Page 51 of The Trailer Park Twink
“That’s for me to know and you to fuck around.”
“I think you mean ‘find out,’” Bubba says, but Mom just shakes her head.
“We’re still at the ‘fuck around’ stage, actually, but they’re both about to find out.”
Ezra sighs. “This is so stupid.” Looking at me, he folds his arms over his chest. “When you didn’t show up for rehearsal—fucking rude, by the way—I didn’t know what to do. I tried going by your house, but no one was home, so I had to go to Dallas’ place of employment.” His eyes narrow. “I was accosted by a roaming band of bastards, hellbent on having their way with me.”
Bubba nods proudly. “Queerbait and I couldn’t take our eyes off him. Even Clint was stealing glances.” He smiles widely at Ezra, still talking to me when he says, “I told him he was the prettiest boy I’ve ever seen.” He leans closer to Ezra. “I said it before and I’ll say it again. You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever met, Ezzy.”
“Donotcall me Ezzy.”
Bubba stares at him like a lovesick teenager. “Then you turned to walk away, and we all saw that ass. Fuck.” Pausing, he licks his lips and looks at Ezra. “Can I see it again, baby? Will you stand up and do a twirl?”
“Will you fuck off and die?” Turning to me, Ezra looks absolutely exhausted by the exchange. “He’s been like this the whole trip and I cannot cope. As soon as I mentioned you were missing, they told me Dallas called, saying he was leaving early for his vacation, and he was taking you with him. I told this big, bearish bastard in no uncertain terms that if you thought you were shirking responsibility again and abandoning ourgroup during our time of need, you had another thing coming. The next thing I knew, he was throwing me over his shoulder, patting my ass, and telling me he would do anything to make sure his ‘good boy’ found you in time. I should have bit a chunk of flesh out of his neck right then and there, but no, I stupidly went along with it.”
“He said ‘Okay, Daddy,’ all sweet and polite,” Bubba says with a proud smile. “And then he melted into my arms.”
“Lies and propaganda!” Ezra shouts, his eyes pleading with mine. “I did no such thing!”
“He did, and it was adorable. Sat right next to me in my truck, even though the window seat was empty. My boy just sat there, his hand on my knee, riding alongside me for half a day before Shelly finally called.”
“I’m not your boy.”
In response, Bubba blows him a kiss, and Ezra quickly looks away, blushing.
I turn and stare at Mom. “You called Bubba?”
“You gave me no choice. You put me out on the side of the road like an old dog.”
Ezra gapes at her. “What kind of monster dumps a beloved family pet on the side of the street?”
I point at Mom. “Her. She’s done it thrice. First with Lulu, a senior shar pei we adopted from the landfill. Then with Scamp, my cheeky chiweenie. Finally, with Mr. Manimarco Bigsby, thebichon frisé she stole from that house she used to clean for meth money on weekends.”
“That’s horrible.”
“They all bit me,” Mom argues.
“Allegedly. But from what I remember, Mr. Manimarco Bigsby had no teeth, so it’s not as if he could pierce the skin.”
Her eyes narrow. “He gummed me. He would just sit there gnawing on my kneecap. It tickled. I asked him to stop on several occasions, but the little motherfucker just kept gnawing. Day in, day out.”
“Lies, lies, lies. You just didn’t want me to have them. You know how much I loved each of them, so you took them away.”
“You were trying to take my husband,” she shouts, sounding exasperated. “You’ve always had your claws in him. Then you started jacking off for him online every day. Our walls are paper thin, did you think I wouldn’t hear? Desperate times called for desperate actions. If you think I won’t do anything I can to protect my marriage, you’re sorely mistaken.”
“What marriage, Shelly?” Dallas asks, though not unkindly. “Honey, we ain’t been happy in years. You and Austin are always at each other’s throats. We can’t keep living like this. We all deserve to be happy.”
“Yeah, well what happiness do I get? You and my son get to ride off into the sunset on a big Pride float, and I’m left on thestreets. I just get discarded like trash. What kind of a happy fucking ending is that?”The happy ending you deserve, is what I want to mutter, but she’s got a gun, and I don’t think I’d look very adorable with a gaping gunshot wound to the chest. The last thing I want to do is bleed out in front of Dallas, so I bite my tongue. “You get to go out and be queer and happy, and I’ll end up dying in a gutter. I’m not going down like that.”
“Then what do you want?” Dallas asks. “What’s the end game here? The way I see it, you’ve got a gun, and you were aiming it at my son. There’s no coming back from that. Whatever we had once is over. It ended the second you put our boy’s life in danger.”
She pauses like she’s taking the words in. There’s a storm brewing in Shelly Snowden. A righteous air of quiet rage permeates the room around us. “I hate this. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I wasn’t supposed to be living in squalor.” Mom lifts her hand not holding the gun and scrubs her face. “I was supposed to have a man who wanted me back. A son who didn’t try to steal him. A life worth living.”
“You had that life. You had everything, and you snorted it all away. Worse, you had the life I wanted. The one I dreamed of with Dallas, and you took it from me, then you took it for granted.”
“I didn’t want a husband who likes dick just as much as I do. I didn’t want a queer for a son.” She turns her focus backto Dallas. “I never would have married you if I knew you were bisexual. I would have just moved us out of the trailer park and split you both up.”
I press my face to the center of Daddy’s back, whispering, “I still would have found you, sir. I would have tracked you down.” He reaches behind and pats the side of my thigh like he’s saying now isn’t the time, but he appreciates the sentiment.
