The Optimist

by Sophie Kipner

  ‘Yup. Da whole ass n de puss puss,’ he wrote.

  ‘It feels weird to send a picture of myself to someone I don’t know,’ I said. For some reason, I was a little embarrassed – an emotion I’m not used to. It’s just that dick and ass shots were totally out of my comfort zone.

  Silence. Dead zone. I waited. Was it because I hadn’t complimented him?

  ‘You have a great set of balls, and an awesome dick,’ I wrote, trying to backtrack and steady the vibe again.

  ‘;)’ he replied.

  Again, silence. Then, ‘You still owe me a pic . . .’

  ‘I just want to know a bit more about you first,’ I continued, trying to engage. Women need to talk, he should know this; surely he’s a man with a lot of experience. Plus, I’m not just going to give it away. I’m letting him smell the bacon in my pocket. I’m not ready to show it just yet, but the point is that he knows it’s there.

  Silence.

  ‘Where are you?’ I asked.

  ‘Home.’

  ‘In Jamaica?’ I asked.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Are you a Rastafarian?’

  ‘Yep.’

  He wasn’t very talkative but I wasn’t going to let that get in the way. Not everyone can be gregarious. That would be exhausting.

  ‘Dreadlocks are an aphrodisiac for me,’ I said, filling the gaps because we’ve already established it would be unwise for me to think he’d do so himself.

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘Have you heard of a song called “Night Nurse” by Gregory Isaacs?’ I asked.

  ‘Dat be a classic. Mmmm I wish you wid be my night nurse.’

  THIS IS SO EXCITING. I thought this was text foreplay, although I wasn’t entirely sure. It was getting warmer, though.

  ‘Are you a drummer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  It’s amazing, he was saying ‘Yes’ to everything; it’s as if I had prayed to the right Gods of romance this time. I couldn’t have imagined answers more perfectly primed for my affection. My mom loves people who say, Yes! I think it’s because she says yes to people. She’s beautifully open, and that’s why she’s so lovable.

  When my mom was twenty, she moved to Jamaica because she loved the colors and the people and the food. She used to tell me how the smell made her quiver and the sand smoothed her callouses, and how she fell for a local named Antony who played keys in a reggae band. ‘I loved him,’ she’d reminisce. ‘He couldn’t keep his dick in his pants but he taught me how to be a woman.’ Real women have experiences across the board, I learned. Real women are women with stories. Women who can go to a party and tell a dirty joke well and know the exact right moment to leave just as the night is peaking. I wanted to date everyone and everything. I wanted to be the person I’d want to invite to a dinner party. What a story the Jamaican would be. Maybe I’d move to live with him in Kingston and just be one of those women with a million lives. A cat woman, without the surgery, just the near-death adventures. This was how I’d relate to my mother.

  ‘I bit you got a big bun in dah ass rit now?’ he said.

  I had absolutely no idea what he was saying but I tried again to pronounce it to myself to see if any of the words brightened up and took shape in my vocabulary, but the exercise proved unsuccessful. I took a breather, letting my head escape from the cramp-inducing downward position it was in to be able to see the screen. Being that the sun was shining quite brightly, I caught a glimpse of my ass’s reflection in the window of a nearby clothing store. Ironically, the store was called Big Image. I turned around to see what kind of junk was hiding in my trunk and turns out, there was a lot! I started grabbing chunks of meat, imagining my hands were the Rastafarian’s big, beautifully sculpted hands. I lost myself in the reflection for a moment, somewhere between LA and Jamaica. Somewhere between him and me, hope and reality, until I was rudely startled out of my trance by the shopkeeper knocking at the window.

  ‘Are you for real?’ I asked the Rastafarian as I skidded along the sidewalk, expressing my apologies to her in a dip and a wave.

  ‘BOAL,’ he replied, again using an acronym I couldn’t follow.

  ‘You’re going to have to enlighten me with some of this slang!’ I said, exclamation point purposely added.

  ‘Buss out a laff,’ he told me. Jamaicans are so happy and optimistic, living life the way it’s meant to be lived. Plus, I love when someone thinks I’m hilarious. This relationship is going really well, although I must admit I’m not good at long distance.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Jimar,’ he said.

