Spruce appreciated that he was respecting the rule about using finger-snapping to affirm someone’s statement.

There was a long silence while Venus rearranged herself on the orange couch. It went on for so long that Spruce finally said, in the littlest little annoying breathy soft lesbian not-taking-up-space voice,

“You still have ten minutes in your share, if you want to say anything more, Venus.”

Venus nodded.

“This guy Alex is my boyfriend,” Venus said, ignoring the alias rule for talking about people, “and I love him, or I did, but I think I have to break up with him. Maybe not right away, but eventually. And it sucks because I’ve been hiding it from my mom because at first I thought it was going to last a really long time. But we’ve been dating two months and I feel like he’s only using me for sex.”

Venus paused again. Some people did that, looking for affirmation like they would in a conversation with a friend. Compton’s group doesn’t work so great for that kind of affirmation because nobody is supposed to say anything during someone else’s share.

“Yuck,” one of the small lesbians said, nevertheless. She was quiet, so nobody called her out for talking.

“And he never listens to me when I talk about what’s going on in my school, or how I feel about my bisexuality or my podcast. He’s in community college, and he’s twenty-one, so he isn’t that much older, but my Tumblr friend Koko said it’s creepy we’re dating. I think partly as a joke and partly not. But like, he sees me as a girl. He says he really likes me. So there’s that. I guess that’s why I don’t want to end it, because I like that.” She paused, and twirled her dyed bright red hair around her finger. “He bought me a choker necklace, which is like, a horrible stereotype about trans girls is that we’re all goth and otakus, but I am, so like, I appreciated it. And I can talk to him about kink, which I couldn’t do if I was dating like a high schooler. We’re trying daddy/little girl stuff, and I kind of like it. Because I never got to be a little girl and talk to my dad. But also sometimes I feel really pressured into stuff, in a bad way, so it’s like, so fucking conflicted. And he showed me this blog that’s like, trans girls getting dommed, like, porn, and it made me feel weird. I don’t know if he sees me like that, like I’m a porn star? I’m more than that. Like, I don’t know. I play video games. I want to be a video game designer. I like sports cars. I really like comics, I like She-Hulk and Ms. Marvel. I’m a teen slut, haha, but there’s more to me than being someone’s little girl and doing roleplay. And he doesn’t seem to see that a lot. He says he values me but I don’t see it. Like. I don’t know what I want to ask. How do I talk to him about that?” She sighed and ate a corn chip from the bowl in the middle of the table.

I couldn’t wait for the designated share back time, even though that was the rule of support group you were never supposed to break.

“Sorry, but is this Alex who does civil war reenactments? His blog is unholyspacemachina?”

“Hey, hey, confidentiality,” Spruce said, snapping out of whatever trance she’d been in for the last dozen minutes. I had to hold myself back from glaring at her. Spruce and her fucking knuckle tattoos reading TEND and HEAL.

“Yeah,” Venus said, looking uncertainly at Spruce and then at me.

“I gotta say this, Venus. Break up with him ASAP. Dude is bad news.”

“James, I need you to respect confidentiality,” Spruce said. “We don’t use this space for gossip. If you have something to say about Venus’s boyfriend, you need to take it out of this room.”

“Wait, I want to hear this,” Venus said. “If that’s chill. I kind of hate Alex right now. I wanna hear the dirt. I can’t believe you know him. Like, what?”

“Alex hit on me a ton when I was fifteen,” I told Venus, knowing Spruce wouldn’t have the chutzpah to kick me out of group or interrupt me if I talked loud and fast enough. “He was in this group. He was three years older than me. He would like touch my knee in group here and try to get me in the corner in the hall and touch me. One time he cornered me in the bathroom and stuck his hand in my pants. He asked me out a ton and I told him no. He’s really into sexually dominating young trans people. All kinds, but the people that look fem are his main thing. Before I went on hormones he stalked me for three months. Online and real life. He got banned from Compton for it. He kept sending me emails with weird poems about how I was a hermaphroditic goddess. He sent me a link to a password locked blog that was like six months of him journaling about how he wanted to fuck me. Before me it was this girl Katie who I was friends with, who was a trans girl who was also younger than him and who was really in a bad foster care situation. He told her he’d save her. I think some of it is like genuinely coming from a place of admiration and like, white knight sympathy, but it’s really weird and creepy and he acts like a Hannibal Lecter type stalker creep when you tell him no. Super rapey vibes. I can’t believe he’s still pulling that shit.”

Spruce didn’t seem to know how to respond to this information. “Oh shit,” she said. “That’s bad.”

“I didn’t know that,” Venus said. “Shit. Any of that. I didn’t know he went to this group. He told me that I was the first girl he’d ever fallen in love with. What a line, right?” She paused. “I guess I’ve been ignoring a lot of stuff he does.”

“It’s easy to ignore shit and pretend it’s not bad when it’s bad.”

“Shit. I’m stupid.”

“No,” I said. “Not stupid. Just, you know, it’s like the Taylor Swift song. You’re fifteen. By definition you don’t have a lot to compare this to and don’t have a ton of framework for this shit. I didn’t either. I considered going out with him a lot just because he clearly wanted me to so much.”

“I guess that was sort of what I did too,” Venus said. “He found my blog after we met in person and started sending me a lot of messages, and I was like, oh, I guess this is what feeling wanted is like.”

“Yeah. No. It’s him being a stalker freak. Which isn’t to say you’re not cool. I’m not saying you won’t ever have sex appeal or anything. But this isn’t about him being into you as a person, I can one hundred percent guarantee it’s about his weird fetish stuff. He’s not a good dude.”

Spruce was leaning forward with this dumbass concerned expression.

“What should I do?” Venus asked me. “He seemed so nice. God. I can’t believe this. We met at the bookstore, near the manga. Like in June.”

