Everything I Never Wanted to Be Page 3

  In fact, there are some things in my brain right now I can do without knowing. But I can’t erase them out of my head. I have an overwhelming amount of drug information in my head. Do I need it? No. But it’s there. Just in case I have to scream at a health insurance company. Otherwise, I don’t use it. It sits on the back burner of my brain waiting to pounce on some unsuspecting caseworker.

  I know everything I need to know. I can still read the speed limit signs. I know my PIN for the ATM. I just don’t want any more information.

  I needed to get my hair done, but I didn’t have any money. My husband suggested that I go to the place where he gets his hair cut for twelve dollars. He said, “How can you go wrong for twelve dollars?”

  Well, a woman can go very wrong for twelve dollars. A twelve-dollar haircut could ruin your life and change your gender. A woman can’t even tip a hairdresser for twelve dollars.

  The last time I paid under fifty dollars for a haircut, I walked out with a mullet. A bad mullet.

  You say, “A ‘bad mullet’ is an oxymoron”? Here’s how to tell a good mullet from a bad one. If you have a good mullet, you should look like one person from the front, and then when you turn around, you look like a completely different person. If someone looks at you and they can tell you have a mullet by looking at the chopped front and sides of your hair, that is a bad mullet. In other words, you need to chop far enough back to make the mullet kick ass. Trust me, I grew up in a trailer. I know a sweet mullet when I see one. And if you’re a woman and you accidentally get a mullet, whatever you do, do not wear a fanny pack or play tennis during that time. You will attract a gal pal.

  I end up cutting my hair myself in my bathroom. I cut my bangs, and I accidentally cut them too short. I look exactly like my fourth grade picture. The day before picture day, my mother said, “Tomorrow is picture day, so come sit still and I’ll cut your bangs so everyone can see your face.”

  Every woman in the world has that one school picture with the bangs that are half an inch long. The picture is all forehead with uneven bangs that look like they were cut with a cheese grater.

  My hair is destroyed, so I have no choice but to deal with my bushman eyebrows because I have no hair to cover them. I get the electric trimmer that I always use, and I look away just for one second and shave most of one eyebrow off.

  I come out of the bathroom and John says, “Oh! So you cut your hair.” He doesn’t say, it looks good, or it looks nice, he just says, “So you cut your hair.” Then he says not to worry it will grow back.

  I have to get out of the house. I have forty-six cents in my purse, but I need to get out. I go for a walk at an outdoor mall, and on the sidewalk there is the boys’ choir singing their Christmas songs. Everyone is watching and smiling and singing along. They’re all so excited about the holiday.

  I’m just standing there looking at them thinking what I always think when I see a boys’ choir, which is, Who dressed them? What minivan-driving mother picked these humiliating cruise ship shorts and sweater vests? Really? And here I am, mullet expert, now the judge of queer seven-year-olds, watching their chemically unbalanced mothers. The women are wearing sweatshirts that say things like, “Happy Birthday, Jesus!” They beam with pride while watching their boys. Meanwhile, my shaved eyebrow makes me look like I have a surprised expression on my face, which I don’t.

  I walk away and go into the makeup and hair product store, Ulta. All I can see is fifty women talking to themselves with their Janet Jackson headsets, which are channeled into their cell phones. All fifty of them have the popular white-tipped nails, hair highlights, hair extensions, and teeth so white that it’s like looking into the sun if they smile at you.

  The good news is that most of them don’t smile. I overhear their phone conversations: “Last Christmas, that mother fucking piece of shit gave my daughter a six dollar Barbie, but we spent over two hundred fucking dollars on his kids that are the goddamn spawns of Satan.”

  I feel like the Hunchback of Notre Dame and back out the door. I go to PetSmart where I won’t be judged. Then I go to the bookstore where I am always welcome because I blend. Even with my one eyebrow. Everyone blends in at the bookstore. I love the bookstore. The smell, the music, all the books.

