I Annotate a Letter from My Latest Aunt
by Z.H. Gill
My latest aunt—Uncle Jamie’s fifth wife and very freshest beard—left for me lengthy typed instructions in a stern manila envelope set atop the California king in what was to be my (otherwise spartan) guest-suite for the next ten days:
GREETINGS, ZEKE 1!
Welcome to our beautiful home2. (I hope you think so, too, that it is beautiful3, and do not mind my saying so, either. We broke our backs, with much aplomb and zeal, to make it this way. Enjoy it, please. Part of why I so wished for you to come and help us4—and there is no doubt about that, you are helping us immensely—is so you may enjoy yourself here as you never have previously5 (especially as you prepare to leave the region for an indefinite time6); after all, this house is one of the only places, likely the only one, in this too-big world where I can totally relax, drop guard.) There is enough food for a stay three times as long as yours in the pantries, refrigerator, and freezer with which to prepare and cook yourself for your ten days here. (Might I remind you, you have agreed to stay on until the 21st7.) There is also cash in an envelope in the drawer in the kitchen (the same chamber accommodating the aforementioned pantries, refrigerator, and freezer) to the left of the dishwasher, the drawer filled with paper detritus, take-out esoterica, irrelevant bills and the like8. Rest assured, the cash-filled envelope is atop this pile, it will be the first thing you see when you open the drawer—it has your name on it in capital letters, black felt tip pen. You can use this cash (and relevant take-out materials beneath) to endure some of the local delivered cuisine, or you can prepare/cook for yourself the aforementioned foodstuffs and pocket the extra cash for some cool shoes or whatever it is you like. Just clean up after yourself semi-judiciously, whichever route you choose (I suspect some combination of both?), even if this all occurs in one frenzied rush the evening before my and your Uncle Jamie’s return9. And drink whatever you like, too, we’re quitting10.
I implore you to tackle a few repetitive tasks each day, nothing so bothersome. You will feed the animals. I have left an addendum to this manual regarding the process. (Unfortunately, it is trickier than you might think, which I realize directly contradicts my immediately prior sentiment.) You’ll water the orchid on my desk in the garage twice, on your second and second-to-last days here. You’ll water the succulents in Jamie’s study just once, halfway through your stay; he will leave you a more detailed set of procedures11, I’d imagine he will leave them for you on his desk in his study, which surely you cannot miss12. (Please defer to him also on matters of his study13 in general.)
I’m sure you own any number of belongings which provide you considerable pain when touched by another14. I do, as well. They are as follows: in the garage, my bicycle (though you are permitted to use your uncle’s mountain bike) and my oil paintings; in the kitchen, the Suisin knives hanging on the magnetized rack drilled into the wall to the right of the sink (there are knives in the drawer below them far more suitable to your needs); any of my records in the rec room—I mean it, they are nearly all first pressings/imports15, fine speakers are wired throughout the house for connectivity with your phone, play your music this way, I must insist; and just stay out of the master, period, only go in if you fail in locating Gertrude at her mealtimes, sometimes she lingers beneath our bed. (I address this further in the animal feeding addendum16.)
Jamie said something about borrowing the car. You are not insured to drive it, so please do not do this17. Must you venture out into the world, we shall reimburse your use of any rideshare services. Or you can call your friends to pick you up. That being said, I expect you to find the house much more tolerable than the rest of Valencia, Newhall, and Santa Clarita18. I know I don’t know you so well (yet!), but I’m certain of this. And please do not have more than two or three guests in the house at I time. I’ve come to terms with this. I know it is improper for a person to spend such a portion of a month without company. Just don’t go crazy. (Remember, there are cameras throughout the house I can access from anywhere with wifi or cellular service19.) (I am sorry to come off like such a buzzkill. When you own property one day20, you will understand.)
Early in your stay, you must introduce yourself to Sam next door (to the right when you leave through the front door, not to the left21). He is one of the few even-tempered folks around here. His wife Marianne is lovely, but usually she is out of the country on business (as she will be through the duration of your stay here). Sam is expecting you and can offer much of what we lack here—I am told, for instance, that he has the most awe-inspiring humidor in LA county, for one thing, if that’s tempting to you22. Draft beer in his back house, also23. He’s a half-retired tech-something with too much time on his hands, bug him all you want.
What else is there? Arm the alarm system each time you step out. Deactivate when you return or I will get a call—remember, my trip is supposed to be recuperative for me. But it wouldn’t be the end of the world, either, so long as you keep the prowlers away24. Also, please do not wear my clothes. It is the year that it is, I do not know you, your proclivities, whatever they are, do not concern me25, but my clothes are a red line. This of course includes my shoes!
