Saturday morning, I’m at a great workshop by Molly Soda; Saturday night, I’m watching “MKUltra Serial Killers: Best Evidence”. I’m at my parents house, in my childhood bedroom: a shrine to myself that has remained untouched since I was 12, since I wasn’t allowed to decorate my own bedroom. After a shower, I rub a mysterious oil into my face—a vain attempt to slow the aging process. My skin is soft and bouncy still. I smack an exfoliant into my lips and try not to get any in my mouth. I put lotion on my arms, legs, and feet. I wonder why, if my mother is rumored to make so much money, is the anti-theft sticker from Dollar General still on the bottle of L’Oréal, and the lotion itself is so watery and smells like shampoo (it’s not shampoo). “A small pleasure in this life”, I think, “is good skincare.” I spend money I don’t have on lotion and soap. 

I am no longer engaged. 

I sign up for Okcupid. 

I’m a pro at dating apps, and so I typically have my pick of the population. My profile features a lot of pouty lips and cleavage, and many men tell me that they are mesmerized by my features. Also, I have a strong intuition for who has a really big dick. This serves me well in the sexual economy. Two men enter my orbit: one a welder—white, southern—and the other a long haired theoretical physicist—Dominican/Spanish—who used to be in a Joy Division cover band and played bass. They are both cute in their own ways, and they both love my lips, eyes, and ass. 

After the usual volley (“Hi :)”, “How are you?, “Plans?”), the conversation quickly moves to Snapchat. Then begins a flurry of dick pics and voice notes and videos of me: just me. 

“Wow,” the welder types, marveling at a video of me expertly sliding my fingers down my throat (as requested)—past my knuckles all the way to the wrist, like a snake. “I’ve never seen anybody do that in real life before. Most girls get half a finger in and start to gag.” 

“Really?” I ask innocently, “I didn’t know it was that hard.” Most girls were never bulimic, I guess, or they used a tooth brush. 

He’s a simple man with a long and sordid sexual history, but gentlemanly and polite. We agree to meet on Thursday at a bar up the street: I’ll bring myself, he’ll bring the Plan B. 

The physicist on the other hand, just wants to play house. 

We’ve been doing a really immersive, role-play where we’re a horny newlywed couple that’s trying for a baby, and loves each other very much. When he gets home from the lab in this fantasy, I am wearing my “wife uniform” as he calls it: a bridal thong (?) and a wedding ring—thigh high socks if it gets cold, and nothing else. When we go on roadtrips, I wear a tight crop top and short shorts: one of those tops where you can see the round part of my boobs peeking out from the bottom, and ultra short cutoffs. We keep saying “I love you so much”—he asks me to marry him over and over, and I say yes over and over and over again. We pretend to be in love. Of course, all of this is completely fake and never happened.

In our shared dream, I am tonguing a lollipop with my reflective sunglasses pushed seductively down my nose, and he is driving with one hand on the steering wheel and the other doing what you’d expect. Ian Curtis’ desperate, droning vocals fill the cab. 

As a child, I spent most of my time in online role-play forums developing OCs and fresh takes on existing IP: engaging in a breathless process of world-making with strangers perhaps twice my age. The game the physicist and I play is as warm and familiar as a childhood tryst around the jungle-gym. We sext furiously, and we don’t discuss the possibility of me coming to visit him, or of a relationship; we don’t need it in our secret world. We sidestep the topic in opposite directions, meeting around the corner in a dark alley to continue in the hardcore romance kink.

Big-dick welder is coming over tonight, and so I washed all of the sheets and took out the trash. I spent a while painting my fingernails, and toes. 

He is 6’5, with body hair. I like body hair, but I don’t want him sweating on my pink comforter: it’s fleece. This guy wants to feed me some kind of aphrodisiac honey, I think? The image of a big redheaded caucasian beast—flushed and sweating, writhing around on top of me—will not leave my head. It is disgusting— but the moment I look away it passes out of my mind like so many fallen leaves. I just want to be worked over. I want to go back to the way things were. I want to be married, I want to be loved. I want to feel good.

“Congratulate blah blah blah on their new position at blah blah blah!” 

I didn’t know people worked at blah blah blah. 

LinkedIn demands so much of me, I sigh in my head, and for a moment I look from my phone up to the evening sky. 

The sky is a deep, glowing blue, like a well-glazed oil painting. It’s Parrish blue, darkened by clouds in shadow, and the moon is hiding. 

Blue is the color of distance, I think. Big dick welder is 30 minutes away. 

Suddenly, Jeremy emerges from his record shop—the one right next to me—all suspenders and wavy white hair. He’s great: the hardest working man in show business. 

“I still don’t know how to set up my computer!” He complains good-naturedly. “I’m no Luddite, but I haven’t had any time—life is so beautiful.” 

We begin a brisk and lively conversation about my show opening in February, and my art more generally.

