Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang

Chapter Two.When Life Hands You Lemons, Squeeze Them into Your Vodka

Whoever the clueless bastard was who thought up the Cabbage Patch Kid better hope I never see him face-to-face. The invention of this bizarrely appealing doll that came with a birth certificate covered in cabbages and whose muscles had completely atrophied pretty much marked the end of me fitting in with anyone but my cleaning lady. The invention of this doll, combined with my early obsession with masturbating and the ridiculous secondhand clothes I was forced to wear, prevented anyone in the third grade from wanting to be alone with me.

My parents couldn't have been more unreasonable when it came to fads or clothes that weren't purchased at a pharmacy. The first hurdle I can remember having to deal with was Barbie dolls, which were a rite of passage for every kindergartner with a half carafe of dignity. I remember explaining to my mother that I needed a Barbie and I needed one fast. Not a hand-me-down from my sister Sloane, who had given all of her Barbies lesbian haircuts in honor of Jo from The Facts of Life. I told her I needed a brand-new one with a decent outfit, something appropriate for Bora-Bora or the Jersey shore. My mother reassured me she'd head right to the store after she dropped me off at school one morning. Not surprisingly, when I returned home later that day on foot, because once again my parents had forgotten they had a daughter, my mother ran down the stairs to show me my new "Barby" with a y. Unlike Barbie with her gloss finish, this "Barby" came with a matte finish, three bald spots, and a working vagina.

After the Barbie craze came the Atari craze, which my parents refused to participate in. My father explained to Sloane and me ad nauseam why video games polluted the mind, and if we really wanted to retain some knowledge, we should watch the stock-market channel and try to figure out what all the Dow Jones abbreviations on the ticker stood for. I wanted to tell my father to go fuck himself. If he knew so much about the stock market, why did we have air-conditioning only in our dining room? I didn't understand why he had no interest in seeing his daughter excel socially, or why my parents even bothered to have me when they already had five other children who had put them in the hole. It felt like every day there was another mountain to climb, and I just wanted that mountain to take form on the screen of our television set as an Atari video game called Asteroids.

I remember watching documentaries on African countries where children were starving and getting swarmed by flies. I recall thinking that at least their parents were by their side trying to protect them from the flies and trying to gather them food. My parents were busy living their own lives. If I saw a fly, they would just tell me to get out of the way or sarcastically suggest I call Youth and Family Services. What they didn't know was that I had been in contact with Youth and Family Services several times and was one phone call shy of sealing the deal on my emancipation.

Every time a new trend came along, I died a little inside. By the time third grade rolled around, kids started to get their wits about them, and it didn't take long to realize I was not cutting the mustard. I wasn't even cutting the mayonnaise. I knew that my parents would never fall for what was "hot" on the market. The word "hot" wasn't even in their stream of consciousness. The two of them were about as "hot" and "with it" as cerebral palsy. They had about as much empathy for my situation as I did for the stupid cat they brought home for me one day after I asked for a Smurf.

"You can learn a lot more from a cat than you're going to learn from some blue plastic action figure," my father informed me.

"Oh, for chrissake, Dad, they're not action figures. They're peaceful blue little people. They're from a village. And what am I going to learn from a cat? How to take a dump in a box and then walk back into a room like nothing happened?"

"Chelsea. Watch your goddamned mouth. You talk like a truck driver."

"Well, Dad, it's not like we're poor. Why can't you just buy me what I ask for so I can fit in with everyone else?"

"You are eight years old, and as long as you live in this house, you are under our supervision. Cats can be wonderful animals, and anyway, it will be an outdoor cat."

"It doesn't matter if it's an outdoor cat. It will still take a shadoobie in the backyard and walk right back in the house all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, like, 'Hey, what'd I miss?' I'll tell you what you missed, you cat, you missed wiping your ass!"

"Chelsea, go to your room until you learn how to communicate like an adult!"

Whenever my father yelled, he would also walk toward you and, more often than not, end with a slap in your face, so I was quick to sidestep the sofa and avoid him by doing a cartwheel straight into my bedroom. Then I peered out of my door for one last comment. "There's a reason you never see anyone's house with a Beware of Cat sign. Because they're not even worth mentioning." As soon as he attempted to get up from the couch, I slammed the door and hid under my bed.

I used to look at that cat with such disgust. Even dogs have the dignity to go find a private area before dropping a deuce. Only cats think they have nothing to hide and can get away with just a couple of back kicks to alert the area that's about to be unsanitized that it's got something coming its way. And then that's it. They walk right back into the room, sometimes even have the gall to hop onto the sofa and look around like, "Hey, whose turn is it to contribute?" I decided to name the cat Poopsie Woopsie. It was the nicest way to say, "I just took a poop, whoopsie."

