What’s A Fullmoon Mysticism?
Corpse paint, squawked CindyDiane’s friend Meredith. I don’t even know what that is. What is it? Meredith shifted her giant body in her seat at the salon.
I really don’t know, said CindyDiane. That’s just what he called it.
The nail salon was beginning to smell like Ted Jr’s room when she found him with a face full of pancake makeup. He looked, at least she thought, like a drag queen that had been caught in the rain. When he decided to dye his hair black, she let it go. When he told her God was a faggot, she dismissed it. How could God even be gay, she wondered. Her missing nail polish was another blow to her parenting. But this face painting stint was killing her inside. No one signed up for this type of child, but like all parents, she would endure.
What would Meredith say to the rest of the group? What inevitable gossip would spur back to CindyDiane about her son? That he was a devil worshipping homosexual? Probably. Whenever they went out, the girls would always ask about Ted Jr. One would say they saw him hanging out behind the mall with another boy in makeup. Another talk in great detail about how he tried and failed to buy a kitten from the humane society. Maybe he wanted to sacrifice it, her friends would theorize. Maybe he would eat its heart. The girls at the salon had hinted at such atrocious things before.
No loving child would sacrifice a kitten. Ted Jr was loving, he cried when his pet turtle cooked itself in the heat. How could he even fathom killing an animal? But that was before he started listening to his music. And growing out his hair. And regressing further into the dark, teenage weirdness that Sally Jesse Rafael warned about in her PSA’s. But these were just fads. Hell, the way she wore her skirts when she was a teenager herself troubled her parents. Her own dad would have an aneurysm every time she walked out of the door, as if rape and moral depravity followed her, sniffing at her slightly exposed knees. Yet, that was just a fad. She had never thought to listen to anything called Darkthrone. The Rolling Stones were the evilest band of her generation.
Ted Jr had been going on with this heavy metal thing for months. He even made a point to correct her about it being heavy metal. Mom, it’s called black metal, he once said in such a nonchalant manner she felt like crying then and there. Another time he shouted at her for looking through his tapes. Get away from my Burzum, he had yelled. Burzum. She did not even know if that was a band or a thing or a slang word for drugs. She was conflicted.
Well, said Meredith. I think you should send him to see a doctor.
The doctor? said CindyDiane. What for?
A brain tumor might be causing this, said Meredith. The extra fat on her neck quivered. I saw it on 20/20 last week, she said.
It’s not a brain tumor, answered CindyDiane. How could Meredith be so affected? God. Then what is it, insisted Meredith.
It’s a thing, said CindyDiane. All kids go through things. Like being a hippie.
I never went through a thing, the fat woman scoffed.
Of course she hadn’t. Meredith ate food as comfort and let her husband carry on with other women. In Meredith’s world, things were consumable or pushed beneath the surface, not talked about. This wasn’t Meredith’s fault though. Her and her problems had nothing to do with Ted Jr.
Speaking of the boy, he would be getting home soon. She tapered off her conversation with Meredith and left the nail salon and stopped off at the coffee shop next door. She ordered herself a decaf and him a hot cocoa. Her son liked those when he was little. Ted Sr was the one who made him stop drinking them. He likened sugar and sweeties to drugs and laziness. But Ted Sr was gone, so why not try to win the boy over with a drink? It was stupid, she knew this, but maybe it would bring him around. She had tried everything else.
He wasn’t home yet. She entered the house and flopped to the couch in the living room. Ted Jr’s hot cocoa would go cold soon. Where was he? Why was he? She didn’t even want children let alone a possibly moody, satanic, cult member, teenage son.
But motherhood was something else entirely, it goes beyond wants and ruminates on bodily needs. Once in their lives, Ted Sr wanted to stick his penis somewhere warm and CindyDiane wanted to go to bed in the next fifteen minutes. Ted Jr was born nine months later. CindyDiane was then required to love her child. She needed to love him. So she did.
