Badbadbad

by Jesus Angel Garcia

  jesusangel: better now?

  dream2live4evR: eek, i still feel dizzy

  jesusangel: que pasa?

  dream2live4evR: i don’t know it keeps happening

  dream2live4evR: and i passed out like 3x this week

  jesusangel: no way

  dream2live4evR: way

  dream2live4evR: it’s frustrating

  jesusangel: maybe you’re pregnant

  dream2live4evR: haha, no

  jesusangel: are you eating? sleeping right?

  dream2live4evR: it’s funny you ask

  jesusangel: I’m listening . . .

  dream2live4evR: did i tell you i had surgery last year?

  jesusangel: que?!

  dream2live4evR: i was sick for a long time

  dream2live4evR: when they finally diagnosed me right they took out one of my ovaries

  jesusangel: I’m so sorry

  dream2live4evR: it’s OK i’ve still got the other

  jesusangel: are you all fixed up then?

  dream2live4evR: yes and no

  dream2live4evR: i’m not sick like i was before

  dream2live4evR: but now my hormones won’t allow my body to absorb the insulin it needs

  jesusangel: like diabetes

  dream2live4evR: my body says nope, no sugar for your brain, and my brain is like pretty please?

  dream2live4evR: then i pass out

  jesusangel: wow

  dream2live4evR: yeah

  jesusangel: can you bang insulin?

  dream2live4evR: it’s not diabetes

  dream2live4evR: i don’t need insulin

  dream2live4evR: i need hormones

  jesusangel: hormone balance

  dream2live4evR: exactly

  jesusangel: how does one procure such an item in the marketplace?

  dream2live4evR: haha, at the hospital through a shot

  jesusangel: oh mi cerezo, now when you disappear I’m gonna worry you’ve passed out

  dream2live4evR: don’t worry baby i’ll be alright

  dream2live4evR: as soon as the doctors find a treatment that works

  jesusangel: so you’re still searching for the balance

  dream2live4evR: yeah

  jesusangel: balance is tough

  dream2live4evR: i’m sure we’ll get it!

  jesusangel: what if you don’t?

  dream2live4evR: we will

  dream2live4evR: we have to

  jesusangel: you will

  jesusangel: I know it

  jesusangel: God told me so

  dream2live4evR: can you ask Him to put me on the fast track?

  jesusangel: I’ll see what I can do

  dream2live4evR: i like having my own guardian jesus

  jesusangel: what’s not to like?

  TWENTY-THREE

  Oh Remedios!

  I can’t begin to tell you, brother, how attracted I was to this girl, how I longed to heal her yet felt powerless to do so. I wanted to be there to catch her when she blacked out, wrap my wings around her and rock her back to health, love her like no one else could, all of her, without judgment, until the end of time. I knew the world would be a better place if only we could be together. But she was buried in projects for school, she said. We wouldn’t be able to see each other until Christmas break.

  We grew close messaging every day, but these exchanges stressed the distance between us and drove me mad with restlessness. How would I make it until we saw eye to eye? What would I do before then? These questions plagued me, especially at night when I’d find myself alone, seeking intimate connects in media overload.

  First Church parishioners were in crisis as well. Feeling isolated from their pastor-turned-politico, cut off from their escort to Christ, they reached out to their fellows in faith for spiritual support on FEAR NOT. But the few rational voices were swamped by the panic of the masses.

  The litany of complaints: shortness of breath, racing hearts, chest pains, nausea, lightheadedness, chills, hot flashes and a crushing sense of dread that prayer could not abate. Even after seeing the recommended doctors and taking the trendiest meds, many in the congregation wrote how they were certain they’d never know peace again. “Why has God forsaken us?” was the common refrain among folks fixated on the rising number of war dead, crime in good neighborhoods, invasion of privacy and from aliens, estrangement from church, family, friends, and the relentless threat of killer germs, STDs, violence in the homeland and bad weather: “a hostile environment unfit for our children.”

  The Reverend reproached me for not doing my job. Accepting no responsibility for his inflammatory rhetoric, he said I was supposed to maintain order, keep the dialogue lively but reasonable, passionate yet productive, directing those who find themselves off-path back to the light of the Lord.

  I explained to him I couldn’t whole-hog the blog myself, no matter how many identities I assumed, and if I cut the posts per his commands, then FEAR NOT would be a ghost town, the backlash from parishioners fierce. Rightly so, such a move would be seen as bearing false witness. I asked him if that was the message he wanted to send.

  After praying on my feedback and consulting with Good Charlotte, who confided as much to me later, the Reverend emailed: “Please, JAG, do what you can to positively spin the negatives. We need less grumbling and more solution-oriented actionables. Christ was no defeatist. Neither should we be.” I said I’d do my best.

