Why Did I Ever. Mary Robison

her.

      “Just mistakes I make,” she says. “Like I left the kitchen thing burning again. On the what’s-it-called? Not the dashboard.”

      “The oven top. Coil stove. The burners,” I say. “But everybody does that. How long did you leave it on?”

      “Since the other night, I guess, when I was making fudge.”

      I scoot her over so I can sit down. “Well, it’s happened to me,” I say. “Never for days on end, that I recall.”

      “You want to go somewhere and eat?” she asks.

      “Sure.”

      “O.K., good,” she says. “Where do you want to go?”

      “Oh, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. Anyplace is fine.”

      She says, “Then let’s just go to the city dump and eat rats! All we have to do is catch them.”

      38

      We end up at the River Cafe on Science Street. Who works here according to their name tags are Toadstool and Paranoid Phil.

      My Asparagus Tips Casserole has no asparagus.

      “How’re you doing?” the two servers ask me.

      They must mean with this food.

      “You guys are spoiling me,” I say.

      39

      Across from us is the cashier’s counter. There, a girl in a black T-shirt stenciled with the word “Jezebel” is wagging her head at a woman in a muumuu who’s sadly, slowly, reluctantly writing a check.

      Now a squat fellow appears outside the place and squints at the door menu. He wanders off, comes back, reads the menu some more, wanders off.

      Lollipops Are Only for the Kids Who Had Shots

      Most of the movie studios have fired me. The William Morris Agency just fired me. Two of their agents on a conference line regretted that maybe they’ve been holding me back. They’ve fired me so they won’t hold me back anymore.

      Now I couldn’t be happier because here’s what I get to do: Run the bathroom tap water until it’s really cold, plug the tub up and fill it to the brim, and then into the chilly water plunge the Umani Fax Machine, the Sukosonic modem, the 1309 Phone Mail System, the beeper.

      “Good-bye. Go to hell,” I say to them.

      Mercury Brothers is about the only studio I have left. Mercury Brothers and their producer witch, Belinda.

      There Is No They

      “It’ll never change,” Hollis says, beside me in the car. “No matter how long we sit here, it’ll still be a stop sign.”

      Hollis is a Driver’s Ed. instructor. I say, “So this is what it must be like to study under you.”

      He sips noisily to the end of his lime drink, now sends the jumbo paper cup flying from the car window.

      He is just coming up with shit. He says, “At least I made you stop dyeing your hair. That purple shoeshine color or what was it? Remember?”

      “No,” I say. “And I believe I would.”

      42

      I would say to this or that ex: “Maybe I didn’t understand you or pay enough attention. There was a little bridge or something I failed to cross over. It was on the day you helped me wax the hallway and the little stairs, when you said to me, ‘The floor will be dry in a minute.’ Between the time you said that and when you asked me, ‘Do you think my pubic hair’s such an unusual color?’”

      And Another Thing

      I have now done Blockbuster. Little Dorrit, Parts One and Two.

      44

      I’m pressed up against a telephone pole, nailing it with a poster of my missing cat.

      Now I’m bustling off, for I’ve noticed the Ichabod landlord working in the bushes. He strictly does not allow pets.

      Now I’m at the next pole making a loud production of nailing Flower Girl’s poster because I know right from wrong and my dealings with the landlord are less important than the swift return of my cat.

      45

      Through the window is a lavender sky and a red orb of sun and the Deaf Lady out there with a half-filled air balloon. She’s staring ahead, her cheeks flushed, her eyes intense, readying herself to pump up the rest of it.

      Inside here is Hollis, and the clock, and the “wick-wick” of the ceiling fan, and the television left going out on the sun porch, transmitting the voice of Paul Newman in Hud.

      “Hollis,” I say. “On that thing we were discussing. What are my other choices?”

      He blows a smoke ring into the reach of the fan. “No others,” he says. “You don’t get any more.”

      I gaze at the fireplace, at its yellow-tiled face, at the mantel, with its huddle of red votive candles.

      He can never just answer me. If I ask, “How’re you doing?” he asks, “Compared to whom?” I ask, “May I tell you something?” and he says, “Still America.” That is what I have to put up with, day, after day, after day.

      Chapter Two

      Life in the Car

      I drive all over the American South, all night long, and nobody gives me trouble.

      Maybe this farmer would but I buzz down my window and scream at him, “Remember Goat’s Head Soup? What an album! To my mind, it is worth hearing again!”

      47

      Couples, in the cars on this interstate, I think, “Ugh. They are stuck.” I think the women must envy me, driving a hundred and five with nobody saying not to, barefoot and chain smoking and squawking along to a song.

      And Yet

      Overconfidence is a mistake for me. Not a big one, but it kicks open the door for several others.

      49

      Now I don’t care about sitting up straight and I’m going to break speed records in Alabama.

      Or no I am not, because the U.S. Army is in front of me. You would think that the Army would drive very fast. Not so, at least not in peace time. Good, one more reason to hate the Army. They’re holding me up.

      50

      Here’s a sign that reads: “pork!” Some signs aren’t there to make you happy.

      51

      In sleepiness, I see a rabble of dogs in a steamy heath, their hard-featured faces mottled with light from the yellow moon. I wonder if my cat’s sleeping somewhere, if she’s dreaming.

      There could be nothing worse than wondering about my son Paulie’s dreams.

      52

      “work for us” reads the purple neon writing over a trucker’s garage.

      I say, “Thanks, but I just want to drive right now.”

      53

      Paulie’s hands. They’re large to begin with, and make him bashful and can sometimes seem in his way. Now he has, in reaction to some goop he’s taking, a rash and must wear white gloves. Big ridiculous gloves. So it’s even more like he’s in a cartoon.

      Turn Off the Radio

      There are alcoholics all over the South. Many of them are inside the cars on this same highway. The alcoholics left over are minding the store.

      55

      My wheel explodes as I’m ripping past Mobile. The drunk road workers left a concrete chunk of debris out for me, smack-dab in the center of the interstate.

      But