“I’m going to wind up in the loony bin if she stays here one more night. Do you know what it is to lose a son?”
“Please,” my father asked. “Don’t rush me. I’m just beginning to enjoy losing my wife.”
Before I hung up, I got my dad to promise to cal my mom at work before the day was over. I fil ed a backpack with my lubes and condoms and stuck it as far back as it would go in the cabinet under the kitchen sink.
The phone rang. Cal er ID told me it was Tony.
Did I want to pick up? Yes.
“Hey.”
“You didn’t return my cal,” Tony said.
“I just got in.”
“Where were you?”
“What are you, my keeper?”
“Just concerned.”
“Oh.” That sounded nice coming from him. “I’m fine. You should have tried my cel.” I told him about the reading of Al en’s wil.
“Huh,” Tony said, “they sound like the family from hel.”
“It was pretty grisly.”
“If you go to the funeral, you’l have to see them again,” Tony said.
I told him that there wasn’t even going to be a funeral.
“That’s pretty cold,” Tony said. “I guess they real y did hate him.”
“See?” I asked
“Denying him a funeral isn’t the same as kil ing him, Kevin.”
“I got the feeling they couldn’t wait to cremate him.
Guess he wasn’t dead enough, huh?”
“Yeah, wel, you can’t kil the past.”
“You sound like you’re talking from experience,” I said.
“You ought to know,” Tony answered.
Yeah, I did.
“There were about a mil ion reasons why I wasn’t happy to find my mother in my apartment last night,” I told him. “Want to guess the biggest one?”
“Hey, watch that mouth. I’m at work.”
“Come on over. You can watch my mouth.”
“Enough,” he said in the cop voice I suspected he used in the interrogation room. “Listen, about what you said before…”
“About last night?”
“About trying to solve Al en’s ‘murder.’ Just walk away, Kevin.”
“I’l think about it.”
“Don’t think, do. And stay away from the Harringtons. They sound nuts, and nuts can be dangerous.”
“Then I better stay away from my mother, too.”
“That goes without saying. So, I have a question for you: How much do you think Al en left you?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A couple of thousand?”
“Huh. An inheritance. Know what that makes you?”
“Grateful?”
“A suspect.” Tony, sounding glad for once to have the last word, hung up.
I lay down on my couch with a groan. Now I was a murder suspect. Great.
I was tired, stressed, and hungry. I started to think about the day’s events, but that hurt my brain. So, I opted for my own personal form of meditation: Replaying The Way We Were, scene by scene, in my head. Fade in: A young, unconventional y attractive Jewish girl hands out flyers at a protest ral y…
Two hours later, I was awakened by the sound of my front door rattling. Someone was trying to get in.
There was enough weirdness and violence in my life lately that I felt even more than my usual New York paranoia. I sat up quickly, becoming aware of both a stiff back and an attractive crust of dried drool on my cheek.
I ran to the door and looked through the peephole.
I could see the top of someone’s head, but he or she was standing too close for me to see who it was. I leaned in closer just as the door swung open and knocked me on my ass.
“Ow!”
“Damn key keeps getting stuck,” my mother greeted me. “You real y should have the super look at it. Never mind, I’l tel him. I want to talk to him about getting another rod instal ed in the closet, anyway. And maybe a nice shower head. One of those that rain on you, you know? What are you doing on the floor?”
I stood up to give her a hug. I didn’t want her living with me, but she was stil my mother. “Hi.”
“Hi, yourself.” She took my face in her hands.
“Sweet boy. What’s that on your face.” She licked her thumb and reached out to swab my cheek.
“Drool,” I said, jumping back. “And keep that thumb to yourself.”
“You always did drool a lot,” she said, coming in and taking off her shoes. “And not just when you were a baby, either. I remember you were in the first grade, and your teacher asked me what we were giving you to drink at home because your chin was always wet and covered in…”
“Enough!” I shouted. “As charming as this trip down memory lane is, can we skip any more stories about my bodily functions?” I fol owed her as she walked into my kitchen.
“Oh, please, don’t even get me started on your poopies! I remember one day, oh, you must have been three years old, I had you dressed in the cutest white outfit and…”
I picked a knife off the counter and pointed it at my chest. “That’s it. I’m cutting my heart out right now.”
My mother opened up the refrigerator. “Don’t be such a drama queen.”
“‘Drama queen?’”
“I run a beauty shop, darling. I can talk gay. And there’s stil nothing to eat in this thing.”
“I go out a lot.”
“Tel you what,” my mother said. “How about we hop in my car, drive out to somewhere where there are real supermarkets, Queens or Brooklyn or something, and go shopping. Let’s pretend real people live in this apartment.”
“I don’t cook.”
“I’l cook.” She walked over to the stove. “Does this thing actual y work, or is it just for show?” She turned the dial and the pilot light caught. “Hal elujah!
We have fire! Now I know how the cavemen felt.”
The truth was, my mom’s cooking didn’t sound half bad. Neither did a ful y-stocked kitchen. I didn’t have a client tonight, or any other plans, either. I was thinking of staring at the phone al night hoping Tony might cal, but I could always do that tomorrow.
Besides, she’d be a captive audience on the car ride, and I could use the time to plead my father’s innocence.
Four hours later, I was fat and happy sitting at my computer. My mother was in the bedroom watching Matlock or something.
It had been a fun evening. Although I didn’t get anywhere on the Dottie Kubacki front, (“I know what I know and don’t ask me what I know, al right?”) we did tear up the supermarket and fil ed my cupboards with more food than I knew they could hold. The apartment stil smel ed of her signature liver with cabbage and onions, which sounds disgusting but is real y delicious. And there was stil about ten pounds left over for tomorrow.
The evening made me remember that when I wasn’t embarrassed or overwhelmed by my mother, she was pretty good company.
A stocked kitchen. Home cooking. A shower that rained on me. Maybe having her here for awhile wasn’t going to be so bad.
“Hey,” my mother’s voice came from the bedroom.
“Where’s that magazine I was reading last night?”
“What magazine?” I asked her.
“The one in your nightstand. With al the naked men.”
Oh. My. God.
She had to go.
I was typing the phrase “how to kil your mother” into Google when I got an instant message: “R u free?”
It was from Marc Wilgus, one of my favorite clients. I typed back “I’m available, but never ‘free.’”
“LOL,” Marc replied. “Seriously. I’m bored amp; horny. Wanna cum over?”
Marc was a great guy, and sex with him was always fun. I’d do him for free, although I wasn’t about to tel him that.
“C u in 20,” I answered. I didn’t want to interrupt my mother’s show, so I left her a note saying that I was meeting some friends.
Marc opened his door and immediately pul ed me inside, pinning me against the wal and kissing me hard and deep.
It was probably the movie Pretty Woman that popularized the myth that prostitutes don’t kiss. Think about it: Does it real y make sense that a hooker would suck Richard Gere’s dick but not make out with him?
In fact, it’s our clients who usual y avoid the lip lock. If a guy wants to kiss me, and if he’s clean and doesn’t have bad breath, I’m not adverse to some tonsil hockey.