Kamby Bolongo Mean River
by Robert Lopez
Kamby Bolongo Mean River
Should the phone ring I will answer it. I will say the hello how are you and wait for a response. I will listen to what the person on the other end says. I will listen to the words. Sometimes I don't listen. Sometimes I wait until the person finishes answering the hello how are you so I can say whatever it is I'd been saying to myself before the phone rang.
What I say to myself usually starts with the hello how are you then I'm fine I have a headache I didn't sleep last night.
I am fine means I do not have a headache. I cannot be fine and have a headache at the same time and I don't think anyone else can either. In this way I am like most people in this way I am like anyone. If I have a headache I am not fine and if I am not fine I probably didn't sleep last night.
I was not born with a headache but I don't think I was born fine. Why I think this is because of what I heard Charlie and Mother talking about one day when we were children.
Should the phone ring I will answer and the conversation will stop there. Saying I'm fine is no way to start a conversation or keep one going.
What I am fine means is please stop talking.
Should the phone ring I might let it keep ringing until the machine answers. This way I will not have to bother with listening or the words. Sometimes I have trouble with both. Sometimes I do good with the listening but forget the words and sometimes it's the other way around.
The trouble is when I listen I don't listen for the words. I listen for what is between the words and behind them. The way you do this is to listen to how the voice sounds. If you concentrate on the words you lose the voice and the voice is always too important to lose. How the voice pronounces each word is probably the most important thing.
The words themselves are important less than half the time.
When I concentrate on the words I have trouble understanding what they mean. If I understand one word I don't understand the word that follows. I have trouble understanding what one word has to do with another.
For instance I don't know what happy has to do with birthday or good with morning.
What you have to do is understand how people use words and go from there.
The trouble is some people use words one way but other people use those same words a different way altogether. My problem is I think about one word for too long. A caller will say a word like injury and I will think about the word injury for a minute or two and not hear the other words. I won't know who has the injury or why it matters. This always happens to me and this is why should the phone ring I might let it keep ringing until the machine answers.
A word like injury can split your head open.
Should the phone ring a decision will have to be made and this is always the case. And once one decision is made you have to make another right after it and your life becomes a series of decisions about the telephone and how to conduct yourself over it.
Only answering machines can do listening and the words at the same time. This is why answering machines are the best things going. I don't know what life was like before answering machines or how people got along with themselves without them.
The sound between words can be great or small or great and small at the same time.
The sound between words can be troubling or comforting but almost never at the same time so this is probably beside the point.
I think I have lived an entire life beside the point but even this is probably beside the point.
This is why the sound between words is always better to listen to than the words themselves.
Charlie and I were the children and Mother was the mother and this is how you can tell everyone apart.
Also Charlie was older which meant he was responsible.
Injury sounds like a place like Injury Alaska. Like the people of Injury Alaska fish and hunt and trade with their neighbors and the average lifespan of an Injured Alaskan is 58 years. This is what I think of when I hear a word like injury.
Then I'll think about someone in a jury like judge and jury or a jury of your peers. I'll think about the ladies and gentlemen of the jury and the deliberation causing a hung jury. I have never myself been in a jury or on a jury and have never said a phrase like the jury is still out on that one. The jury is never out that long even when they have hung themselves.
This is why it's always better to listen to the voice and leave the words alone.
Not sleeping last night always gives me a headache but not the same as thinking about a word like injury. The not sleeping last night headache feels like when they give you too many pills.
Mother would give me pills every morning when I woke and every night when I went to bed. She would spread them out in her hand so that they made different shapes. Her favorites were pill circles and squares. Sometimes the pill circles and squares were bigger or smaller depending on how many pills I needed at the time. I would take the pills one by one off Mother's hand and she would encourage me to make the circle or square disappear. When I was done she would say good boy and kiss my forehead and then tuck me in goodnight.
The pills themselves were different sizes and shapes and colors. Mother never said which pill was which or what any of them were for.
My favorites were the blue and pink ones. The blue one was a tiny oval and had the letter P carved into it. I used to wonder if that was someone's job to carve the letter P into the blue pills.
The pink one was shaped like a submarine and had no letters carved into it. There were two lines across either the top or bottom depending on which end you swallowed first.
I tried not to taste the pills but sometimes I couldn't help it.
Sometimes I would choke on the pink ones and Mother would have to slap my back for me. She would slap me twice and I would either swallow the pill or spit it up and have to start over.
She never had to do the Heimlich maneuver on me. She would say this she would say don't make me have to do the Heimlich maneuver on you.
The pink ones were awful and if she ever had to do the Heimlich maneuver on me it was because of the pink ones.
Not sleeping last night is another reason answering machines are the best things going. Whenever I didn't sleep last night I never answer the phone the next day. Maybe this would be different if there were no answering machines in the world but it's good we can thank God and never know.
I will lay me down to sleep and everything is fine for a minute or two. My head on the pillow is fine and my body under the blankets is also fine.
I always start off face up on my back and I look at the ceiling and tell myself I am tired and should go to sleep.
I tell myself millions of people are falling asleep right now and I should be one of them.
I will close my eyes and wait for myself to fall asleep and when nothing happens I tell myself I'm not sleeping again so now what.
This is when I usually count the holes in the ceiling tile. I will count the holes in every tile to see which ones have the most holes.
Mother said only certain kinds of people have trouble sleeping like musical geniuses and serial killers. Then she would say which one are you going to be and of course she was right.
I like it best when I call someone and the answering machine answers. I like it how the phone keeps ringing with no one picking up and you wonder is someone going to pick up the phone. You wonder if no one is home and this is why the phone keeps ringing or if someone is home but doesn't feel like talking.
There is nothing wrong with not wanting to talk because the person probably didn't sleep last night and has a headache.