  ‘Jimakin’ me crazy,’ I wrote, laughing to myself, but the joke is so old and boring, I got radio silence. No reply. Not even the three dots that show he’s thinking, typing. Nothing.

  I rationalized that if I never heard from him again, I would only be losing a fake boyfriend and that it wouldn’t be so bad. Of course, I was hopeful, but I had to keep my roots intact because, well, we didn’t really know each other. I’m looking for the big stuff, the stuff that moves you. Phone sexting could be a stepping stone; one I was willing to take in case I found paradise on the other side of this running creek. I got in my car and headed towards Mary’s school as it was already ten to four in the afternoon. As I sat waiting for her in my car, I looked at all the other little kids coming out. I felt a level of solidarity with the little half-black, half-white kids running to their interracial parents. Beautiful mixed-race bundles of joy. I wanted to say, ‘Yeah, I get it. It’s good,’ but I didn’t want to create a divide between the humdrum white parents who just didn’t get it and me. I wouldn’t want to set the wrong example for Mary because I’ve always told her never to flaunt or gloat but just to know you’re better inside.

  Finally, Mary’s little legs and belly came charging out towards me. Her backpack was so big it bounced from side to side, almost throwing her entire body weight off. This time she was with the new friend. He was downright adorable, sporting a short dark pseudo Mohawk. He looked like a ­rocker’s kid, or more likely, the victim of a home haircut – the mother shaving the sides but forgetting the top. Either way, he had little man swagger.

  ‘So is this the infamous Randall I’ve been hearing all about?’ I asked.

  ‘Can Randall come over to play?’ Mary asked me. All I could think about was Rastafarian dick and Mary wanted me to plan a play date.

  ‘I’m not sure. I have to ask his mom. Randall, honey, where is your mom?’

  ‘She’s in prison,’ he said.

  ‘Hahaha,’ I laughed. Kids! The things they say! ‘Well, you little wisecracker,’ I started. ‘I still need a number to call and ask permission to take you with us.’

  He recited a number while looking at the sky, as if the clouds would help to remind him. As if the clouds and sun and stars and moon had answers.

  I dialed the numbers to a ring . . . ring . . . ring . . .

  ‘Hello?’ said a man. His voice firm and deep, lethargic and wobbly.

  ‘Hi,’ I started, at first unsure. ‘I’m Mary’s aunt, Tabitha. I’m here at school to pick her up and she wants to have Randall come back with us to play for a bit. Are you on your way to get him?’

  His only reply was a grumble as he sipped something. Ice cubes rattling. Clinking.

  Catching on, I jutted in. ‘Would it be okay for me to take him back for a bit? I’ll drop him home in a few hours?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, bluntly, coldly, drunk.

  Randall and Mary jumped in the back. I happened to have an extra car seat in the trunk and managed to strap them down despite their giggling and slippery bodies sliding and slithering around the seats. Trying to secure a seatbelt around a child is like trying to grab one jumping, psychotic frog out of a box without letting any of the others out. When you’re done, you’re sweaty and tired and you just want to sleep but you look at your watch and it’s only been a few minutes. It’s the moment when you can finally relate to boxers.

  When I closed my driver’s door, my
phone beeped. I grabbed it so quickly with my salty palms it almost slipped right out of my hands. The jumping frog indeed. Good news: it was another dick picture, this time taken from far away so I get some face in the shot. He was beautiful. I couldn’t see much but I saw dreadlocks united by big eyes to match his charismatic cock and that, that was just enough. I started giggling and felt this need to share his beauty, my luck, our love, with someone so I turned back towards Mary and Randall and said, ‘You guys, I’ve had the best day.’

  They both looked at me but their stares differed with ­pe­­culiar measure: Randall’s being inquisitive and open while Mary’s was discerning and unflappable. I started to laugh because I was so giddy, reserved, knowing that I had in my hand something so naughty it would make the porn star Jenna Jameson blush. ‘I met someone,’ I said, smile bursting.

  ‘Here we go again,’ Mary said, eyes rolling towards that sky kids seemingly have a connection with. I believed she learned that phrase from my sister.

