Page 40 of My Own Kind of Person

I open my notes and try to take whatever’s stuck in my head and write it down, but my thumbs won’t move. These thoughts aren’t funny and I was wrong to think I should try a new set.

I don’t choose to cut myself off from myself. I simply float on, away, to a place where everything is quiet and I feel nothing. I pee for the first of a hundred times before tonight’s show, and I consider my penis. It’s strange to be both ashamed of this instrument of aggression and ashamed that mine isn’t aggressive enough.

I roll up some toilet paper and scrub the sink until it shines. The mirror too. I lift the toilet seat and clean where Tony or his dad got drops of pee.

Outside, the sun is so bright I have to shield my eyes. The air smells like chlorine and grass.

“I hope there’s no heaven,” Tony says as we get into his car. “I’ll be pissed if I have to spend eternity with this family.”

“You can always go to hell.”

“I appreciate that!” He squishes all his muffins into one monster muffin and bites it.

I poke my muffins around the bag, possibly feeling something I don’t know the word for. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Stick to your old set.”

“Maybe. It’s safe.”

Why am I even still contemplating this?

My phone buzzes. I pull it out to see what Andi says.

Christy says, I can be there tonight!

YAY, I write back.

I would like to smash my face into the window.

“Your old set is perfect.” Tony starts the car and reverses very slowly out of the driveway. “Everyone likes hearing about a boy getting beat up by a girl.”

“It’s not even true,” I say, and I feel like I’m channeling Elijah critiquing my story. “She kissed me and then pushed me down but she never kicked me. Maybe she knew she was gay and was frustrated by everyone seeing her as someone she wasn’t.”

Tony drives silently. His seat is moved so far up he’s almost pressed against the steering wheel.

I check my phone. Nothing from Andi.

I copy the entirety of my new set and paste it into a message to them.

If you have even sixty seconds to look at the beginning and tell me what you think, I write. Please

I’d be so grateful

I wish I had Elijah’s contact info. If he were there tonight I would feel more able to be…I don’t know. I don’t have the stamina to keep thinking about it.

I tell myself to talk without thinking. “The real question is why does everyone like a story about a boy getting beat up by a girl? Why do people think that’s funny?”

Tony doesn’t reply, and it’s the kind of not-reply that means to stop talking.

I try putting the crucifix under my shirt and then above it. How are you supposed to style a martyred son of God? “I have no idea what she was feeling. All I felt was embarrassed.”

Tony doesn’t take his eyes off the road. “Can I be honest with you, man?”

“Please.”

He speaks gently. “When you’re onstage, you’re like everyone’s little brother. Keep it that way. Don’t talk about the girl’s sexuality.”

This makes me sad.