Needs and wants never align. Never align.
She decided to drink the hot cocoa because why the hell not? The boy wouldn’t give it a
second thought anyway. Most likely, he would arrive in a sullen haze, smelling vaguely of lavender and burnt candles and slink off to his room. Most likely, music would pound against the wall and terrible screaming and awful, awful guitars would wail into the kitchen as she fixed him dinner. Their routine as single mother and single child had fallen into such a rut.
Why did he hate everything, she thought. She thought it every day since his transformation.
She thought this again and again until she fell asleep on the couch. When she woke, Ted Jr had returned from wherever he disappeared to after his school.
In the kitchen, in their cedar breakfast nook sat Ted Jr. He ate eggs and a steak, with a glass of milk. The piece of meat bled. He was a rare steak eater these days. Of course he was, the theatrics of it all. Years ago, CindyDiane recalled him being a vegetarian of sorts. Some musician of his decried meat, so Ted Jr did the same. The boy’s father made a fuss about it. None of this mattered now.
Now, it was meat.
Ted Jr had not washed off his face makeup. He simply wiped it away from his mouth. The rest was there, caked on to his once porcelain, unblemished skin. His locks of dyed black hair hung over his plate. As he chewed, he stared straight ahead. He nodded at his mother.
My sweet boy, CindyDiane said. You cooked us dinner, she asked.
The boy indicated toward the kitchen. There was another steak for her there. He cooked other things too. All too her liking. But of course, of course he did not speak. Why bother? She recalled ignoring her own parents when she went through her various stages. Ted Jr was just doing the same. Doing the same. He did his with make up though. The sweet boy. So confused.
Come sit with me in the living room, she said.
He nodded.
We can eat in front of the television, she said. Your father never let you, she said, but I will. They moved into the room together. They held their plates of rarecooked steak and fried eggs.
This was the most she had gotten out of him in a time. Ted Jr had been something of a recluse after she
confronted him about his socalled corpse paint. His ebb and flow was a delicate balance of the wrong words or nonwords at all. She knew not to upset him.
Together, they sat in front of the television. The news segment was showing on the local channel. There was a breaking story about a church fire. CindyDiane looked to Ted Jr. He sat there, chewing his steak. The glow from the television hung in Ted Jr’s eyes. If he was not doing anything he might have been smiling. He might as well have been smiling. But he was doing nothing.
Teddy, CindyDiane said, why are you smiling? That church is on fire. How terrible.
He did not answer.
You answer me Theodore, she said.
He did not. Ted Jr swallowed his food and speared another piece of steak with his fork. He held the cut of meat in front of him for a time, twisting the fork in the air.
I’m through with this, CindyDiane cried, I’m through, I’m through. Did you have something to do with this? Did you? Goddamnit, you answer me right now. What is going on in that head of yours? What’s so funny? Tell me what your thinking.
I got a tape from the record shop today, said Ted Jr.
His voice was higher than she remembered. Softer, like a child. He was still a child to a degree. She wished he wasn’t a child. She wished he wasn’t.
And what’s funny about that? said CindyDiane.
It was called Diabolical Fullmoon Mysticism, he said and shrugged. Apparently nothing was funny about it. He looked at her as if he did not even know himself. Laughing just to laugh. No mother deserved this type of child.
What does that even mean, she cried, what is that? Is it English? Is that curse? Are you cursing me? Don’t you dare do your spells at me. What’s a fullmoon mysticism?
Ted Jr ignored her.
He went back to his steak. With his pale, braceleted hand, he swept a loose strand of his hair aside. He finished his plate and brought it back to the kitchen. She heard his bedroom door close.
It was the boy’s fault that Ted Sr left. It had to be his fault. How could it not be? There was something wrong with him and everyone knew it.
CindyDiane wanted to feel sad because she had always been naive. She needed to cry. She knew that needs and wants eclipse maybe once in a full moon; this was not one of those times.
