[ WP ] The worst family gathering possible .

`` Mama, Daddy, I'm gay.'' 
 
 I say the words to the mirror, and I mean them to sound loud, like a battle cry, but they're small. They're really fucking small. I've been meaning to tell them for a while now, but it just never seemed the right time, you know? I mean hell, you try growing up in a small town in Alabama. 
 
 `` GODDAMMIT, RICKY, PUT THAT GUN UP BEFORE YOU KILL SOMEBODY.'' 
 
 I bury my face in my hands and groan. The voice belongs to Aunt Donna. She used to sell Avon before she got too fat to walk more than 20 steps without hyperventilating. She mostly rides around on her hoverround now. And yells. There's lots of yelling, but then it goes with the red face, red hair, red lipstick, and red nail polish she wears. Red is n't a good color for her, but it's an accurate one. 
 
 Ricky is my unequivocally-criminal cousin. Well... I suppose technically he's my nephew, but he's older than me, and it's just kind of awkward to call him my nephew, and he sure as hell is n't about to call me `` Uncle.'' He's been busted for a bunch of different stuff. Most recently it was possession with intent to sell, but Daddy's friends with the sheriff, and got it bumped down to simple possession. 
 
 `` JASON, GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE SO WE CAN START EATING, THE FOOD'S GON NA GET COLD!'' 
 
 That voice belongs to my mama. Mama is pretty much the exact opposite of Aunt Donna: she's blond, skinny, and short, but I swear to god, she can yell just as loud, but she does n't cuss that much. She says it's uncouth, but we live in a trailer. We're not exactly the experts on couth. 
 
 I splash my face one more good time and head outside. I put on my best smile, but it's a three-ring shit circus. All six of my parents kids are there: Jimmy, Jeremy, Josh, Jud, John, and me, Jason. All boys. We had one more older brother, Jack, but Jack's been in prison since I was a baby for killing a police officer over a dog fight. We do n't talk about Jack much, but Ricky's his son, so he's kind of always, you know... there. 
 
 All my brothers are there with their trashy-ass wives and their trashy-ass children, Ricky's waving his new gun around, and Aunt Donna's arguing with Mama over the proper placement of the food. It's in moments like these that I think about how completely unlike my family I am. All my brothers are over six feet and well over 200 pounds. They're all loud, all obnoxious, and all absolutely disgusting pigs. 
 
 I ca n't even begin to comment on the demon spawn that are my nieces and nephews, and can only say that they're recognizable only by the number of decibels they increase the ambient noise in a room. Otherwise they're a blur of red hair, and clothes that smell like they have n't been washed in weeks. 
 
 `` Happy birthday, Jason,'' Aunt Donna croons as her hoverround whirs up to me. 
 
 Her fight with my mother is forgotten for the moment. 
 
 `` How you feeling, honey?'' 
 
 I take a deep breath and prepare my mask: the story about the girl at school who might like me, how I'm not gon na go out for the football team because I need to focus on my grades, but I might go out for baseball, and most of all, how I ca n't wait to go to Panama City again because of all the girls in bikinis. What comes out of my mouth is completely off-script. 
 
 `` Oh I'm pretty gay...'' 
 
 There's a sharp intake of collective breath and silence. I realize in an instance what I said. 
 
 `` I mean, I'm pretty good! Good!'' 
 
 Blank stares. Well, the cat's out of the bag, I guess. 
 
 `` I mean... I guess I'm pretty gay, too, but that's... good, right?'' 
 
 Worst. 
 
 Family Gathering. 
 
 Possible.