  In truth, I was so overwhelmed managing personal business, I couldn’t frame my mind to do the Reverend’s bidding. It also didn’t feel right betraying my First Church brethren. I, too, was suffering from unusual physical ailments: troubled breathing, bloody sneezes, sores on the underside of my tongue, tender gums. Yet it had been weeks since the incident at that rockstar bar. There were mornings when I was so exhausted I’d go right back to bed after getting up to work. While I still can’t trace for sure the causes of my symptoms, some of which persist to this day, they must be related to a form of environmental poisoning. Perhaps this was a community-wide test of faith, a soul-cleansing trial, like Job’s boils or the heaven-sent massacre of Egypt’s first-born. Maybe we were being punished for deviating from the inspired new direction of Reverend Puck’s ministry. Whatever was happening, we had collectively entered a period of Strange Days.

  This was Cyrus’ term. He said he’d noticed similar weirdness at recent shows he’d booked. “The bands rock,” he told me when I finally caught up with him on his cell, “but the audiences are weak. It’s like bein at the symphony or some tight-ass chamber concert. The applause, when it comes, is genteel. And we had to break up three fights on a single night this past weekend at a singer-songwriter showcase. We’ve never had any fights, not the kind that bring a house of pain, and yet we had to call an ambulance to haul away this one dude who’d been pummeled in the restroom. I dunno what’s goin on, but it ain’t good, and it ain’t goin away.”

  The fallenangels were not immune either. Since Joy and I had embedded the phantom web site, we’d observed uncharacteristic behavior among users who once prided themselves on their non-judgmental embrace of fellow community members. Guys and girls alike were making cruel comments in DEAR DIARY posts about people they’d never met in person. Joy and I would review these transgressions, axe the extreme offenders. We also issued a notice on the home page, reminding users to flag “uncivility” and to keep in mind our original mission to be “a refuge for those who cannot in good conscience conform to the hypocrisies of mainstream culture.”

  I was still involved with several fallenangels in various capacities. I played the voyeur as watch_me_now sauced it up on her webcam to the ‘80s grooves of Dead or Alive, Madonna and Deee-Lite. I met CondeeCandee at the Marriott where she introduced me to her Red Riding Hood basket of treats, self-described “sensual accoutrements,” from the Wee Willy, a tiny twirling jellyfish, to the Master, a black truncheon with a high-voltage hum adjustable to three speeds: oooh, ahhh and yow! I dodged ticktockclock’s invite to follow-up
“the successful launch of our blissful future together” (I couldn’t do it, bro) and I saw Ms. V for the last time, beating her at her own game. Then there was Remedios, distant love defined, among a host of random others.

  I realize, brother, you may be thinking I’ve got delusions of myself as a lothario (you can thank the Vocabularist for that fifty-cent word), a maestro of seduction driven by ego and appetite. But that’s so far from the truth. I never schemed to get my way with anyone. It was never about my way. I merely showed up, took on a role by request.

  With Ms. V, I embodied a man of quiet intelligence, at once sober and playful. I supported her academic track, respected her fetishes. Responding to her SOS for “secular humanism,” I was her floatie when the Bliss U waves got rough.

  With watch_me_now, I applauded her snake charms, her gyrations that matched the Virgin Whore’s curve for curve. She needed me to see her how she wanted to be seen: the hands-off dancer no one could take their eyes off. We hadn’t yet connected on the phone or in person, but I was certain we would soon.

  For CondeeCandee, I was a limited-liability partner, a stagehand, someone she needed for her solo show. But my contribution had to be understated, effective only from behind the curtain or in the wings.

  In short, little brother, I did my job.

  For the record, I’m not a sex addict. I’m not a pervert or a freak. I’m not less moral than anyone else who lives his life according to his beliefs, who tries to do right on the path laid out before him.

  Yet I can’t help thinking I wouldn’t be where I am today if not for the ex. If I’d been allowed to be the father I used to be, I wouldn’t be here now, struggling to explain myself before it’s too late. If I were still a husband and the ex the girl I married, I wouldn’t be here now I know I wouldn’t. I didn’t aim for anything to turn out this way. I was trying to do right.

  Why have I been treated like a criminal then? Where’s the law to safeguard me from injustice? Where’s my Lord and Savior?

  I’ve been forsaken for damn sure. And if I understand one thing about nature, it’s this: a beast alone, caged or trapped, lashes out.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  At our next appointment I received news from my attorney that there was no record of my custody agreement. No evidence, electronic or hard copy. I begged him for answers but he only chalked it up to human error: civil-service incompetence. “Shit happens,” he said. But I shouldn’t be discouraged or overreact. He told me to honor my court order while we waited on the D.A., who would see our side, he assured me, as long as I stayed out of trouble. Rash action now would be a grave mistake. I should keep busy, say my prayers.

  He outlined a strategy for striking a new deal with the ex, noting my preference for a fifty-fifty arrangement, so I could spend as much time with my son as possible, and advised me on the more likely alternatives, which would require what he called level-headed compromise. “Prepare for the worst,” he said. “But never give up hope.”

  Back home my inbox was crammed with messages from fallenangels. I only read the one from happyhappy. She thanked me for the supportive comments of my last note and agreed to tell me more of her story.

