by Kari Lizer
He laughed. “Don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen.”
Sure. When did you ever hear of something going wrong with a gun? He finally got the bullets loaded, showed me how to cock the hammer and where to put my fingers, then told me to give it a try. Shaky myself now, I stood about twenty feet from the target and raised the gun.
Tom stopped me. “You want to aim down, if you can. If you shoot up in the air like that, them bullets will travel two miles. You could kill something.”
Terrified, I shot that thing five times and had to stop. It was so loud my ears were ringing, and I could tell my shoulders were going to be sore in the morning from the kickback. But I hit that target three times. “Good enough,” I told Tom. He agreed. That bear would be deader than dead. I replaced the word bear with rapist in my head and was surprised when I felt a little bit of that warm, fuzzy feeling Gene was talking about in California.
That night, when I went to bed, I brought the gun and bullets up to my room to hide them in safe and separate places. I pulled the drawer of a built-in dresser all the way out and placed the gun on the floor, then replaced the drawer over the top of it.
I took the box of bullets to the other side of the room where there was an armoire and shoved them underneath so they couldn’t be seen from anywhere in the room. Then I went to bed. I was almost asleep when I was brought back to wide awake by a loud noise somewhere downstairs. I sat up in bed, immediately and completely alert, and listened, the hair standing up on my arms like antennae. Barely breathing, I waited. It happened again. My reasonable brain tried to tell me, “What are the odds that someone would be breaking into your house the very first night you own a gun? Isn’t paranoia a more likely conclusion?” Then something banged again, and I crawled out of bed toward my gun.
As quietly as I could, I removed the drawer that concealed my weapon. I felt around in the dark until my hand landed on it. I gripped it the right way, muzzle pointing away from me, then scooched across the floor on my butt to where my ammo was stored. Another loud sound from downstairs made me jump and turn quickly toward the bedroom door, pointing my empty gun into the darkness. After a moment, I relaxed and retrieved my bullets from the armoire. I went over to the side of my bed farthest from the door. I dumped the bullets onto my bed, and though I’d only had one lesson and could barely see my own hand in front of my face in the moonless Vermont night, I was able to feel my way and release the chamber, slide the bullets into place, and secure the barrel back into position. My gun was loaded. Kneeling on the wood floor, the bed between me and the door, I pointed the gun at the door, steadying my arms on the mattress, leaning my body against the side of the bed, mostly hidden from view, my gun trained on whoever might come through that doorway. They would be walking into an ambush. Then I waited.
Sometimes stress makes me sleepy. When I have a script due and I can’t figure out the story, I get stress sleeping sickness. As the deadline approaches, I find myself unable to keep my eyes open at my desk. It’s like a recurring nightmare I used to have where I’m the star of a play, but I keep falling asleep when it’s time for my lines.
When I woke up the next morning, I was still in my defensive position, sitting on the floor, behind my bed, in my April Cornell nightdress. My .38 Smith & Wesson Special, loaded with hollow point bullets, was on the bed within easy reach, the sounds of distant thunder fading and the barn doors still banging on the front of the house from the wind. Oh. It was the barn doors. No unlucky stranger had entered in the night.
I tried to stand on my useless legs, which had fallen asleep from being bent underneath me on the wood floor all night long. I couldn’t turn my head—my neck muscles had seized up from the tension and kickback of the target practice the day before. I moved slowly to the bathroom, half crawling like a crippled sand crab. I looked back at my gun, resting on my giant empty bed, and I had to consider Gene’s words: “Do you think it’s possible you’ve become too self-protective to allow anybody in?” I decided to give up my gun and go back to therapy.
Want
I stared at the email from the hostess of the dinner party I promised to attend. She was asking that I bring an appetizer, something without cheese or gluten, preferably. She had copied the other invitees, so I could see who else I’d be spending the evening with, each name producing an involuntary uch from the back of my throat: the former network executive who now produces reality TV and asks too many questions about “what I’ve got in the hopper”; the actor couple I’d met a thousand times who nonetheless always say, “Nice to meet you,” as they’re looking past me for someone famous or at least better looking; the real estate shark with the giant teeth who corners me about the recent sales in my neighborhood and can’t believe I still live in the Valley when I could afford “to actually live someplace nice”; plus a few new people who have been added to the roster with whom I’ll have to start from scratch, comparing how many people, exercise routines, childhood tragedies we have in common—exhausting—like starting with a new therapist. And then, the hostess herself, a woman I’ve known for more than thirty years, who plans these dinner parties on a bimonthly basis with a rotating guest list of mismatched semifriends sitting around discussing which food-elimination diet they’re on and how it’s changed their lives. I used to be a regular attendee, but I’d stopped showing up. In fact, I’d stopped showing up a lot of places—birthday parties, book clubs, one-man shows—and people were starting to notice.
I always RSVP in the affirmative because everything sounds like fun when it’s more than a month in the future; plus I never really expect to live that long. But when the day actually arrives, I find myself hoping for a slight case of shingles.