That should really be it, aside from the animal feeding addendum below26. Once again, I thank you for what you are doing. Your assistance in our brief escape is, quite literally, life saving for myself and for Jamie. (I expect you’ll hear from him soon, if he hasn’t already left you a detailed impression in his study.) I’ve also left you two tickets to Six Flags27, they’re magnetized to the refrigerator.
Rock on, Zeke—
AUNT (!28) TASH
PHONE #S
ME: 805-___-____
JAMIE: 310-___-____
WIFI PASSWORD: $aintg3rtrud3
ANIMAL FEEDING ADDENDUM—
Wallace—the feeding machine is set for him. All you need to do is check that it’s working and also that he’s eating the food it’s feeding him. You’ll need to refill his water bowl, but only every three or four days, most likely; he should really drink more water.
Aquarium in study—food in cabinet beneath (in closet29). Just give them three or four big pinches of it each day in the late afternoon/early evening. Sometimes Jamie forgets to feed them for two or three days and nothing comes of it. They are a resilient bunch, the fish.
Gertrude30—I’m afraid it’s more involved with my darling. She hasn’t been eating well. She hasn’t been eating much at all lately. No doctor can tell us why. No test has raised any concern, other than from indicators of malnourishment. It is psychological then. Every morning of your stay, right after you wake up, you shall fill her bowl in the kitchen anteroom with dry kibble. The kitchen anteroom has, essentially, become Gertrude’s room, her doctor suggested privacy would aid mealtime and his general aloofness has been vindicated so far by this directive. Each evening, after sundown, you’ll mix what’s left of it with a tin of wet food—bag of kibble and tins both in cabinet under kitchen sink. If she goes an entire day without eating—you must monitor this!—you’ll need to give her her gabapentin, I’ve left a canister of it in the medicine cabinet of the guest suite bathroom (so please do not ruffle through ours!!!31). You’ll need to wrap it in a Kraft Single from the refrigerator. This is consistently all she’ll eat, and it is not good for her, obviously. I have tried to limit her from heavily processed foods as much as possible throughout her whole life—she has been with me since she was eight weeks old. But we cannot allow her to starve herself. Something has altered in her disposition. I adore her like she sprung from me but it is hard to explain. Maybe you will be able to name it better than I can32. She’ll shovel down the cheese-wrapped pills and slobber all over the floors—don’t worry about this, and it will get cleaned up by Lara, who comes twice a week, though I’ve instructed her to not go especially out of her way to pick up after you33—and she will likely not eat for the rest of the night, but when she awakens, whenever that is, she will eat whatever’s left in her bowl in the kitchen anteroom, I promise you. Do not be alarmed34. And remember: my phone number is listed above if you have any questions for me. Thank you again, Zeke! I’ve never been apart from Gertrude for this long since we first became a “unit” all those years ago, so I hope you can pardon—and even accept—my militancy35. Ciao, nephew (!36), may you soothe your aching feet and calves37.
1. That’s me!
2. ___ Barryton Lane. What sort of Dickensian-ass name is Barryton Lane? It’s quiet here, at least—the air smells sharply of dust and gasoline.
3. I do not.
4. I’ve met Aunt Tash only twice before, once at Thanksgiving last year—which I remember really well, it was the first one I wasn’t totally hammered at since age 15—and once before that at my brother’s college graduation for like five minutes. She’s nice enough. Librarian vibes. Talked to me about The Prisoner over pumpkin pie. She works for the city of Santa Clarita. I don’t know what she does for them.
5. I wonder what exactly Uncle Jamie’s said to her. He’s the only one in my family I’ve come out to. (Partly because he’s definitely 1000% a queen, everybody says so—including myself.)
6. I’m leaving LA for a job opportunity out in Ukiah. Admin stuff in a drug counseling center. Whatever you do, don’t study creative writing. Whatever you do. It is functionally useless (and all the more so at the undergraduate level, I have learned)—the professors butter you up and then they meddle in your life; your peers are the worst in the world; nothing comes of anything. And it’s not like I’ve written a book. Plus, every boss I’ve ever had would have treated me far kindlier, with at least a modicum of some greater patience, had I studied anything else, or at least claimed I had. But I never lie. I’m not clever enough to. And at least they know not to get attached. They know I’m mostly elsewhere. And this can have its advantages.
