ISSUE: Spring 2018
For a genealogy assignment I took a blood test. I found out I am O positive. My mom is A negative, which seems very fitting. My dad is B positive. This alone would normally frighten me. Needles should freeze in hell. I told my dad I was scared but wouldn’t cry when I got pricked. He laughed, pinched my arm. Oh, positive. After this, many things became apparent.
Like, I’m adopted. That is what my teacher said. Actually she said, You should talk to your parents. My parents, or at least the people that identify as such, went to Hawaii last summer and brought me home a matching shirt-and-short set. We spoke on the phone twice while they were gone. Despite the complaints from my mom, I wore the outfit everyday for two weeks until my cousin said the pattern looked like dicks exploding.
Whatever. My mom says the scheme is autumnal. And palm trees. My cousin is just jealous because her dad doesn’t live with her. My mom thinks her mom is a slut, that she absolutely has patterns. They are sisters. Grandma cried at Christmas after my mom saw a picture of her real dad for the first time. She was thirty. He was flexing in cutoffs next to dumbbells in prison. Oh, positive. I’m pretty sure sluts don’t
get to ride on planes. My grandparents said not to talk in the movies. I’ve heard my uncles say that, too. Once we skipped school to watch the second Star Wars, then again to see Fatal Attraction. Oh, positive. Davey, cover your eyes, they said, chichis. An upset child can go anywhere, except a plane, my grandpa said, but he’s not my blood.
I asked my mom if that made me a slut while getting dinner at Fosters Freeze. She said that wasn’t polite. I’m still not sure if she meant the waitress or the sluts. My dad said men can’t be sluts. Oh, positive. I sucked hard on my Twister. Looking into my straw, I saw a chunk of Snickers lodged. I tried not to cry. She said stop being silly, that I had a blood transfusion at birth. She said I was born a month late. My Rh factor is negative. My dad chewed his food and looked at his fork.