  I’m looking at all the bestsellers and thinking about my book. I read the back of a few of the books about the authors. Every one of them says something like, “Carol lives in the Rocky Mountains with her husband, Jeff, and their two cats, Salt and Pepa.” Or, “Dave lives in the Vermont wilderness with his wife, Madge, and their dog, Mr. Bossy.”

  I think to myself, I wish I was a real writer. I wish my computer looked out on snow-covered trees in the middle of the woods. I wish I could look out that window and drink some herbal tea and people wouldn’t disturb me because I’m “working.” I’d be in a room filled with books and dark wood floors, my long-haired dog lying on the beautiful rug I got in Japan, a few feet away from the gentle flames of the fireplace. Sip, sip.

  My dad was one of the original starving artists. One day, when we were already living like refugees, Dad walked in the house and said, “I quit my job. I’m going to write a book. We’re going to see some hard times but I need you guys to support me on this.”

  What? I didn’t know people did things like this. Even with his income, we were eating rice three times a day. Half the time we didn’t have electricity or water. We’re going to see some hard times? What? No rice? Really?

  He sat in his pajamas for about two months writing his book. I was a twenty-something waitress and single mom, living with my parents, plus Jen and April. My grandfather, who had Parkinson’s Disease, lived with us, and my brother, Patrick, was in high school. My brother, Mark, and his wife lived there for a little bit, too. My sister, Lisa, and her two kids, Michael and Ashley, also lived there for a while. It was a full boat and now we were going to see some hard times?

  We all had our various jobs, and we would walk past Dad every day as he sat in his pajamas writing his book. It didn’t matter how starving we were or what utilities they turned off, he wouldn’t budge. He was not going to get a job until his book was complete. Thank God he thought his book was finished two months later.

  I tell people about my dad because now I’m writing a book, and I feel like I’ve been writing it since I was a fetus. I’ve rewritten it seventy-five times. I’ve read it a gazillion times. And there is no light at the end of the tunnel. But Dad completed his book in two months, God bless America! Back to work! Go buy some rice!

  I am not a starving artist. Well, at least we aren’t starving because I’m an artist. I have always worked as I pursued whatever dream I’ve had. It’s because of my father. Watching him follow his dreams while the walls fell down around him was painful. That’s not something I will ever do. I work, I buy the rice, I cook the rice. If we need more rice, I make more money.

  At the end of the day when all of what I feel are my responsibilities are taken care of, I write. I have waited my entire life to be able to just sit and write my book, and I’ve realized that day will never come. So I have to accept the idea that if I am going to write a book, I have to do it while I take care of my life. It may take longer, but it will eventually get written.

  Dreams. Dreams are great. But buy shoes for the baby before you join the band. You want to be a supermodel? Do your best runway walk into the community college. Put your long thin legs under the desk and open a book, just in case. You have wanted to open a sausage store your whole life? Get a job in a sausage store so you can see the inner workings of the sausage industry. You’re an actor? Clock in and “act” like you’re a checker in a grocery store.

  I’m not down on dreams. I think dreams are really fun. But dreams can be really unfun if you are living on the sidewalk and dumpster diving for your lunch. I’m not anti-dreams. I’m pro-electricity.

  This book was originally what people would call a “memoir.” But because I’m a stand-up comic, it became something else. It’s a book abo
ut true things that have happened, written by a comic—and everyone knows comics are completely full of shit.

  As a comic, you have a concept in your head of something that is funny. You take that funny thing, and you bend it and twist it and you go down every different path. Much of what is written in this book is me, doing that. Woven into that are the things in my life that have almost broken me as I walked down the road. So this book is an exact replica of my life. The events exactly the way they unfolded. The truth. Plus the funniest thing I can think of to help me survive the truth. I’m confident that people are bright enough to differentiate between me being funny and me telling the truth. Because in this book, it’s both.

