Why Did I Ever. Mary Robison

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СКАЧАТЬ it. It’s what I tell people, anyway.

      18

      I call my doctor’s office to ask for some Ritalin. His nurse answers and says, “This is Annabelle. According to our records, you’re not due for a prescription at this time.”

      I say, “Annabelle, this is not what it appears.”

      “Oh?” she says and waits because she was trained to wait and force me to do the synopsizing.

      I will take that challenge. “There was a series of mishaps,” I tell her. “Some were spilled at the sink or ruined by moisture. Then a vial I use for travel got mislaid and they’re gone. I’m out,” I say. “Who can explain it?”

      But I’m a stupid woman for asking that question. Nurse Annabelle can explain what happened to my drugs.

      Without Ritalin I can sustain an evil thought or two, such as: “That there feels like cancer of the esophagus.” However, I’m liable to skip over more routine kinds of thinking, such as, “Move up in line here,” or “Steer.”

      So I’m in bed. I’m in bed unless Dr. Rex himself calls to inform me he’s written new prescriptions.

      More emphatically, I am in bed until.

      19

      I notice on the news when they’re interviewing people, there’s an attractive man in Chicago. His name goes by too fast but I’d know the guy if I saw him again.

      Empty Your Pockets

      I hate Bell South and so raise my voice and warn their representatives that I will take my business elsewhere.

      I mention this to Hollis and tell him of the many new friends I have made—others who were present in the Bell South office, customers who overheard my threat. These are the same people who feel shamefaced, I explain, for falling behind in their phone service payments.

      “Well . . . ,” Hollis begins. Ah, but I have my eye on him.

      21

      Now he and I are watching some men with a ball. No matter the shape or size of the ball, what team or for what country the men fight. The TV is showing men with a ball so we’re watching.

      22

      “In my head,” I tell him, “are the works of John Philip Sousa. And so loud that at first I thought the high school’s band was practicing. I went and checked outside. I don’t even know the words to ‘It’s a Grand Old Flag.’”

      “Oh, come on,” says he. “‘It’s a grand old flag, dunt dunt high-flying flag. Dunt dunt duh, dunt dunt duh, dunt dunt duhhh.’”

      23

      There are real and scary sounds from outside my place. They are like a woman running.

      While I have the door opened an inch, trying to see what’s what, Flower Girl my cat skitters out.

      And now the running woman is gone.

      I call 911 but hang up when the operator asks whether I’m phoning from a home or a residence.

      There’s disorder out there under the traffic light. At the intersection, a bread truck has been tipped up onto its nose and then—it would seem—hammered.

      Hollis crowds me for a view through the window.

      I say to him, “See that girl behind everything? In the pink midi-top?”

      I say, “Suppose you were standing next to that girl. You wouldn’t reach out and grab her breasts, now would you?”

      He takes a drink from his bottle of red vegetable juice. Wags his head, no.

      “You’d behave decently toward her and uphold your own personal standards, correct?”

      His head moves, yes.

      I say, “O.K., then let’s start all over at the beginning. Because I still really believe in my heart that men can be educated.”

      “That’s a Roman Meal bread truck,” he says, “that got hit. You want me to go see if I can snick us a couple of loaves?”

      I Should Be Going

      I take a lengthy drive in case there’s some music I want to buy.

      I drive to Montgomery, Alabama—thousands of miles from my home. It’s three or four or five in the morning. All that’s open here is a Wal-Mart and the very best music they’re selling is an old Michael Jackson single, “Blood on the Dance Floor.”

      Which, it turns out, isn’t so bad. Especially if you eliminate the treble.

      The police think it’s bad. Their patrol car slows as they ride alongside me. They shine a light, bark a warning. I click the sound down. They surge ahead. I switch the sound up loud again. The patrol car slows, same flashlight, same warning.

      I’m tempted but I dissuade myself from going through it all a third time. My excuses are just excuses and they are not good enough.

      25

      I get lost driving back and do the same exits and merges for hours and hours. I wonder if an aerial view of me might be fun to watch.

      And now I’ve made an error and there are eighteen-wheelers stopped ahead of me, eighteen-wheelers behind. And not for a great long while will I be released from the lineup for this weigh station.

      Could Stand Here for Hours

      “You need more than just the bangs cut,” says the hair stylist. “You look like Cochise.”

      And I see in the restroom mirror as I’m drawing on lipstick that I don’t want my mouth. I say, “Don’t ever use a straw again. Don’t whistle. Or whisper. Or say ‘What,’ or ‘Who.’”

      27

      I do know some horrible stories. One story about my son may never have an end to it. Or the story will have an end I don’t want to know because it’s horrible. Want to or not, I have to wait, wait, wait.

      28

      Both my kids have flame-glo hair and turquoise eyes. One summer after they had earned all their college degrees, they found work doing the cake displays in a bakery and we had sweets to eat. That was in D.C. or someplace we lived then.

      Mev went on to a job carving wooden forks and spoons. Paulie moved to New York and, I believe, checked skates at the counter in Roller World.

      29

      Here now is Mev, on the walkway, her face fired green from the sun through the trees. She’s standing lopsided, with her arms raised unevenly in question. She asks, “How is it that with red Rit dye, the stuff always comes out that Krishna color?”

      “I’m to blame for that,” I say. “It’s because you’re your mother’s daughter.”

      “Wow,” СКАЧАТЬ