Jeremy tells me I should paint self portraits of myself in other lives: “a lady race car driver, you know!” I nod enthusiastically: that’s pretty cool, I should do that. He is so interested and sincere about my work, it makes my heart flutter with longing. He is so excited, where my own excitement flags at times. It’s not that I don’t want it, only that I wonder. I saw a headline yesterday, Artists Are Paying for Their Own Shows Now. I am paying for my own show. I’m still making a very humble salary, and paying for my own show, because I love the game so bad. Is this sustainable, long term? 

“What you should do,” Jeremy advises. “Is not release the books [I designed and wrote my own exhibition catalog, and paid for that too] until after the show, and we’ll carry some—the gallery carries some…and make some flyers, we’ll pass them out! That’s punk!” 

(I don’t know if that’s true.)

He emerges from a lifted white Toyota, wearing a sky blue Henley and a nice khaki jacket. He waves shyly, as do I. 

Big-dick welder is the best of my entire life. 

We walk to a bar, drink a bit, and walk back to my apartment and to drink more. Towards the end after wooing me thoroughly and with great effort—he tells me a story about how his great “pawpop” would buy groceries for Black people in 1920s Appalachia at the segregated stores, and how great and courageous a man he was—magnanimous and holy, how he was invited to join the Klan and didn’t. He thanked God for ending Jim Crow to deliver me unto him. He has big, thick hands. He’s talking, I’m thinking, throw me in the back of your truck and take me away from all this. Stop talking. 

Then, I think of my grandfather at the same time: a terrified Black baby peeking out of the corner of a 4-paned window to see a Black body in flames, mauled by angry ghosts—hell hounds. I marvel at my grandfather’s long, storied life, his courage. I think that we are about to lose a piece of Black culture: our elders born before 1920. One day, all of them will be gone. 

I can only snort in response to the welder. He also told me he himself was asked to join the Klan, and said no. I didn’t think that it worked that way. “How many white men—passing me on the street, at Walmart, handing me my change at the gas station—are actually in the Ku-Klux-Klan?”; it is a question that gives me pause.

“Yer perfect, you are. Yer mouth is a lot bigger than yer….yer perfect. I’ve never seen anything laik that before.” 

I am putting on my airport uniform—a green unitard and sweatshirt—and checking for Snapchat messages from my “husband” while the welder lays with a big cushion over his face. I want him so bad. My inner self bursts, over and over. 

He drives me to the airport: I’m going to Philly today.

When he drops me off at departures, he comes around to get the door before I can. Honky-Tonk country is blaring out of the speakers. and when a group of travelers at the terminal turn to look I want to hide my face in shame. 

But it was so good I can’t feel ashamed. We stand kissing for a little while, with his hands around my waist. I am craning my neck up, reveling in it. 

There is that Southern masculinity —that big white pickup truck, the heavy Tennessee accent. I’m tired of coastal men and their hardcore bands. I’m done with fashion dudes all decked in archival fashions and conspicuously clean motorcycle boots. Stupid haircuts, porn-staches, a sleeve of patchwork tattoos adorning one flabby arms— above their knees: “LOVE”, “HATE”, “SKATE R” “DIE” “RUDE” “DUDE”. Unsigned skateboarders, middling finance managers, digital nomads, creative directors, PhD students, artists assistants, adjunct professors, young prodigies: I’m done. Fuck the white collar (The physicist ghosted me). 

When I look from the counter of the kitchenette parallel to my sleeping area, the welder is laid up in my bed like he owns the place —taking up the length of it with a tallboy in his grip, naked—one hand behind his head. He raises it to his lips, and I watch the beer go down his throat. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Something opens up inside of me. It’s not like a flower blooming: more like a slimy butterfly struggling out of its cocoon, or a baby sliding out of their sobbing mother. The world is large, I realize; the world is huge. I can’t be held down, not by anything or anyone. Life is too long, and too short.

I’m in Philadelphia 10 hours later. At the show, it’s “You ah beautiful…”. The light from the video installation in the black box theater is blue and radioactive, radiating from the door where our names are emblazoned above. 

His skin is tanned and smooth, soft. His face is interesting: he has a cleft chin and strong cheekbones. I see his hair, and it’s jet black and wavy—pulled into a small bun at the nape of his neck. As others mill around besides and behind us, I notice he is about three inches taller than me. 

His low voice, accented with a mix of Chicago and Philadelphia, is what finally does it for me, The next day, his house is red-hot and sensual. As usual, the liquor is flowing. It’s “Do you fuck white guys?” he asks, with something between indifference and disappointment, accusing. “I know you do. I fuck white bitches but I’m mad disrespectful to them,” and there is some comfort in that. 

I was married, once.

Halie Adorable (b.2008) is an apparition. Halie Adorable is an opportunity. Halie Adorable is a box of snakes. Halie Adorable  is a bundle of nerves. Halie Adorable is a breath of fresh air. Halie Adorable is a waking dream. When you’re in trouble, look to the sky, and Halie Adorable will be there. 

Halie Adorable is an ongoing performance.

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