Sister Love

There’s a pause on the phoneline and I’m wondering how long I gotta wait. Is she doing the business in the lady latrine? I mean, you shouldn’t have to be this polite with family because they always need something. I needed my big sister's liver and constantly reminded her that the liver needs diet and exercise because I am drinking for both of us. Little sister is just like a burden to bear. 

“Didn’t you listen when I called you last night at 3 in the morn? That’s the guy who stood me up for the date. The ‘Ghost.’ He Ghosted your little sister,” she cried. 

I scanned the article because you never know why a guy is in handcuffs in our small town. The police actually stop people in wheelchairs on the sidewalk if they have been drinking. It said in the small article that I should give them my cookies and continue to read the article but I understood that my sister’s date named Herbert had killed some woman last night and got caught. Best excuse for ghosting, ever. 

“Tommy, I’m scared.” 

My turn to tap the phone on my knee… but it doesn’t have a cord to twirl and I end up bruising myself cause I’m so pissed. “Dee, your almost fifty years old. Maybe it’s time to become a nun. I’m sorry but this whole dating things just not working.” 

“Don’t you got any friends you could spare?” 

“Look Dee, if I give you my friend then they become your friend and not my friend and they have that entire problem of wanting to talk about adult stuff, you know… I can’t stand their venting that sort of laundry.” 

“But Tommy … YOU PROMISED Dad to always do right by us…” 

(I hate it when they use the Dead Dad Card). 

It gets worse because technically I bought his house for the 1945 price and just sort of figured I would have the basement redug for home surgery when Jamie was ready to give up that liver. I always knew that being the only boy in the family to survive the era of legalized abortions was gonna cost me one day. I figured I could pay my sisters off with maybe a life insurance beneficiary stipend. Maybe donate a kidney if they have the right blood type. She was really making me feel like a sissy.

“Ok. What do you need me to do?” 

She jobbled on and on about some feelings ladies get when they want to be married. She said she wanted to get the whole experience with big thighs, split pelvis, gestational diabetes… Dee explained how she wanted some little life to suck from her womanly breast so that she knew she had a purpose in this life; that her body could feed others like the Enya song. 

My sisters have always wanted me to be more gay but it just hasn’t taken. I listen like a true soldier to all her tales of wanting tender moments and having another person for the pictures on her mantle. Pretty basic stuff. She’s not even asking for the gorgeous tax deductions that comes with cohabitation but cries into the phone, asking why NO ONE will love her. 

Truth is: She looks like Dad. 

We’re talking super Y-chromosome face with cheek muscles that do pull-ups and tons of Germanic facial hair that comes back twice as heavy when you try to electrocute the roots. There’s a Jay Leno moon chin with the clef that resembles the kind of butt under her mouth that should be on a rap video twerking on a piercing pole. There’s no exact way to say that she has the face that launches a thousand ships to get away. She’s like the perfect advertisement to avoid prison, the reason Walmart Checkers might slip you a third bag for her face. She’s a cross between something dead and something dying – and I don’t know how to be very affectionate when I say: 

“Sure. I can buy you a man if that’s what it takes.” 

It’s more important to sit there and help your little sister negotiate over a future spouse instead of listening to her state the obvious, "nothing’s working.” I tell her to get a good night's sleep so that the eye bags can deflate and I’ll swing by between nine and twelve to give her a ride to The Meet Market over on Highway 68. I like to make my family appointments in three-hour windows so I can see who is serious about wanting to greet me. Gotta keep that glass shiny. 

___

The next day I charge up the Ranger with the extended tailgate. If you’re ever out thrift shopping or antiquing and don’t know how large your man will be … try to get the tailgate extension device. If you live in the city it might be best to get an expanding Dolly. 

Now Dee Dee decided to get all dressed up for the shopping. She actually took a shower, rubbed the crystal in her hairy pits, and plucked the unibrow into a straight line (because it confuses people when she is at rest). This is the part that really pisses me off because we’re just going to the market to get a good deal on a man and there’s not really a reason to dress up. Why are women always trying to make a shopping trip more than getting in and getting out for the lowest price? 

They keep telling me it is about the process but I don’t listen. 

DD puts on her Slovakian Language learning recording that she spent all night loading onto a Disk. I’m not going to upgrade my truck stereo just so she can learn more languages. I hear people don’t even have to talk while they are married, they can just grunt and point and get drunk. Dee Dee is an overachiever and I turn down the language instruction and remind her to not be so haughty when we get to the market. 