“Yeah you did,” I said. This group needs a fucking new rule: warn every trans kid in town about Alex. Especially the under-sixteen, is-a-girl set. “Look, I can’t tell you what to do, but I would consider telling your mom about this. She seems relatively cool, even if she won’t let you get a piercing. She might be freaked out, or mad, or be like, you betrayed my trust, but just know that it really isn’t your fault, okay, this dude is like a serial predator and knows how young trans people’s minds work now enough that he’s reasonably good at manipulating people enough to get laid. If you tell your mom, she’ll probably have a handle on how to get this dude away from you.”

“Oh jeez. I don’t know. She’d totally ground my ass. This isn’t something I want to talk about to her.”

“I can’t promise she won’t ground you, but like, she clearly cares about your wellbeing, since she brings you to this group and is trying to get you care and medical transition stuff. And like, you said you wished you could talk to her. That tells me she’s cooler than my parents. You can think about how you want to proceed on this stuff, but my advice is to drop Alex like a hot potato and block him on everything and have your mom tell him you’re going to call the police on him over statutory rape. Which you literally could, he’s like six years older than you and you’re under sixteen.”

“I don’t want to call the cops,” Venus said. “I think I’m kind of anti-cop.”

“You don’t have to actually call them,” I said. “Just say you will. I said that. He backed off. Or if you don’t wanna use the threat of state violence say James Goldman still knows where he fucking lives and I’ll beat him up with a baseball bat if he pulls any shit.”

“What if he hurts me?” Venus asked. “He knows where my house is. He’s been driving to my house at night so we can make out. He shows up just randomly.”

I could see that Spruce was gradually registering that this might be a mandated reporter situation. Her gears were spinning.

“Look,” Spruce said, and I took a deep breath and leaned back in the chair as her automated response started rolling. “Let’s talk more about this after group, okay? We can connect you with some resources. The main thing is that you’re feeling unsafe, and that’s not an okay thing to feel in a relationship with someone. That isn’t how you’re supposed to feel. You can absolutely find people who won’t make you feel scared that someone is going to hurt you. But look, come to the office after we’re done with group and we’ll go over your options for what to do. We want you to feel safe.” The options are a lot of pamphlets about the sexual violence shelter and recovery network in town, plus a referral to a therapist, plus the information that, since we probably have Venus’s last name and mother’s phone number, we have to tell her mom that she’s being groomed by a repeat sexual predator who’s been banned from Compton House and whose full legal name we also know. I knew that Spruce was probably not going to be the one to actually go over the options with Venus. That would probably be Natalie, who has been here longest and, whatever other issues she has as a person, is at least relatively good at having that conversation with kids in bad situations.

I was kind of shaking. That happened sometimes. I couldn’t sit there for the rest of group without a break to pause and drink some water, so I went to the bathroom for a minute. Sitting on the toilet, I remembered when Alex had pushed me into a stall in the same bathroom and tried to kiss me and shoved his hand down my pants. I hadn’t had my bottle opener knife back then, and he got his lips on my face before I screamed at him and he jumped back. I was a acne-covered kid who wasn’t on hormones and had a bowl cut and bad glasses, and nobody had hit on me before. Before that moment, even with Alex’s rapey vibes and my utter lack of sexual attraction to him, I remembered seriously considering fucking him, just because I thought I wouldn’t ever have sex with anyone and because it would have been easy. I had realized that was bad after talking to Katie and hearing about her time with Alex and realizing that coerced, bad sex is in fact worse than no sex.

Shit like this is why I’m going to be a social worker. Compton House has historically also been pretty bad at dealing with abusers. They don’t train staff well on this stuff. Alex wasn’t the first and probably won’t be the last. One time a boy’s abusive dad showed up and tried to break down the front door and then tried to grab the boy by his hair and slam his head against the door frame when the kid went downstairs to try to talk to him down. Staff didn’t stop him or try to mediate until it was too late. We had to call the cops that time. It takes something like that or a sexual assault on the property to get someone formally permanently banned from Compton. The whole formula is pretty much, wait until shit already has gone down, then process it. But at least there’s a formula. It also isn’t like the nonprofit itself attracts specifically predators, or at least not more than any other gay youth nonprofit would. It’s just that wherever there’s LGBT teenagers, there’s gonna be someone around who really wants to rape us or hurt us or whatever, and that person is sometimes also an LGBT teenager, and whoever they are they usually get as close to raping us or hurting us as they can until someone stops them. Safety policies like doors with buzzers don’t get you absolute protection. You need people who are on top of keeping kids safe and actually care about them and get the training they need to know what to do.

I really hoped Venus would be okay. I knew I would end up giving her my number, even though I knew that meant learning about the new Homestuck or whatever slightly younger weird nerdy trans kids were into these days. I had to be her friend here, or she might get stuck with someone like Alex over and over again. Or like, maybe not, after this. She seemed smart and like she was on her way to figuring things out without me. But she still needed friends. And even though I didn’t really feel like starting yet another friendship with a potentially volatile trans kid who I knew was just getting started on probably the worst time of her life, who might potentially get raped or get addicted to drugs or die at any time, I also knew I didn’t really have a choice. We had both gotten fucked with the same way.

I didn’t share anything important about my life when I got back to group and it was my turn. I talked about wanting to go to college, and I mentioned seeing a cute boy I was into. The shy gay boy, who had been absorbing lesbian and bi trans girl trauma narratives and shoplifting stories the whole night, looked heartened by this anecdote confirming that there were other gay men in the world who had sexual desire. I didn’t mention my friend Aaron, who was on heroin somewhere in the midwest, or dead, and I didn’t mention the fact that I knew some of my friends (Opal, but I wouldn’t have said their name) still cut themselves sometimes. Don’t lay that shit on people when they don’t have a way to deal with it.

When group was over, I gave Venus my email and phone number, and told her to text or call me, and that if she had her phone taken away, she could email me on a library computer. She thanked me, and typed the number into her phone.

“Thanks for telling me about Alex,” she said. “I think this is probably gonna be a shit hitting the fan situation with my mom, but whatever, I needed to hear that and know that. That’s the most useful information I’ve gotten on what to do about all this. I was just googling ‘wikihow fix a shitty boyfriend’ all the time.”

