His to Own: 50 Loving States, Arkansas

by Theodora Taylor

  “C’mon, baby,” Dad says, putting a protective arm around me and starting toward the door.

  But Dixon gets in front of us. “No! She is my wife!” he says to my dad. “She is carrying my baby.”

  “What!?!?” both Dad and Dixon’s uncle roar.

  And fuck orders, the op raises the camera and starts rolling again.

  Just in time to watch Dixon fall to his knees in front of me.

  “What are you doing?” his uncle demands. “Get off your knees. We done told you how it is. How dare you defile yourself like this over a…!”

  Yet another n-word drop, but I’m not sure Dixon even hears the hate his uncle is spewing, his eyes are so intense on me.

  “Doc! Doc!” he implores desperately. “It’s still you and me. I still love you more than anything. I know this is scary. What I used to be is scary. But you’ve got to believe in me, in us.”

  My stomach lurches. I’m torn between so many feelings. I don’t want to be on television anymore. I really, really don’t want to be anywhere near it. Dixon is a monster—a true monster by both belief and trade. And me…I’m the stupid, stupid woman who fell in love with him. Whose heart can’t help but squeeze at the desperate tone of his words, even though I completely understand who he is now.

  Tears well up in my eyes, but this time I don’t let them fall.

  I’m a reality star. I’m a doctor. And now it’s time to stop being a fool.

  I uncover my mouth and pick the tattooed behemoth he was apparently named beside out of the small crowd. “Hold him back. Hold him back, or he’ll try to follow me.”

  Then in a sweep of heavy evening gown, I head to the door without waiting for their responses.

  But Mason, I can tell, is a very, very good soldier for his cause. I hear but don’t see him grab Dixon in some kind of chokehold clinch that makes his, “No, Doc! Doc! Doc!” come out strangled.

  Yet Dixon still manages to yell after me. So loud, I can hear him begging me not to go, yelling how much I mean to him, how much he loves me. How that’s his baby I’m carrying.

  “You two belong with me! We’re a family! You said you would be my family,” I hear him yell as I run for the elevators.

  Then and long after the elevator doors have closed.

  Chapter 28

  In the days that follow what a few online sites dubbed the “Penthouse Showdown,” I’ve read enough to last me a century about Dixon Fairgood.

  I now know that the Southern Freedom Knights are an organization so old, they started off on horseback and count themselves among the very first motorcycle “clubs” in the country, begun right after World War I. Dixon’s father was actually pretty low on the club’s totem pole, and by all accounts a reckless alcoholic who could barely hold down a job, even a criminal one. He never even made it onto the SFK’s board. But Dixon’s maternal grandfather was the club’s president, and his father’s brother was the club’s Vice President. They along with the rest of the board recognized something in Dixon from a very young age, and he’d basically been groomed to become the president after his grandfather .

  Unlike my father who’s built an entire bragadocious rap career from a one-year stint selling drugs on the street, the Southern Freedom Knights are actually real-deal criminals. The Feds and the state of Tennessee have them under investigation for all types of shit: from selling meth to running guns.

  Colin and Dixon’s father actually did a few stints in jail, but the authorities could never make anything stick.

  In any case, Dixon Fairgood had been doing a much better job in his inherited position. No blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan babies to show for it by the age of twenty-eight, but that speech, which he’d made at a “Whites Right Rally” a few years back, with his grandfather’s encouragement had gone viral. And he’d apparently done a much better job than his grandfather of connecting and working with disparate supremacist gangs throughout the country. The SFK has been allegedly running their various lucrative underground businesses investigation-free ever since Dixon took over.

  Colin might not have liked him very much, even going so far as to declare in one interview he didn’t consider him so much a brother as a man who’d been tragically brainwashed. However, there had been no doubt in either Dixon’s supporters or detractors minds that he’d eventually go on to be the most famous leader the SFK has ever had.

