Page 26 of The Golden Boy’s Guide to Bipolar

Even on the weekend, it seems like Abuela has an endless list of things for me to do while Moni does homework and music practice.

I go through the motions monotonously to the sound of Moni’s pro-level violin skills. I try to let the music distract me from

thinking about what day it is.

Yami’s birthday.

I don’t ask Abuela for a phone to call her, though. Yami wouldn’t want me calling her anyway. She’d probably just ignore it.

She needs space from me right now, and I’ll give it to her. I try to make myself feel satisfied that my plan worked so well.

It literally went perfectly, but for some reason everything just aches.

I push through it and do my chores without saying a word to Abuela. After I power wash the plastic chairs outside, clean all

the windows and mirrors, dust all the surfaces, and somehow figure out how to fix a wobbly table leg, she finally lets me

off the hook.

I expected things would be quiet and awkward during dinner, but instead Abuela is talking away, telling us stories about her earlier years, which were apparently pretty rough. At least she had my grandpa back then.

“When we were younger, there was no problem my love couldn’t solve by simply sitting me down and doing my two braids. It used

to be that I couldn’t fall asleep until those hands worked their magic on my hair.” She sighs, a melancholy smile on her lips.

Her stories make me a little sad. She met my grandpa young but didn’t marry him until her twenties. He passed away when my

mom was only ten, and Abuela had to raise her and my tío by herself. I wonder how long it took her to be able to fall asleep

without him braiding her hair.

You would think my mom would have a little more sympathy for the woman, considering it’s exactly what she had to do with me

and Yami ever since our dad got deported. But it seems like whatever mistakes Abuela made during my mom’s childhood, she hasn’t

been fully forgiven for them yet. Part of me wants to know what their deal is, but the other part probably wouldn’t even be

bothered to listen if Abuela did try telling me.

It’s a late dinner, since Moni had a surprising amount of weekend homework before she could even get to her violin, and I

had all those random chores to do, so Moni and I head to bed right after.

I’m exhausted from the day, but Moni seems to be wide awake, considering how loudly she keeps rolling around and changing

positions. Eventually she gives up on her poor attempt at being quiet.

“Abuela’s probably asleep,” Moni says out loud, not even bothering to whisper. I don’t answer, but my pretending to be asleep

doesn’t stop her. She kicks the top bunk to wake me up.

“Fine, I’m up. What? ”

“Abuela’s probably asleep,” she says again.

“Okay, and?”

“Wanna go outside and smoke?”

I scoot to the edge of the bed and let my head fall over it so I can see her. “Are you trying to get in even more trouble?”

She shrugs innocently. “Not like we have anything to lose, right?”

And I can’t help but admit she’s right. “You do have a point....”

She then rolls out of bed and hops to the floor. “You coming or what?”

“What the hell,” I say with a shrug, and climb off the bed. Not like I was about to get any sleep anyway.

We sneak over to my grandma’s door, just to confirm the sound of her snoring, before quietly grabbing a utility lighter from

the kitchen and heading outside.

“Let’s go on the roof. I left a ladder out here from when Abuela made me fix the paint on the side of the house.”

“Lead the way,” I say, following her to the side of the house where the ladder rests. Luckily, it’s leaning by the garage

instead of by Abuela’s room, so she shouldn’t hear us going up.

The roof above the garage is flat, so we sit on the edge with our feet dangling over the side.

Moni pulls out a box of organic tampons from her backpack.

“Um, you’re not gonna change that right here, are you?” I ask, looking away.

“No, pendejo.” She laughs and unwraps one of them, revealing a blunt inside. “I call it a Tampot .”

“Wow.” I’ll give it to her, that really is some innovative product packaging. “I wish I had an excuse to carry those around.”

“Don’t lie to me. Periods fucking suck.”

“I believe you.” I raise my hands in surrender, and she puts the blunt to her lips and lights the end, inhaling deeply before

pulling the blunt away from her mouth. She slowly lets out a breath full of smoke, then hands it over.

I take it in my mouth, and she lights it for me. On the inhale, I try my best not to cough, since we should be making as little

noise as possible. Still, I can’t help but let out a small one and hand it back to Moni, but the cough pulls more of them

out of me, and before I know it, I’m basically hacking my lungs out. I must have inhaled too much, because with every cough,

I feel my body somehow getting lighter and heavier at the same time.

“Cállate, wey,” she whisper-yells, and I can’t help but laugh, albeit quietly. The more I laugh, the more I cough, and I can’t

seem to stop the vicious cycle from repeating.

