Spanking Shakespeare by Jake Wizner Read Free Book Online Page B

meal.
             
    The next day, Mr. Parke asks for volunteers to share their essays, and I raise my hand. Everyone applauds when I finish reading, and on the way out of class, Celeste asks me if I want to get together after school to give each other feedback on our memoirs.
    “I think our strengths really complement each other,” she says. “Your writing is just so…so…incendiary.”
    Incendiary? Any relation to Alejandero?
    “We could work at my house,” she says.
    Hello. Now here is an interesting development. “That sounds good,” I say.
    She takes off her glasses, polishes them on her shirt, and puts them back on. “So I’ll meet you at the lockers after school, okay?”
    “Sounds good.”
    I spend the rest of the day vacillating between giddiness and extreme anxiety. By the time I meet Celeste, I feel ready to throw up.
    “I have my mom’s car,” Celeste says as we walk outside. “My parents are away until tomorrow.”
    My stomach lurches, and I have to exert a tremendous amount of effort not to fart.
    “How much of your memoir did you bring?” she asks.
    “Just one chapter, the one about my dog. Everything else makes me look like a sexual deviant.”
    She laughs. “The dog your dad got drunk?”
    “That’s the one,” I say.
    It’s a short drive, and soon we are sitting on the couch in Celeste’s living room reading each other’s memoirs.
    “Your parents are hysterical,” she says, flipping a page.
    “Keep reading. It gets worse.”
    She looks up and smiles that disarming smile. “This reminds me of James Thurber. Have you read
My Life and Hard Times
?”
    I shake my head. Who is this girl? She’s like some kind of literary savant or something. I force myself to concentrate on the pages in front of me.

    The ambiguity of that night imprinted a series of fragmented images, which, when viewed through a lens already distorted by time and distance, leaves me hobbled in my attempts to construct a truthful account and to deconstruct my younger self.

    “Who are you?” I mutter.
    Celeste looks up, radiant. “That’s it exactly,” she gushes. She scoots closer to me so she can look at her paper. I feel her thigh press against mine. “Where are you?” she asks.
    I put my finger on the word
ambiguity.
    She leans in closer, and I can feel her breath on my arm. “Is it clear what I’m trying to do?”
    The words on the page blur together, and I have to remind myself to breathe. “I think so,” I say. I don’t look up. I don’t move. And neither does she.
    “What could I do to make it clearer?” she says at last.
    Smaller words. Shorter sentences. Sit on my lap.
    I turn my face and we begin to kiss.
    Alejandero.

THE TIME MY MOTHER USED EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL TO DEPRIVE ME OF THE ONLY THING I EVER REALLY WANTED
    I had been begging for a dog for years, and finally, when I turned eleven, my parents relented.
    The dog we picked out was brilliant. She was a newborn golden retriever, almost small enough to fit in the palms of my hands. She would slip and slide across the floor, urinate everywhere, and cry whenever she was left alone. I suggested we name her Killer.
    “Here’s the thing,” my dad said. “Your mom and I never got the chance to name a girl, so we were thinking we would name the dog.”
    My mom nodded vigorously. “We’ve actually had a name in mind ever since Gandhi turned out to be a boy.”
    “No way. You’re not giving this poor little puppy some freak name.”
    “You can’t name her Killer,” my mom said.
    “She’s my dog.”
    My dad pulled out his wallet. “How much will it cost to turn over the naming rights to us?”
    “What? You’re gonna pay me to let you name the dog?”
    “How about twenty dollars? That seems fair.”
    “Are you serious?”
    “Okay, we’ll make it thirty.”
    “Thirty? You’re gonna give me thirty dollars?”
    “That’s right.”
    I wondered if I could hold out for more, but decided not to press my luck. “Let me hear the