“It’ll blow over,” I said. “With your mom, I mean. Your safety is the main shit. I’m not a great influence personally and don’t tend to impress parents, but if you want me to talk to your mom about Alex I can do that too to try and speak on your behalf and explain what kind of person he is.”

“I’ll give my mom your number too,” Venus said. Then she went into the office to have the resources conversation with Natalie and Spruce.

I didn��t actually know if Venus’s mom would be cool, but I hoped she would.

When I got out of the building after group I smoked a stress cigarette and walked over to King David’s Diner to see if Goober was there. Her shift ends at nine thirty on Wednesdays. Sometimes I just wait by the bus stop for her to avoid stressing her out during closing, but I wanted to see her as quick as I could, to regain some kind of balance and remember that I was just a dumb teenager. Also to shit talk Compton. The twilight was setting in on Eighth Avenue, and the thrift store was closed, meaning the people who slept in the doorway there were already tucked into the tiny backpacking tent they put up every night. Overhead, the sky was plastered with peach-colored fluffy clouds. Goober was still working, thank fuck. She was just getting ready to go, wiping down counters and cleaning under the mats before the night shift people got there.

“Hey James,” she said. She looked tired. “What’s kicking?”

“Not much,” I said. “Just talked to some teens at Compton for a while. Spruce is no fucking good at facilitating, as usual. Can I help with anything?”

“You don’t work here, buddy. Just stand there.” She used a paper towel to get the coffee grounds from under the machine. “And tell me about it. I was so happy when I realized my social circle wasn’t all Compton people anymore. It’s suffocating.”

“It’s all I’ve got until I’m twenty-one,” I shrugged. “And good practice if I ever become like someone’s case manager.”

“I could spill some shit on Spruce,” Goober offered, pushing some flyaway hair out of her eyes with the wrist of one hand. “Just petty dyke drama, but I don’t love the girl.”

Goober’s coworker Morwen emerged from the back freezer, taking off her apron. She’s a thirtysomething butch with prematurely grey hair. She’s the day shift lead at King David’s. “Dyke drama? In my establishment?” She asked. “Say it isn’t so. I’m gonna count tips, Goober, okay? It’s nine twenty and I am out. Rafi and Miguel are already here in the back anyway.”

“Morwen, can we give James some like, pie?” Goober asked, digging in the back of the display case. “This isn’t gonna look good tomorrow and I’m pretty sure we’re not gonna sell it all tonight.”

“I didn’t see anything,” Morwen shrugged, giving me a fist bump as she walked over to the cash register and started counting her tips. Morwen isn’t the real boss—he leaves at seven, or earlier if he feels like it—so she doesn’t care that a lot of the kids who come to eat at the diner don’t pay. Goober gave me a plastic container with some kind of key lime goop in it. I put it in my canvas tote bag without saying anything. Don’t ask too many questions when you get free food. I didn’t have any more cash to put in the tip jar, either.

“Her hand tattoos always make me fucking hurl,” I said to Goober. I wanted to get back to shit talking Spruce. “I guess you only get knuckle tats that say TEND and HEAL if you’re bad at doing both.”

“What does that say about people with KILL COPS knuckle tats?” Morwen asked. She handed Goober one of the two stacks of one dollar bills she had made.

“God, are you talking about that guy Chris?” Goober asked Morwen, taking the cash.

“He doesn’t fucking tip. He was in earlier and had a twenty dollar tab and gave me two bucks. I was like thanks, bro. You remember when he peed on the empty cop car at the station at two in the morning when nobody was around and took an Instagram video and was like ohhhh I’m such a sick anarchist. I was like man, you’re twenty-nine and a white kid with a trust fund back East. His fucking friends are always partying at the goat skull place down behind me and Betty’s house. Keep me up all night. I fucking hate punks sometimes.”

Morwen’s house is really close to Goat Mansion. I’m definitely one of the punks she hates sometimes. I grinned sheepishly at Goober.

“Chris like, pushed a dumpster into the road one time on the Fourth of July and set it on fire and said it was anarchist praxis protest against the state,” Goober offered. “Which like, it might have been if he had coordinated with anyone and anyone knew what the fuck he was doing or why. But people thought it was just like, fourth of July frat boy whatever.”

“I kind of want to learn more about what effective anarchism looks like,” I said. “I feel like I’ve never seen it here. I don’t think I’ve ever known what’s actually going on. Besides the organization that runs the needle exchange and the food not bombs people.” I also didn’t know very much about those, but I knew they existed. I’d volunteered at the food bank last year every week and we’d save stuff like produce for the food not bombs people to take and make free hot meals with. They’d give them to people out of a food truck by the bus station. It’s a pretty good thing. I knew that some of those punks volunteered at the winter shelter down at the church by the library, too.

“Dude, real anarchism is just like, helping people,” Goober said. “I mean, and fighting Nazis and cops.”

“I guess I know that,” I said. “Which also, like, speaking of helping, thanks for pie.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Goober said. “Let’s split, I wanna leave this restaurant now.”

We walked to the bus stop together. There’s no predictable bus schedule or transit app, so you just have to stand there and have faith. The sun had set a while ago, and the streetlamp in front of the bus stop was broken. The world was totally dark. Me and Goober stood there a while and talked about how cool Morwen looked and what we wanted our ideal looks to be when we were Morwen’s age, or older. Goober said that when she turned thirty-five she was going to change her name to Rebecca and open a bed and breakfast in Connecticut and figure out how to get Michelle Tea and her wife to come stay there so she could break up their marriage and then marry Michelle Tea and then write a memoir about it. I couldn’t think of what I would be like when I was thirty-five. I tried to picture myself as a social worker with an actual facial hair beard. A purple beard? No, ick. A mustache? Would I dye it black?

