Irises

Heartbreak was a remedy he knew far too well. His most stringent heartbreak started and ended with Helen. She had "uncles" coming in and out of her bedroom at all times of the night. He spent most of them restless due to his mother awakening him from his trance due to her weeps and howls for help. On a nightly basis, her son would fight off the men whenever he would hear Helen and his many uncles fighting. Helen would let the men inflict harm on her son while she took a Marlboro break. After she smoked her cigarette, she took a bump or two and reapplied her cardinal paint smeared across her mouth. Afterward, she would then proceed to shrill at her son for hurting business and getting in the way of her making money. 

Helen was expectant with him at 16. His father was a married man who was 22 years her senior. It was word around the town that the baby was only kept to be used as a threat of extortion. One Christmas evening, when the man refused to pay Helen, she showed up at his home with their 3-month-old son. Once the scene Helen caused had de-escalated, she left her son on their doorstep, where they found him alive the following morning. His father simply returned their son back to Helen and threatened to kill them both if he ever heard from her again. Helen had high aspirations of becoming a criminal defense lawyer. She always wanted to be tied to a high-profile murder case. Helen gave away her dream immediately after she gave birth to her son. Helen never spoke of her aspirations of becoming a criminal defense lawyer again. It is pretty interesting that her son, by default, was also ardent about becoming a defense lawyer later in his life. Instead of working or returning to school to support her and her son, she collected governmental assistance due to her self-proclaimed carpal tunnel.

Her son was often neglected due to her heavy prostitution and drug-induced brain. By default, he was socially underdeveloped. It was not like her son was watching the typical cartoons that all the other kids his age were watching. His prime-time television consisted of him checking to make sure his mom was still breathing while her head was buried deep in the toilet. He assumed it was a typical family dynamic to have uncles and mothers sleep in the same room, leaving money on the kitchen counter the following day, only to never see them again. He always wondered how the other children coped with such disparity and why he always felt more sad than they did.

In grade school, he told his classmates about his many uncles, and the classmates then proceeded to make fun of him for the rest of his public school career. They extended his naivety by calling him a product of incest. He did not know at the time what incest meant, but he knew it was not a word of honor to walk around with his head held up high. He knew he would not gain any awards or speeches with such a proclamation. He told Helen about the new nickname he obtained from the kids at school, and she then proceeded to wallop his mouth where it was forever stone blue. 

His mom was fascinated with his lips; she always thought they took a feminine shape. She often said that he got his feminine lips from his father. He never knew the name of his biological father. His father's name would change frequently whenever he would inquire about him. But, a name that came up a lot when he would needle on about his father was Robert. He always believed his middle name was his mother's attempt to bond him to his father. 

"What does it mean, Mama?" he asked as he held his mouth. 

"Don't you ever tell my business to those people again. Who do you think you are? You are living in my house." she rebuked. 

"Mama, I don't even know what they mean, I–" he tried to redeem himself, but his eyes became aqueous, and his voice ruined. 

A common occurrence in the household, whenever her son needed to cry, was to exit the front door and run until he could not run anymore. He never knew where he picked it up from. This particular time, he refused to stop running until he puzzled together the definition of incest. The many times when he would run away, he was often met with predatory men who tried to get him in their car. He would always refuse because he assumed his mother would come looking for him. He never wanted to leave her behind and knew she would not be able to find him if he were dead somewhere. 

Her son lost his virginity twice. The first time was when he was 12 years old due to his uncle/mom's connection, Reggie. Who then proceeded to tell her son that he had to get his fix one way or another because his "mother did not do it right." At age 14, he lost it once more to Debra, his mother's sister, where it happened every two weeks. Debra would frequently watch Helen's son while Helen spent time with her friend, Crystal. Her son had no fundamental understanding of who Crystal was. Her son's only memories of Crystal as a young child were that she had fried blonde hair, cheap blue eyeshadow, and a perpetually underweight appearance. Crystal always looked uncomfortable in her own skin. It always appeared that she had bugs crawling out of her eyes at any moment. He knew to stay away from her, but something about her also appeared magnetic?