  “Dangerously likeable” one left-leaning political blog described him. Handsome, well-spoken, and smart enough not to “adopt the look,” so he blended in with the rest of the populace. A few bloggers spoke of the possibility of him going the David Duke route and eventually running for public office. Sadly, in the rural part of Tennessee the club called home, it wouldn’t be hard for him to find enough like-minded people to garner a congressional seat.

  And no wonder he’d loved the sweats I’d gotten him. According to the many pictures and reports swirling around on the internet, he’d only worn two uniforms: a full suit or full leathers.

  Being able to walk around in sweats all day probably blew his mind.

  My mama had warned her stadium congregations in more than one sermon that the devil came in many disguises, and in Dixon’s case, it had been a pair of hospital issue sweats.

  This is bad. So bad.

  So bad, Sola calls me shrieking, only to offer to abandon her Moscow Opera directorial debut after I explain what happened. So bad, she also offers to send in her extremely large husband to “handle” Dixon and the rest of his crew.

  I turn down both offers, still too sad and broken-hearted to do anything more than lie in bed most days.

  It’s so, so bad.

  So bad, my mother, who never comes off tour, comes off tour. As does Curt Jr, even though he’s also on tour and has been calculatedly throwing Twitter into a tweeting frenzy with hints that he may debut a character based on his mother when both their tours collided—with cameras rolling of course—in Chicago that weekend.

  But instead of making the reality TV ratings they need to get their contracts renewed, they both fly home to California. And I know it’s really bad when all three of them enter my gigantic bedroom without any film crew, although it was designed specifically for that purpose.

  According to Sandy’s many texts, my story is scheduled for the front covers of no less than four major gossip magazines, and the network is even talking about pushing forward the season so they can take advantage of the press the Penthouse Showdown is getting.

  But I know it’s epically bad when my family doesn’t say, “Wow, you done fucked up.” Or even, “That was some good TV you just made, Nitra!”

  Instead, they all crawl into bed with me, like we used to pile in bed together back in the day.

  When we still lived in Compton, because Mom’s fledgling church was there, and Dad was steady bent on keeping it real. On TV, we’re known for having cozy little conversations in our oversized beds, which are all big enough to fit five people. Conversations ranging from what happened that day to what we’d do if a motherfucking alien tried to come at us and we didn’t have a gun.

  But that was just on the show. In real life, we often used to lie there. Quiet and exhausted and grateful to be part of such an accepting and loving family at the end of a struggle-filled day.

  I know it’s bad, because instead of talking, we lie like we used to for a very, very long time. So long, I wonder if we’ll ever leave the relative safety of where we’ve ended up.

  But eventually Dad says, “I talked with Sandy earlier today. Told her not to bother with contract renewal negotiations. We ain’t coming back.”

  That’s an awfully big decision. One most men would have been expected to discuss with their family before making.

  But my brother tucks a lock of his wig hair behind his ear before quietly agreeing, “Yeah, I think this is a real good place to end this shit show.”

  However, I can’t let them do this. Can’t let them throw away the life they love just to protect me. “No, Dad, you don�
�t have to do that. This is all my fault. I can’t let you lose your renewal because of what I did. What I let happen.”

  Dad looks at me like I’m crazy. Then he says, “Bitch, is you out your monkey-ass mind? This family 300! I don’t care what you bitches do or why you do it. We in this together. Ride or motherfuckin’ die.” But then Dad’s face saddens, as he seems to realize out loud, “That’s what I should have told you the first time you tried to quit the show.”

  “That’s right!” Curt Jr. calls out from the other side of my parents, like we’re at church. “We family. No matter what happens, Nitra. And you know we have your back no matter what, just like you’ve always had ours.”

  When he says this, I know he’s talking about when he came out as someone just south of transgender when he was twelve. The “unconditional acceptance on top of unending profanity” that made us such a fascinating docu-drama series hadn’t been as automatic as the public was led to believe. And my intractable bitchiness on all subjects from veganism to whether Grenada bought off the rack had come in most handy when wearing both my evangelical mother and my just plain homophobic father down on the subject of letting their only son walk his own path.