I also knew that if I blew this dinner off, I’d probably find myself off the guest list permanently, which I wouldn’t have minded, except that Gene the shrink said studies have shown that retreating from social interactions as one ages may lead to dementia or early death. I just wish I knew which one.
I stood in my closet, incapable of getting myself dressed, a heap of discarded linen tunics from the Gap lying at my feet. Boyfriend jeans hung on my hips, not looking androgynous and hippie carefree like I’d hoped when I bought them two sizes too big—they just made my legs look too skinny, like a woman who should get her bone density checked. I found myself whining into my mirror, “I don’t want to go!” I have been doing way too many things I don’t want to do lately, and why do I have to? It was a thought that had been with me ever since my friend came over with her baby a few days before.
As they came in the door, my friend, Amy, looking wild-eyed and overwhelmed, gestured toward her darling daughter, dressed all in purple with two tiny high ponytails bobbing on top of her head like a Pixar cartoon character, and warned me, ominously, “She’s two next week. It’s a whole new thing.” As we moved into the living room, she turned to the almost-two-year-old Jemma and asked, “Do you want to give Kari a hug?”
“No,” Jemma said, not ambiguously.
And so it began.
Amy continued in a voice that quivered with desperation: “Do you want to try a little fruit?”
“No!”
“Do you want to sit on Mommy’s lap?”
“No.”
Girl knew what she wanted. And it wasn’t anything her mother was offering. Amy kept apologizing, looking shell-shocked by this new phase of development her formerly mute and docile infant had entered into, but I was intrigued. Jemma proceeded to touch every piece of watermelon in the serving dish and not eat a single one, then place her sticky hands on the upholstered muslin chair, then take a swipe at the cat before sticking her hand deep into her diaper where she felt around for something interesting before dancing that same hand over the cheese plate before spontaneously placing a kiss on her mother’s knee. Just because she wanted to. And for the next two hours, Jemma didn’t do a single thing she didn’t want to do: she didn’t pee in the toilet, she didn’t smile or say her newly learned ABCs, she didn’t high-five, sit on the couch, be
careful, play gentle, say please, leave the piano alone, put down the candle, put down the glass, put down Mommy’s purse, stop touching Mommy’s phone, stop touching Kari’s hair, show everyone how you can dance, show everyone how you can sing, show everyone your teeth. Where’s your nose? Where’re your toes? Where’s your tummy? Jemma wasn’t telling.
And I wasn’t horrified. All I thought was that at fifty-seven years old, I wouldn’t mind returning to my terrible twos. Jemma was my role model.
Doing exactly as I want and, more importantly, not doing anything I don’t want to do. What could be wrong with that?
No, I don’t want to tell you what I’m working on, using on my skin, eating for breakfast.
No, I don’t want to listen to your advice about my allergies, career, personality, finances, or astrological sign.
I don’t want mirrors in my house.
I don’t ever want to wear high heels again.
Or false eyelashes.
I don’t want to wear false anything.
Or lip liner.
Or body glitter.
Or anything that’s tight around my stomach.
I don’t want to “just try” cashew butter. Or cashew cheese.
I don’t want to go out to eat with people who study the check in order to determine which one of us owes a dollar thirty more than the other. “Who had the side of fruit?”
I don’t want to hear about your “amazing guy” and CBD colonics.
I don’t want to be in writers’ rooms with fifty-year-old white men who talk about where they went to college. Or camp.
If my mother asks if I’ve found a job yet or have any “interviews” this week because after thirty years she still doesn’t understand the nature of being a writer or the concept of being self-employed, I don’t want to explain it to her again—I want to drop my phone in the toilet.
I don’t want to go to parties with strangers or people who ask me things that are none of their business, like, “Hey, how much money did you end up making on that last show?” Which is the adult equivalent of “Show me your tummy.” And I don’t want to. Just like I don’t want to answer anyone who asks me, “Did you ever think about trying to write movies instead of just TV?” “What are Will and Grace really like?” “Was Andy Griffith a racist?”
If anyone—and I mean anyone—is more than five minutes late for an appointment, lunch, or date with me, I don’t want to wait for them or reschedule.
I don’t want to hug everyone I meet. I don’t want to ever fist-bump anyone.
I don’t want to get Brazilian bikini waxes or wear thong underwear.
I don’t want to wear anything that requires undergarments to flatten my stomach or unflatten my ass. I don’t want to fast unless I’m getting a colonoscopy. I don’t want to.
I don’t want to.
I don’t want to make small talk or act interested in boring people.
I don’t want my boobs lifted or vagina reconstructed.
I don’t want to bite my tongue when someone says something racist or classist or sexist.
I don’t want to be polite when my friends are married to assholes.
I don’t ever want to buy something because someone tells me it will regrow my collagen or my hair or my eyelashes.
I don’t want to spend more than forty dollars on face cream.
Which has left me to think about what I do want.
I want to start wearing overalls again.
I want to figure out how to keep my room the perfect temperature.
I want hummingbirds outside my window.
I want three dogs at all times.
I want friends who are younger than me and older than me.
I want to go for days without thinking about what I look like.
I want to sleep.
I want to never feel jealous again.
I want to sit at tables—dinner tables and writing tables and farm tables—with people who make me laugh.
