Trailer Park

I can’t quite get a grasp on my levels of ADD. When I was younger, I found it hard to listen to my second grade teacher, Ms. Carliner, as she rambled on about the difference between nouns and pronouns. Instead, I focused on her cruel ability to taunt the class with her Roy Roger’s food as she slurped her 30oz. soda and ate soup from a Styrofoam container with Roy’s smiling face on it. This occurred everyday, without fail, at exactly 11:15am. It was for this reason alone that I can truly say that I’ve never hated any one person as much as I hated her. How dare she eat fast food in front of a starving fat kid inside the sweltering classroom of a stuffy, catholic middle school? It was also clear that, at the time, she hated me just as much. “Andres, stop reading the stories in the next chapter and pay attention! Jesus sees everything and, I can tell you for certain, he’s not happy with you!” If only the bitch could see me now. Surely, Jesus must be turning in his tombstone at the sight of my heavy drinking and my desires to live in a Manhattan penthouse apartment with a rich, doctor-type guy named Tanner and our Korean daughter, whom I would name “Alicia ‘Pikachu’ Keyes”. All one word. The truth is, I engulfed myself in reading precisely so that I wouldn’t have to pay attention to her and her stupid Roy Roger’s routine. From an early age, it became clear that I taught myself how to completely tune out the world.

As it was, I found myself heavily involved in my latest book on the Metro when I became distracted by “Trailerpark”. She spoke with a twang and was a mix of Nancy Grace and Pat Robertson from the Christian channel had they had a love child. Her hair was teased on the top with thin blonde bangs that attempted to cover her forehead but seemed to fall awkwardly short, like a midget in high heels. The frumpy fleece jacket she wore fell upon her enlarged “Fupa” that sagged like an overused college beanbag with half the contents missing. So much so, that it seemed like her vagina had contracted an aggressive and tragic strain of elephantitis. She spoke on her phone loudly. “She be telling David that I ain’t allowed ta come over no more, even tho he’s the daddy of my baybees. She fuckin threatinin him by saying she gon speak to his parole officer. Well guess the fuck what, bitch, I ain’t goin no where cuz yur son fucked me and now we gots baybees!!” I’m not sure why, but in this instance it seems a natural reaction to quickly search around for the nearest child, hoping they’re out of earshot. Of course, it just so happened there were two kids sitting diagonal from her, adjacent to a horrified old lady and a quiet looking man whom I assumed was their father. “Well that bitch can eat my twat, ok!? She ain’t got no business comin up in my house and tellin us what to do!” Instantly, I wondered who would be the type of person to eat her twat, and why?

I’ve made it a habit as of late to travel with a notebook almost everywhere I go. On this occasion, I filled my notebook with words like “puffy vag”, “teased hair”, “three-way”, “cunt rag”, “Jew bitch”, and “pussy gadgets”. These were all words that I heard come out of this woman’s mouth, as in, “Tell that Jew bitch cunt rag I’ll send her some of my used pussy gadgets so she can get away from my man because I ain’t havin no fuckin three-way with that nasty fat bitch!” The word “puffy vag” was something I wrote down for my own reference, lest I forget her most distinguishable physical attribute. I began to wonder what her “baybees” with this man looked like, and why the higher being that Ms. Carliner referred to would allow for such a horrible existence.

I imagined her living in a duplex with beige, discolored siding and a screen door that slammed hard enough to annoy the neighbors every time she and David got in an argument about child support or overcooked meatloaf. Instantly, my inner fat kid with low self-esteem started whispering, “See, even this inbred bitch can find love, even if it is inside a duplex in Clarksburg with two overweight children and a 2-door Pontiac Sunbird parked out front.” I fought back by telling myself I’d rather be alone in an apartment full of dead cats on an episode of “Hoarders” than experience life full of pussy gadgets and puffy genitals. “I swear, Crystal, I’ma kick that fucker square in them balls so that they end up lookin like my saggy tits if he gets anywhere near that fuckin bitch cuz aint no way in fuckin hell he’s gon fuck with me or my fuckin kids cuz what I shoulda done is used a coathanger from day one then this motherfuckin cocksucker would be out of my goddamn fuckin life for good!” For a minute, I pictured a coat hanger with eyes and a mouth, like that googly-eyed stack of money from the Geico commercial, kicking and screaming in fear and disgust as it realized her intentions.

As the train came to a stop at the final station and people scrambled to exit, trailerpark shouted, “Come on kids, get yer asses up we’re gonna miss that goddamn bus and I’ll be fuckin damned if I’m waitin for another one!” The ironic part is that I was annoyed with this woman for being so loud and oblivious to her surroundings, yet the entire time I had assumed those children near her belonged to someone else. I guess I was just as oblivious. When the kids grabbed her hand, I laughed at the thought of the duplex being her version of the penthouse in Manhattan, and the kids being her Korean daughters. Somewhere in Clarksburg, a man named David with saggy balls and a FUBU sweatshirt is her version of doctor-guy. And why not? It’s the American dream.