You Exist Too Much

by Zaina Arafat

  Alex, who I kept wanting to call Eugene because he looked like one, was an engineer with a perpetually exasperated expression on his face. I noticed him for the first time on the way to the Al-Anon meeting the night before. He’d sat beside Greg in the back row of the van with his brows raised and eyes popped, wiping sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief. At the end of the meeting he furiously gripped my hand and chanted, “Let go and let God. Keep coming back, it works if you work it!” Alex was from New Hampshire, and his wife was an alcoholic. He’d been a member of Al-Anon for twenty-seven years. “I just keep trying to fix her,” he told us, honking into a Kleenex and then throwing the wet balled-up tissues across the floor. “I mean, I’ve sent her to rehab twice, I’ve written her letters describing how it’s tearing our family apart, I’ve laid out charts for how she can gradually stop drinking,” he said. “But the more I try, the more she wants nothing to do with me.”

  “Maybe you should stop trying,” Greg suggested, “and see what happens.”

  “I can’t just stop,” he snapped. “We have kids. There’s too much at stake.”

  When Molly started speaking, I started panicking, afraid I’d have to hear everything about her twice. I learned a couple of new things; she ran her own day spa, she’d been married three times. Her mother had been hooked on painkillers for most of Molly’s life, and after burning through several husbands and their bank accounts, she began relying on her only daughter for cash. Molly had been supporting her for over ten years. She told us about times when her mom was able to hold down a job, and how proud Molly was of her when she did. I felt a sharp tinge of empathy, the guilt and resentment both exceedingly familiar.

  By four o’clock that afternoon, Greg had already spent three hours telling his story, about how his biological father had given full custody of Greg to his mother and her new husband when Greg was twelve, how the pain of feeling unwanted had led him to binge drinking and reckless sex with “cheerleader sluts” in high school, how being berated by his “bitch wife” led to opioids as a way to ease the sting of her insults, how heroin became a way to drown her out entirely. I stared at the clock as the minute hand eclipsed the hour hand for the third time and decided that only a white man would feel comfortable taking up so much space. I glanced around the room. No one else appeared to be bothered by it. In fact, they were asking follow-up questions and for clarification! I had to interject. “You’ve been talking for two hours longer than everyone else.”

  He hunched forward, appearing to shrink. “Calm down, I’m almost done.”

  I sensed I should’ve stopped there but something twitched inside me and I kept going. “And can you stop being so derogatory about women,” I felt heat rising up my neck, “and villainizing us?”

  “I’m not talking about women, I’m talking about my wife.”

  “Right, well, that distinction is irrelevant to me.”

  “Jesus!” he muttered. “Thanks for your support!”

  “I don’t support you.”

  “I know,” he said, “I was being sarcastic.” By then his voice was quivering. For a second I was afraid he was going to cry. “What is the matter with you, anyway?”

  Finally Richard jumped in. “All right, that’s enough for today.” As everyone got up to leave, Richard insisted Greg and I stay behind to talk about what happened. “So what was going on just now?” he asked me.

  I told him I didn’t like the way Greg spoke about his wife.

  “You’re offended by his use of profanity?”

  “No, she isn’t offended by it,” Greg answered on my behalf. “She’s been running around calling me a ‘fucking pussy’!”

  I had called him that, during lunch, but I hadn’t expected it to get back to him. I was quite pleased that it had. Richard shot me a look and I lowered my head. Then he asked, “So what is it?”

  •

  If my mother was Hamas—unpredictable, impulsive, and frustrated at being stifled—my father was Israel. He’d refuse to meet her most basic needs until she exploded. Then he would point at her and cry, “Look at what a monster she is, what a terror!” But never once did he consider why she had resorted to such extreme tactics, or his role in the matter.

