After My Bar Mitzvah

by Alec Niedenthal

We were all becoming close friends. It was too hot to have no friends. The fast food restaurants I went to most were never closed. Or if they were, it was just a temporary thing. The air system in my car broke during some random week, and I had those checkered cloth seats and upholstery or whatever, and it was just really miserable. My car was that car you regretted having to shrink yourself into. With seats that hardly move, and blades of seatbelts that, when they brush your bare leg, hurt your skin like a bee sting or an overflow of boiling water.

Because of the heat I guess a lot of what we did and talked about had this sexual tension to it. But I was always sad when it didn't work out. I mean the actual sex, or what came after. Still, I was in in the greatest shape, and the view from my car, from the highest point in town, is something I'll always remember to miss.

***

Our parents, or least one of our parents if we had two, were recovering alcoholics or drunks. Or they secretly still were (like, they weren't recovering) and Mom was that way. She would go to the meetings at the Franks' house (they hosted every meeting) and one requirement for these weekly meetings was you had to bring any kids recently in your possession, if older than sixteen. I was older. So I came along and sat with her, usually on the first or second stair of the staircase, and drank soda. At first, a while ago, the deal was your kid got to drink alcohol and you didn't, but it turns out that alcoholism is mildly genetic. So that's not the case anymore. You drink soda or water. They encouraged the children over sixteen to hang out and talk about our experiences, having really struggled with our parents, or parent. Usually I didn't have much to say. I was drinking a lot at this point.

***

Me and my mom used to fuck, was the first thing I said in this support group. There was the support groups for parents and kids, and then a separate support group for parents and a separate one for kids. When my dad was home, he watched, was the second thing I said. I didn't get the normal reaction, which was shock or like leaving me alone. The reaction now was more like sympathy, or I guess identification, or empathy. Us, we were a group that identified a lot, and there was a sad or wrong sexual history for most of us. It's weird, you typically gather teenagers and no matter what they have a hard time saying anything meaningful. For us, we breathed some kind of group sigh when a story like mine got told, because it should've been so hard to hear, but it wasn't for whatever reason. Not everybody was fucked by their moms or watched by their dads. Hardly anyone's Dad asked them what kind of things they think about when they masturbate. I didn't feel alienated. There was a curiosity. This girl Rebecca, her parents had been like swingers or whatever or in an open marriage, she asked me how exactly it started happening. So I told her.

Well, I said. It started happening when I was twelve. When I like first started really feeling stuff sexually. My mom came in my room and she was drunk, and we talked for a while. She told me she was so happy I'm her son, and I'm going to turn out not like my dad, she believed that, and just really supportive things I was glad to hear, because I never really heard stuff like that from anywhere. She was crying by now. She kept repeating the same stuff and eventually took off the sweater she was wearing, this was winter break and our air conditioning was fucked, and she wasn't wearing anything underneath. She asked me to like feel her tits. I was scared and she was still crying and I didn't really understand. She told me they're real. Now I know they kind of aren't. I pinched her nipples and laughed a little. She hit me in the head with the back of her hand and told me off as a shit. That was surprising. I felt a lot of things, then. I felt kind of turned on because you know, whatever, I was twelve. But I also felt like it wasn't really me who she was asking to squeeze her tits, it was somebody else. I felt like she wasn't looking at me as any kind of son or anyone with any ideas in his head at all. Maybe not.

Basically, I said, and I'm crying at this point. I did stuff for her, she didn't really do much for me. We had real like intercourse most of the time. This happened almost every night for a while. Like two months. My dad was there probably one-eighth of the time. He wasn't there so often. When he was there he wasn't so nice about it. He told me stuff to do to my mom, to myself. Sometimes they both watched me. Sometimes I watched him and my mom. I didn't think it was really that wrong. I didn't think of them as my parents or anything. Just like these bodies or whatever, and I was just this body too, and anything that happened in the house outside of that, it was different. Like the sex was erased in any other situation in the house. There was some tension, but remember, I was twelve, and it wasn't that big of a deal. I guess even before it happened I expected it. Or maybe I was led to believe I wanted it.

Rebecca asked me how many times I've tried to kill myself since. She killed herself on Monday, which is why I'm writing this.

None, I said.

She asked me why.

Well, I said. That's complicated.

***

This meeting where Rebecca asked me all of these questions, it's probably the meeting where I most talked. Things are okay between my mom and me, I said. I forgive her, she forgives me. We get along. We go out to dinner. Not often, but for birthdays or holidays. She got me a job where she works. We go running sometimes. Watch movies. It's just like any mom. I mean, we don't really talk about it. After my Bar Mitzvah we pretty much stopped it, except for a couple times. So now I'm so old that it's way in the past. I don't see my dad much, I said. I laughed. Now everyone seemed confused. My dad's dead, I said. Tried to kill my mom too. But my mom's strong. I mean like physically. So he ended up just being the one dying.

What about having sex now? Rebecca asked.

Sure, I said. Right now? I said.

***

Rebecca and I eventually did have sex. This night I'm talking about we did, I think. Then after that, a lot. I watched her fuck Steven, too, and Barry, and Dave, and someone strangely named Angel. That was it. Rebecca wanted to hurt me, and I was okay with that. Not just physically. She wanted me to watch her, and hurt for her. I mean, I did. Rebecca knew what she wanted. She was good to have around.

Claire and I fucked once. She jokingly said act like she's my mom, but I thought she was serious.

Dave and I had some good sex. Having sex with Dave made me angry. There was nothing I could do. I threw a lot of stuff around. Including Dave.

If I were to count everyone, including Mom and Dad, I would probably end up counting like forty or fifty people. I counted a while ago and it was twenty-seven.

***

I think there's something wrong with me. I'm being honest now. The last time Rebecca and I saw each other, it was Saturday. I wasn't drunk then. We were hanging around that overhang I told you about, the highest point in town. No one knew about it before me. In my car, just making out some. She stopped. If you drove just a little bit, like just pulled in a little more, we would fall off this cliff, she said. Yeah, I said. I want you to do it, she said. Eventually she convinced me to put the car in drive. That took a long time and I left the car twice and asked her to do it herself. We both cried, but not at the same time. She called me my dad (I've told her about my dad) and she told me we were going to die anyway. That's not true, I said. So we were both in the car and it was in drive. If I released the brake we would both die. I apologized to Rebecca. I can't do it, I said. I put the car in park. Fuck this town, I said. Gene, she said. I don't want to die, she said. I said I didn't believe her. That was a mistake because, like I said, on Monday she killed herself.

I and Mom went to the funeral today. At least one of us was drunk. Everyone from the group was there. Dave, Claire, Angel, Barry, the rest. Their moms or dads. Of course, we wore black clothes. It felt like a small dark room and like you can only tell where you are in the room by the objects you run into, except the object you're running into, there's someone dead in there. There were two eulogies, Rebecca's dad and me. Mostly my eulogy was just me yelling and I threw down the lectern or whatever it is. I had typed my speech and I turned it into a ball and I hit my mom with it. Before I could do anything else (I had brought this gun that's my dad's) Dave hugged me and we took a walk so I could cool down and told me I'm going to college soon (that isn't true) and I won't have to see my mom. Do you think Rebecca wanted to die? I said. I was crying and afraid of ruining his suit with snot. Obviously, he said. How's it obvious? I said. I had my face pressed in Dave's shoulder. I feel like my dad right now, I said to Dave. I laughed a little and it sounded like a hiccup. Wait, Dave said. Your mom's coming.

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