I’ve kept my life locked, padlocked, deadbolted, chained. I’ve kept it all behind closed doors. The doors have been sealed for so very long, they have forgotten how to open... and if you asked them to please let you in or out they would simply shrug in their frames and point at my stout but demure body as I sit with my legs crossed and stare out of a frosted window covered in tin foil.
I’ve been living in a 300 square foot apartment shaped like a triangle located in the attic of a factory that manufactures nothing but pink boas and day glow yellow wigs for seven years. During that seven years I have only stepped foot outside of my unit three times.
The first time was exactly 3 months after moving in. I had run out of Vienna sausages, Gatorade, and parmesan cheese, the staples of any diet consumed by a hermitic transexual linebacker with a fear of people, places, and things. Nouns, as it were, I feared. Not the saying or reading or writing of nouns, no. Tangible nouns. Breathing nouns. Nouns that hate. Nouns that love. Unfamiliar nouns. Right before I reached the end of my Vienna sausage supply, I came across a dented can that was off-brand sitting amongst all of the other truer sausages. A foreigner. An unfamiliar thing. An unfamiliar noun. I flushed it down the toilet. It got stuck.
I called a plumber on my phone shaped like a football bedazzled with sequins. I barricaded the bathroom door from within my unit and I paid him three thousand dollars by wire transfer to cut into the bathroom from outside of my apartment, fix the problem, and leave without ever having to come through the front door and see me.
The first time I left this space was exactly 3 months after moving in. I had run out of Vienna sausages, gatorade, and parmesan cheese. I pay a runner a few hundred dollars a month to bring me necessities and leave them outside of my door. When the delivery happens, I clean up and put on the only suit I have. I approach the door, open it about 1 foot, pull the bag in, slam the door shut, take off the suit, get back into my slip and shoulder pads, and go about my existence. The suit? Just in case I’m seen partially through the door when I open it.
The first time I left my apartment was exactly three months after moving in and the runner hadn’t come. I sat in the corner drenched in a cold sweat dressed in my suit while clutching an empty can of meat. I was starving, weak, weary... famished, fatigued, flustered, forgotten... hungry, frail, panicked..pickle. I was in one. A pickle.
A pickle sounded consumable and the wig factory conveniently runs a deli at the corner of our building where they sell pickles and red velvet cupcakes and pink boas and day glow yellow wigs. I contemplated a mad dash downstairs but dismissed the idea at the thought of having to climb the stairs upon my return. I live in a walkup... on the second floor. You see my dilemma. My stomach began to churn. It was speaking to me. Quite literally.
It said, “Heat,” .... my name is Heat .... it said “Heat, eat.”
To the untrained ear it may have sounded like hot air being twisted in between flesh looking for something to digest but I assure you that time alone with one’s bodily functions allows the ability to hear the words amongst the gurgles. I had become somewhat of a body sound translator. An organ whisperer.
It makes a slight wrenching noise and I whisper, “Go on, say something.”
And it said, “Heat,” .... my name is Heat .... it said, “Heat, eat.”
I listened. I lept from my chair, tuck and rolled toward the door, took a moment to Vogue, grabbed the handle, lifted my leg behind me as I mustered the audacity of hope, and pulled the handle. As I took a step outside, I became dizzy, disoriented, delusional, fucked up. (I hate alliterations that exceed three words.) I was certain I wouldn’t make it another step when suddenly, as in a movie, the door of the apartment across from mine opened slowly. I froze.
An old woman weighing in at 753 pounds standing 2 and one half foot tall stood in shock wearing a floral moo-moo, a garter belt around her giant flexed bicep, an olive green colored fedora with a peacock feather jutting out the back, and in her hand.... a pickle. We stood silent and panicked for quite some time until she managed a few words as she trembled.
“You’re wearing a SUIT!”
To which I replied,
“Pickle.”
“Excuse me?”
“PIIICCCCKLE!!!!!!!!”
She reached a pinnacle of panic that was palpable. P’s make you spit. So much so that her garter belt burst at its seam because apparently old fat short women swell as adrenaline courses through their veins. The piece of elastic covered by fabric flew from her arm, hit me in the eye, and sent me flying violently backwards about.. 2 millimeters. In defensive response, I lunged right, then left, then right, then straight at her. Upon the impact of my body against hers, she was catapulted into her apartment and flew out her kitchen window with a shattering of glass. As she retreated with a scream that can only be produced by elderly brittle vocal cords, her pickle flew into the air about 40 feet... we have vaulted ceilings in our hallway.... and came tumbling toward me like a.... torpedo. Like a..... football. I don’t normally catch balls. I’m a linebacker. But this was a pickle, not a ball. I jumped daintily into the air like some finned flying fish, opened my mouth wide, swallowed the pickle whole, ran back into my apartment, slammed the door, took off my suit, put on my slip and shoulder pads, played a game of solitaire because porn gets boring, and took a 20 minute nap. My runner brought my food one hour later. I sent a note the next day requesting promptness. Old fat women shouldn’t die over pickles and empty cans of Vienna sausage.
That was the first time. The second and third? Teach me to trust you and maybe we’ll talk.
I wasn’t always a transexual linebacker named Heat. I once was a transexual linebacker named Bob. Robert at the start. Bobby when I was younger. Bob at the age when boys names that end with the sound of EEEE transition from being cute to being... fag. Heat when fag went from being cute to being reality.
I am the son and daughter of a woman who made billions putting together things like computers. I am the son and daughter of a man who made nothing putting together things like alcoholic and punching wife in face. I am the son and daughter of a couple that started content, leveled off in complacency, proceeded in an upward climb toward violence, and ended up murdering one another. They did... murder one another. She smacked him in the face. He punched her in the neck. She stabbed him with a knife in the forearm. He took the knife and stabbed her in the calf muscle because he was on the ground recovering from the forearm wound. She impaled him with her 5 inch heel. He took off her heel and impaled her in the chest just above the heart puncturing a lung. She produced a small golden pistol from the holster built into her braziere and shot him twice in the crotch and then raised the gun and fired two warning shots once it was too late. He ran to the pantry and grabbed a can of Vienna sausage and lunged it at her head and it struck with a thud. Or a pow. She said oww. She took a pipe bomb from her purse, lit the fuse, and held it in her hand until the very moment before explosion and flung it at his body. It erupted at just the right moment and sent preloaded shrapnel across the room and into every part of him....and her. They were laying on the floor twitching and trying to die together in one last attempt at resolution but couldn’t manage united mortality just as they couldn’t manage tantric unified orgasm.
I watched perched from atop the fridge clutching my football in my left hand and my Barbi Dream House in my right. Yes, the whole dream house went with me everywhere.
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