OK, besides my little sister's car-wreck face, the lesions on her arms which look like traveling carbuncles, the blistered ankles that are growing new calcium side node bones, and the misalignment of her back because she used to power lift small cars – besides all the obvious notions of attraction, my little sister has a way of hollering at people like our Mom. I mean she had to be in Human Resources for the last ten years because no one else wanted her to be seen by the public. Dee Dee takes great joy in stamping “defective” on worker’s files when they are told to go home for the day. Her greatest joy is to teach the new sexual harassment laws because she is never slightly harassed at all and wants a joyless working environment and encourages middle management to stay as long as possible. 

“So you gonna get a Lithuanian or sumthin? “ 

Dee Dee doesn’t care. She speaks around 12 languages now even though I told her married people don’t have to talk anymore. Her head is stuck in perpetual dating. “Look, Dee, it’s what I told you. This is all a business, see? Whoever you love today is like sour milk tomorrow. Even the old people you see dancing in the living room usually have a bad ankle and can’t run away from each other so they just spin there to keep the blood flowing.” 

“Shut up Tommy, you promised me a man.” 

Ok fine. I try to keep my eyes on the wheel. We have the precious Department of State tags if we bag a man and are granted around 6 months for the break-in period. Most men don’t seem to come with warranties but Dee has been playing in the behavior modification sciences after work for months. I think she’s just gonna have to bag, then tag, then … laa laaa. It can happen. 

___

Parking at The Meet Market is always dicey. Some kid without a uniform is saying I gotta pay five dollars to leave my truck on a farmer’s dirty field road. It’s worse than the Renaissance Festival but at least these kids aren’t trying to flash their kilts in a windstorm. I grumble as the kid takes my twenty bucks and he’s not making change because the lot is unusually full that day. 

I whisper to this kid, “What’s going on? Why are you guys so full?” 

He explains that Tony Robbinson had come to town and made people walk on hot coals and all of a sudden everyone wanted to try marriage again. “You know… because of faith?” 

Ok. Sure. I thought it was about the taxes, but whateva. 

We get to the stall called Flying Fish, and it’s all about the skinny guys who got kicked out of the State Pen because they were so malnourished that they could slip through the bars. These “fish” are thrown from one goomba to another and told to somersault in the air so that crowd stays and buys snacks at over-inflated prices. I hate farmer’s markets. 

Dee Dee wants to buy some pickled oyster slurpees and get in her mood of the pleasure of shopping. I shake my head, “No! This is purely transactional. AND DONT YOU TRY TO TIP NOBODY.” I swear friendless people are always tipping. 

Most of the shopper have brought their own pallet wrap and the Rohypnol injections for the struggle home. 

Dee is really nagging that we need a Jolly Cart which can hold up to 3500 lbs in case she finds a fixer-upper that needs to be plasma sawed down to the bones. It’s none of my business what these kids do so long as they do. 

I point over to the thematic section of exotics, a booth so large it should be called a stage and read again the sign flapping in the stampeded of lonely people: SPICEY’s

It looks like ‘Spacey’s’ for a second because I’m too cheap to get my new prescription. Spacey’s Sprockets or Kevin Spacey? I’m thinking they are gonna sell short men with an island baldness who can be giftwrapped and put under the tree and come right out and file the taxes. But instead it’s a bunch of men in bikini thongs who come out and stretch on stripper poles. My sister is getting all excited and I cover her hairy eyes and grab her flappy arm and say, “No. We don’t need that.” 

Geeze. 

We just need a good dependable model, low miles, kick the belly bumper and make sure there aren’t too many parts falling off at once. Most of these men are looking for a ‘Nurse and a Purse’ but i have to remind my little sister that she is Human Resources strong. She could make grown soldier General’s cry about cheap latex uniforms which cause them skin rashes at the Pentagon. 

Before we even go into the next section, the central mass where vendors pair their men with take-home-mowers and show all these stupid bathtubs for couples, the reason that Valentine’s Day is better with 2 … I have to slow her down and we turn to face eachother. 

“Deidra.” 

She is really amped up to get browsing. 

“Deidra Delancey.” I use her full name just like Mom. 