“You’re gonna totally have like a cool co-op and a garden,” Goober said. “If the bees don’t die and we still have agriculture. But like a put-together co-op where everyone’s past their Saturn return. You’ll have like Le Creuset dishware and a well-maintained compost pile with the correct mishmash of alkaline whatever. And a bunch of very clean band t-shirts in one drawer and all your like, jam jars downstairs and a neurotic dog. I can envision exactly how you’ll be when you’re thirty-five.”

“Or I’ll be like, an emotional wreck who wears leopard print to work and tries to take care of druggy thirteen year olds and only gives them terrible patronizing advice because I’m so over it,” I said.

“Just don’t manifest that.” Goober shrugged. “Anyway, that’s not you. You’re way more likely to keep being super invested to an unhealthy extent in everyone else’s crises and give yourself cluster headaches from thinking too hard about other people’s problems.”

“Thanks.”

We watched a large black cat cross the empty street and disappear into the bushes.

“Did you hear that someone’s been killing and mutilating housecats on the West Side?” Goober asked.

“What?” I asked. “What?”

“Like, there’s been five people within six blocks that have had their cats killed in five months. It’s a serial cat killer. The cats turn up near the owners’ houses with their hair singed off their heads on one side and like, these weird marks like they’ve been stuck with some kind of needle. And their spines removed. All the same. My friends are talking about organizing a community cat protection thing where we walk around at night and try to catch whoever it is. And also protect stray cats. I’m worried about Ozma getting out and someone killing her.” Ozma was Goober’s white cat.

“That’s so crazy,” I said. “That’s scary.”

“I bet it’s some druggy sociopath college kid from the state uni. Next it’ll be people.”

“Yuck,” I said. “Don’t say that. We had the Oyster House Arsonist just like, two years ago. I don’t want any more shit to go down here.”

“It’s a small town,” Goober said. “We have a lot of secrets and dark shit. Just natural.”

When Goober caught her bus, I walked back to the library and got my car to head home. The roads that late were pretty empty. Going anywhere outside after dark on a weeknight is like that. As I drove back I listened to a new release from this artist Nightspace who I like. It got me in the right mood—it’s kind of like Grimes, but from someone who isn’t a wacky capitalist shill and whose voice sounds like Robert Smith from the Cure. Nightspace has been around a few years but is just getting big. They used to live in Seattle. As I drove past the lake, I rolled the windows down so that the kids who were drinking on the dock could get a little flash of goth culture passing through the night.

My dad’s house is fifteen minutes outside of downtown, in a newer suburban development a lot closer to the farms and the cow shit stink. My mom lives a little closer in, but this week she was at a conference for work, so I was at Dad’s. He lives with his wife Kaylin, who he married when I was twelve. Both of them are okay people. Just okay. I don’t have anything personal against Kaylin, though I hate that she keeps the house looking like a Martha Stewart magazine. Houses aren’t meant to look like that. I also feel like a really smart, good person would not have married my dad, so I’m still trying to figure out what is wrong with her.

When I pulled into the driveway I shoved all my weed gear in my overnight duffel bag before getting out of the car. The lights were on so I knew they were both awake. Kaylin was in the kitchen when I got inside, looking at her phone. She smiled at me. I nodded at her.

“Hey James,” she said. “How was group?”

“Same old,” I said. “I’m the one giving the advice these days. I think I’m probably too old for it.”

“That experience with planning workshops and stuff will be very good on college applications,” she said. She was drinking her Bedtime Sleepy Blend tea. It’s from the hippie mom yoga herb shop downtown. Catnip and meadowsweet and stuff.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure tooting my own horn about it on all the essays.”

“Did you eat dinner?”

“I had a snack.”

“There’s stuff in the fridge if you’re hungry. Oh, and I’m making some crepes tomorrow morning, if you’ll be around before school,” Kaylin said.

“School starts early,” I said. “Seven thirty in the morning, remember?”

“I’m going to be up early to jog.”

“Oh, cool.” I shrugged. “Yeah, if I’m up I can help with your crepes.”

“I like that collar,” Kaylin said, in a tone that let me know it distressed her.

“Well, first week of school, gotta come on strong,” I said.

My dad came into the kitchen, wearing boxer shorts and a T-shirt advertising the fact that he likes the band The Shins.

“Oh,” he said. “You’re home. How was your day?”

“Just fine,” I said. “I’m applying to Berkley, so did some research on that after school before Compton and group.”

My dad and Kaylin looked at each other in surprise. “Oh wow,” my dad said. “Well, that’s a big challenge. Good luck. Do you have any friends applying there?”

I shrugged noncommittally. I was not actually counting on applying to Berkeley. It was one of those things I said to my dad to shut him up from asking about why I smelled like weed. I was actually applying to a number of institutions I knew he would approve of, so it didn’t really matter.

“Remember,” my dad said, “Make sure to emphasize all the different facets of your personality. Don’t focus on just one thing.”

“Totally,” I said.

“Why do you want to go to Berkeley?” Kaylin asked me.

“I’d like to stay on the west coast but go to a prestigious university,” I said, “and I haven’t ruled out law school, so it might be nice to get a sense of the atmosphere there and to make friends on that track.” I went to the fridge and unloaded the key lime slime container Goober had given me onto the shelf next to the organic milk.

“Good reasons,” my dad said. He was rummaging in the pantry. I heard the pop that signaled he had managed to pry open Kaylin’s Tupperware of carob energy cubes.

“Yeah,” I said.

“You need good grades for that,” my dad said through a mouthful of carob, agave and hemp seed.

“It’s a good thing I get good grades,” I said.

“I worry about that a little with your smoking, you know,” Kaylin said, though nobody had asked her. “You’re so smart. Do you feel like pot impacts your studying? I know the times I’ve gotten high I haven’t felt very…” she gesticulated primly. “Together.” Kaylin is the kind of person who wears gray linen and tidy Banana Republic ensembles to the beach. I doubt she has ever been untogether.

