Odds Are

Odds are you want to know who a voice is if you have to hear it in your head for a long time so my name is Marjorie M. McAllister. I am typing this from my computer notebook which I balance precariously on my little round knees.

My name is Bobby Bolivia which is not my real name but is my name for you because of my serious and total shame of my real name and also because unlike your name my real name has no alliteration. I hope my secondary name will roll around in your mind like a beach ball or something.

Odds are…

I live in Portland, Oregon. My parents have chained me in the basement.

Odds are I live in Seattle, Washington. I don't have a basement, but there's room which has many white walls. I don't have parents. I have Jim and Samantha. One of them always watches me. Samantha has never liked my haircut which she finds very disrespectful. She often carries scissors.

I hardly ever see my parents. They bring water and food on a blue plastic tray, the kind with sections for each different kind of food.

That must be nice to not see your parents except when they have food.

It's really terrible and sometimes I fear my legs or arms or maybe just one leg or arm will stop working because I can't move them very much because of the chains.

I have a family history which is separate from Jim and Samantha and it has to do with traveling on the high seas. We were shipwrecked in Seattle after following for too long a gray dolphin which led our ship to a disastrous wreck.

Well I was only chained down here because my parents became convinced that I'm a serial killer. It's just that I'm very good at video games and that I don't have many friends. Also, out kitten disappeared and they think I probably barbequed it. Of course, my parents are from Texas which makes them very different than the people of Portland who have accepted me for who I really am.

I'm from Ireland. We sailed from Dublin, but my parents drowned in the shipwreck. They were not good swimmers and it was very stormy. Samantha wants me to go to school to be a dental assistant because you can get free dental insurance if you're a dental assistant.

I don't have to be chained up anymore. I'm free!

I don't think you were chained up ever at all.

I probably wasn't chained up but today, at the park, I saw a penguin walking forcefully through a crowd. The penguin had a knife.

Samantha wants me to call her 'Mom' but Jim is in love with me and sometimes tries to watch when I shower. I can see his eye in the foggy mirror. At school we are supposed to be learning about the Vietnam War and we looked at a video of a man burning himself to death.

That's really terrible and why I'm trying not to go to school anymore. I can watch a lot reruns of Matlock and the A-Team also.

I think it would be fun to have sex with Matlock. I think he would probably die.