Page 25 of Margo's Got Money Troubles

“Kayfabe,” he said, shrugging. Kayfabe was a wrestling term that meant roughly “staying in character.” If you got hurt in the ring as part of a work, you might wear a cast in real life, for example.

“You were kayfabing your street clothes?”

“Of course. Everyone kayfabes their street clothes.”

“I thought you just dressed that way.”

“Honestly, I’ve been dressing like that for so many years, I have no idea how I dress now. But for cleaning house, this is better. Because of the bleach. You think you haven’t gotten any on yourself, but of course you have. I can’t tell you how many shirts I’ve ruined.”

Next was the kitchen, where he cleaned the stove, lifting off grates I’d assumed were attached, making parts of the stove white I hadn’t known were meant to be white. As he scrubbed and scoured, he listened to the dirtiest rap music I’d ever heard, just blasting, Almost drowned in her pussy, so I swam to her butt. What did that mean, Lil Wayne? The only way that lyric made any sense was if he had been shrunk down Magic School Bus–style.

I didn’t know my father even listened to rap music, but he seemed to follow the careers and releases of even obscure artists. When he found out I didn’t know who J Dilla was, he almost collapsed. It became a kind of game between us: “Who is this?” I would ask, and he’d say, “This is Maxo Kream, he’s from Houston, he’d released some mixtapes before, but in January he released his first full album, and the kid has serious storytelling chops,” all the while loading non-dish items he had collected from around the house into the dishwasher to sterilize them: hairbrushes and combs, Bodhi’s teething rings, the cup that held the toothbrushes, and all the knobs and handles from the kitchen cabinets, which he had unscrewed.

“Have you ever heard of a game called Fortnite?” I asked him.

He began doing a dance where he swung his arms in front and then behind his body in a confusing way. “Who hasn’t?” he said.

“Me, I guess.” I had tried to play Fortnite a couple of times since watching Arabella, stunned that it was completely free, and been horrified by how bad I was, getting shot in the back of the head while I was trying to figure out how to open a door, accidentally walking off the roofs of buildings and dying from fall damage. I played on my phone while Bodhi napped, desperate to somehow become part of that world.

One day about fifteen boxes of books were delivered. “Cheri wanted the space,” Jinx said, as he watched me drag them into his room. Neither of us wanted him to reinjure his back, though I could tell it pained him to let me do it.

“You should get some bookcases,” I said.

“I hate bookcases,” he said.

When he unpacked the boxes, he stacked the books waist-high around the perimeter of the room organized by size. He still hadn’t gotten a bed and simply slept in a maroon sleeping bag on the floor. He claimed this was good for his back, though he was visibly stiff and in pain, and I didn’t see how sleeping on the floor could be helping. But when had my father ever not been stiff and in pain? From my earliest memory he smelled strongly of Icy Hot.

It wasn’t clear to me if Jinx was okay or if I should worry. It was sort of like adopting an exotic pet you had no idea how to care for. Did he have OCD? He didn’t seem phobic of dirt exactly; if anything there was an almost lusty quality to the way he cleaned the bathroom drain, a disturbing glee at the glops of gunky hair he pulled out. I asked Suzie if she thought it was weird, if maybe there was something wrong with him. “Let him clean,” she said. “It’s fucking great.”

“But is it unhealthy?” I asked.

“I mean, he’s just lost his wife, his family, his career. If this is his coping mechanism, it seems pretty harmless to me. Do you think he would buy us beer?”

Margo kept going back to OnlyFans. The money from Mark’s mother was somehow already half gone, just from rent and life and a couple of hospital bills from Bodhi’s birth. She couldn’t ever be like Arabella, but the other accounts she followed still seemed to be doing okay, and she was positive she could replicate what they were doing. They didn’t even seem to be famous.

If she was going to transition from a user to a creator and start charging money, she’d have to fill her feed with photos as quickly as possible so if anyone became her fan, they’d have access to at least ten or twelve images. No one wanted to pay fifteen dollars to see one lonely picture. So during Jinx’s manic bouts of cleaning, Margo was mostly locked in her bedroom, trying to take pictures of her tits.

She ran up against the limitations of the genre almost immediately. She had only so many body parts and so many angles. Variety would have to come from somewhere else apparently—outfits, locations, a tripod so she could change up her poses more.

In the first series of photos she took, her tits looked like they were exploding from her bra like a can of crescent rolls after you’ve smacked it against the counter. All her bras from before she had Bodhi were too small now. She needed to buy lingerie, but the idea of going to Victoria’s Secret and spending a fortune made her sick to her stomach. Finally, she had the inspired idea to take pictures in the shower, giving up the bra entirely, and the even better idea to smear her tits in Vaseline so the water would bead on them.

You were supposed to write a little description about the kind of content subscribers could expect on your page in your bio. Margo was struggling to write it and wound up searching for more accounts to see how other girls were doing it. Again, she had to go through Instagram or Twitter. Why did OnlyFans make it so difficult to find new accounts to follow? It was madness! Twitter was how she found WangMangler99, who was fierce and dark haired and as small as a child, but with giant boobs. Her profile picture showed her next to a refrigerator for scale, and a lot of her posts centered on her tininess: holding her bare foot up next to a Coke can, or sitting in an ordinary dining room chair, feet dangling without touching the ground, or else making weird hentai orgasm faces, eyes crossed. Her OnlyFans bio read as follows: “Feed is NSFW, expect to see tits and ass, if you want to see more, you pay more. I also rate dicks. If you want to get your wang mangled, send me a dick pic and a $20 tip, and I’ll send you a critique. This is not an account where I will pretend to love you. The only man I will ever love is Goku.”

Margo was astounded people would pay twenty dollars to have their dick insulted. Though, if you were worried it was small or ugly, maybe it was better to know for sure. But she still didn’t like the idea, which was why in her bio she wrote: “Lonely, hot girl in financial free fall, please help me make rent this month. I’m new at this and I show boobs and butt, but haven’t worked up the courage to show more. Maybe you can encourage me? I also rate dicks. If you want to find out what Pokémon your dick most resembles and what attacks it might have, send me a $20 tip and I’ll provide a full write-up.”

For two days nothing happened, and Margo felt stupid for starting the account, because of course nothing had happened; how would anyone find her? OnlyFans made it impossible! She was also distracted because something was clearly happening to Jinx. His cleaning mania had ended, and now he spent almost all day locked in his room. “Are you okay?” she asked him one evening when he finally emerged. He had even procured an electric kettle, allowing him to make tea in there. Maybe that’s what had been making him come out all along: his intense need to boil water.

“Yeah, it’s, uh, I think it’s brain chemistry stuff. I probably should work out, that always helps, I just don’t want to get injured, so I... I don’t know.” He’d stopped shaving his head and had wiry tufts above his ears.

“Are you going to look for a job?” she asked. Margo had no idea about his financial situation. She assumed he had plenty of money but thought he could use a project.

“I would probably have to travel, and I don’t know that I’m stable enough for that yet.”

“What about volunteering?”

He looked at her as if he had no idea what she was saying. “At what?”

“I don’t know, like at the library? Or...?”

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