4

I didn’t have a whole lot of time because I was expected at another family cookout, and it was a two hour drive. This time it was at a ball park and
J___ wouldn’t be there, only his wife (Ms J__) and his daughters and their husbands and children.
Since J__ wouldn’t be there I knew to take eight
pills before I left. I wanted to take more, but was expected to play ball so I figured it wasn’t a good idea. By the time I got there the eight pills were just starting to kick in, and it didn’t feel like a good high, instead it made me feel jittery.
That’s the thing about taking too little, that
period where the body makes the switch from not-high to high is longer, so you feel in between for a longer time, all jittery and springy while you wait
for the high to smooth out.

The ballpark freaked me out a little because it was so much like the one down from the House I grew up in. It reminded me of little leagues and what it
was like to be a little boy. I hadn’t noticed before how many monsters were in the world, and few men, and how we all looked exactly the same, because we were all human males. Every time I saw a grown man near a little kid I could see what might really be going on between them.

One guy was especially freaking me out. His name was Jess and was married to H__, the most attractive of J__’s daughters. He’s the son-in-law who never seems to like me much and is always loud and obnoxious acting, over powering
social situations. I think he might be jealous of me and J__’s dynamic, because Jess was the youngest of the son-in-laws. He wasn’t the father of H__’s attractive daughter, whom H__ had conceived when she was fifteen.
After arriving in town, I rode to the cookout out with H__’s daughter and one of her friends, both of whom kept stealing glances at me, even to the point of holding their gaze when I caught them.
Meanwhile, I continued to talk to Ms J__ and her daughter B__, who was driving. I thought
the girls might be looking at the scars on my face, and especially one short imprint toward the side of my head that I had gotten while deployed.

In the SUV, I was already a little on edge due to the wayward high but also because of the way Ms J__ had put her foot in her mouth when I’d first
arrived at her house. She was talking freely and had mentioned how the other day her and J__ had talked about how strange it was that Bri__ had gotten so immediately attached to me, despite him not seeing me much.
_I don’t mean because it’s you,_ she quickly said, realizing the insult she may have laid
on me. Bri__ was J__’s grandson and lived in the house with J__ and Ms J__.
She said that at first when I’d met him I simply acted like I didn’t know what to do with him because he was such a little boy, barely able to walk, but that she had noticed early on that Bri__ was going out of his way to be around me and to make me figure out how to deal with him. She was giving me a compliment but because of the intensity of the last few weeks I felt accused.
I also had to take with a straight face the fact that this family talked about me when I wasn’t there. It was something I hadn’t realized before.

During the ride to the ball field H__ ‘s daughter told us that Jess had googled kickball and had printed off the official rules to bring to the
cookout.
At the last cookout he had gotten himself in a bit of a mess when the rest of the family noticed that he kept changing the rules to suit him.

I could only imagine what Jess was going to be like this time, and imagined the ridiculousness of a grown man being overly competitive over kickball - a game the family always chose for the little kids to play, while the adults filled in the outfield.
To me if anyone in the family could be a Monster it was probably him, because he was a man out of control, feeling no need to check himself, feeling no need to be the soulful voice in his head instead of his body with its civilian tendencies.

I avoided the first kick ball game and sat with B__, eating some hotdogs. She told me that Ms J__ had had the first three daughters by her first
husband, who had committed suicide while they were all very small.
She said that J__ was about five years younger than Ms J__ and was actually her second
husband. I saw Ms J__ differently from that point on, I imagined a single mom in her twenties whose husband had finally killed himself.
B__ said her mother had only mentioned that story to her once, and would probably never reference it to her again. I understood the privilege implied in knowing such a not-talked-about family story, and wondered why B__ had shared it with me.

I noticed H__’s daughter and her friend still acting funny around me, like they wanted to say something to me, or wanted me to say something to them, or something .. so I joined the kick ball game, on the opposite team of Jess.
He took advantage of the fact that we always let the smallest kids play first each inning, while his team had the biggest guys play first. Meanwhile, we still stayed neck and neck with them point wise.

After the cookout, we got back to J__ and Ms J__’s house and J__ was there watching TV, having just gotten off work. B__ and I talked about the cookout while Bri__ kept trying to get me to play with him.
_Oh, you know, he’s just competitive, that’s all,_ B__ said, concerning Jess.
_Yeah, but he’s supposed to be grown,_ J___ said.

Before I left their house I showed J__ and Ms J__ the bike I had bought, a Giant Trance X2. It cost 1300 dollars but was listed at 1900 so I had gotten
a good deal.
I had had to drive four hours one way from home in order to get to the bike shop that was selling it. It was supposed to be the bike I’d take on my bike trip down the West coast, but that dream seemed pretty shot at this point.
The reason why it was still in my Jeep was because I had arrived back home last night pretty late, and I explained that in so many words, as well as the bike’s other features.
I heard Ms J__ say to J__, _He didn’t go home last night._

This family thing is new to me. I didn’t realize they also talked about my sex life.

__________


(Monday)

Woke from a vague sex dream. Something about how its vulnerability that’s sexy. Whether by an attractive female or male. If I’m Him enough, they trust me this much, I can make them that vulnerable. I can be vulnerable with myself, like when I dance by myself in front of the big throbbing speakers.

__________