Her son always felt like Crystal would directly hit him where it hurt the most, and that was by stalking his mother's attention. He never understood why Crystal took it out on him. Her attacks felt personal. He was jealous of Crystal for occupying so much of his mom's absorption. However, once he met Crystal later in life and got a taste of her, he knew why his mom lowered her inhibitions and loved her more than she could ever love him. 

Her son had consensual sex for the first time when he was 25 years old. The girl of choice was about 13 years his senior, and she was attracted to his lost puppy syndrome. She had multiple boyfriends while she was his only girlfriend. He would frequently buy her irises and take her to fancy restaurants, only for her to spend most of the time drooling and flirting with the busboys. He told his girlfriend then that he picked irises for her because he believed purple was her color. But he really bought them because something about the flower appeared so sorrowful. Their relationship lasted about 3 years. He only loved her because she reintroduced him to his mother's old friend, Crystal, at a gathering. 

His mother did not hang out with Crystal much after she went to prison, remarried, and got clean. In fact, when he first met Crystal, he did not remember much about her outside of her blue eyeshadow and gaunt figure, which she still proudly sported. However, Crystal retained him and knew about him before he knew about himself. Crystal was around when his mom was pregnant with him at her junior prom. His mom and Crystal had been best friends for over 20+ years and met at the local grocery store parking lot when they were developing breasts and crushing on men. 

When he first met Crystal, she gave him the warmest kiss on the cheek and walked around, announcing him to everyone as her son.

"Look at my son," She would say.

"He is so handsome," She would cry. 

"Take our picture…mwah," She exclaimed.

Soon, his fascination became an attraction, and he began to insectually fall in love with her. He knew his relationship with Crystal would ruin any future relationship with Helen. In fact, he had been waiting to hear from Helen for about 11 years. Her son only knew about her rehabilitated life when she entered his checkout line arm-to-arm with her husband. She did not recognize her own son, and all that she mentioned to her cashier was,

"I hope you find someone that makes you this happy. I know your mother would be proud," she said through her gummy smile. 

"$67.25 is your total," he mustered up. 

Crystal had a particular shine and invincibility to her aura that was hard to imitate. This was very important for her to possess because she was not the most stunning woman in the bunch. She knew how to persuade a group, whether they favored her stance or not; she knew how to work the majority in her favor. She was one of the most euphoric women that he had ever met. Crystal was a bundle of energy and had all these grand ideas but never had the willpower to follow through with them. He was determined to make Crystal and himself proud when he pursued his Doctor of Jurisprudence. 

He stayed around for as long as he did because her optimism was just so intoxicating. A brilliance he was not too familiar with, with Helen as his mother. Whenever he was around Crystal, he assumed that this was how his mother must have felt at her happiest. Being around Crystal felt equivalent to being in a warm, humid room. A womb, if you will. He quickly realized why Helen would go weeks at a time away from home. With someone like Crystal in your life, there is no room for anyone else, especially anyone who relies on you. However, Crystal unfortunately had an issue with regulating her own emotions. Once she reached a level of indignation, she would black out. She was the stairway to heaven and a dark alley to purgatory. 

Their first time together was blissful. No rollercoaster, accomplishment, or workout would ever equate to the initial ecstasy that he received from Crystal. Once he fell in love, he would forget to drink or eat unless she was around to remind him to do so. Similar to when his mother would come home after bouts of absence due to her time with Crystal and would see her son malnourished despite him being under the care of Debra. The last time he saw his mother before the grocery store, Helen caught her sister and her son in the middle of a rendezvous. All Helen could manage to say under her bloodshot appearance was, "I hope you are teaching him right!" Her son rocketed out of bed and ran for miles. He assumed his mother would be there waiting for him to take him back to their home upon his return, but she was gone and never revolved. 

"Ready for round two? I told you nobody would care," said Debra.