  Some of my strongest memories of my father involve him weeding the garden or watching television. He did not want to be bothered, especially not by his immediate family. Activities that allowed him to completely shut out our needs and emotions seemed to resonate with him. There were moments of genuine attendance, and even concern for our betterment. He would tutor me in Arabic, he’d show up to Karim’s soccer games, he’d sing me awake. But the things that we craved most, like fatherly guidance or affection, he would not, could not, provide. He was almost robotic in his affection—an arm around the shoulders, strained and unnatural, or a pat on the back the most he could muster. Kisses or hugs were out of the question. As a child I would ask my mother what was wrong with him. “Why can’t he look me in the eye?” To which she would answer, “Because he’s afraid of women. In fact, he hates them.”

  One of the few things he did actively and passionately was complain about my mother. Didn’t I remember how she slapped him in line for the ski lift in Pennsylvania? How she tried to jump out the window of our hotel room in Orlando? How she drew blood from his face and then ran naked through our neighborhood screaming?

  During my sophomore year of high school, he moved out. He didn’t tell me or Karim that he was planning to, nor did our mother. One night he just didn’t come home, and we were left to make our own assumptions. He ended up renting a place, in a gerontic apartment complex with a permanent EMT squad in the parking lot. It was twenty minutes away, close enough that we had no excuse not to surrender our weekends to visit him. “I’m all alone,” he’d whine to us over the phone. “Don’t you guys want to come see me?”

  And so we would. I had just passed my driving test and was already regretting it, as there was no structure to the aftermath of my parents’ chaos, our visits to our dad’s apartment determined by guilt level rather than any set schedule. We’d sit there for hours, Karim and I, on his new plastic-covered couch and stare at the television together. When we’d leave, after an undesignated number of hours on undesignated days, he would stand in the doorway of the apartment, his eyes burning into our backs as we walked to the elevators. I’d turn to look at him one last time before stepping in and catch his half smile, his half wave that sent us off to the house he once lived in. Then the elevator doors would shut, and guilt would flood in.

  Guilt gnawed away at me through the rest of high school, even after my father got a girlfriend my junior year. Ash, who my mother affectionately nicknamed Trash, was only eight years older than me, which is probably why my father chose to keep her a secret. I met her by accident at TGI Fridays in the mall. I walked into the restaurant after choir practice with the rest of the ensemble and spotted my father in a booth with a woman, both of them sitting on the same side, sharing a milkshake. I was stung by the sight of my father with a woman who wasn’t my mother. As I walked toward him, I felt both anger for having been lied to and unnecessarily guilted. He introduced me to Ash, and I tried to smile as she burrowed her head into my father’s shoulder like a shy toddler. The next morning he called me at my mother’s house and said, “You were so aggressive last night. You were so incredibly cold.”

  But I had been too shocked to be either. I hung up, threw the portable phone against the wall, and watched the batteries fly out as a black smudge appeared on the white paint.

  Along with the twelve-year-old girlfriend came a Mercedes convertible and two motorcycles. “Men like their toys,” he responded when I asked why he needed so many vehicles, especially when he spent most his time parked in front of the TV.

  Now that Trash was in the picture, it seemed like he was building a new family. And yet he still complained, still spited my mother. When guilt morphed into resentment and grew so big that I was blinded by it, it seeped out of my pores and left me
feeling powerless. And so I raged, sometimes just to get him to turn away from the television and feign interest in my life, to acknowledge my existence. I would act out in the hopes that he would notice, that he would tend to me. Instead, my outburst would only provide further evidence for what he already believed. “You don’t see yourself,” he’d say, sneering in my direction before turning back to the TV. “You don’t see the way you act. You’re just like her.”

  •

  I rotated my ankle and it cracked a few times. “He’s just always blaming her for everything, punishing her for having needs,” I said to Richard. Greg looked up as though he was going to defend himself, but then stayed quiet. “Making her out to be some kind of monster.”

