Jem

18

“The sun rose and everything fell, when I gave birth to Alex, but I was too distracted by everything falling apart to notice the sunrise. I should have been there for him when he was still here, but now doesn’t want anything to do with me. It wasn’t my choice to kick him out. I didn’t want him to go. I still loved him, despite me saying otherwise or the opposite. He’s the one good thing that’s come from me.”

“Jan, we’ve talked about Alex before. He’s been pretty much all we’ve talked about, since our first session, so I know the story. Are you sure there is nothing else you would like to discuss today?”

“No, this is my session and I will use it however I want. Right now, I want to talk about Alex. I will talk about Alex for as long as I please and I will talk about him for every session I pay for until I get sick of hearing myself talk about him. As of right now, Dr. Short Ass, I’m going to talk about Alex. You should be grateful that I’m paying to talk to you, Dr. Short Ass, because I could just as easily skip out of here and rant about all my problems to one of the few friends I have and I would be making just as much progress as I am here, which is to say none. We are making no progress here, Dr. Short Ass, but I am still here. Also, don’t you dare start calling me Jan. We aren’t friends. This is a professional environment and I don’t like you, so you better get back to calling me Ms. James. Do you understand, Dr. Short Ass?”

“Sorry, Ms. James, I won’t call you by your first name again. Please, continue.”

“Alex is the one good thing that’s come from me. I haven’t given charitably, I haven’t helped one person selflessly, and I have never swerved or hit the brakes for a dog in the road. No, sir, I just keep driving; if they don’t get out of my way, they are going under my tires. I’ve hit too many dogs for me to count, just with the car I have now and it’s brand new. Alex is the one good thing that’s come from me and all I did was give birth to him. I didn’t treat him nicely, I didn’t teach him good manners, I didn’t make him a good kid; all I did was give birth to him and I hardly struggled with that one bit. The nurses there said it was the easiest birth they had ever assisted. I was only in labor for one hour: took half an hour to get to the hospital, took ten minutes to find parking, took ten more minutes to get into the room, took five minutes to get me all adjusted, then it just took him five minutes to pop out of me like a cannonball. I didn’t feel one thing when he flopped out of me; I just sat there heaving and pushing for five more minutes, until I finally caught that what one of the nurses was saying, ‘Stop! You’re done! You’re done! The baby’s out! If you don’t stop pushing, you could shit all over the place’ and what happened? I shit all over the place. I looked over to the nurse and she had this face on with a frown and a sigh. That nurse had been through this too many times and she was sick of that shit. After it was all done, my first instinct was to just get out of the bed and walk out of the hospital. I didn’t even think about the baby. I sat up and started scooting myself off the bed and the nurses weren’t paying much attention to me, so I could have gotten myself out of there with no problem, but I started feeling all woozy and I decided it would be best to lie down for a bit. I fell asleep. Next thing I remember is the nurses waking me up to show me my baby. I kept saying, ‘No, I want to sleep’ and I slapped their hands away, but they kept insisting that I needed to wake up and hold my damn baby. I sat up, took a glance at my baby and said to them, ‘yeah, that’s great. That’s my baby, thanks.’ The nurses all rolled their eyes at me and told me to hold my damn baby. I took him in my arms and the nurse - the one who told me not to shit all over - asked me what I wanted to name it. Her voice was all monotonous and, Dr. Short Ass, you could tell she had a long day.”

“Ms. James, could you please stop calling me Dr. Short Ass? With you so keen on maintaining a professional environment, I think it’s the least you could do. Now, continue, what did you choose to name your baby?”

“You know very well what I chose to name my baby, Dr. Dumb Ass, I’ve told this story a thousand times. The only name I could think of was Alex, so I said ‘Alex’. Then the nurse asked me, ‘with a k-s or an x?’ I thought that was the dumbest question I had ever heard. Who the hell would name their kid Alex with a k-s? I had the decency not to call her out on that and said, in my most pleasant voice, ‘with an x’. Then, after all those boring hospital procedures and formalities, I took my baby home. You know, from a very young age I should’ve known he was gay. On special occasions, we would go with his grandma to this jungle themed restaurant that had all these fancy decorations, people dressed up as jungle animals, and some chiseled high-divers in speedos. Alex would always want to go watch the divers. I’d always be talking about crushes I had on celebrities like Keith Urban and Toby Keith and Alex would say to me ‘those boys are ugly. Why don’t you like cute boys like Duncan Sheik or Gavin Rossdale?’ That kid knew what he was talking about. He always did. I should have known that it was coming. When he told me and his father that he was gay, I didn’t really care. I was fine with it. I didn’t care what he did, as long as it didn’t cause any trouble for me. His dad, on the other hand, did care. His dad was furious. He told Alex to leave the house. I didn’t do anything about it. Alex stared at the door handle and slowly turned the knob.”