  However, I truly believe Curt Jr. deserves to live his life however he sees fit. Me getting knocked up by a white supremacist biker? That’s on a whole ‘nother level.

  There’s also the other elephant in the bed. My mother and her expectations.

  “You can be as bitchy as you want, Nitra Mello. But not with our God. Not with your God!” she told me the one time I tried to float the idea of not going to church with her on TV. “Now get your narrow ass up them steps and get ready for church!”

  Right now, I can’t help but feel like the biggest disappointment in the world to the woman who raised me to be both practical and responsible, to separate show life from spiritual life, to respect my body enough not to let anyone I don’t love into my temple.

  This feels way beyond the string of one-night stands I engaged in with regular boys once the cameras were turned off.

  And I turn over to look at her, so she knows I mean it from the bottom of my regretful heart when I say, “I’m sorry, Mommy. I’m so sorry.”

  My mom doesn’t cry. She’s a shepherd of the Lord, here to do his work without getting distracted by the laments of life. But right now she looks as close to tears as I’ve ever seen her. And I get the shameful feeling she’s forcing herself to meet my gaze after my apology.

  But then she pushes my weaved in locks out of my eyes, making me feel like I’m ten again. Like before the show, when she used to talk with me quietly, without “a very special moment” music playing over her words.

  “You know where I draw the line when it comes to life,” she tells me, voice tight. But then her voice softens as she adds, “But no matter what you decide to do, your daddy’s right. I’m with you. I’ve got your back, too, baby. Because you’re my daughter, and I love you.”

  “I know, Mommy,” I say, though I don’t think I really did. Not until now, in my darkest moment.

  And though I haven’t trusted them for a very long time, though I’ve kept so many things to myself for fear of what they’d do with the news, I tell them now, “I’m keeping this baby.”

  Mom expels a relieved sigh. She is a true shepherd of the Lord, but I think a drag queen son and a dead daughter is enough for one pastor to have to deal with in a lifetime. I appreciate her bravery and commitment, but I’m not going to add the abortion of her very first grandchild to her lists of woes. Also…

  “I loved it before I found out what kind of evil its daddy really was, and I still love it now.”

  “That’s right,” both my dad and brother co-sign as Mom nods in full agreement.

  “I’m going to pray over you and this baby,” she promises me. “And after I come off this tour, me and Daddy will be coming right up there to you in Seattle. You won’t have to worry about a thing. Because we’re going to help you raise this baby right with the Lord and love.”

  “And if my little nephew or niece shows any interest in high heels, you know I’ll be coming right on up there with a starter set!” my brother promises.

  As my mother often does with my brother, she goes silent before making the very wise decision not to respond to his (most likely super true) declaration.

  “The point is, it doesn’t matter who this baby’s daddy is. I hope you know that, pumpkin.”

  I nod. Knowing but not quite agreeing. Because I know in my most secret of hearts I’m not just keeping it because I love it, but also because it’s the only thing I have left of the only man I’ve truly ever loved. A man who walked into Colin’s penthouse suite with me, but didn’t come out. The man whose ring I still haven’t managed to take off. Even though I know he’s not my real husband, could never be my true family after the things his real self has done and said about people like us. No matter how loudly he called after me that we were a family. That he loved me.

  Now I let my real family hold me, making the greatest sacrifice they know how to make in order to keep me safe and sane.

  Now I cry for all the stupid decisions I’ve made over the past two months—the ones that felt like falling in love.

  And now the mom I thought had been left behind in Compton holds me as she says, “Ssshh! It’s going to be all right, baby. We’re going to get through this.”

