We’re at a family party in the yard, where I’m standing fearless on soft grass. It’s my grandmother’s 90th birthday. She’s laughing at a question about whether she has had a good life. Then she pulls me aside, sits me down, and says, “You’re looking a little fat, baby.” 

I start to respond, something like sounds good, me too, but my grandmother continues: “The issue, honey, is that when one gains weight they usually say they are pregnant, but you can’t tell people you are pregnant, on account of the gained weight, and its effect, of diminishing appeal,” she says. My grandmother’s eyes exhibit star-cluster wrinkles when she smiles. 

“I’m with you,” I say. 

My grandmother leans across the table, takes my face into her hands and gives me a huge kiss on the forehead. The kiss is so wet with her desire for my beauty that I don’t even wipe it off, stamped as I am with the gloss of her hope and resignation.

Soon my grandmother’s upper octogenarian boyfriend comes up to me and tells me I look fresh, like the kind of spring chicken whose legs you tie together and fuck. Or, rather, that’s not true. He doesn’t say that. I wish he’d say that, but my grandmother’s boyfriend is a really nice guy. He’s from Oklahoma and his name is Aristotle. He’s never crossed the line. He has a vast sensibility refined in the most surprising ways, about things such as utters and puss. He’s acquired a certain bovine serenity and is philosopher-like only in his ability to be mostly useless, though useless people calm me down, as they lessen the teleological burden whose weight we feel to varying degrees depending on pastoral winds, says Aristotle. 

In the yard he asks me: “Are you feeling lonely, Dear?” 

“Only in the larger sense, Aristotle.” 

“Well that’s good, Dear.” 

I nod. 

It’s not necessarily loneliness that I feel but rather a burgeoning propensity toward violence. I wonder what my grandmother would say about this. My whole life she has called me a coward. But now I’m coming into something strong and maybe even fearless. Lately, at all times, I’ve felt on the verge of either a violent orgasm or violent death – both of which, if achieved correctly, can lead to the complete obliteration of the self. It’s not that I want to hurt anyone. I’ve only noticed, for example, that when watching a sports game I wish for the pressure of stadium lights to crack open the unconscious so we might witness some real limb-ripping, out on blood-stiff turf, the muscles of men knotting into one another and slickened warm with mixed fluids of tender ejaculate viscosity. 

I try to explain my newfound rage and altogether blossoming courage to my grandmother, but she is busy. 

“Jojo,” she addresses my little cousin. 

Jojo is seven years old. He has just chalked himself into a complex game of hopscotch, out on the driveway. 

“Jojo!” My grandmother says again. She’s using her voice. “You cutie! You taut young sack of sinew and cartilage! You are primal and carefree and you are getting excited about your hopscotch, Jojo. But one step across that dividing line, Jojo” — my grandmother points to his hopscotch — “one step, and you enter into an unknown world of suffering and death, honey. You drew all those lines. So now go ahead and cross every single line you’ve drawn for yourself, even the small ones, the lines you told yourself you’d never cross: Cross them, honey, and ascend into the vaulted regions of despair. Because if not, if you fail to cross the line, you’ll be saddled with a decent life and that will be enough to kill you. And then we will split a rugelach.” 

Jojo begins to cry inside his hopscotch. 

(As my grandmother’s been speaking, I’ve been watching Aristotle’s mouth. He keeps it open. His upper lip trembles as he breathes his passive, brave breath. Can you please make love to me, I want to ask him.) 

“Aristotle, shut up,” My grandmother says. Then she turns to me, “Come here, honey. I have to tell you something.”

“Give it to me, Grandma.” 

“No. Over here.” She takes two tiny steps to her right. “Listen to me,” she says. She wipes her spit off my forehead. “You seem sleepy, honey,” she tells me. “And I mean that in the cosmic sense. You are, asleep. But I have to let you know that I am going to die tonight. Someone is going to kill me. It won’t be anyone’s fault.” 

“Grandma,” I say.  

“It won’t be anyone’s fault,” my grandmother repeats. Then she hands me a gun. “I said what I said before, about you looking fat, because it’s true. And when I die you will lose some weight, and bear children, because things like weight and progeny are important to me. I make no claims on goodness. I am only right, and sorry. I crossed the line long ago.” 

“Grandma,” I say. 

The whole time she’s been leading me by the wrist to the garage. 

“I chose Aristotle for his density,” my grandmother says. “I’m glad you like him. You think I take everything from you, like your pride. But here I am giving things to you, too.” A wink’s tucked deep in her intonation, though nowhere on her face.

Now, in the garage, my grandmother again puts my hand on the gun. Then she puts her own hand tight over mine. Her nails are painted such a bright bubblegum pink that I put her fingers in my mouth. They taste so sweet. 

“Stop that,” she says. She steps away from me. The gun is now cocked in my hand alone. I point it at her. But I realize, then, that I am still so weak, and the gun is heavy, and my arm is drooping.

My grandmother begins to quiver: “I want to feel no fear,” she says. She’s backing up against the wall, as if she’s pleading with me.  

I’m confused. “No, I want to feel no fear,” I tell her. I steady the gun and move closer to her.

“I want to feel no fear,” my grandmother says. But now she’s laughing. 

“I want to feel no fear,” I say. 

I’m moving closer. We’re looking at each other. I breathe, mouth open. I pull the trigger. My grandmother can’t stop laughing.