7. I’ll bring home a different guy every night, pretend it’s my place— an effing palace, My Own Private McMansion.
8. She writes kind of like how my uncle talks. Maybe they’re meant to be after all.
9. Here she gazes deep into my soul.
10. On it.
11. If he has, they’re nowhere to be found.
12. Nope, not there.
13. The air in my uncle’s study is warm, bone-dry but not unpleasant. The room is pretty tasteful, certainly closer to my liking than the rest of the house’s decor, swapping stuffy Restoration Hardware for actual antiques and other bespoke pieces, paintings, the ancient-looking oak desk, the handsome custom shelves, and the lime-green upholstered armchair, together all producing an effect that’s eclectic, even comforting, and barely garish in a chamber larger than my parents’ two-car garage. The walls—the little of them exposed between the visual the bookshelves and artworks—are lacquered red, almost crimson, a peppery shade one would expect to find lining a bordello or an upscale opium den. Just one mysteriously locked door, a second closet perhaps? The bottom of the bookshelf next to the television has all of Uncle Jamie’s real heat: Clarissa, those giant Grove Press Sade collections, some Henry Miller, Delaney’s Hogg.
14. Maybe. Not sure I’d put it like that, though. That’s me!
15. This just isn’t fair.
16. Yippee!
17. I crashed my car recently. Totaled it. I tell everyone the road was slick—and it was raining, I wasn’t lying about that—but what I don’t say is that I was holding my phone up in one hand as I took the curve, filming out the windshield and blasting PJ Harvey for an Instagram story. I deleted the footage, anyway.
18. She’s not wrong!
19. Reminder to myself to track these down.
20. The most implausible line in this entire schizoid missive is that she thinks I’ll ever own property. I guess I should be flattered.
21. I guess I’ll be getting gay vibes from every man in a heterosexual marriage in Valencia, CA.
22. Sounds okay to me!
23. This is definitely more my thing, though.
24. I for one would love to meet the prowlers around here.
25. Maybe they do have some sort of understanding.
26. This “Animal Feeding Addendum” looms over me like a gallows.
27. That’s Six Flags Magic Mountain—one of my favorite dumps in the whole wide world. 20 different roller coasters—a world record, I think—to realign your every vertebra. I’ve always fantasized about winning the lottery and buying it and re-theming to Thomas Mann’s novel The Magic Mountain, turning it into the world’s first joint-theme-park-and-functioning-sanitorium.
28. I wonder how long she’ll last. I wonder if I can name all of Uncle Jamie’s previous exes. Sure I can: there’s Wife One, Matilda. They were married before I was born. Wife Two, Temple. Intense name for a person. She was a scientist at JPL, maybe she is still. If I ever met her, I was one or two. Wife Three I met many times, her name’s Rebecca. Never liked her too much. She came to see me play the baritone when I was in sixth grade and left halfway through the recital. Now I’m sure we the sixth graders of Brass Band were sucking shit, but that’s not exactly nurturing behavior either. (Funnily enough, I did quit Brass Band after that trimester, but mostly because I’d discovered marijuana.) She left Uncle Jamie because she wanted a family and he didn’t, I don’t know the mechanics of it. She has a family now in Florida. I hope she’s nicer to her kids about their musical interests than she was with me. Finally, there’s Francesca, Wife Four. I was at that wedding, the only one of Jamie’s, actually, since he and Tash eloped. They split after the honeymoon. I only talked to her for five minutes, zonked out of my mind, so it’d be unfair for me to have really any opinion of her. (I blew a waiter in the bathroom that night. He gave me a fake number afterward.)
29. To feed the fish I actually have to enter a narrow closet that takes me behind Uncle Jamie’s custom smut-filled bookshelves, guided though past hanging robes and fuzzy shoes by the blue light of the fish tank and onto stepladder. I give the fish their pinches of the salt-smelling flakes, smithereens of less fortunate fish; if they are grateful, they do not make me aware of it. I slink back through the pitch-dark closet, which is lined on the ground with hazardous plastic bags of unopened shit, as so many closets of our most comfortable are. I almost snap my neck across a paper Whole Foods bag stuffed with a silver Diesel clutch and still-tethered bunches of Lululemon socks, and then I’m in the warm, easy light of the study once again.
30. I’ve been here for several hours now—there’s no sign of Gertrude anywhere so far…
31. There’s got to be some Ambien (or better) in there with this many exclamation points.
32. I doubt it.
33. If I were Aunt Tash, I’d probably instruct this Lara not to go especially out of her way to pick up after me, too. I’m not joking around here—on some level this is one of the most agreeable things Tash has said in all of whatever this is.
34. Honestly, I’m pretty alarmed, this Gertrude’s sort of scaring the shit out of me. (There’s a reason I’ve never had a pet!)
35. I accept you, Aunt Tash. I think.
36. Ciao, mia zia.
37. Sheesh…but it’s the thought that counts.
Z.H. Gill lives in Hollywood, CA, with his cat Hans. He edits Burial Magazine.