  I’m a checker in a grocery store. But when I put Mom to bed, and Moses too if he’s here, and John falls asleep, and Carly is locked up in her room doing Jesus Christ God knows what, then, I am a writer. I wait until the next day is over and do the same thing. Type, erase, type, erase, ambulance, sip, sip. When my book comes out and they write about the author it’s going to say:

  Dina is the Maya Angelou of grocery store checkers. She lives in Phoenix with her husband, John, and her mother who has Parkinson’s Disease, and her grandson, Moses, who has cerebral palsy, and his mom, April, who has a drug-crazed boyfriend who wants to burn Dina’s house down, and a daughter named Jen who is a complete lesbian, and another daughter, Carly, who is a heroin addict. And they all have a dog named Squirt who is struggling with her weight.

  Divine Order

  I am dreaming. I am sitting in the middle of the ocean in a tiny boat with no paddles. I can feel the roll of the water under the little boat, and it is quiet except for small splashes of water every now and then. I don’t know how I got here, in a boat, with no paddles in the middle of the ocean. I’m just sitting here. I can’t see land in any direction, but I’m not afraid. I am calm. At complete peace. Just sitting in a tiny boat in the middle of the ocean.

  The earliest memory I have is me, sitting on a curb in my Girl Scout uniform, waiting for my dad to come out of a bar. He told my mom he was taking me somewhere. And he did. To sit on the curb in front of a bar on a slimy street in Albuquerque.

  Every hour or so he would peek his head out and say, “You okay?”

  Sure, Dad. Couldn’t be better.

  Then he’d go back in the bar.

  Periodically, I’d also lift my head to say, “No sir. I don’t have any spare change. I’m seven.”

  I remember getting home and my mom and dad had a scene on the front lawn. Just a screaming thing, but I guess I was supposed to get one of my Girl Scout awards for making sugar cookies into shapes with a screwdriver. It was a pretty big deal and I missed it. I look back now and realize that was the last award of any kind that was offered in my direction. Today, I wish I had it because like I said, that was it. I don’t have one single award to show for any great deed in my life. That Sugar Cookie Award was my last shot at greatness. And Dad blew it for me. It didn’t matter to me that all the girls were getting the same award.

  I don’t get the concept of giving an award to everyone. Other than the Sugar Cookie Award, when I was a kid we had winners and we had losers. Period. Sometimes you won. Sometimes you lost.

  Mentally handling “winning” was easy. You smiled and coasted through your sweet life until the next challenge. If you were deemed a “loser,” your brain went into automatic wait-until-we-meet-again-I-will-annihilate-you-if-it-kills-me mode. It’s called competition and it is something we face every single day of our lives.

  When I was in the ninth grade, I was a gymnast. There was another girl on the team named Andrea. We were in constant competition to beat each other. I could not miss one day of school because Andrea might learn a great stunt while I was out. One day Andrea said to me, “Your socks are inside out.” This provoked me into channeling Nadia Comaneci and becoming the greatest gymnast that cafeteria had ever seen.

  Not too long after that, I dropped out of school and was pregnant with my first child, which is another story. But who really won? Andrea? I think she went on to college and got a law degree. Big deal, Andrea. Your Vera Wang skirt is inside out.

  My point is you cannot function in the world without knowing how to respond to losing. It’s the same as hearing the word “no.” It’s every day of our lives. It’s a part of our lives. It is life.

  A sports guy said, and I quote, “Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.” You know who had this attitude? Nadia Comaneci. All the greats. Michael Phelps. Robert Downey, Jr. Bea Arthur. They all wanted to win. And they did! Michael Phelps didn’t say, “I just have fun flipping around in the water in my Speedo.” Are you kidding? He said, “I will win.”

  My dad got a medical release from the Navy because he climbed up a pole on a ship in the middle of the ocean and said he wouldn’t come down until they discharged him. He finally fell off the pole because of leg cramps. They discharged him.

  He was an alcoholic. He would walk over to the refrigerator, open the door and say, “I guess I’d better go get some milk.” Then he’d leave and wouldn’t come back for a couple of weeks.