  Chapter 29

  But I can’t stay in the bed with my family forever. For one thing, I have a job I’m supposed to be starting in Seattle next week, and I’ve already spent three-and-a-half of the four adjustment weeks I’d given myself, hidden away in my family’s Hollywood home. For another, the cameras will be back in a few days to film my father going back into the studio to record a love song for my mom in preparation for the huge vow renewal ceremony that’s supposed to end their season arc.

  Still, my dad doesn’t love the idea of me leaving, especially at night. We can be sure there aren’t any paparazzi lurking about, even in the trees. So no one will follow me off the property. But…

  “I don’t think you should be driving by yourself at night.”

  “It’s just to Sola’s old place in Valencia,” I assure him. “I’ll be there in less than an hour, and then I’ll wait until daylight to start driving again. I promise.”

  I wonder if I’ll ever get used to this version of my father. The one who became an only slightly nutty, and not nearly so foul-mouthed, forty-something as soon as he decided he was done with the cameras for a while.

  I hug him, and then Curt Jr. who’s kitted out in full Beyonce drag, yet still managed to get my large suitcase into the back of my Prius in mile-high stilettos.

  After he’s done, my brother pulls me into a hug. “You sure you don’t want me to drive you?” he asks for the millionth time.

  I laugh. “Somehow I don’t think I’m going to do as good of a job of staying under the press’s radar with BuhBounceye in the driver’s seat.”

  “Girl, that ain’t nothing but an outfit change,” Curt Jr. assures me. “I got a Ruby Dee upstairs ain’t nobody going to question.”

  “Okay, sweetie,” I say, kissing him on both cheeks. “I think it’s time for both you and Mom to get back to your tours, and for me to start pretending the last two months never happened.”

  “That’s gonna be a stretch even for you, Nitra,” Dad says.

  But Mom pulls me into her arms and says, “Text us as soon as you get to Sola’s house.”

  “I will,” I promise.

  And I do, sending out a group text before I stop in at the main house to say hello to Brian.

  Brian is Sola’s mentor and second father. Literally the man who gave her away at her wedding to Ivan Rustanov. In fact, he’s leaving early the next morning to attend the opening night performance of her Moscow Opera directorial debut, but he still stayed up late to make sure I got into Sola’s old guest house okay.

  “Not at all, my dear girl,” Brian insists when I try to thank hi
m for his consideration. “I don’t sleep much these days anyway. Consequence of getting old and sober.”

  We have a cup of organic loose leaf tea and talk about the weather in L.A. as opposed to West Virginia. My new job at the Children’s Hospital of Seattle. The relatively light traffic on the 5 this time of night.

  Everything except what’s most weighing on our minds. My huge scandal, and the recent death of Brian’s husband.

  The closest we come to it is when he walks me to the back door and clasps my hand between both of his. “You’ll be doing good work up there in Seattle, young Anitra. Even though you’ve abandoned the arts, I want you to know both Sola and I remain proud of you.”

  His words mean a lot to me. But the truth is, as I sink into bed in Sola’s old bedroom, I feel closer to turning fifty in July than twenty-six. I’m weary in a way that probably has nothing to do with the life I’m carrying inside me. I think about the one time I pushed the man I originally knew as John Doe to get help, and wonder how long I can go before I’ll have to consider taking my own advice.

  Then I welcome the black of sleep, dropping a curtain down on both the reality show and real life.

  I fall asleep in Sola’s bed…

  ...but I don’t wake up there.

  Instead I come awake with a gasp in the harsh early morning sun. The wind whipping through my weave, my hands tied in front of me. There are wooden planks instead of Sola’s carpet all around me, and beyond that, lots and lots of stone blue water as far as my eyes can see.

  There’s also a metal banister in my direct sightline. It’s the only thing standing between me and the grayish blue water. That’s when I realize I’m on the deck of a large but ancient tugboat, sitting on a bench originally meant to seat fisherman. But why do my feet feel so heavy…?

  My eyes widen with horror when I look down. My legs are also tied, nylon rope binding them to what looks like some kind of small, rusty engine…

  A motorcycle engine, I realize with a start.