Mercury Poisoning

                    I grew up fatherless with a stressed-out mom who loved me and my two sisters very much, but

her severe alcoholism destroyed any ability to nurture properly and all I can recall from those early years is

just an overwhelming sense of sadness and anxiety. My poor mom worked full time all day and drank full time

at night so supervision was non-existent, not good for any kid, but especially not good for a precocious brat

like me. I was too smart for my own good and developed early, physically as well as mentally, and discovered

I had within me an almost pathological craving for male attention. In the fifth grade my then best friend invited

me to join her family on an overnight visit to see friends who just happened to have a chubby, pimply- faced

teenage son with thick glasses and big surprise here, I end up in his room after everyone else had gone off

to bed. I don't recall whose idea it was exactly but something tells me it was probably mine. It doesn't really

make much of a difference either way. We're just starting to get comfortable on, or probably in, his bed

jamming to that ubiquitous album "Breakfast in America" and before there is even time for monkey business

to get started, in barges my friend with a look on her face that's a mixture of shock and disgust. Not the last

time I'd get that look from a girlfriend. I'm trying to shoot her my best "get lost" look, but she's not having any

of it, so I reluctantly slink back to my sleeping bag, honor intact for just a tiny bit longer, at least.

"Goodbye stranger, it's been nice..." 

 

                When I was eleven my sisters and I discovered a "glitch" with the phone line. I can't recall all the

details, but the bottom line was if you called a fake phone number ( probably "867-5309", since it was '82 and

that lame song was everywhere), you ended up on a kind of party line with other losers who had the same idea

as you. Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, there were a lot of us out there. If I remember correctly my

sisters quickly lost interest, but I was hooked. All those guys out there on the prowl! There was one older guy

who wanted me to meet up with him at the mall, so I mosey on up there at the designated time, ready for what

exactly I don't know, but ready for something, and just my luck of course, I picked one with a heart or a brain

or maybe just a criminal record, because he took one look at me and said, "You are asking for trouble doing

this ", and promptly sent me on my way. Thank you, by the way. 



                The glitch was soon corrected and sadly, our little party soon ended, but not before my sisters and

I started chatting with a nineteen year old guy who lived nearby. He had just finished high school and seemed

really cool and in no time at all he's on a ratty old couch down in our basement wearing just a pair of hideous

cowboy boots. We live in Ohio, by the way. Cleveland. Not cowboy country by any stretch. And as far as I am

concerned, unless you're a cowboy, you shouldn't be wearing cowboy boots. Ever. He was skinny with a whiny

voice and a rather unmanly giggle, but on the plus side, his blond hair was long and feathered and he'd arrived

decked out in a cool leather blazer and aviator shades. But the best part of all was what he'd brought along

with him: a little briefcase which housed a large number of of super cool cassettes. This was the early 1980's,

remember. I was stoked by all the stellar music he had: Queen and the Stones (still a favorite with me) and Led

Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Just really good music. My sisters and I debate as to whether he jacked off or

not but come on, what the hell else would he have been doing naked on that couch? I'm almost sure that he did,

but as one of my sisters so clinically stated, "I don't recall seeing any ejaculate". Isn't that a disgusting word?

Ejaculate. But we all easily agree on the fact that he had a really big cock, which left me at least with quite a

skewed view on what a nude man should look like. He came over a few more times after that and also gave us

a really cool Queen poster that we quite proudly displayed in our basement.     



                I lost my virginity at twelve to a twenty-two year old loser in some woods behind a local quickie mart.

He was gross, it was gross and I felt bad afterward, but that didn't stop me from fucking him again, or anyone

else, for that matter. I wasn't exactly what you would call choosy. I remember lying under a gross sweaty guy

who wouldn't stop fucking saying how "everyone said he looked JUST like Tom Petty blah blah blah" all night

but let me be clear on this: Yes, he did have long blond hair and a big mouth but he didn't "look just like Tom

Petty", because Tom Petty isn't fucking repulsive, and thinking, "You know, I really don't like you and you smell

bad- just hurry up and cum ". But the one I really didn't like was me, of course, so the cycle continues and by

the time fifteen rolls around I discover I'd gotten myself pregnant by a carny I met twice, I think. And by the

way, you may think it's just a scare tactic when they say you can get pregnant with no penetration but hand

to God I swear it happened to me. If one full thrust was involved, I would be shocked. I think he finished before

he started and it's true, those things can swim. I was terrified and thought about hurling myself down a flight of

stairs or whatever it is girls did in the olden days when they found themselves "in trouble", but was too scared to

actually do it and um, oh my God, what an evil thing to even think about, so I have no choice but to tell my mom

and all we can do is carry on.


                I gave birth on April Fool's Day to a baby boy who died in his sleep seven weeks later. The autopsy

provided no answers. His death was officially SIDS, but I pretty much thought it some kind of divine punishment

for being a bad mom and just a bad person all around. I find the term  "nervous breakdown"  to be really played

out, but I think I might have had one at this time. U2 had just released the work of art that is "The Joshua Tree"

and sadly, it's almost unlistenable to me to this very day because it was, and always will be, the soundtrack of

my heart shattering.  "With or Without You" is about romantic love and loss, I know this, but when I listen to Bono

singing  "and you give yourself away and you give yourself away and you give and you give..." and  " nothing to

win and nothing left to lose..." it feels like the story of my life and my baby's death and the aching in my heart

grows bigger than I ever would have thought possible. This is when anxiety and depression really get a hold of

me. I remember kneeling at the side of my bed like a straight-up mental patient and praying like a little kid would,

hands clasped, for a sign that my son was okay and in heaven or wherever it is poor little unbaptized babies who

had the misfortune of being born to a mixed- up teen mom and a non-existent dad go when they die. Limbo,

maybe? Comforting. But we do get "special" permission to have him buried in a Catholic cemetery and I try to

get back to my normal life, which is anything but, and continue to wait for that sign. As far as I know, it didn't

come. Or perhaps it did come but I was too busy screwing some loser in the woods again to see it. I honestly

can't say. All I know is, I don't speak of him, my mom and my sisters don't speak of him, and you know what?

Sometimes it seems like it didn't even really happen. Occasionally I get really maudlin and basically just make

everyone really uncomfortable and sad and we'll go to his grave. It gets to the point, though, that his name

sounds kind of weird and foreign on my tongue and eventually I just stop saying it altogether.