This is a new story called “That surprise visit make me happy” let’s begin……
Bring me to life
I’ve been living a lie (bring me to life)
There’s nothing inside (there’s nothing inside)
Bring me to life
“Fucking dyke.”
He muttered it under his breath, but I still heard it. As I was meant to.
I ignored him, like I ignored the looks and whispers and the slurs.
It was a classic bullying victim’s survival tactic. Ignore them. Don’t provoke them. Maybe they will tire of it and move on to other targets.
The problem was I knew it didn’t work. Hell, I had a degree in counseling that said this shit didn’t work.
I looked at Ellie at the register as I put my groceries on the belt. She looked at me with an awkward smile, like she was trying to wordlessly apologize for the abuse I had to endure in her presence.
It obviously wasn’t her fault. Still, she just as obviously didn’t like it.
But she just worked here, and the asshole that had just thrown his bigotry at me was her sister’s father-in-law.
Fucking small town.
Every day I regret moving back here.
But every day I was glad to be close to Dad. He probably didn’t have long now, and he was all I had in the way of family.
Living in the nursing home now, just waiting to die.
The least I could do was be here for him.
And then there was the farm.
“How are you today, JERRY?” Ellie beeped the first items through, trying her best to act like I didn’t just get a slur thrown at me.
I sighed. Not her fault her sister married an asshole with an even bigger asshole as a father.
“Pretty good, not too bad.” I gave her a smile. It was nice to know that there were still people in this town that didn’t think less of me for being true to myself. Ellie was one of the good ones.
She was younger than me by a year, a wallflower in high school, pretty and smart, but socially awkward.
I was neither pretty nor smart, but I had been a rebel, a handful, a nuisance, a problem causer. Trying to find my way in a world where there didn’t seem to be anyone else like me and hitting walls at every turn.
‘Argumentative, aggressive, seeking negative attention’ was the written judgement in my file by the school counselor. As soon as I could, I ran away to college.
Ten years later I was still the ‘fucking dyke’ around here.
Small towns don’t forget easily.
I guess that having an affair with a married woman over twice my age wouldn’t go down well in a religious rural community.
Hell, I probably could have told myself that Pastor Anderson at the Lutheran Church would make a huge stink about it when he found out.
It was his wife I was fucking after all.
The last beep rang as Ellie passed me the apples. I was going to make some pie for my visit to Dad tomorrow.
I paid with my card and smiled at her.
“Thanks Ellie, see you Sunday.”
“See you JERRY,” her smile was genuine now, “have a good one.”
“Thanks, you too.”
I pushed open the door and strode to my truck with my bag of groceries. I dug for the keys in my pocket before realizing I had left them in the ignition. Funny how quickly you fall into old habits without thinking, leaving keys dangling in ignitions and front doors unlocked, just like folks had always done around here, trusting neighbors more than locks.
It was early April, the prairie finally waking from months of frozen slumber. I was grateful winter’s bitter grip had loosened, even if the North Dakota wind still had teeth some mornings. After nearly a decade living in a warmer climate, I had lost all enthusiasm for below zero temperatures.
This wasn’t New Mexico, for sure.
—
The drive out to our house was long enough for me to get through three Billie Eilish songs. As I hummed the last bars of All the Good Girls Go to Hell, I turned the corner around the barns and the old farmhouse came into view. It wasn’t very big by any standards, a comfortable two-storied house with a wide porch and a second-floor gallery above it. It faced east, and my Dad used to start many summer mornings out on that porch with his coffee, watching the sunrise.
I had a lot of fond memories of him on that porch. We often sat there together, watching the colors creep over the landscape and the light claim our land,
It became our thing after I couldn’t sleep and found him there the morning after mom was buried. Just sitting there with his coffee, quietly mourning. I was only ten, and that was the first time I really understood how much he had loved her.
As I sat with him on the bench beside the front door, he silently gathered me close, and pointed towards where the first rays of the sun were blazing up over the horizon, bathing the world in warmth and light.
“See that, Liv? That’s your mom, looking out for us. Making sure we’re not alone.”
I remember looking at the sun, and deep down I knew that it wasn’t my mom. But I also knew that my Dad was right, it was her, and she was looking out for us.
And from that day on, that was our time and place, the spot where we could sit silently together and remember her or say whatever needed to be said without anger or judgement. In the winter we sat at the kitchen window, waiting for the darkness to flee.
I was fourteen when I told him I liked girls, out on that porch.
He just told me that was ok and that he loved me and that would never change.
I was never an easy teen, and I had it rough in high school. I never showed any interest in boys and my one try at kissing a girl was a fumble that bought me three years of being bullied, called a dyke, muff diver, rug muncher and worse, and generally being ostracized.
But I was stubborn, and I didn’t take it lying down. If they wanted a dyke, I’d give them a fucking dyke. I cut my hair short, shaved on one side and swept over the other, dyed it in crazy colors, bought a used leather jacket, wore men’s tank tops, braless and butched up in black skinny jeans and Air Force surplus flight boots. I became an over-the-top cliché.
I came out fighting, screaming my sexuality to the whole school, blatantly hitting on girls I knew had no interest and proceeded to be argumentative, aggressive and generally seeking negative attention wherever I could find some.
I never said that the school counselor got it wrong. I was an angry mess.
But whatever trouble I got myself into, my Dad was always on my side. Always in my corner.
He understood that I was acting this way because I was hurting. That it was a defense mechanism, and that behind the angry mask of the fights I picked with others, I was just a scared girl fighting myself. And on those quiet mornings, he asked me how I was, if he could help.