“I have a 3.95,” I said. “As of now. And I do theater and used to do jazz band and I helped plan Gay Pride last year and was the only person under 18 on the task force. Frankly, I was the only person under 30. And I plan workshops on gay rights for nonprofits and do sex ed and canvas for local Democratic candidates and volunteered at the food bank for two years. I think I’m okay.” I filled a glass of water at the sink and drank it. “Speaking of, though, I have to do some homework before bed. I gotta go work on some chemistry. See you in the morning.”

“Nobody’s saying you’re doing bad, sport,” my dad said in that weird dry tone he has.

“Sure,” I said. “I know. Just practicing my shpiel.”

“See you,” Kaylin said brightly. “Remember, crepes!"

“Goodnight, kiddo,” my dad said. He replaced the carob Tupperware in the pantry and came over to me for a hug. I reciprocated awkwardly. “Love you.”

“Love you,” I said, leaving the room with my weed duffel.

I don’t love my dad anymore—not since I was about thirteen, and came out, and he freaked out more than I expected and said a bunch of totally ugly shit and then kicked me out of the house to live with just Mom for a year while he “figured out what he was feeling” about my gender. He says he has figured out what he’s feeling and I know he read at least one of the articles my mom sends him, because he doesn’t say ugly shit any more and signed off on my top surgery with my mom, but he is still an emotionally incompetent moron who only cares about material success and shiny titanium kitchenware and gardening and like, Bjork. He has done nothing to repair our parent-child relationship. I resent him for things I would not resent a normal man for, like wearing a T-shirt for The Shins or eating carob cubes.

Upstairs, I locked the door to my room and turned on the lava lamp my dad bought me when I was eleven. It’s orange and red and I still think it’s sick as hell. Between the lava lamp and the pink rock salt lamp Kaylin gave me for my birthday this year, my room at my dad’s house practically radiates the color pink. It’s good that it has such a comfortable glow, because besides the lighting situation it’s intensely impersonal. Just a big bed and a blank Ikea desk with some pens on it and a dresser filled with clothes I don’t actively hate but don’t like enough to keep at Mom’s. No books, no personal effects. It’s a guest bedroom. I don’t actually belong in my dad’s house.

I could have used my vape to do my pre-chemistry smoke, since it’s less smelly, but the carob eating had annoyed me and I felt like reminding Kaylin and my father that I hated them in a subtle way, so I toked up and just opened the window into the September night. Most of the smoke left the room, so the fire alarm wouldn’t go off, but the funk would linger a while. I imagined Kaylin burning sage or nag champa incense or spritzing natural essential-oil cedar-scented air freshener when I left.

It was early enough in the year that the stuff I had to do for my AP chem class was pretty limited, just ten problems, but I hadn’t been lying about the homework. When I finally got to bed it was past midnight. I had forgotten to check my phone for three hours. I had a text from Ian and another from Opal.

Ian’s text read:

Should I break up with closet case? At the end of my damn rope.

Opal’s text read:

Just had a WEIRD convo with the trans man my roommate is fucking. He’s like a social work dude and he’s in law school. He said he’s maybe applying for the executive director position for Compton???? Because apparently NATALIE IS LEAVING??????? LIKE TO MOVE TO PHILADELPHIA?? DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS??

#writing #YA #trans #writers on tumblr #long post/#long post

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mann-and-lucky-channel · 6 years

Text

A Necessary Step

It’s raining. Of course.

“You okay? You seem off today.” Eric looked worried at me while he stuffed more snacks into his knapsack.

I closed my eyes and slowly nodded, “Yeah. I’m fine. Just kinda nervous and excited for our trip today.”

“I know what you mean,” he said. He doesn’t quite get why I’m so nervous, but it’s sweet of him to confirm my feelings. Even clueless he’s hot. NO! I can’t focus on that right now! Today’s a serious event. I just can’t help how much he affects me.

Eric slung the bag over his shoulder, “Ready? I think Andrew is here to drive us to the station.” Sure enough, as soon as Lucky said it, the bell rang. Andrew stood on our porch with an umbrella and a grim, almost determined look on his face. Without a word, we all loaded ourselves into the car and sped away.

“Thanks, Andrew.” I glanced at him from the passenger seat.

“It’s no problem. I’m concerned for where you’re going. Politics and all.”

“I know, but it’s been several years and I need to see my parents again.”

Eric sat quietly in the back seat with Coco on his lap. She was panting happily and enjoying his absent minded petting. The train station came into sight before too long. We stopped, got our things and I knelt down to pet Coco.

Eric shook Andrew’s hand, “Thanks again, Andrew. We’re supposed to be back tonight. The schedule says 9:30.”

Andrew smiled slightly, “Perfect. I’ll be finished closing up the salon by then and can come get you both. Mann, you really need to get a car for this guy.”

Without looking up, I chuckled, “And miss the chance to annoy you a bit? Maybe later.”

***

Eric sat across from me in the train car. The silence was getting thicker by the moment. I finally couldn’t take it anymore, “What’s wrong, Luc? You look like you wanna ask something.”

Eric opened his mouth, closed it, then took another second. Finally, “I was curious what Andrew meant by the politics. I mean, it’s a small excursion.”

“My family was in the ruling end of society until my parent’s deaths. Now that we’re basically in exile, it’s not safe for us to seen in that region.” I bit my lip a bit out of nervousness.

Lucky looked genuinely worried, “then why are we doing this? Won’t the supporters of the new...regime?...have defaced or even destroyed the memorial? Or hunt you actively?”

“I doubt it for both. It’s morally wrong in my homeland to deface ancestral grounds. And I’ve grown and altered my appearance. I don’t look like I once did. Then there’s the rain. Tends to keep people inside. So I won’t worry too much.” I took his hands, “Also, I have a big, strong bodyguard to keep me safe.” I smiled a bit.

Eric’s face nearly went beet red, “I hope so,” he said in a small voice.

I grinned again and scooted over to his side. I leaned on his shoulder and he put his arm protectively around me. Do you see how safe I am with him, Mom and Dad? I snuggled closer into him and closed my eyes.

