The Imperfect DeMia Harlow

Change is best when the ass shrinks

DeMia Harlow

Dear Butt,

I have changed your size. How do you feel? I expect you must feel much comfort. I forget that I lead you around; I feel some relief in toting you along instead of having to be escorted by you. On the other hand, I hate to have people behind me seeing you in all your glory as you bounce along to keep up with me.

Forgive me, but you wear my shame. The shame that shows I have an inability to control how much food I put in my mouth. I am in awe of your smaller size oh sweet ass of mine. Although you are not small enough to suit yourself and me yet, bless you my dear ass! I have starved us and worked out every muscle possible for months to have you look like this. Do you miss the jiggle?

Have you noticed the new clothes? I know you have. You’re welcome.

My parents are selling the house. We are moving to Lake in the Hills, Illinois. They are renting an apartment here in Albuquerque to use when coming out to manage the formal wear business. My parents have two more formal wear businesses, one in Schaumburg, Illinois and one in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; hence, the move to Illinois. I am now 17 years old and have a steady boyfriend. He is in the Navy. His name is Jim. He is three years older than I am. I still talk to other boys though. I write to him almost every day. I love writing letters.

I had a pen pal from Pakistan while I was in middle school. I could not tell his first name from his last name. In my salutation in my first letter to him, I addressed him by his last name. I was so embarrassed when he wrote me back telling me of my mistake and asking me for a photo. He sent me one. He did not have a smile on his face in the picture. I wrote him back with a photo enclosed, along with an apology. We wrote for a couple of years, until high school began. Then it just stopped. I wonder how he is doing. My mom is calling me. I find her in the kitchen.

“Please help me with the kitchen,” she says. I wanted to finish packing my room, but I said a cheery, “Okay” and started to help her. Perfect little me. Station 93.3 KOB was filling the room with music. I love music so very much! Mom and I were chatting. It was starting to be fun to hang out with mom. I have so much love for my mom. That’s why I let her hurt my feelings, because I am afraid to hurt hers. I feel like she makes everything a drama. All of my three sisters act the same way, always drama. And yes, I too fight with exploiting a nothing into something that turns into a big mess of drama. It’s all an amazing trail of guilt, shame, and denial. Acceptance of imperfection relieves all of these horrible feelings. I haven’t learned that priceless gem of understanding yet; I am not old enough apparently.

The movers take off with all of our belongings, driving the road to Lake in the Hills. Dad checked the oil in the van. He has a Dodge Maxi-Van. It was like a mini-RV. It is packed to the hilt with what we need to have before the movers arrive. It has a fridge and the back couch that pulls out into a bed. I am stoked to get on with this trip. I smoked my last joint just before we left out by the basketball court. I also said goodbye to this house on Pickard Ave. I will miss it here. I love this house. I knew I would meet new friends when I got in school or a job. That way I will be able to find a new weed dealer. I love how weed stops the anxiety I have. It is indeed a gift from the gods of logical tranquility.

We load up in the van, and off we go to another new life. I made an Illinois or Bust sign for the van. I placed it in the window next to my seat. It was a good sun block too. Okay, my high is wearing off, and I have the munchies. I am not going to eat though. I am dying because of all the cookies, chips, and nuts are in the cabinet above the sink, right behind my chair. I am perfect and eat none of it. I fall asleep, sort of like a baby. I was staring out the window and I slowly became limp. My focus faded. And BINGO! I was out.

I wake up to being stopped in the van at a gas station. Seamless timing, I had to pee. I had my headset on still blasting Dio while I entered the gas station. I took care of business and went back outside by my family. I asked my dad if I could get a coffee. He gave me a couple of bucks and I went back into the gas station. I came out with my large black coffee. I shut my music off. My sister Erika asked dad if she could get a coke. He said yes and gave her some cash. She went into the store. Timindra was being such a good girl. None of her little I’m spoiled fits. When Erika got back, I talked back and forth to my family about anything and everything about the drive. We were all ready to get there. We are driving straight through. I might have to drive. I didn’t want to. The van is a bitch to drive, for me anyway. I said nothing about it in the hope it would not happen.