  ‘Cool,’ Randall piped in, pragmatically. I wanted to show them the pictures, because who wouldn’t be desperate to show someone, to share her secret, but I knew I could have been arrested for showing Randall and Mary a picture of a giant cock, so I refrained.

  ‘How did you meet him?’ Mary asked.

  ‘It’s a sweet story, actually,’ I began. ‘We met years ago but he just reconnected with me because he couldn’t get me off his mind!’

  ‘Cute!’ Mary said while Randall nodded his head, quietly in acceptance. He looked a bit tough, little Randall. He had these eyes rimmed with the longest eyelashes and the presence of a soul who’s lived many times in bodies that became much bigger than his. I bet in a past life we knew each other.

  ‘Randall’s six,’ Mary said, as if she knew I wished he were a grown-up.

  ‘Oh, wow,’ I exclaimed with believable enthusiasm. ‘Six is big!’

  We walked in the door and they whizzed around me, decking it to the playroom like it was about to expire in a few minutes. I checked to make sure they were okay, and, most importantly, preoccupied, so I could go into the bathroom and take an ass shot to send to Jimar.

  I looked at myself in the mirror and grabbed the cheeks of flesh I discovered on myself earlier with outstretched hands. I had forgotten what color underwear I put on so I pulled down my pants and saw I had on my granny panties: Hanes white cotton high-waisted briefs because I was out of all my other clean ones. Of course, on the one day I needed to take an ass shot, I had on the most unattractive underwear. There’s always the possibility that he is into some kinky stuff, like grandma porn, so instead of raiding my mom’s drawers I choose to just be real. Be me. I pulled my pants down halfway to my knees, right at that position where if you were attacked and had to run, you couldn’t. With the mirror behind me, I turned to see how my butt would look in the shot and tried to angle myself rightly. I don’t like the kind of selfies where you can see yourself holding your phone in the mirror; I prefer the ones when you just take a picture of yourself with the camera reversed. So, I reversed the camera.

  Ass shots are harder to do than they look. Ass shots are not for the weak but rather the trained and secure. The good news was that my butt, being slightly meaty and wrinkly around the thigh zone, would look better if the picture captured just a part of it; an excuse to get right up in it, personal. I’m better up close because then I’m abstract, like a beautiful painting you have to figure out using texture clues and speculation and postulation because no one really can be sure of the answer. You win when you’re abstract because it’s the most arbitrary of art styles. You could walk right past me at an estate sale but once you knew what you had, you’d be the richest person in the world. My ass is basically Jackson ­Pollack’s artwork, personified.

  Apparently, Jamaican men appreciate a juicy, round butt on a woman, which is another reason why I held a newfound confidence about sending Jimar a photo of my Botticelli ass. I drew my leg up on the sink because I figured, Let’s make this interesting. I moved around, feeling quite flexible and proud, wishing a handsome, Paul Newman-type man across the street with a cigarette would be watching me. Wishing he’d see me in the same light I saw my big-breasted neighbor: naked and flaunting, flirting furiously, most infuriatingly because she does it with total disregard for anyone else’s feelings. I wished that man with the cigarette would call out, ‘Great show,’ from across the road as he inhaled richly. I wished he’d tell me he’d been watching me all night from his window and the thought of it would make me so confident I’d uncontrollably cream in my pants. That didn’t happen.

  My moving became increasingly unpredictable, more wild and free, each twist and leg lift more dramatic and whimsical than the last, like a modern dancer alone in a room searching for new moves of expression. Beads of sweat collected at my heels, behind my neck and in the cracking lifelines in my palms from tapping into all my physical reserves at once. I was so close but still didn’t have the right angle, so I arched my back as I pivoted my left foot, bending my vertebrae so much that my head dropped into an upright bridge pos­ition. My head faced the window behind me in one quick turn and, from upside down, I could see Milk staring at me from his window. Not Paul Newman, but Milk, who was about as sexy as a potato.