I used to stare at the cat and imagine how many Smurfs I could fit into it. Then I thought about painting the cat blue and throwing it in the microwave like a little Shrinky Dink. It would be the Smurf no one had. I had terrible thoughts like these throughout my childhood, and luckily I never acted on most of them. It was a Tourette's of sorts; I knew that the thoughts were bad, but I couldn't stop them from entering my mind. I just wanted some fucking Smurfs. Why did the cat have to take up the same amount of space as fifty Smurfs yet bring absolutely nothing to the table? It would just sleep and sleep for hours, like it had nowhere to be and nothing to do. My sister Sloane loved the cat and would try to trap it under her covers, but Poopsie Woopsie wanted nothing to do with Sloane and craved the lack of attention I gave to it, so we ended up spending most of our time together, with the understanding that there was going to be very little affection. Sloane always accused me of turning Poopsie Woopsie against her, but the truth was, the cat could tell that my sister was "off," and by "off" I mean Mormon.

After a while I just accepted that the cat was always in my room. Poopsie Woopsie had impeccable timing; the only time it would ever scratch my door to get out of my room was right before one of my orgasms. The cat was a dick, and he or she knew it. I don't recall if it was a boy or a girl because I never bothered to ask it.

By the time the Cabbage Patch craze came around, I knew I was screwed. If I couldn't reason with my parents about why it was important for them to buy reputable snacks for my lunches, like Snickers or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, so that I didn't have to unwrap a single Rite Aid imitation Nut Cluster in front of everyone at my lunch table, I knew that this Cabbage Patch bullshit was going to be the end of me.

One day after school, I walked into our living room, turned off General Hospital, and joined my mother on the living-room sofa. She had a half-eaten liverwurst sandwich on her lap, so I quickly threw that out the sliding glass door and watched our dog, Mutley, spring out of his doghouse like a hyena.

"Listen up. We're at a crossroads, and I need your help. Everyone at school is talking about Cabbage Patch Kids, and the word is that Toys 'R' Us is getting a new shipment tomorrow morning. So what I'm going to need from you is to get in line at Toys 'R' Us first thing tomorrow morning and get me one of those dolls. You're gonna need to be there by seven," I told her, excusing myself after settling what I had on my docket.

"Why do I need to go to the store at seven in the morning to get one of these?"

"Because they are selling like crazy, and they will run out. They keep running out all over the country! Don't you watch the news? This is go time. I know which one I want. Do you understand?"

My mom was always more reasonable than my father, but she lacked the determination and perseverance needed for the execution of such a task.

"Of course, sweetie, we can get you a doll, but I really don't see the point of getting there so early. Surely everyone else's parents aren't doing that."

"Yes they are! Everyone's parents are doing it. Mom, this is my childhood. This is the only one I get, and by the end of the week everyone is going to have one of these dolls except me, because you guys are stuck in the Dark Ages. I am trying to make the best out of my circumstances, but you and Dad just keep holding me back. This is just like what happened in nursery school when I had to repeat the year because you guys kept forgetting to take me."

"Nursery school is a waste of time," my mother would tell me when I would try to pull her out of bed. "First grade is where things really start to matter," she'd mumble as she rolled over onto a piece of cheddar cheese. My parents thought it was "too cold" throughout most of winter to get themselves dressed and wait for one of our "automobiles" to warm up. Even though I was only five, it was a safe bet to say that my whole life would be based on doing the exact opposite of what my parents did.

I took to calling our next-door neighbor Mrs. Rothstein. I was too embarrassed to ask her for rides myself, so I'd try to put on a German accent and pretend I was my mother. "Vould you mind taking Shell-sea to school today?" I'd say. "None of ze cars vill start."

Mrs. Rothstein knew it wasn't my mother calling but was impressed by my scholarly ambition and always ended up taking me when my parents faked paralysis.

It wasn't getting an education I was interested in, but more an ardent desire to avoid taking fucking naps in the middle of the day on a godforsaken floor mat. I had no time for sleep in the middle of the day. I wanted action, and naps just reminded me of my parents and the meaningless lives they had carved out for themselves. That wasn't the life I wanted for myself, and I certainly had no plans of becoming a geisha, which would be the only other career choice that would require me to practice sleeping.

"Okay, okay, I'll get the doll, Chelsea. I just wish you weren't so dependent on material things to make you feel like you fit in."

Easy enough for someone who walked around the house all day in a floor-length skirt hoisted over her boobs with no bra to talk about not fitting in. She didn't want to fit in. That was the difference. I did. I wanted a life for myself, and the life I had in mind didn't involve either of my parents. What she really wanted was to avoid having to put on a bra and some decent shoes that were necessary to tackle the New Jersey winter.

"If this were a Latter-day Saints doll, I'm sure you'd be there with bells on and a nipple ring."

"Chelsea, don't be ridiculous. No one's getting a nipple ring."

