by Melody Montoya

Photo courtesy of the New York Public Library

When I thought what my memoir should be about, I knew there was really only one option. I would write about my time as a geisha. When I shouted this full of excitement, Alyssa reminded me that not only was I never a geisha but this was the plot of a famous book and movie. She then proceeded to tell me that even if this were in the realm of possibility I could never pull off that look. But I think I totally could so whatever, Alyssa. Whatever. Walks around acting like she knows my entire life.

Since my first plan was dashed to bits I decided to head in another direction. But which direction? I’ve been alive for a while. There are a lot of memories to choose from and lots of fun phases and chapters. Every time I decided on a slightly funny part of my childhood that was just awkward enough to be a little self deprecating but not too self-loathing, something stopped me. It was last spring semester. The memory creeping up on me, the way I creep up on someone with a mountain man beard.

For those of you that were not in that class, I wrote a story that was really mean but kind of funny that criticized everyone in my class under the guise of characters praying. It was pretty childish. When I wrote it I thought that my class would be angry, like hate crime angry so I had friends waiting in the parking lot in case shit got real. But shit did not get real. In fact the majority of the class liked it. A minority did not understand it at all. And another group completely hated it and said I couldn’t write. So my problem: How do I top that?

Like this. Strap in!

I’m just kidding.

I really don’t know how to do that. I’m sure this will fall short. People like mean stuff and I’m too tired to be mean. And I’m not a geisha! Things would be so much easier if I was.

As the days went by, I was more and more concerned my life was really letting this memoir fall to shit. I’ve had troubles. I’ve done fun things. The problem is most of my troubles involved throwing up and that’s gross. And most of the fun things I’ve done involve travel so I think I’m going to save those for a travel essay. Or, these things are secrets and my whole thing is if you write them down you never know where they’re going to end up. I mean, look at Anne Frank. You think she wanted people to read her diary? That’s a stolen joke but there were a lot of those in the funny essay last semester so I’m going to keep that tradition alive. Not to mention mine are silly secrets, not like “Nazis are coming” secrets.

So, instead of letting these concerns make me question the direction my life is headed, I decided I would discuss my life as it is now. It’s easy to do. It’ll help you get to know me which I think will enrich your life in some way. You might not feel it right away but trust me, one day you’ll look back and be like oh yeah that girl, glad I read that. And later on in my life I can look back and think oh yeah that, that’s so like me.

Alright, let’s do this.

As we’ve established, my name is Melody. Which is cool because when I go to shows, musicians think it’s really interesting. I’ve heard “Oh, I just played one of those” more than once and I usually run. Nah, I always run. But it wasn’t always a bed of creepy roses. When I was in school kids always giggled in music class when my name came up and I’d get really embarrassed. Aw. Moment of vulnerability. I would just like to say to those little bitches, that shit isn’t even clever. I wish I had said it then but I really didn’t come into my own in terms of profanity until much later in life. Fuck. See? Wait, I went back in time I think I’m supposed to stay now. Getting back to now.

I work at a stupid Christian gym that shall remain nameless but the Village People seemed to like. I don’t want to say that it’s full of closet racists and misogynists, so I won’t. I’m definitely not going to say anything about how people there feel like it’s okay to tell me that we should be an English only nation and that we should really do something about “this Mexican problem”. I won’t say it. If I were to speak on such matters, which I definitely will not, I would say, “Hey assholes, are you blind? Are you not aware that I am part of this problem you speak of? Have you seen my face? Have you seen my dad? Probably not, because if you said shit like that he’d kick your ass and I would run you over.”

As far as the misogyny, my favorite joke to hear is why shouldn’t a woman have a driver’s license? Because there’s no road from the kitchen to the bedroom. Ah, get it? I’ve also been really worried more than once that people are going to hit me which is weird because I mean, I know I’m a jerk but most adult men don’t feel compelled to come at me in a violent and threatening way. Except here. But hey. Again, I would never say anything against such a prominent community organization.

But they’re fucking monsters and I quit Monday. And I’m glad this section of my life and memoir are over.

Get ready for this, I also tutor at an elementary school where I teach my niños how to read and write and perform basic arithmetic, which is maybe the best thing ever. I use to tutor ESL to the parents, the majority of which were migrant workers or immigrants who weren’t comfortable speaking English. The program grant ended, so now I’m just your standard math and reading tutor. I’ve learned a lot about Justin Bieber in the past year, which is rewarding all on its own, forget giving the gift of literacy. Plus, I get to hear awesome things from the kids everyday like “This is my Justin Bieber hat, POW!” This is because Alex likes to punctuate her exciting thoughts with the word POW. It’s like a verbal exclamation point. Why not? Or when asking about the other tutor who is six feet tall and has a beard, “Is he your son?”

Last year, I had reading circles with kids where we would start a new book each week. One week, the book was about camels and how they can close their ears and eyes in a sandstorm, so I made them all try to make a camel’s storm face. And then I laughed. What else was I supposed to do when a bunch of kids are trying to close their ears and eyes while puffing out their cheeks at the same time? It’s just silly. This other week, there was a pirate play book and they were all shouting in pirate accents because I asked them if a quiet pirate was a very convincing character portrayal. We all agreed that no, no it was not. But I forgot there was a substitute that day so she walked in to a bunch of eight year olds doing their pirate walks and flapping around like parrots yelling “Argh!” I had to explain they were not insane, they were just committed to their craft.

And that is pretty much all I do for work.

I can get crazy, too, though.

On occasion I have craft days with my friend. We take a trip to the local hobby store and buy a shit load of glitter and make something that the stores simply will not sell because they have no vision. For example, I threw a small party to celebrate the end of the semester and we had to make our own invitations because normal invitations don’t say “Please bring your own money if you want to eat because I’m broke as shit” but ours did. I’m getting ahead of myself, though. I thought about my friends and what kind of invitations they would like to receive. Then I forgot all about that and ended up making notes that looked like a serial killer was coming after them. But you know, a serial killer that likes to party. My friend thought it would be a good idea to write “Come or else…” on the invitations. I thought this was a bad idea because to me, threatening people is not the way to make friends but it turns out it’s actually the best idea because everyone showed up. Except Alyssa.

On the most recent craft day we made bracelets, but my friend made me really rude ones full of obscenities. Now I have to wear long sleeves so the niños don’t ask “Ms. Melody, why does your bracelet say FUCK IT?” My friend doesn’t have this problem anymore because it turns out hemp kind of shrinks when you get it wet so her hand started losing circulation because I tied them too tight. Long story short her hand turned blue in the middle of the night and she woke up freaking out because she thought someone was touching her face, but it was her own hand. So she cut the bracelets off in a panic. If she were calm, maybe she wouldn’t have lost circulation so quickly but that’s neither here nor there. Mine are still good. Except the letters are washing off so they say things like “BLB”, “FGit”, and “FACE”. She’s a terrible person.

So that’s really about it.

Ok. I feel like this went well.

I’m done.

If you take anything away from this please let it be these few gems I have to offer:

1) If you are a racist, someone is going to hurt you one day. Physically. Or with words.
2) I’ve got friends that aren’t afraid to go to jail. Just kidding, but seriously leave me alone.
3) I have no problem with improper usage of ellipses.
4) If you are going to shape America’s future, let them know it’s okay to do a pirate impression once in a while.

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Melody Montoya’s work has recently appeared in The Final Note art and literary journal. She lives in Colorado where she makes her writing classes giggle and lobbies for cloud watching to become an acceptable major.