  She wrote how she had moved here from Virginia to study at Bliss U. Her father was a preacherman and she had planned to return home after graduation to assist him with his ministry. Always a “smarty pants,” she was cruising through the program with straight A’s, doing freelance tech work on the side, which she’d first taught herself back in sixth grade. Then in her third year, she met this guy. “Bright and cute and deeply into Christian scholarship,” she wrote, “a serious student like me, and no robot—nearly unheard of at the university.” They spent a lot of time together. Totally innocent.

  After a few months, when she thought they’d become good friends who cared about each other and shared a common bond in Christ, he turned into a monster. At first he stopped being polite, not holding open doors, interrupting her when they were talking. Then he cracked. “He would disrespect me in class and in private call me ‘devil temptress,’ ‘filthy slut’ and ‘stupid bitch,’” she wrote, “even though I had never provoked him in any way.”

  I messaged her I’d never say such brutal things. She wrote back: “It only got worse.”

  He’d phone or text at all hours, threaten how he was going to get her good to protect others from her wickedness. “I was terrified,” she wrote. “But when I brought the matter to my advisor, he blamed me!”

  Her advisor said she must have done something to rile the boy up. He assured her he would talk to him, smooth out the situation. You can guess what came next. According to Joy, it happens every one hundred twenty seconds, night and day, rain or shine. America the Beautiful.

  When happyhappy again went to her advisor, he said having a boy in her room was a violation of university policy and she must have led him on and perhaps got what she had coming to her. How did he know it was rape, he apparently said, and not morning-after regret, since she hadn’t screamed for help and the bruises on her arms and legs could have come from her own dirty desire. He told her to put her relationship with this boy behind her. “RELATIONSHIP!?!” she screamed in her message to me. He said she should focus on her studies, which he could see from her latest report card she had not been taking seriously, and be thankful he wasn’t going to report her to the residence monitors.

  How could this advisor at a Christian college not put together the obvious? How could he not see this girl for who she was and realize what had happened to her? How could he not get it that she was sexually assaulted and feared for her safety? If bliss is ignorance, I’ll take misery.

  Happyhappy was destroyed. Unable to eat or sleep, all she did for two weeks was pray, holed up in her room with the windows bolted and the door double-locked.

  She finally took her case to the head of the university, who was more sympathetic, though still skeptical. Her bruises had faded by then and her advisor downplayed the extent of her injuries. Still, the chancellor promised to suspend judgment until he’d heard both sides of the story.

  After his so-called investigation with her assailant, he said the truth is often elusive in “matters of the heart such as this” and suggested it was in her best interest to withdraw from the school so he wouldn’t have to ugly her reputation with expulsion. She should have asked to be stoned in the quad, I suggested, to warn other girls from the perils of fraternizing with the opposite sex. “That would be barbaric,” she fired back. “Bliss is a Christian institution.”

  Too ashamed to talk to her dad, happyhappy moved out on her own, barely working a dead-end temp gig. Suffering from PTSD, she convinced herself what happened to her must have been her own fault, or she could have prevented it, or she was in fact a foolish girl who got what she deserved.

  When she did tell her father she had dropped out, he said if she was satisfied with failure then he washed his hands of her. They haven’t spoken since. “When this is all over,” she wrote, “I pray I’ll have the strength to tell him the whole story, like I’ve told it to you, cain_is_abel. I’m not sure why but it’s easy (almost) to lay all this in your inbox. I don’t even know you. So why do I (almost) trust you? Is it because you seem to listen? seem to care? don’t judge me?

  “It doesn’t matter. What counts is what happens next. Which is?”

  I had so many questions, but it felt wrong to ask. I wanted to know where this no excuse for a man was now, if this pig was still in town, and if so, if she’d like his throat cut. I wanted to know why she didn’t go to the police or sue the school. I wanted to know more about her relationship with her dad, where her mom was, if she had any siblings she could have confided in. I wanted to know what she did when she wasn’t working. Most of all, I needed to know how she could continue to put her faith in Christ and prayer and the church when she’d been dumped on in her time of need.

  Of course, the real questions were for me. Would I abandon her like all the rest or finish what I’d started? And what wo
uld my decision say about me?

  Friday evening, I was in no mind for answers. I had to get away. Knotted up inside from drama on every front, I could barely breathe. Too many demands, too few connects. I didn’t have anyone to turn to.

  I couldn’t reach out to you, brother. Too ashamed. You had your own troubles anyhow. Did they ever put your head back together? Stick you with a shiny pin, call it a day? Was it worth it, bro, marching in your father’s boots? I’m sorry I never returned your messages. As you can see, I’ve been kind of tangled up. Anyhow, I couldn’t bring myself to ask you to be there for me, even though I know you always have been. But I wasn’t there for you, bro, or for my son. Oh mijo!

  Cyrus had all but disappeared since laying fallenangels in my lap. I’m sure he was dealing with his own pressure from the law. But we could have come together over pirated music and bourbon. Instead, we grew apart.

  Bebe and Joy were more his friends than mine. I didn’t feel right badgering them. While Joy and I had been hanging some lately, it was mostly a professional relationship.

  I didn’t know Remedios well enough to heap my burdens on her. Besides, she was one of my problems, or the geographical distance between us was.