Free Choose Me by Xenia Ruiz Page A

Parliament-Funkadelic and Frankie Beverly and Maze.
    The idea of writing my latest screenplay grew out of my estrangement from my father. For the past nineteen years, I had been
     trying to come to terms with his betrayal. I never got a chance to tell him how I felt since his secrets didn’t come to light
     until after his death. I spent my last two teenaged years lashing out at everyone because he wasn’t around to take my blows.
     Then, in my twenties, I pretended he had never existed, acting like a boy who had never known his father. In college, whenever
     I had to write a sociology research paper, or an assignment for my elective creative writing classes, I would always focus
     on Black children without fathers, even though I had never been one of those children. My father had been the kind of father
     who had tossed the ball in the backyard and taught me how to fix cars. He had been the kind of clichéd father who seemed to
     exist only in sitcoms, not to the extreme of
The Cosby Show,
but pretty close. By my early thirties, my attitude had become somewhat ambiguous; I couldn’t decide what he had meant to
     me. Writing was the only way I could sort it out. But even in my writing, I couldn’t be truly honest. Unable to write a nonfiction
     piece, I gravitated toward fiction, in the form of a screenplay, a film that would eventually be glamorized with Hollywood
     lights, cameras, and special effects because all good fiction contained some truth.

CHAPTER 5
EVA
    SIMONE’S SCREENING PARTY for her film,
Two Many Men,
was in her apartment, which she referred to as “the Penthouse.” It was really two one-bedroom apartments combined into one,
     located on the top floor of her father’s four-story multi-unit apartment building. It had double the number of rooms, including
     two bathrooms, and every inch was occupied with the cast and crew of the film, including Zephyr—her filmmaker-director-producer
     lover—and a bunch of her model friends as well as some mutual friends. The plastic people—the models and actors—stayed in
     the front end of the first apartment, which included the balcony, while the real people—everyone else—kept to the back apartment,
     which extended to the porch.
    It had been a bad week for me and I almost didn’t come. My headaches had been so severe that I called my doctor to request
     a new medication. The old one didn’t alleviate my nausea and had too many side effects, including hallucinations, the most
     recent being the Oak Tree Man in my backyard. In addition, I called my pastor who offered me a healing prayer. The new medication,
     combined with a cold towel on my forehead and a nap in the dark, had worked on the latest headache that I had had earlier
     that morning.
    “Come on, guys, you’re supposed to mingle,” Simone begged Maya and me and the rest of the group on the porch. Simone was decked
     out in seventies’ wear that included a Cleopatra Afro wig over her own ’fro, bell-bottom slacks, and platforms.
Two Many Men
was set in the 1970s, so she had asked everyone to come dressed as their favorite pop-culture character from that decade.
     Not everyone complied, including me, with the exception of my bell sleeves and flared slacks. The seventies was not my favorite
     decade for fashion. I could have used a wig though. Because of the earlier humidity, it had taken more than the usual amount
     of water and gel to quell my frizzy hair.
    “They don’t want to mingle with us,” Maya said, patting her nurse’s hat. She had come as “Julia,” and with her recent pixie
     haircut, she didn’t require a wig. “Their
ca-ca
doesn’t stink, ours does.” Maya struck a model’s pouty face and strolled across the porch in her best imitation of a supermodel’s
     walk. We all laughed.
    “Stop it. They’re nice people,” Simone insisted.
    “Then you go hang out with them,” I told her.
    Simone clicked her tongue and left the porch, walking away in her trademark supermodel