Texts from Bennett (4 page)

ME:
I’m fucking with you. WHY is your mom on OxyContin?

BENNETT:
cuz she also sleep all day an stop payen da bills..

ME:
Her back is fucked up still, right? But OxyContin? Does she need OxyContin?

BENNETT:
ya she in pain alot. butt cmon playa n e 1 who take oxycotton does it for fun not bcuz they need it..nigga u ever try dat shit?it make u feel like ur 2pac in dat hot tub holden stax of cash pouren chammpane on a striperz head

ME:
I see. Uh. Also, who’s Tim?

BENNETT:
dats my mom BF

ME:
Yeah? You live with him? Why can’t he help with the bills?

BENNETT:
he wierd. he duz acid and smoke hella weed wit me but he a bum ass nigga 2.haha. he broke as fuk.

BENNETT:
butt he smart like U doe. . . . .

BENNETT:
he read sum wild ass books like U. sum crazy shit wit Da Illuminadi. he a wild ass nigga.

BENNETT:
he show me a video on UTube of 911 an how da govermant planted dinamite in da billdings and blew dem up

ME:
Do you believe that stuff, Bennett?

BENNETT:
hell yea who doeznt.?da white house has a grave unda it wit gosts and shit

BENNETT:
i dont beleive anything on Da news

ME:
Right on, buddy. I’m going to call your mom. What’s her number?

BENNETT:
K hang on

BENNETT:
913-648-****

Now that I knew more of the scoop, I called Aunt Lillian and extended an invitation for them all to come stay with me for a few weeks. She was so intoxicated on painkillers that I couldn’t understand a word she said, other than, “Thank you so much!”

This was spur of the moment, but I knew it was the right thing to do. Family is family. You’re supposed to help family. Right? And all I wanted to do right then was help my aunt. Especially after hearing the pain and confusion in her voice over the phone.

Especially after what she did for me in 2002.

HARPER:
You keep bringing up “the ’02 thing.”

HARPER:
What happened in 2002 to make you feel obligated to do this?

ME:
Well

ME:
I needed a van in 2002 to go on my first tour.

ME:
My mom wouldn’t rent me one because i wasn’t even 21 yet . . . which made sense. If I woulda wrecked it she woulda been fucked.

ME:
But at the time I thought she was being difficult so I put up a bit of a fuss over it.

ME:
Lucky for me in the middle of arguing with her over it Aunt Lillian called.

ME:
My mom told her what was going on and Lillian offered us her conversion van that was sitting in her driveway.

ME:
She wasn’t using it. She had a string of surgeries and was out of work for a while.

HARPER:
What kind of surgery?

ME:
Not 100% sure. My aunt has some serious medical issues. Back problems, nerve damage etc. She takes lots of pills.

ME:
Anyway . . .

ME:
Yada yada yada she insisted and we took it.

ME:
For 5-6 weeks it worked great.

ME:
Until it completely died in Gainesville, FL on the highway.

ME:
Just crapped out on us. We had to take a Greyhound cross-country back home. Luckily, the tour was two shows from being over when it happened.

ME:
I was going to fly back to Florida to get it but the repairs were so expensive. The engine was shot. It was gonna cost like $2,000 to fix. But Aunt Lily said not to bother.

ME:
She said she had another old car she could drive if she needed to.

ME:
And was genuinely happy that she contributed to my tour. Didn’t sweat me to pay her back at all.

HARPER:
I get it. I guess. I mean that’s very nice of her.

ME:
Right.

HARPER:
So who all would be moving in with us then?

ME:
Aunt Lillian, her boyfriend Tim, and my cousin Bennett.

HARPER:
Ok.

ME:
They’re good folks.

HARPER:
Just to clarify: from what you’ve told me in the past, Aunt Lillian has a terrible OxyContin addiction, can barely pay her bills, and sleeps all day. Her boyfriend Tim is apparently a conspiracy theory nut who believes Barack Obama drinks human blood and “shapeshifts” into a reptile that lives underground. And Bennett is a 17 year old gangbanger who says he’s partially black, when he’s not. Amiright?

ME:
Yes. You’re right. Totally.

HARPER:
K. So I think I get why you want to do this. But a gangbanger? That’s scary.

ME:
Yeah. Hmm. Bennett is a troubled kid. I’m just being honest. But he’s got a good heart.

HARPER:
Like . . .

HARPER:
That’s neat and all. But there’s also a lot of people with good hearts in prison.

HARPER:
I watch a show about it on A&E. They give kittens to prisoners to make them good people. They’re still rapists and murderers though.

ME:
I doubt Bennett will ever end up in prison.

HARPER:
Hasn’t he been to juvie like five times already?

ME:
Twice.

HARPER:
For what?

ME:
He got into an argument with someone and kicked their car or something.

HARPER:
He went to jail for kicking a car? That doesn’t seem like it makes sense.

HARPER:
It doesn’t matter. I just don’t feel comfortable with this, that’s all.

HARPER:
I’ve never really been around people like them. I do NOT say that disparagingly.

ME:
I know you don’t, honey. But I promise, Aunt Lillian is one of the nicest relatives I have.

HARPER:
I see.

HARPER:
Why can’t she pay her bills again?

ME:
Well . . . she’s just a little irresponsible.

ME:
My grandpa Mike, her dad, didn’t exactly love her or put energy into raising her. He kind of hated her to be honest. She has mild Asperger’s. You wouldn’t be able to even notice.