  Here’s the comedy part of the story. He’d actually walk in, weeks later, with the gallon of milk.

  He’d walk in the door carrying the milk and all five of us kids would think, Thanks, Dad. Now I can have that bowl of cereal I wanted two weeks ago.

  He did stuff like this all the time. Once we had to go pick him up, two hours from where we lived, in a little tiny mining town at three in the morning because some bikers were holding him hostage until he paid his bar tab.

  So my mom loaded all five of us in the green VW van to go save his life. She took all of us because we were too small to stay home alone. We got there in the middle of the night, Mom went in the little rundown bar and came out with Dad following her like a child. He got in the passenger side and looked back at all the children wrapped in blankets and said, “Wow! Am I glad to see you guys!”

  When I was about nine, my siblings and I fell out of our moving van at an intersection. My dad didn’t notice for about five blocks.

  It was back before seat belts. It was also back before parents used any sort of common sense whatsoever. It was a time when you didn’t raise your children. You just fed them and they got bigger.

  My sister, Lisa, didn’t really participate in dangerous activities, but my brothers and I could have been taken to the emergency room any given day. I was more boy than I was girl. I was a tiny, stick-skinny, messy-haired, dirty-faced six-year-old, and I said the fuck word more than any other human being on the face of the earth.

  I have no idea why I loved that word so much. I think it was because it got such a grand reaction. Adults’ eyes would roll back in their heads and then they would tell me, “The language, Dina! My goodness! Is this how Jesus wants you to speak?”

  I didn’t think Jesus cared. I still don’t. I think Jesus has bigger fish to fry. Like starving children all over the world. Like hatred and racism and murderers and rapists. Me saying the fuck word is not something Jesus is going to have time to address for a long, long time.

  We lived on a couple acres of land with four other families. It was a religious community, but if you called it a commune, my parents would flip. It was more of a trailer park cul-de-sac blessed by God. When there was an injury, it was “given to God.” If the person was not healed, we gave it to God again. And so on, until enough time passed that God either healed you or the wound closed by itself.

  Among our favorite games were, “Lie in the street and jump up before a car runs you over.” Which explains itself. Then there was “Pull us with the truck,” where we would sit on a flattened box and be pulled through a field with a rope attached to a truck at fifty miles an hour. Also self explanatory—and fantastic fun for the people watching from the back of the truck.

  We played several games that involved dangerous acts from the back of a truck. One hundred percent of the emergency room conversations included the word “tru
ck.”

  Our all-time favorite game was sitting in the back of the truck while it moved down the street, grabbing branches from the trees hanging over the dirt road. If you were successful, you would dislocate your wrist or, even better, your whole arm. And if you really had some nuts, you’d hold on long enough to be physically ripped out of the back of the truck. With the people watching from the moving truck howling with laughter as you hit the dirt road. If you could break a few ribs, you could bring all the people in the truck to their feet, which of course was the goal.

  My sweet grandson, Moses, is eight. I cannot imagine him riding in the back of a truck. Are you fucking kidding with me? And on top of that watching him standing up in the back of the moving truck grabbing branches from the trees? Holy Jesus, it isn’t going to happen. What the hell were my parents talking about in the front of the truck that enabled them to ignore the fact that one of their kids was about to rip a limb off? My grandson is lucky if I let him sleep without a helmet.

  My dad is driving around the corner and all five of us kids, including my little brother, are trying to stand up in the back of the van without touching anything. We are actually small enough to stand straight up. He turns too fast at a busy intersection, the first kid bumps the door open, and there you have it. Young children lying all over the busy street.

  Dad drives on for a while before he notices that he is missing a van full of children. He comes back to get us, and other people are already helping us.

  He skids the green van into the intersection and jumps out saying, “They’re mine! I got it!” One kid at a time, he lays us in a pile in the back of the van, and drives away. We lay back there, completely injured, moaning. A giant pile of busted up children. He takes us home and “calls out” all the religious people who live on the religious land. My mother is at the laundry mat.