"I want the brunette Cabbage Patch with green eyes, one dimple, and no freckles." I had freckles, and I thought they looked like a rash. "She is the one I want. Not a boy one. A girl. Check for the coslopus. Do you copy?"

I had seen a couple of boy ones at school, and they looked like something straight out of a seventies porn video with their Jew Afros. All the other girls had the blond ones with blue or brown eyes, or the brown-haired with blue eyes. I wanted green eyes. I hadn't seen one of those yet but knew they were out there. This was my chance to make my mark and get the same thing every kid craved but also show some originality. For the very first time, I would have everyone ogling something I had.

At that moment my sister Sloane walked in and announced she wanted a Cabbage Patch, too. I told her to go take a hike in a fucking lake. There was no way she was going to get in on this action. We'd be lucky if my dad came back from the store with the limb of a Cabbage Patch doll, never mind two complete ones.

"Step off!" I told her. "Go to your room."

"Shut up, you can't tell me to go to my room. Why don't you go to your room and dry-hump your pillow?"

"Mom!" I wailed.

"Girls," my mother interrupted. "Pipe down."

"You do not need a Cabbage Patch doll," I told Sloane. "You are thirteen. You need to get a grip."

"If Chelsea's going to get one, then I want one."

"Sloane, you are a little old for a Cabbage Patch doll," my mother told her.

"Can we please focus on my doll? Did you get the brown hair with green eyes?"

"Chelsea, please write it down for me. It sounds very specific. How many different types are there?"

"Thousands!" I wailed. "I don't want a blonde or anyone with brown eyes. Green eyes. They have ones with two dimples, but I just want one dimple. The ones with two dimples look too fake, and the ones without dimples look like Chucky. This is a very precise assignment. No matter what, Mom, please, please do not screw this up. Under no circumstances are you to come home with a redhead."

I knew early on about redheads and how they were prone to melanoma. I wasn't about to invest in a child, only to lose her years later to cancer. Plus, I had a young childhood friend named Farrah Linklater, and her whole family had red hair. Thick, unruly red hair that would inevitably end up in one of the dishes they served at dinner. They were like a tribe, an Indian tribe who took up weapons against other single-hair-colored families. Red hair was always suspicious to me, like something made out of synthetic fibers. I imagined that when redheads slept, their hair wove together like the mangrove trees you find in the Florida Keys that grow underwater. They knew they were a minority, and the more consolidated they became, the greater the danger. The only thing I could imagine more suspicious than a regular redhead was a black redhead, but I knew that whatever company was in charge of Cabbage Patch dolls was not nearly progressive enough to throw that at the marketplace.

Just then my father walked through our front door in his ridiculous rain boots that he wore all year long regardless of the weather. He had three newspapers trapped in his armpit, which I knew meant trouble.

My father believed that he was a Thornton Wilder type of character and never tired of impressing upon us how important it was to read. He would bring three newspapers home every week for me to peruse-the New York Times, the Boston Globe, because he thought that was a very well-written newspaper, and our local paper, the Star-Ledger. Once a week he would expect me to write a report on my favorite current-events story in each paper. As if in the third grade I gave a shitstain about how Reagan was reaching across party lines or, even worse, whatever 7-Eleven they were remodeling in a neighboring town. These weren't exactly hot topics for third-graders. At that point in my life, I was looking to reach across my own party lines, and the clearest way to do that was with one of these goddamned Cabbage Patch dolls, not an op-ed piece in the New York Times. It never occurred to my father to maybe put down the paper once in a while and actually get busy looking for a legitimate job that might take him out of the house for more than two hours at a time.

I leaped up from the sofa and announced I felt a bout of diarrhea coming on, which was really the only ailment my father ever took seriously.

"What did she eat?" he asked my mother.

"Cat shit," I said, running out of the room. "The kids at school made me eat cat shit today, because I'm wearing jeans from Sears."

My father believed at the time that reading was the only way for me to succeed in life. "You must not let your mind get weak." He never mentioned anything about not letting your bladder get weak, which turned out to be fortuitous for him and the hundreds of pairs of pants he's ruined since.

My mother came into my room later to ask how much the dolls were, and when I told her, she told me that my father would not be happy. By this time in my life, I'd had enough of their shenanigans and bargain hunting, and I definitely felt like I had plenty of stored resentment to make a case for myself. I walked into the living room, where my father had parked himself with a corned beef on rye, and stated my case.