HARPER:
God. Who could hate someone with Asperger’s? That seems uncool. Then again I guess I’ve never had a child with Asperger’s.

ME:
As a kid she had trouble learning and functioning. Grandpa Mike was very abusive and always drunk.

ME:
He accused Kitty.

ME:
My grandma/his wife . . .

ME:
Of having an affair on him and said Lillian wasn’t his, and that the night Kitty got pregnant with Lillian the mystery guy accidentally peed in her and contaminated the sperm cell causing it to not develop properly.

HARPER:
That’s hilarious. Did your grandma really have an affair?

ME:
Nah, Lillian looks exactly like Mike. He was just an asshole.

ME:
Btw that’s really not “hilarious.”

HARPER:
Well? Did she act up a bunch as a child or something?

ME:
No. She is seriously one of the sweetest people in the world.

ME:
At my mom’s funeral she sat with me and my sisters and just cried and hugged us.

ME:
To see her feel that type of pain over my mom dying brought me closer to her.

ME:
Hello?

ME:
You there?

ME:
Sorry. Nipples! Dinosaur cocks!

HARPER:
Huh? . . . ?

ME:
Because I’m getting all serious on you and want to be more lighthearted.

HARPER:
Sorry, baby I didn’t respond because my boss was making me help him with something.

ME:
Do you get why I feel obligated to do this?

HARPER:
Umm..

ME:
Bennett can sleep in the basement. So we just need to let Lily and Tim use the guest room for a few weeks while they find a new apartment.

HARPER:
You know what? It’s your house. Your decision.

ME:
Hey, stop that. I don’t want you to feel that way. It’s your home too.

HARPER:
I don’t want to feel this way either. But what choice are you giving me? It’s like it’s out of bounds for me to say what I feel.

ME:
What do you feel? Honestly.

HARPER:
I feel like you should tell Aunt Lillian to get off her ass and take care of her family like a big girl. But, again, I don’t want to tell you what to do. I just know if it was my family I wouldn’t want anything to do with it.

ME:
Sheesh.

ME:
I’m not trying to start a fight, I’m really not. But your entire family is Democrats. The whole basis of your politics is helping the poor. Assisting the lower class.

ME:
But when its actually time to put that plan into effect you want nothing to do with it?

HARPER:
*it’s

ME:
Huh?

HARPER:
You mean “it’s” as in “it is.” Also “are Democrats,” not “is.”

ME:
Seriously? Clever way to avoid the topic at hand.

HARPER:
Baby, no. I’m not avoiding the topic. I just disagree.

HARPER:
And you know how annoyed I get over bad grammar!

HARPER:
By the way, we want to tax the rich and redistribute their money to the poor. What does that have to do with letting people freeload off us?

ME:
Freeload huh?

ME:
Unreal.

ME:
You know what? I’m taking a nap. I don’t want to say something unkind right now because I love you.

HARPER:
Baby, wait.

HARPER:
You know what I meant.

HARPER:
I didn’t mean it like that.

HARPER:
Honey?

My girlfriend, Harper, grew up in Manchester, Vermont, and was raised in a twelve-bedroom, white colonial house from the 1800s, replete with forest-green shutters, a driveway comprised of faded, black cobblestone and auburn bricks, and a front yard boasting 150-year-old shagbark hickory trees.

Due to the nature of this book, I couldn’t obtain legal permission to disclose exactly who her father is, but to put it vaguely: he’s a monstrously successful business magnate who birthed a very important, ahead of its time computer company and then a couple of other companies that also achieved great success. He was a pompous, liberal (but not really) prick. The kind of guy who enjoys homebrewing oatmeal stout beer but also names his four Brittany spaniels Tic, Tac, Toe, and Moe. Her mom was a philanthropist and college professor. Her siblings, both still in college. Let’s just say they were a particularly influential piece of the elite Northeast liberal oligarchy.

I met Harper when she was in Kansas City, visiting one of her old roommates from college. This roommate was a mutual friend of ours, who dragged Harper out to see one of my local shows. After watching me perform, she approached me and said, “Touché.”

Touché.
That’s the first thing she ever said to me. As if I proved her wrong on an argument we were having. Which, apparently, I did.

Originally, she assumed that since I was a rapper, I’d be an illiterate, materialistic misogynist. Her experience with hip-hop music was limited, I’d say. But after watching me, she admitted that my lyrics were “more like poetry than rap.” I “surprised her a lot.” Thus: “Touché.”

I’ve classically had bad luck with women. They always found me too intense and overtly passionate. For example, I made Danielle Gamby, a cocktail waitress at Garozzo’s Italian restaurant, an arts-and-crafts project out of old, repurposed shoe boxes to express my love for her. She enjoyed the ballet, so I created an auditorium and stage out of the boxes and inscribed a poem for her on the backdrop of the stage, full of romantic proclamations and fancy caesuras. She ended up fucking my friend Nate in his car the night I gave it to her.

Harper was a perfect match for me. Both of us had rocky romance histories. So much so that in social settings I didn’t approach women just to avoid rejection, but she
did
approach men, to avoid being alone forever. She had a . . . how should I say it?
Strong
personality. Her approaching me wasn’t a cosmic phenomenon. Jaded, lonely people instinctually find each other at bars, the same way alcoholics and cokeheads do.