Little Boxes by Caroline Casey

Author:Caroline Casey
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781566894807
Publisher: Coffee House Press
Published: 2017-07-24T04:00:00+00:00

Supportive Acts

Justin Torres

All Rickie’s lines are transcribed from various episodes of My So-Called Life’s first and only season.

Rickie Vasquez is waiting to give you some attention. “You should buy yourself something,” he suggests. “I mean, think, what do you really need? I mean . . . you need new makeup. Makeup goes bad, you know, it does. It spoils. You need new CDs because the ones you have suck, and you could definitely use a leather jacket.” Rickie Vasquez is ready to fix your life; he’s ready to help you spend the money he does not have.

Rickie Vasquez is black and blue. “I like your house,” he says.

Rickie Vasquez has been crushing on J.C. since before you figured out how to masturbate, how to dye your hair. “Don’t you love how he leans?” Rickie Vasquez asks, and then in a flash he is ready to explain you to yourself.

“Obsession,” he says. “It’s an obsession. I completely understand this.”

Rickie Vasquez has been weaponized. You think Rickie Vasquez wants to wear all this armor? You think Rickie Vasquez don’t want a little goddamn peace and quiet? Rickie Vasquez is standing in front of the classroom and he is saying, they have made me into a gun I don’t even know how to shoot.

He is saying, “Maybe some people have guns to like, protect themselves. Maybe some people who have guns are like, victims, too. And they’re like forced to carry.”

He is saying, “You don’t know what goes on around here, O.K.?”

You don’t know, you don’t want to know, you won’t know.

But Rickie Vasquez makes pressure just by breathing.

“Ah, what’s the difference,” says Rickie Vasquez, changing the subject. “So, what’s this I hear about you and Jordan?”

You talk.

“That’s what I heard.” Rickie Vasquez wants you to get to the point. You talk.

“You mean you didn’t have sex?”

You talk, something about having infinite opportunities for touch, intimacy, attention, still ahead of you, waiting for you to squander. Something about the centrality of your experience, your narrative; that you are the standard by which value is measured, that there will be boys for you, love for you, space made for your desire. That you look around and see yourself reflected in myriad advertisements, plots, soaps, television characters, books. It’s 1994, you dyed your hair Manic Panic, your little sister is a brat. Your parents are maybe a little too attentive; it would be stifling if they weren’t also so compassionate, loveable, capable—and if some little faggot can’t relate to that, they better learn how. Learn to find joy in me, you say, be master of the vicarious. Supportive.

Rickie Vasquez is wondering if all you ever have to offer him are crumbs.

“Well, did you like the way he kissed?”

You talk.

“Go to hell,” says Rickie Vasquez. “You know you’re boring, don’t you? You know I could have handled that.”

The things Rickie Vasquez handles, must handle—so very different from those he could handle, would love to handle.

For now, Rickie Vasquez is the arbiter of your petty squabbles.

“I know,”

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