***

I’m alone. Standing in the dark. I can’t see anything. I hear an acoustic pop behind me and turn to see a spotlight shining directly above a person. A girl, not yet a woman. I recognize her. Mandy. I call out to her, but no sound erupts. She looks up and smiles. Her edges blur and it’s another girl. No, it’s a woman. With a head scarf. I freeze. Sasha. I reach for her. She smiles sadly at me and fades. The image becomes a tall man. Kevin? He smiles that sarcastic smile at me and casually salutes with two fingers. What’s going on? Another shift. Andrew. He’s holding Coco and giving that intense glare he’s so good at. I begin walking towards the light. The person coalesces into Eric. He holds his arms out and I sink into him. I feel warm. I feel safe. I look up and it’s Dad. He places a hand on my head and grins so big his eyes seem to disappear into his cheeks.

***

“Mann? We’re here. C’mon, get up.” Eric helps me sit up. I shake off the last remnants of sleep. What was I dreaming about? I feel better than when I started. Must’ve been a really good nap. I grab my bag and lead Lucky out to the station’s platform. Eric looks back and forth at the road, “How far do we have to walk to get there?”

I scoff, “Walk?! You are a bumpkin,” I laugh as I raise my hand to wave down a taxi. After several pass me, a piercing whistle behind me makes me startle. A cab pulls up and stops in front of us.

Eric laughs slightly, “Looks like this bumpkin just got us a cab. City slicker.” He chuckles again and takes my hand. We get in, tell the driver where we need to go and disappear into the rain.

The cemetery looks exactly as it did when I was little . Same sky, same stones, same gravitas. Eric is making light conversation with the driver while I stare off towards my family’s mausoleum. He nudges me and I pay the fare. Once out of the taxi, Eric pulls out a sizeable umbrella for us both to use. He takes my hand, “Let’s go meet the Karims.”

I walk robotically towards my family’s mausoleum. I’m glad that my legs knew where to go; I was having a hard time gathering my thoughts. Eric seemed to understand because he kept my hand in his and walked diligently beside me.

We finally arrive and see my parent’s shared headstone. Color images of them are embedded behind heavy acrylic. Suddenly I’m a little boy again. I feel the knot in my throat tighten. Then Eric lets go of my hand, gives me the umbrella and bows before the headstone.

“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Karim. My name’s Eric, but my friends call me Lucky. I’m in love with your son, Mannan. I hope to make him the happiest elf in the world. I know I’m human, and while I don’t know your views of Mann living with a human, know that I love him and will protect him for as long as he’ll let me. Let me tell you a bit of myself so you know what your son’s getting into…” Eric then goes into a lengthy monologue of where he grew up, how he lost his parents too and everything up to today. Once he finishes, he bows again and steps back. While he spoke, the rain lightened some.

He took a deep breath and glanced at me with a loving smile. I hugged into him as I felt my cheeks get wet. Do you see, Mom and Dad? I love him. He loves me. I feel like I’m whole for the first time since I lost you guys. A cardinal landed suddenly on my parent’s headstone and considered us. A light chirp and it flew off. “That’s a good omen,” I said to Eric. He hugged me tighter, saying nothing. I looked up at him, “Let’s go home.”

***

Later that night I lie in bed, looking at Eric staring at the ceiling. He looked thoughtful. He opened his mouth, “What does it mean when a cardinal is seen?”

I felt my eyes soften, “The cardinal is a messenger for the dead. Good news is carried on it’s plumage. After your talk with Mom and Dad, I think they sent the bird to say that they approve of you.”

“That’s a huge relief,” he said and took a deep breath. “I meant every word, you know. You make me happy and I feel compelled to reciprocate. I love you, Mann.”

I scooched to lay my head on his chest, “I know. You certainly proved that today. I love you, too. You are everything I needed when I needed it. And you continue to do that.”

“Hey,” he said suddenly, “Since I went to meet your parents, would you be willing to go meet my family?”

I was taken aback by this. “You mean your adoptive family at the orphanage?”

“Yes.”

“Just let me know when,” I said and closed my eyes. Rain and all, I felt better. “Thanks, Mom and Dad,” I said softly.

“Hmm?” Eric must be drifting off.

“Nothing. Night, Luc.”

#the Mann and Lucky Channel #MannUNSPOKEN #LuckyUNSPOKEN #submission

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nicosroom · 7 years

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Nico’s “52 list”

The aim of the 52 list are to set down a “to-do” list of sorts in order that

I don’t get overwhelmed by everything I’ve ever wanted to do (and therefore never do anything);

and to weed out things I don’t actually want to do with my life (as in, if I don’t do it at the end of 2017, I have to decide if I want to put it on next year’s list or just admit I’ll never do it).

Here it goes--

1. Learn to poach eggs - perfecting them is an ongoing process, but I have the basic technique down; follow the saga on Twitter

2. No sugar in smoothies or oatmeal for two weeks - January 23-February 5. My plan is to maintain sugar free smoothies, but some oatmeal just needs sugar, okay?

3. Practice blow drying my own hair approximately once per week. Despite how little I do it, I really do enjoy wearing my hair straight once in a while. Typically, I have it dried straight at the salon after a haircut. I’m far too clumsy and impatient to do it myself. But, this year, I want to practice so that just maybe I can do more things with my hair than letting it air dry and throwing it up in a bun when I get tired of it falling in my face.

4. Try Penzeys Spices. It was everything.

5. Day trip to Yellow Springs, OH.

6. Visit Old Schoolhouse Winery in Eaton, OH.

7. Visit Hanover Winery in Hamilton, OH. It may be the best kept secret in Butler County.

8. Buy an immersion blender at the KitchenAid summer sale. I bought an immersion blender and then some.

9. Use sumac in a recipe. Almost two years ago, Catherine and I were cooking from Ottelenghi’s Jerusalem cookbook for my shoddily run cookbook club. It seemed like a ton of the recipes called for sumac. After a couple attempts, Catherine finally located it at the international market and she gave me ziploc snack-bag filled with sumac. Have I used sumac one single time since she gave this to me? No. This has to change in 2017. It took a while, but I have now.

