Naked

“I don’t know.”

Those were the last words I heard behind my sister’s closed garage door while I slipped my flip-flops on. I knew what they were talking about. She asked about the guy he was referring to. My cousin replied with an honest answer. He didn’t know. In fact, no one knows, except perhaps my mother, who uses her mother senses to figure this shit out.

There is no secrecy in a family such as mine. We are Greek, born and bred from a proud race of intellects that some how got pushed to the back burner and get scoffed at for being full blooded. That’s inbreeding. I want to ram my head through a glass door every time I hear someone say that.

Being Greek means you have to know everything. There isn’t a time when I go somewhere when my mama asks as to what I was doing or who I saw. She can never ask me, “how was your night?” and leave it at that. She has to know what I was doing, who I was doing it with and what were they wearing at the time of whatever it was we were doing to begin with. You really wore those shoes? I half expect the woman to cross herself. If you go out without saying anything to begin with…well lets just say I hope whatever god you believe in loves you. You are not getting out of this one missy.

Romance is no exception. No matter how hard you try, someone always finds out because you decided you were tired of hiding your feelings for this other person and you tell someone who swears to keep their mouth shut. If a European says that they swear to keep their mouth shut, cut out their tongue right then and there and curse them for it. Europeans cannot keep their mouths shut. It is virtually impossible. And the men? Forget it! They talk more than the women do, and I tell you this now, word gets around faster through the male population than it does through the female one.

You cannot tell a cousin or a sibling anything. Once you open your mouth, you have signed your own death warrant. Would you like a cigarette before we hang you in the gallows? No? Carry on then. I normally try to keep my life private and to keep things to myself until I am absolutely ready to explain things to someone. Even then, it falls to the wayside. They corner you. As if they were some pack of hyenas closing in on a wounded gazelle that some how managed to escape the pride of lions it was running from earlier with a minor injury. Death is inevitable and right now I am waiting for mine because of those words I heard after I left from my sister’s house.

I have been naked before, splashed with acrylic paint, sharpie and god knows what else, in front of a camera modeling for all to see. I can do that. However, I can’t deal with what will happen over the next few days, for this is how the clock will tick. My sister will talk to my mother for one reason or another and I will enter the conversation for one reason or another. Once my name is mentioned she will ask mama if I have been talking to anyone on the phone. Of course mother will say yes because of course she knows I have been talking to someone on the phone. She is my mama and she has that weird voodoo magick that all mothers possess. I think you inherit those powers as soon as you sign the marriage contract; the investigation is on going in that department. From there either my mother or my sister will question me indirectly, if not directly, about this so-called male in my life.

This is where they get me. It is here I am standing naked for all to see, bare as the day as I was born, despite the heavy sweater and jeans, squirming and twisting out some sort of response. I would rather be in front of the camera naked, than talk about my heart.

When the hyenas come cackling out of the darkness, knowing the kill is moments away, you are stripped of all your barriers and all you can do is wait for the jaws to lock around your throat and the world to go black with self doubt and loathing because all you wanted was a shred of happiness.