  I saw him immediately turn away, pretending to act casual as if I hadn’t just caught him but you can’t kid a kidder. I watched him brush his hair with his hand, turning slightly to the side as if he were looking for raccoons or squirrels in my front yard. I reached to close the curtains while in this contorted pose and, because the movement was determined and quick, I locked my spine into a fantastic position I couldn’t get out of. I heard it crack and snap. My arms and legs reached out like a frozen ballerina until my foot eventually slipped on the tile, which was lubricated by my sweat, and as I fell backwards, grabbing at perfume bottles and makeup and anything I could grab onto, I hit my head on the shower door handle.

  I was out cold.

  I was gone for a few minutes, although I can’t be sure. When I looked up, Mary and Randall hovered above me, staring, expressionless, as Milk bent over all of us. I could see this scene from above, as if I were the angel in the room as witness. Two curious kids and Milk over a sprawled-out Tabby whose pants were halfway down her legs while her underwear was pulled so far up her waist it was like God gave her a wedgie. And among the spilled bottles and brushes that once adorned the countertop rested a distorted photo of my ass, front and center on my phone.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Milk asked me. ‘Looked like a bad fall.’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ I said, trying to lift my head up but unable to do so. I let it rest back on the ground for another second while I re-oriented myself.

  ‘What’s that?’ Mary asked, pointing to the photo.

  ‘Huh?’ I said. A headache started to creep into the room, just to annoy me.

  ‘That’s your butt!’ she yelled. ‘Gross! I’m telling Mom!’

  ‘If you do, you know what can happen?’

  ‘What?’ She looked stern but frightened.

  ‘You’ll never be able to take a photo of your own butt,’ I proclaimed, lost in my own argument. Randall was avoiding eye contact, staring at his toes.

  ‘Why would I want to do that?’

  ‘Because, Mary,’ I said. ‘Adults take photos of themselves. Some of them are called “selfies” and women do these weird duck-face poses because they think it makes their cheeks and lips look better. They’re wrong. Don’t do that. That looks ­desperate.’

  ‘Like Grandma?’ Mary questioned.

  ‘Grandma’s not desperate!’ I fumed. ‘We’re a lot alike, and she’s amazing.’

  ‘You’re a lot different from your mom,’ Milk interjected as he used the back of his palm to check my temperature.

  ‘You can’t say that,’ I interjected, insulted. ‘You can never talk about someone else’s family, even if the person is complaining about them, because they’re not your family.’

  ‘I mea
nt it in a good way,’ he said, grabbing my hand to help me up.

  ‘She’s just trying to be happy and hasn’t figured it out yet. I don’t get it because she’s so much fun.’

  ‘Why are you taking ass photos anyway?’ Milk asked.

  ‘You’re really asking me this in front of the kids?’ I said, exasperated. He threw an expression back to remind me of the fact that if I weren’t taking photos of my ass while watching over children in the first place, it wouldn’t even be a conversation.

  ‘Why do adults take pictures of their butts, though?’ Mary and Randall asked in unison.

  ‘Because that’s how people have relationships now,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know why,’ I said, not explaining why at all. ‘Because it’s less scary than doing it in real life?’ Now I’m asking her all of a sudden. Children have a way of asking you so many questions you end up getting to a point where your answers are also questions. Everyone ends up profoundly more baffled.

  Milk seemed to disagree – the curl in his lip and glassiness of his eyes belying his cluelessness. He always has this annoying way of looking at me like he’s confused but about to laugh. Mid-point between a smile and an open-mouthed gape. ‘You don’t date, Milk.’

  ‘Yes, he does,’ Mary said. ‘I see girls go into his house all the time.’

  ‘Oh come on, Mary, you don’t need to make him feel better,’ I said. ‘Don’t lie, it’s unbecoming. No offense, Milk.’

  ‘None taken,’ he said again, smiling.

  ‘It’s just, you have to know what we want, how to talk to us, what feeds us.’ I looked over at Mary for her help. I needed backup. ‘Right, Mary? We’re women. Brave, complicated, exciting women, right?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Mary said.

  Ignoring her, I returned to Milk, and said, ‘Chin up, Milkman. You’re a catch, don’t worry.’ Again, though, I was met with that dreaded half smile. The bewildered stare of a giant puppy lost in some woods in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Bless him.

  ‘Stop looking at me like that,’ I said when the stare wouldn’t break. ‘You look at me sometimes like you think I’m crazy.’