I want people to tell me the truth.
I only want to know men who truly love women.
I only want to know women who love other women.
I only want to know women and men who love dogs.
I want to have a goat.
Me on All Fours
Animal people are nuts. You know it’s true if you’ve ever tried to adopt a cat from a rescue organization. Despite the fact that they are quite literally crawling with dozens of unwanted scrawny felines, when you try to take one home, they say, “Not so fast. You first need to fill out this fourteen-page application and supply three references and a credit check, and then we’ll make a home visit to determine if your residence is cat worthy.” Not a single question was asked when I decided to become a parent—and there really should have been some questions. I pursued my acting career instead of going to college and was cast as a cheerleader more than any other character, even though in real high school I was rejected as even the mascot. I believed the only way to get another job was to spend all the money from my last job, and I shifted from acting to writing because a psychic named Teresa Giappatros told me to after feeling the vibrations in my keychain. Yet less than thirty-six hours after giving birth via C-section to my twins, the nurse simply rattled off instructions to me about nipple care and latching on, fevers, and infected umbilical cords… me still in my postbirthing daze, not able to focus on anything but how to talk them into sending me home with that delightful morphine drip. My partner in parenthood, Jack, undoubtedly still traumatized from seeing my innards taken out of my abdomen and set aside on the operating table, probably wasn’t retaining much of the information either.
Nevertheless, they just placed those two humans, one in the crook of each arm, wheeled us to the underground parking lot, casually looked to make sure the car seats were facing the right direction, and sent us on our way. We could have driven off and sold them, for all they knew. We could have used the money.
But somehow the children lived, and we even added another, and again, no one checked to see whether this was a good idea. They just let us do it. As my children grew and became more self-sufficient—well, not self-sufficient, just less interested in spending time with me—the marriage went by the wayside, and the demands of my career ebbed and flowed, I found myself looking for meaningful ways to spend my time. If you live in LA and work in show business, it’s important sometimes to do things that remind you of what’s real. I needed places other than motherhood and Hollywood to give me purpose and perspective. I found that place in Friends on Four Paws.
Friends on Four Paws is a therapy dog organization that sends volunteers and their pets to hospitals, schools, old folks homes, special events—any place where the presence of a sweet dog could alleviate stress, facilitate healing, or bring a smile. It’s a wonderful organization that visits more than eighty facilities in and around Los Angeles. It’s filled with committed animal people who generously donate their time to a very worthy cause. What I quickly discovered about the organization was that there were a lot of rules. A lot. Which at first seemed counter to the idea of volunteer. I thought, Shouldn’t they just be happy I’m here at all?
First was the god-awful uniform: long pants, no jeans, no leggings, nothing too tight. Something like loose khakis are most appropriate. Rubber-soled shoes. No open toes. No bare ankles. A heavy-gauge polo shirt, which for some reason only came in size men’s XL. Over that went a navy apron with pockets stuffed with antibacterial wipes and pet hair removal rollers. No jewelry. No perfume. You also wear a giant 1979-style Polaroid camera from a strap around your neck that constantly bangs against your breasts when you walk so you can leave a picture of your dog with the people you visit. The point of such a uniform is to make sure that the dog is the center of attention, not the human. You are not a woman in the Friends on Four Paws uniform. You are not a man. You are simply a sexless Good Samaritan. I got used to it, even embraced it. Maybe it would be good for me to be stripped of all vanity and pride in my appearance.
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nbsp; Second is your bag, which you must carry with you at all times. There is a very precise list of equipment that must be included in your bag. No variations are allowed. Visits are performed in teams—two handlers, each with a dog. One handler is designated as the coach. The coach is the boss. Once you’ve been volunteering for a while, the designation of coach is arbitrary because often both volunteers have equal experience. In three years, I was never the designated coach, for reasons I don’t understand. I was used to being the boss. At work. At home. Even when I was on jury duty, I always ended up as the foreperson. But not once was I listed as coach on my assignments for Friends on Four Paws. I can’t say it didn’t bug me.
Very often the coaches on our visits would take the position of authority way too seriously, as if they’d done something to deserve the title. They’d do spot checks of my equipment bag, quiz me on Friends on Four Paws policies—obviously these were people who didn’t get to be in charge very often, and they were going to make the most of it. They were drunk with power.
One woman named Terri, whom I worked with a lot while visiting at Children’s Memorial Hospital downtown, had been suspended from her teaching job for smacking a kid in her classroom. Her hearing in front of the disciplinary board was a year away, so she was in teacher jail with full pay until then. She was always the coach on our visits, and she lorded it over me. I repeat: she was on probation from teaching for smacking a kid, and I still didn’t get to be the coach. And Terri was a real stickler. She wrote me up once because I was missing the required two-foot traffic leash from my bag. I argued that I had never in my three years used the two-foot traffic leash. She countered, “It’s on the list. It needs to be in your bag,” and reported me on the website. If you get three violations in a year, they kick you out. “That’s strike one for you,” she declared, not unhappily. I tried to think of it as an exercise in humility: maybe I’m too attached to being in charge.