Chelsea Handler - Are You There, Vodka, It's Me Chelsea

I turned around and walked back into the living room, where he had stopped crying and was seated on the floor next to his half-eaten bowl of ice cream. “You were not supposed to have sugar, James.”

“It’s what Kyle gave me,” he said, shrugging his shoulders innocently. “I’m not a sugar addict, it’s fine. My mom is nuts.”

“Well, that’s obvious,” I told him, finally feeling like we had made a connection. “But I’m supposed to be watching you, and she told me not to let you have any, so do me a favor and don’t tell her, and I won’t either.”

“Cool,” he said, actually looking in my direction for the first time since I had arrived.

Kyle was finally calming down, and if he hadn’t put his arms up for me to pick him up again, I would have given myself an actual pat on the back for finding a way to reason with James. I really am good with kids , I thought to myself.

“I’m going to my room,” James announced as he got up abruptly and marched out of the living room-and then came back in. “And don’t come up there, you dirty bitch!”

I didn’t know what to make of James. I didn’t know if he suffered from Tourette’s or bipolar disorder. I did not feel safe at all, and it occurred to me that I would need to start carrying a taser gun.

I looked down at Kyle, who had taken his pacifier out of his mouth and was eating James’s leftover ice cream, and I wondered if he was still breast-feeding.

After Kyle was done I told him it was bedtime. It was only 7 p.m., but I needed some time alone to prepare myself in case Hannibal Lecter came back downstairs. I changed Kyle’s diaper, helped him into his pajamas, read him Goodnight Moon, and then tucked him in. “Good luck with everything,” I told him before I turned out his light.

I walked over to James’s room and knocked on the door. I thought about what it must be like for James to go through life under these conditions, with a mother like Susan. It’s no wonder he was miserable. I thought maybe I could sit down and talk to him about his life, be a shoulder he could cry on, if for no other reason than to prevent him from becoming a dateraper later in life. “Do you want me to bring you your dinner?” I asked through the closed door. Silence.

I was about to ask again, but decided I was the one who needed to eat dinner. All this caretaking had made me forget about my own needs. I went downstairs and looked in the fridge. There were a few containers that had james sr. written on them. I took one out, opened it, and found some chicken. After taking a couple of bites and not being able to identify the exact spice used in preparing it, I shut the container and put it back in the fridge. I went over to the cupboard and found a can of SpaghettiOs.

About an hour later the phone rang right in the middle of a brand-new episode of The Golden Girls. My favorite character was Bea Arthur. I’ve always felt we had similar senses of humor, although I imagined myself having a much better body when I hit seventy, not to mention highlights.

I picked up the phone and Susan was on the other end. “Hi, Chelsea, is everything okay?”

“Yes, everything is fine,” I told her, feeling like I had finally gotten the situation under control, and not wanting to miss any more of The Golden Girls than necessary.

“That’s wonderful, Chelsea. Thank you so much.”

“No problem, Suz,” I told her. “Have fun at the movie.”

The minute I hung up the phone James walked into the room with the entire bucket of frozen yogurt along with the entire bucket of vanilla-chocolate swirl ice cream in his hands. Both were empty. I hadn’t had any experience with sugar mania before, but was intuitive enough to know things were not going well.

He ran in and started jumping up and down on the couch I was sitting on. This was way before Tom Cruise humiliated himself on Oprah , and I had no idea then that James’s behavior was not only a result of liking sugar, but most likely a direct link to Scientology.

“No more monkeys jumping on the bed!” he started screaming.

I was so shocked at first, I pretended he wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary and tried to ignore him. If he was looking for attention, he wasn’t going to get it from me. Then he jumped off the couch, ran into the kitchen, and came back with two oranges, both which he fired in my direction. One hit me right in the forehead, and the other went through the window, breaking the glass.

Once I got hit in the face, I lost my cool. I stood up, but before I could make my move, James pushed me back down onto the couch. Not only was I petrified of what might happen next, I was furious that I would mostly likely have a bruise in the middle of my forehead, with Ash Wednesday months away.

I had to think quickly. I decided the best approach was to not react at all, so I sat there watching him buzz around the room, banging his head into one wall after another. I remained seated, not wanting to run any interference and get manhandled. I knew James would crash, but I didn’t know how long that was going to take, and was praying he would get it under control by the end of the commercial break. The last five minutes of The Golden Girls were right around the corner, and the episode’s plot line was clearly leading up to a cliffhanger.

James was a real live windup toy and I was just hoping his batteries would die soon. I looked at the broken window and wondered what I was going to tell his parents. I didn’t even care. I just wanted to go home. I thought about my sister Sloane and how she would have handled this situation…Sloane would never have been in this situation, because she was about as much fun as a cold sore, and would have never allowed anyone to eat an entire tub each of ice cream and frozen yogurt, even if it wasn’t intentional.

Then James picked up one of the tubs, tossed it on the floor, and eyed me like a piece of meat. I pretended I didn’t notice his death stare, and even tried to fake a yawn as an example of my disinterest in his showcase.

I was successful in faking disinterest until he took the almost-empty ice cream tub and forced it over my head. “Stop it!” I screamed, kicking my legs while my head was getting coated in vanilla-chocolate swirl. He was spinning the tub around my head and I was getting ice cream leftovers in my mouth, eyes, and nose. I felt myself starting to hyperventilate. I couldn’t take another minute, and tried to head-butt my way out the other end of the carton, but without enough wiggle room found it nearly impossible. I had no choice but to find my way between James’s legs and nail him in the balls with my foot.

As James went flying onto the ground, I took off my ice-cream hat, threw it on the floor, and got on top of him like a wrestler, pinning his biceps down with my knees. “Listen, you little fucker, I am going to call the police on your ass, you crazy lunatic bitch! What the hell is the matter with you?”

Tears were streaming down his face. It was a sad moment; even though he had attacked me like an ice-cream ninja, I couldn’t help but feel awful for him.

“I’m sorry I kicked you in your privates,” I told him, awkwardly maintaining my position on top of him. (A position, mind you, that I became much more comfortable with later on in life.) “But you are a mess. What is wrong with you?”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

I finally felt like maybe the sugar was passing through his body, and I could tell he was tired from crying. I knew that whenever I threw a temper tantrum, I always felt pretty beat afterward as well. I got up from sitting on his penis.

“I’m going to bed,” he said, and walked upstairs to his bedroom.

I sat on the sofa, staring at the empty container of yogurt, wondering how long I was going to have this headache. James Sr. and Susan walked in moments after I had finished cleaning up.