My sister Shauna and her boyfriend are following us in Shauna’s Firebird. They have an apartment they are going to live in. This is the best news ever! Shauna and I have not had a real sister conversation since elementary school. She and Brian had an apartment in Albuquerque before we moved, but this is different. I will get the biggest room first, which in this case is the whole partially finished basement. Shauna is mostly unknown to me. I wonder if I will ever have a relationship with her. Part of the answer to that lies in a tale that happened not long after I met up with John.

The fundamental story starts like this: I started buying my pot from the workers at my dad’s store. I hung out there when I wasn’t on the clock cleaning the rental shoes. I would bring friends to the back of the store to hang out with guys five and six years older than me. But, I also saw them the way my dad referred to them. The help, he called them. They stole everything from merchandise to money out of the register. Even though I knew I was doing wrong and feeling guilty about it, I continued to hang out at the back of the store. I listened to all kinds of stories from the different employees. My ears perked up when Brian (Shauna’s boyfriend), who worked for my dad, talked about the cocaine they had been doing in the back of the store. Holy fuck! My dad needs to know this. The guys went on about how they use this big screwdriver to snort it. Dammit all, why do I have to know this? Shit, shit, shit. In order to tell my folks I am going to have to confess as to why I was there listening to such stories. The right thing to do is tell them. We could lose everything if Mall Management finds out. Tell whom…Mom or Dad? I decide definitely mom. She will listen to my long story and let me get to the plot. Dad will get impatient with me and interrupt me. I will then just get pissed and mess up what I want to say. I will have saved the business and mom and dad will cherish me for fessing up. That is what I thought anyway….

I just could not hold it in anymore. I asked my mom if I could talk to her in my room. I told her about my smoking pot and where I was getting my weed from -- the guys at the store. Mom sat taller in her position on my bed. I proceeded with a huge lump in my throat. Mom, I say, there is cocaine too. I told her about the stories: The screwdriver, the eight ball they said they sold from the back of the store, the pot, and how Brian was in on it. I was suddenly flung into a world of the impossible. My mom was pissed at me, so very angry. I regretted having said a word. I thought the hardest part was over, but it was not. My mom pulled my friend and me out of school to go to the store and talk to the guys in the back of the store. She doesn’t believe me. I now feel guiltier and more imperfect than before I said a thing. Honesty is going to get the best of me.

Shauna is furious with me for accusing her boyfriend of being a cokehead. She is treating me as if I didn’t exist. Mind you, this was not much different from how she treated me before. So I just chalked it up to a big fat who gives a damn about her. Oh well bitch, you will soon find out for yourself that I told the truth. It feels like a little taste of hell when you are not believed until the truth comes crashing down on the liar’s face.

Case Subject: Brian and the Firebird payment.

Ahh, the tale of the cash payment for Shauna’s baby car in the hands of a cokehead; does the payment get to the bank? Nope. Not two months after my confession, Brian uses the money Shauna gave him to buy coke instead of making the car payment. He confesses to her. Everybody knows now. How funny, I expected some apologies. No, that did not happen. Fuck ‘em all. I am going to show them, the whole lot of them one day!

I was getting antsy during the trip. I had to go to the bathroom. Only pee, thank God. There was nothing but farmland as far as the eye could see. Shit, I hate having to tell my dad that he has to stop. I told him, and the dumb bullshit about making our time followed. Why is almost every dad in the world like this during a car trip? I was at the point of tears trying to hold in my pee when he finally stopped. Mom had to bitch at him; thank you mom.

I flew out the van door, running the best I could to a shrub-looking thing I spotted as we stopped. It felt like joy to finally pee. I didn’t care that I got pee on my sandal and foot. I can clean it with a wipes from Timindra’s stash. Erika had to pee too. She didn’t want to bug dad with his making time obsession either. I wished I could...