"Here's the deal, guys. I can't go on like this. We can't go on like this. You two are a joke. I am nine years old, trying to make the best out of a situation that is unlike any of my peers'. I have five older brothers and sisters who seem to have fared better than me, mostly because you birthed them when the two of you had a clue as to how to raise a child. I am competing with people in this neighborhood who have access to swing sets, and in-ground pools I can only dream of, and cars that work the first time you try to start them. This isn't a good foundation for the rest of my life, because I will only end up never feeling like I'm enough or of any worth. I will depend on my looks, which will turn me into a shallow, eating-disorder whore who will end up selling her body just so she can buy herself an eternity ring. Reading the Boston Globe is not helping my cause. I can read the Boston Globe when I'm twenty. Right now I need to read Sweet Valley High and watch Family Ties and have sleepovers where we get 'the feeling.' I don't even know what you guys do for a living, which brings me to my next topic: Does either one of you have a job?"

"What's 'the feeling'?" my father asked.

"Don't worry about it," my mother interjected to save me. "It's a game they play with peanut butter."

"That's not the point, Dad. I need a Cabbage Patch doll. They're $49.99, and I need one. Do you copy?"

"Yes," he said. "I'll go first thing in the morning. You've made your case. Now, take all the papers into your room, and in exchange for one of these lettuce dolls I'd like you to review what you think of Reagan's trickle-down theory."

"I can tell you my answer to that before reading anything. If it means that people like us are eventually going to get free Cabbage Patch Kids from wealthier Jews in the neighborhood, I'm telling you right now I'm not willing to wait for that leak. I think we already have enough leaks in this house."

"Would you stop it with the complaining all the time? I told you if you see anything leaking, grab some duct tape and pitch in. Weren't you just talking about an arts-and-crafts class?" he reminded me.

"Fine, Melvin," I told him, grabbing the paper out of his hand. "But it has to be the one with brown hair, green eyes, no freckles, and one dimple. One dimple! I'm going to write it down for you. No redheads!"

"What if that's the only kind left, Chelsea? These dolls sound as if they're selling like hotcakes. We can always get a redhead and Mom can color her hair."

"Their hair is made of yarn, Dad. Okay, this isn't one of your Buick LeSabres that you can just spray-paint another color in the hopes of raising the price an extra hundred and fifty dollars and turning it into a 'classic.' Please get real."

"All right, enough already, we got it. No redheads."

Before I retreated to one of the kitchen drawers to retrieve a stained piece of paper that contained some forgotten grocery list that I had probably authored and wrote down the exact description of the doll being demanded, I told them, "And thank you for acknowledging your misstep in having me."

"Jesus Christ, Sylvia, you'd think she was raising us."

"Yeah, no fucking kidding," I mumbled on my way to the kitchen.

The next day at school was torture mixed with excitement. There was a part of me that was hopeful that my father would in fact hold true to his promise. Like a girl in an abusive relationship who hopes that her boyfriend will suddenly see reason and cease and desist with his attacks, I was cautiously optimistic. It was brutal watching everyone at school carrying their Cabbage Patches around, comparing eye color and dimples, who had bangs, who didn't, the birth certificates with their birth weight and full first, middle, and last names.

Instead of masturbating on the swing set that day, I took my forty minutes of recess to kneel in the woods and pray that my cheap Jewish father would somehow muster the courage to spend fifty dollars on a doll that would be able to provide no income for the family.

When I got home, my father was at the "auction." That was a used-car sort of swap meet for people who made no income from buying and selling used cars. The auction was every Tuesday at a place called Skyline. A more appropriate name would have been Loser Alley. This was the only real work commitment my father had all week long, if you could even call it work. The only other times he left the house were to show a car he had advertised in the newspaper or to go to the grocery store for his pastrami and corned beef stock-up.

Being at the auction meant my father wouldn't be home until seven. My mother kept assuring me he would have a Cabbage Patch with him when he returned. I sat in the front living room staring out the bay window at our circular driveway of cars that belonged in an episode of Dukes of Hazzard.

Finally I decided to start working on my Reagan essay, which was really quite challenging, since I had a hard time taking him seriously after my brothers and sisters revealed to me that he'd previously worked as an actor. What a joke. My father fancied himself a Republican, which was another joke. I told my father he didn't make enough money to be a Republican and decided that would be the focus of my essay. "Misguided Politics" is what I would call it. I started off by informing the reader, my father, that in order to consider yourself a member of any political party you first needed to register to vote.

From my bedroom I saw lights creep up the corner of our street, and I almost climaxed. I was so nervous I even picked up Poopsie Woopsie and started violently petting her.

Sure enough, in my father walked carrying the big cardboard box the dolls came in, with the plastic covering on the front. I nearly shit my pants.

"AAAAAAhhhhhh!" I screamed. "Let me see!!!!! Let me see!" I dropped Poopsie Woopsie on my way down the steps to our front door and ran over to grab the box out of his hands. It was a real live Cabbage Patch Kid! Another second went by before I realized there was no brown hair. There was no hair at all. His name was Stanley. He was a preemie. And he was black.

I finally acquired the Cabbage Patch I had yearned for, Gretchen, when I stole it from my next-door neighbor Jason Rothstein, who had no business being around young girls in the first place.