  MY FIRST SEXUAL EXPERIENCE OCCURRED MIDWAY through fifth grade. Upon learning about sex and its effects from my science teacher, Dr. Sabinne—she was the only teacher at our grade school with a PhD, and she insisted on being recognized for her credentials—I immediately became fascinated. At the time I couldn’t wait to try it, likely because of Dr. Sabinne’s description. “Ladies,” she said to a roomful of twelve-year-olds, “it is so good. It is so great. Girls, it is worth it!” Worth what, I wasn’t sure, but I was ready to give it a go. I had started feeling the tingle of desire a few months earlier, and during her presentation it grew into a full-fledged burn. The boys had been taken to a separate room by Mr. Nell, and I imagined they were given the same sales pitch. I figured all that was left was the pairing up. The tall girls could go off with the tall boys, the blonds with the blondes, and so on.

  I chose my parents’ friends’ son, Tarek. We were about the same height and both Arabs. He came over one day after choir practice, and instead of bringing him to the kitchen for a snack I led him upstairs to my bedroom. He lay on top of me and gyrated, never quite achieving an erection. He rolled off and his blubber jiggled—he was a chubby boy—and I nuzzled my way into his arms, seeking affection. He kissed me repeatedly, closed-lipped. He smelled like Bazooka chewing gum. When he left, I wanted more.

  It turned out the guys weren’t given the same pep talk as the girls. A few days later, Tarek admitted that he enjoyed the kissing but not the “heavy petting,” the term we used in class. He obviously preferred Nintendo to human contact. After our first encounter I did everything I could to get him onto his top bunk and under my shirt. He’d curiously fiddle around for a bit, then sit up, climb down the bunk bed ladder, press the TV/Video button on his television, and take out his controller. I lay frustrated underneath his DuckTales bedsheets, watching his on-screen avatar jump over brick castles and sink down tunnels.

  Accepting that preteen boys didn’t have as strong a sex drive as their female counterparts, I turned to the internet for fulfillment. AIM had just come out. My screen name was Juniper18, a combination of my favorite scent of Bath & Body Works lotion and my purported age. “What size are your tits?” BigCoq4U would ask.

  My breasts were buddingly present but still quite nascent. Daily examinations in front of the bathroom mirror suggested glacial-speed growth. “36D,” I’d lie. Sometimes I’d give my number to whoever I was chatting with—I had received my own private phone line that year for Eid al-Fitr, so I didn’t need to worry about my parents listening in. I twirled the cord and spoke to whoever was on the other end as he touched himself. I liked the power of it, of exciting someone with my voice. I would sit on my windowsill with the phone pressed to my ear, my mother and father screaming at each other down the hall just as Andy or Joe or Matt would moan into the receiver, drowning out my parents. There was one male caller who happened to live just a few miles away, and of whom I became especially fond. He was different from the others. He seemed to genuinely care for me, and we discussed topics besides how big he was, like the weather, what I was majoring in, bands we liked. He broke the news to me that Jerry Garcia had died, and for that I will never forget him.

  Once, we agreed to meet. I rode my bike to his house and hid behind a bush across the street. I watched him step outside onto his porch in an oversized Nike T-shirt and athletic shorts, scratch his head, then place his hand above his eyes like a visor and peer into the distance, presumably searching for me. He looked different than he did in the pictures he’d sent me: older, balder, fatter. The drastic difference between his actual appearance and his virtual persona would’ve been less of a shock had AOL and the entire online world not been such a novelty. I would’ve expected the contrast. I planted a foot on each side of my bike and remained in place, waiting for him to step back inside. The moment he did, I furiously pedaled home.

  By the time I was in high school, I decided I liked older men. They felt safe to me, and oddly familiar. And they seemed to appreciate me so much more than the guys in my class, including my age-appropriate boyfriend at the time. It was as if they’d spent forty days in the desert or had just returned home from war and were ready to project all that pent-up desire onto me. I encountered quite a few of them in person; I spent my high school summers answering phones at a tech company. Periodically, coworkers would approach me at the café below the office. The first time I drew back in shock. “I’m fourteen!”

  “Shit,” the poor fellow answered, “I’m sorry!” Feeling guilt for shaming him, as along with curiosity, I scribbled my number on my lunch receipt and dropped it on his tray on my way out.