Moni doesn’t seem too worried, though, because she’s laughing and wheezing along with me.

“Shhh!” she whispers between quiet giggles.

“I’m sorry I’m not a weed professional like you,” I say, finally catching my breath. It’s not like I’ve never smoked weed

before, but every time I do, I can’t help but cough. I don’t know if it’s asthma or if I have weak lungs or what, but I can’t

help it.

“Finally, someone around here acknowledges my expertise.” Moni grins proudly. “I’m basically living my dream job. When I’m

old enough to open my own dispensary, people will see I know what I’m doing.”

I take another puff from the blunt and blow the air out as steadily as I can manage. “I don’t have a dream job,” I mumble as I pass it back to her.

“Really? You’ve never wanted to be something when you grew up? Even when you were little?”

“Okay, maybe when I was little.” I laugh quietly. “But I’m grown now, and I’m not exactly looking forward to selling my soul

to capitalism. I don’t have your passion for running a business.”

“Fair enough,” she says, taking a long inhale before saying anything else. “I just want to make enough money for my dad to

admit I can do something other than music. I don’t want to let the money run my life the way he does. Like, I want my dispensary

to be employee owned and shit. Let me know if you need a job after I turn twenty-one.” She grins.

“I doubt I’ll still be here by then,” I say, my filter completely dissolved.

“You planning on moving?” she asks. I just shrug, not wanting to elaborate. Luckily, she doesn’t read into it and just moves

on. “Okay, subject change. I’ve been meaning to ask... What was that thing Abuela took you to on Tuesday? Was that, like,

a doctor’s appointment or something? Are you sick?” She hands the blunt back to me. “I can get you medical grade.”

I laugh. Moni would use my supposed sickness as a business opportunity. “Would I get a family discount?”

She looks at me all offended. I’m in the middle of taking another whiff when she responds. “As my cousin, don’t you want me

to fulfill my dreams? This is one of my main income streams!”

“What do you mean, ‘one of’?” I say in the midst of trying not to die from cough laughter. She pats my back until my lungs

settle down.

“Seriously, though. You’re not dying on me, are you?” she asks, ignoring my question.

“I’m fine,” I say as I try one more inhale, coughing less this time. “It was just therapy.”

“Ahh... ,” she says it like it all makes sense now. But why would it? Do I come across as someone who needs therapy?

“My therapist thinks I have bipolar,” I blurt out. It’s like all my walls are melting away with this high.

She just nods, for once out of words.

“What? That doesn’t surprise you?”

“Not at all,” she says, plucking the blunt from between my fingers since I forgot to hand it back to her.

“Why not?” Moni barely knows me anymore, so why would she think I have bipolar?

“Because Abuela has that too. That can be genetic, right?”

For a second, I start to think that maybe this makes a lot of sense. That it explains a lot about me that I thought was just

wrong. That maybe Abuela can talk me through some of this stuff. But then I remember Mami, and how she talks about her mom.

How crazy she is, and how you can’t trust anything she says. Mami even used to tell me not to listen to her.

Is that why she never listens to me ? Why she always assumes she knows what’s best for me, because she thinks I’m too crazy to know for myself?

No. She doesn’t know I’m bipolar. Hell, I don’t know I’m bipolar. Dr. Lee could be wrong. Is wrong.

“Doesn’t matter,” I finally say. “Dr. Lee doesn’t know shit. I’m not fucking crazy.”

“Don’t talk about Abuela like that,” Moni says, oddly defensively. “I never said either of you was crazy.”

“Well good, because I’m not. Whatever Abuela has, I don’t, okay?”

“Whatever you say, primo.” She sucks on the blunt for a moment, then hands it back to me.

I roll my eyes and take another puff, letting the smoke fill my lungs and empty my irritation, and it works.

“I’m worried about Abuela, though,” Moni admits.

“Why?” I ask.

“She’s lonely, I think. Both times I got sent here, she puts on an act like I’m in trouble, but it never lasts. She likes

the company, I think.”

“Can you blame her? She’s retired and lives here by herself. She’s probably bored out of her mind when we’re not here.”

Moni inhales, then hums on the exhale, smoke blowing out of her nostrils. “Too bad she hates romance, or I’d be trying to

set her up.”

“What do you mean she hates romance?” I ask. The way she talks about how in love she used to be and how getting her hair braided

helped her fall asleep, I thought she’d be pining for that kind of love again.

“She got her heart broken, you know? I’m sure that kind of thing changes you.”

I nod. I guess I can understand. There was a time when I loved being in love. If someone told me then that I would willingly