10. Save $15 per week. Is it cheating if I automated this?

11. Buy a membership at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Student memberships are $30 per year. That’s like the smallest fraction of my discretionary spending budget that I could ever imagine.

12. Make cannellini bean and lamb stew from Jerusalem. Check it out. I’ve been cooking out of this book Spring 2015 and it took me all this time to realize they sell lamb stew meat in very neat packages in the regular meat section at Kroger. This whole time, I keep looking for it at the international market, but they only have fancy lamb cuts that seem overwhelmingly expensive.

13. Take more baths. I recently have been rereading The Bell Jar. Old Esther Greenwood may be kooky, but Plath sure made sure Esther knows a thing or two about taking baths. **This is basically over. I probably took three baths in the month and a half after I made this list. Now, I’ve moved into an apartment that doesn’t even have a tub. Too bad!

CANCELLED 14. Go speed dating. Jen & I did a little research and we found that “Predating” seems to be the only speed dating service in the area. And they separate their groups into “25-35″ and “27-39,″ charge $39 to participate, and hold a session like once a month at a really inconvenient time, like 7 pm on a Tuesday. I’m highly dissuaded. Ladies should be able to speed date for free. The way I see it, reparations for sexism and patriarchy.

14. Make a leche flan from scratch. It’s my very favorite imperial dessert. I devour it at Filipino holiday parties and I always save room for it when I eat out at an American Mexican restaurant. But, I should try to make my own, at least once.

15. Download and create a profile on a dating app. Check out my assessments of Coffee Meets Bagel and Tinder.

16. Watch Blue Hawaii

17. Try some place new for brunch once a month.

January: Sleepy Bee Cafe (Blue Ash (Cincy))

February: technically I failed. I only went out for brunch one time and it was at First Watch. But, at least, I tried a new location? The one in West Chester.

March: Spice Kitchen (Cleveland)

April: Triple header - Holly’s Homemade Eats & Sweets (College Corner, Indiana); Bellevue Bistro (Bellevue, Kentucky); Hang Over Easy (Clifton (Cincy))

May: Sugarcreek Restaurant (Sheffield Village, Oh)

June: Rising Sun Cafe (Yellow Springs, Oh)

July: Treaty City Cafe (Greenville, Oh)

August: another new First Watch location (Secor Rd, Toledo)

September: another new First Watch location (Montgomery, AL)

October: Chik’n Mi (Louisville, KY); Keystone Bar & Grill (Covington, KY location)

November: Doodles (Lexington, KY)

December: Asiana Korean Restaurant (West Chester, OH). I guess this isn’t quite a brunch place, but I ate an delicious eggy beef stew, Yukaejang and we ate there at 11 am, brunch time.

18. Visit downtown Waterville, OH. It’s a small town adjacent to the city of Toledo. I pass through it whenever I drive back and forth to the city from my mom’s new home on the farm. One of these days, maybe I’ll check out the local business scene, the metroparks, and the possibilities.

19. Get a desk that I like and will use. Although people say I have a nice desk, I disagree. I found it near the dumpsters at the apartment complex next door. It does its job, but I don’t love it.

CANCELLED. 20. Complete a Whole 30 reset. Though I remain curious, after much research, I decided that the reset is a terrible idea.

20. Watch Up.

21. Go to a live NFL game. Hopefully not the Bengals…unless they play a really interesting team…or, I can’t afford anything else.

22. Learn hollandaise sauce. Look.

23. Make an eggs benedict dish for breakfast -or lunch/dinner, I suppose. Perhaps a classic with English muffins, but maybe something like a salmon or fried green tomatoes benedict.

24. Make my bed every day for two weeks. I’ve read that this is a habit of highly successful people. I think it would be really good for my “working from home” vs. napping problem.

25. Make a TV-watching schedule. In college, I read some advice that you should schedule when you’ll watch TV and you should only watch TV then. I read that before the days of Netflix instant video. With Netflix, and especially after I moved into my own place, I formed a habit of “watching TV” as background noise while I do any number of things - wash the dishes, cook, fold the laundry, wash my face. As such, I get a lot of stuff done and also take in a lot of pop culture at the same time. But, I also see where this is an extremely counterproductive habit. Such as when I start a new 43 minute episode, but it only takes 20 minutes to wash dishes…and I watch the whole thing…Specifying the TV watching time gives you something to look forward to and provides some space to relax (unlike watching TV while simultaneously doing chores). The schedule should also put an end time on your TV watching. I’m gonna try for an hour Sunday-Thursday, likely between 8-9pm and make Friday and Saturdays open for watching a running list of movies I’ve intended to see. Check out my schedule and what I’m watching!

26. Make roasted pine nut hummus from scratch. Big brand pine nut hummus is so good. But after those hummus recalls by both Sabra and Trader Joe’s, we are in a trust no one situation. I shelled out $24 for a 3lb bag of pine nuts at Costco and I’ll be making my own hummus all year long.

27. Do a cleansing face mask once a week for four weeks.

28. Exfoliate lips once a week for four weeks. Will 27 & 28 stay weekly habits??

29. Color (in my adult coloring book) for 15 minutes before bed, Sunday through Thursday night for two weeks. I started 2017 hoping this could be a nightly habit. A late night here, a phone call with a friend there, a “oh, I forgot to make a lesson plan” on this hand, or a “just-too-tired today” on the other and suddenly I haven’t touched my $22 coloring book in more than two weeks. Alongside some of the above plans and habits on this list, maybe I can do this if I am a little more flexible and realistic. So I’ll shoot for work nights for two solid weeks and see if I can then turn it into a more definite routine.

30. No tech after 10 pm, Sunday through Thursday for one week.

31. Read Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations” from The Atlantic. You’d think this is easy; it’s an article from The Atlantic, after all. But when I made a PDF of this thing it was 62 pages long. That feels like a short term commitment and I’ve got to put it on the calendar one of these days (after comps).