  I came to worship them, these older men. I craved the wisdom and guidance they willingly offered and that my father withheld. I adored how sexy they made me feel, likely because of the discrepancy between our levels of attractiveness. They, in turn, approved of my young body, one that was still tight due to its relative newness rather than its purity. “I treat my body like a temple,” said my childhood friend Eman, whose parents were Syrian and friends with mine. Eman was a few years older than me and esteemed herself worthy of doling out wisdom. She was always lecturing me about how important it was to wait until marriage, or at least until I was in love. I rolled my eyes, though not without slight envy. There was judgment beneath her assertion, one that cast my dalliances as acts of self-desecration and sacrilege rather than attempts at validation. Get over yourself, I wanted to respond. Besides, wasn’t she just bitter she couldn’t land a guy of her own?

  6

  “SECRETS KEEP US SICK,” RICHARD SAID DURING GROUP on Day 4. It sounded like the tagline for a horror movie, too melodramatic to have any impact. “They keep us from being our authentic, real selves. So we’re each going to tell one.”

  Richard was working with us that afternoon. Or evaluating us. I could never tell which. He was always jotting things down in a notebook, nodding when we spoke or asking generic questions like “Can you say more about that?” or “How did that make you feel?” and consistently failing to offer any insights or useful advice. The counselors didn’t seem entirely comfortable with him, either, and I was getting the sense that he didn’t work there year-round, only in the summer, like he was the seasonal guest star in a long-running series. I wasn’t particularly shocked by Molly’s or Alex’s secrets; Alex had slept with a man while his wife was away at rehab, Molly had stolen money from her parents to bail her boyfriend out of jail. After sharing, they were each required to ask the group for forgiveness. I was uncomfortable with the forced pardoning, though both of their secrets seemed pretty forgivable. But Greg’s involved “possibly” taking advantage of a drunk Tri-Delt when he was a Kappa Sigma at Vanderbilt. His voice was solemn when he told the story. He looked up at Richard when he was done.

  “Now, ask your group members if they think that makes you a bad person,” Richard said.

  Greg asked us each individually; Molly and Alex each pardoned his behavior. When he looked up at me with a pathetic but expectant look of hope, thinking I would absolve him of what I deemed to be rightful shame, I was tempted to respond, Yes, that does make you a bad person. You should probably be castrated. I imagined he would then attempt to defend himself, and I would quickly dispel his efforts. Poor you, I would say, she’s only been thr
ough a lifetime of therapy for what you did to her and here you are, a middle-aged man ten minutes into rehab thinking this can all go away! He’d then break down into sobs and I would really lay into him, continuing to describe what this poor woman had likely gone through on account of the unfortunate coincidence that they’d attended the same frat party. I smiled, imagining this situation playing out, until my fantasy was interrupted by the sound of my name. “Helll-ooo!”

  I looked up at Richard. “Huh?”

  He chuckled along with the others; apparently he’d been trying to get my attention for some time. “I said, ‘Do you want to share a secret?’”

  “Do I have to?”

  “You don’t have to divulge anything if you don’t want to,” Richard assured me. “But I bet you’ll feel better if you do.”

  •

  Every time a woman was about to light a cigarette, one of Eman’s lesser-known bridesmaids would swoop in to light it for her. Eman was always quick to point this out, that she’d barely known the girl, but that she’d managed to find her way into their social circle and had practically begged for a role in the wedding. Most everyone seemed uncomfortable by the gesture, scooting away as her hand approached, then reluctantly moving back toward the flame. I played along with their reactions, raising my brows, rolling my eyes as she put away her lighter.

  It was the summer before college, and my mother and I had flown from Amman to Beirut for a week for Eman’s wedding. In lieu of academics, Eman had devoted the majority of her energy at Lebanese American University to finding a husband, and by the time she was twenty-three she was engaged to a Lebanese chiropractor. In the days leading up to the event we speculated about the lesser-known bridesmaid’s sexual orientation. “I think she’s a lesbian,” Eman said, and we joked about her hitting on me and the other female guests. I felt guilty laughing along. But I was afraid if I didn’t, they would see through to my secret.