My little sister looks confused and wonders what she did wrong. I take her in, pull her to my gelatinous chest and promise that if we don’t find _the right_ partner that we won’t let them cats eat her body. We’re gonna give her a small alarm necklace around her neck that measures her pusle and makes sure she is going to the bathroom or taking her estrogen shots on time; 

“Look. You don’t have to do this. I’ll give you one of my new kids that showed up on the Ancesty Find-Your-Dad court subpoena. I got hundreds. We’ll sue their whorey moms together. You don’t need this.” 

She’s trying to mutter and say that the life experience is best when shared by two or more people together. “What good is it to go to Mars if no one ever heard of it when you get back? You sound like a nutter.’ 

That part made sense to me. 

“You really want this?” 

She nodded and said that she really did. 

That’s when I kissed her burn victim forhead and took a small bottle of bear spray out of my pocket. Bear Spray is wonderful because it has an effective range of fifteen fit and won’t poison entire families like Wasp Spray. The Bear Spray is effective for moving crowds out of your way as long as the ambient temperature is above freezing. 

Also, Mentoliptis brand Bear Spray has a soothing and calming after -affect and can be used for air freshener if your sister’s armpit crystal didn't’ work that day. I really wanted to help this fifty year old girl and opened up a second can of spray. 

 Once the crowd fell to its knees and the crying stopped, from the cloud of dust I became so elated and hopeful when I saw the sign: Half Price Visually Impaired. 

God loves me like that and I honestly try to tithe every few years for the karma. I dragged my sister toward that sign as fast as possible. There were some light casualties because it was like pulling that __ plow the Germans used to tear up rail road tracks. I cam breathing heavy like a mountain dog and put my money on the eight foot long fold up table with a butcher paper table cloth featuring candle wax in brail. Ha! She didn’t speak brail, this was going to be great. I’m such a great brother and began coifing my fingers like a villain in a Disney Film. Cheap love is a beautiful thing. 

A purveyor of fine blind men at half price came over and touched my face all over. They put some fingers in my nose to check for… mucous dryness. I am told this is like checking the teeth on a horse for age. I decided to yell because I forgot they blind not deft and lened in, “It’s not for me. I’m not gay yet but I have a sister here…” 

The purveyor swung over and stuck their hands on my sister’s face, making sure there was the correct number of nostrils. They paused at the elongated butt chin which would make a Kardashian blush. They rubber Dee Dee about the eye bags to make sure she wasn’t tall and had miniature breast up there. Then this purveyor poked fingers through her corn stalk hair and pulled to make sure it was all rooted. 

The seller turned to a central supervisor and they began talking with their hands, fingertips to fingertips, which is a secret code as they discussed this and that. I didn’t even care if they were being rude and my little sister was going to cry for three weeks if they rejected our family as buyers. The purveyor came back and licked its lips, looking like the singer from Puddles Pity Party (I love that guy) and slowly spoke for the first time in years. 

“We cannot possibly charge you.” 

What the hell?

Immediately they threw themselves on teh ground and began worshiping my sister. I mean there were dozens of light sensitive and legally blind people all hailing Deidra as the great great granddaughter of Mother Nature. I think they could smell that she was Human Resources and vastly loved and admired her for making the American with Disability Act a real thing. I turned to Dee Dee and she wasn’t even phased! She acted like bulk husband shopping should always end in her canonization. One of the priest of this HR Love Cult came over to walk my sister through the mass grave of prostate blind men, some big and bulky, some definitely imported from that Rhawanda war with the land mines and the maimings. “You just take your time, our Princess.” 

They were so gentle. I had to watch and wonder if I had failed to uplift my own sister in all these years. I mean, they acted like she was the most important person in the entire 30 acres of commerce. Like she was a factory representative from heaven, like her approval was more important than neutering stray cats in a heat storm. It was very endearing. 

I would loved to have my older sister see that moment, so I could squeeze her close with my future liver and say, “Our little sister is all grown up.” 

We’d probably split and Uber and go out for a celebration round in a local bar. We’d be so chummy at last because siblings have to stick together when their parents get old and die. I’d pull out her chair and she’d sweetly tell the server that we should get water backs. My older sister, Jamie, wouldn’t even notice as a small Italian with fresh gel in his hair threw his hair into a gravitational spin as he plunged a razor blade into her back. 

I’d still be holding up the glass in a cheers, not caring if she was going to say she didn’t like to drink in the day hours anymore because siblings have to be there for eachother with ice. Sometimes dry, sometimes the blue chemical bags which have to be kneaded. It’s really about making sure our family has the same blood type and then we can march on … together.