32. Cook a Julia Child recipe. I made her hollandaise. I like the way she makes one feel empowered to do it, like its the most natural thing in the world. Not like Masterchef, where you’re doomed to fail from the start.

33. Go on a solo weekend trip. Details here.

34. Go to one of those miles long/wide antique malls. I pass by them often on my highway drives around the state and I fantasize about completing my Corelle and Pyrex butterfly gold collections. Somehow the timing is never right - I’m in a hurry, or they’re not open, or whatever excuse I can think up. Some local possibilities: Ohio Valley Antique Mall (Cincinnati’s largest, apparently, in Fairfield), Riverside Antique Mall (over 100 dealers on the scenic Ohio River; Cincinnati), and Heart of Ohio Antiques (according to their website, America’s largest antique destination just an hour away from me in Springfield).

35. Visit Grand Lake St. Mary’s/Celina, OH. I passed by this lake/state park last summer when I drove up US 127 until it connected with US 24. It’s a grueling drive compared with taking the fast-paced highway, but I saw so many tiny towns that might be interesting to visit. Grand Lake St. Mary’s looks like a nice beachy getaway. Though it probably gets busy and touristy in the summers, I bet the weekdays are quiet enough for me to enjoy a day or an overnight here. Perhaps this is a good candidate for that solo weekend trip I noted above.

36. Make tom kha gai. Thai coconut soup with mushrooms (and maybe chicken). So good, so good.

37. Go to IKEA. I was impressed.

38. Go to another distillery on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. In 2012-13, I went to Four Roses, Wild Turkey, Woodford Reserve, and Maker’s Mark. In 2014, 2015, and 2016 I took trips South in which I drove right through all the places in Kentucky where I might stop off to finish the trail, but I did not stop once - not even for Jim Beam, which is right next to the highway! In 2017, I should go to one, at least. Will I finish the Bourbon Trail or my dissertation first? Stay tuned!

39. Whole 30 Prep: Phase out yogurt for two weeks. I haven’t bought any yogurt since. The question remains, when will I tackle cheese?

40. No alcohol for two weeks.

CANCELLED. 41. Whole 30 Prep: No grains for one week.

41. Go see Fiona the hippo at the Cincinnati Zoo.

CANCELLED 42. No peanut butter, soy, and legumes for two weeks.

42. Go to Miami football and hockey games. I lived in Oxford for 5 years and did neither of these. My only incentive once I move to Cincinnati will be crossing it off this list.

43. Make a meal with a spaghetti squash. I’ve eaten spaghetti squash of course, but I’ve never bothered to roast/dismantle/serve one on my own. This year, I’m finally making that Southwestern Stuffed Spaghetti Squash recipe I pinned about three years ago.

44. Ride the carousel at the Banks in Cincinnati. I tried to do this a couple summers ago, but I showed up 30 minutes after closing time. Time to try again! And some of the carousel characters are pigs!

45. Find red wines that I like. I’m a dry white wine drinker - which puts me in some difficult situations sometimes. Working wine tastings since 2013, I’ve learned some favorites - Raffy Grand Reserve Malbec, Haka Tempranillo, Brion Cabernet. That is, I’ve learned expensive taste. I haven’t stopped working on this, but here are few winners so far.

46. Eat at J. Austin’s. It’s this restaurant I/we pass by every time we drive through Hamilton on the way to somewhere else. One of these days, J.Austin’s should be my/our destination, just to check it out.

47. Get a couch. I’ve managed to live seemingly on my own for five years and never have bothered to get a couch. I was walking around the Salvation Army on April 7 and I impulsively bought a couch.

48. Visit the American Sign Museum - I’ve made it to most of Cincinnati’s museums by now, but not this one. In 2017, it’s time.

49. Visit two new U.S. states - I chatted with a guy in the dating app about his goal of visiting all 50 United States before he turns 50, prompting me to list the states I’ve been to and steal his idea entirely. After eliminating all the states I’ve driven through but had no meaningful interaction with (Mississippi, North Carolina, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia) and the ones I don’t remember (like South Carolina, where we lived when I was an infant), I’ve got 21. I was in panic mode - how will I get to 29 states in the next 22.5 years? For the next five or ten years, I think I’ll try to hit at least two a year. In 2017, I have my sights set on Missouri and Arizona. Can anyone recommend some interesting border towns?

Phoenix, AZ trip is booked! Oct. 25-31

50. Have four artist dates. An artist date is a solo date with an artist/artwork. You go by yourself and the point is to just spend time with the artwork without the pressures to talk to other people about it or work on/around their schedules. When you go it alone, the only schedule you have to worry about is yours. Now that I think of it, I should have called “artist date” every time I made the mistake of dragging my ex-boyfriend to a military history museum and then feeling rushed because he didn’t want to read everything on every plaque like I did. This is precisely the problem artist dates solve. Dates can range from visiting exhibits and galleries, artist talks or performances, concerts or movies, spending the entire day reading a book, or listening to music in the peace of your own home without any other distractions. I heard about artist dates from Janice MacLeod (author of Paris Letters) and had planned to have one every month during 2015. Life got busy and all kinds of excuses not to have artist dates turned into no artist dates by the middle of the year. I set the bar lower this year, at four, hoping I can do this once a quarter.

February 19, 2017 - George Takei’s Allegiance

May 13, 2017 - Citizen by Claudia Rankine

June 2, 2017 - Jordan Peele’s Get Out

December 7, 2017 - Tom Hanks/Emma Watson/Dave Eggers, The Circle

51. Learn to sew on a button. Whenever my buttons need help I take the clothes to my favorite seamstress and pay $4 for the repair and make who knows how many carbon emissions driving over to her place.

52. Watch Star Wars. I’ve never seen it, so I have no idea about the allusions, the “Star Wars nights” at sporting events, or the Cold War metaphors about race, gender, and nation. I wasn’t very impressed.

#52 list #2017 #goals #travel #explore #nicos52list #52 list project #new year

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