He flipped me the bird. "Are you two going to have a Rhonda-vous?"
I tore into the gift, throwing the paper on the floor and opening the box. Inside, there was a receipt for an airline ticket to Burbank. For a month from now I didn't understand why anyone would want to fly to Burbank, but I figured she'd fill in the gaps later and I didn't brush my teeth or take off my shoes, just crawled in bed and passed out with the lights on, like my mom used to do. Instead of my normal nightmare, I had a dream about an old Thanksgiving dinner, from when I was a kid: the time my mom thawed frozen lasagna, saying, "Not many people know this, but some of the Pilgrims were Italian." She didn't eat any herself, but disappeared with a glass of tcha-bliss, leaving me at the kitchen table alone. I tried to cut a bite, but it was still icy in the middle.
By the next morning, my normal nightmare was back. I'll tell you about it later. Someone pounded on my door, and I got out of bed, embarrassed that I still wore the clothes decorated in dumpster-clumps. "Who's there?"
"It's me, Crash Man," old lady Rhonda said. "Open up," which I did and she stood there holding a ratty suitcase, tucking her long gray hair behind her ears. Her split lip looked much better.
I panicked that she was disappearing, too, my good hand igniting in a violent radio static, the bent, dead one waiting for a miracle. "Where are you going?"
She rubbed my cheek, flattened a few curls on my head. "I'm staying here, baby. With you." She walked over to the burned couch, set the suitcase down, told me to sit and close my eyes. I did. I heard her unzip the suitcase and she yelled, "Open up!"
The suitcase was filled with money. Small bills. Twenties, tens, fives, ones.
"Did you go on `Wheel of Fortune'?" I said.
"Not yet. But that's why we're going to Burbank. I'm on the show in five weeks."
"Congratulations. Where's the money from?"
"My husband ran off. He left me $6,000."
I was shocked: shocked that he had that kind of money and lived in this dump; shocked that he'd give any to Rhonda as he ran out of town. "Where did he go?"
"Not my problem anymore."
"Are you sad?"
"Do you want to know what we were fighting about when he hit me the other night?"
I didn't know if I really wanted to know, didn't want to hear about him being mean to her. But I loved hearing new things about old lady Rhonda so I said, "I guess."
`No. Forget it. I'm not ready to tell you."
"Why not?"
She changed the subject: "What happened on your big date?"
"Let's forget about that, too."
She laughed and said, "Fair is fair," and asked if I wanted to have dinner that night. "I've got something important to tell you.
"Great."
"You should change your outfit and take a shower before dinner," she said, laughing and holding her nose.
Being back home was really confusing, and I wish I could tell you that I did something that afternoon, that I went outside, that I looked for a job, but the truth is, I drank bourbon in bed. I stripped the sheets because I wanted to see Madeline's stain on the mattress and I rolled around, so confused about what was supposed to happen, what I was supposed to do. I'd seen my mom and watched her vanish for the last time and I'd seen Letch and burned him to the amnesty bench and I'd finally left that place for good. I was still thinking about Vern breaking my arm and Handa never wanting to see me again, and the whole world felt assaulting. I hated that people went to their jobs and shopped online. I hated that there were time zones and television stations. I hated professional sports and organic vegetables and fossil fuels. Everyone else knew how to put the bourbon down and get up off the mattress, but there was no way I could do it. I fell asleep like that. Woke up and it was dark outside.
Old lady Rhonda came in my apartment and started cooking. Two bottles of red wine sat on the small counter, uncorked. She poked her head out of the kitchen and asked if a certain sleepyhead was ready for a glass of vino.
When was the last time I'd had a glass of water?
"This is a celebratory dinner," she said, handing me my wine.
"What are we celebrating?"
"Two things"
"What?"
"Me and you."
We let our wine glasses collide; we swigged; we smiled.
"What's for dinner?" I said.
"I'm broiling steaks."
"Sounds perfect."
She rubbed the side of my face. "Good boy."
I sat down on the burned couch. I thought about the sidewinder that had bitten me and stood back up.
Old lady Rhonda saw me staring at the couch and asked, "Finally tired of it?"
"I guess," I said. "Can I help you cook?" I took a few steps toward the kitchen. I thought about Madeline, her Meat Trees, thought about Skyler, and wondered if they were somewhere right that very second doing the same thing as old lady Rhonda and me.
"Just sit down, baby You can cook for me next time. Right now, I'm taking care of you."
"I make a mean dish called Meat Trees."
She smiled. "I can't wait to try them."
I sat back down, and minutes later, she put a plate in my lap. There wasn't anything else on the plate except the steak, cooked rare, shaped like a big bleeding tongue.
"Look at this," she said and handed me a shiny steak knife. "Picked a set of these up today." She tucked it between the plate and my thigh. She set the fork next to the steak.
"Did we miss `Wheel of Fortune'?" I asked.
"You were asleep. I got every puzzle."
I stared at her, in a weird awe. On one hand, it was only "Wheel of Fortune," so who cares, but it was wonderful to watch someone shine at something.
I held the fork with my good hand, the knife with the warped one.
"I forgot the wine bottles," she said, going back to the kitchen and getting them. Old lady Rhonda sat down next to me. She sliced a bite of steak and put it in her mouth. She scrunched her face in delight. "I know my way around a steak."
I switched hands, deciding that the knife should be in my good one, so I could generate enough force to saw through the bloody meat.
Then I switched back.
Did it again.
She took another bite and said, "What are you waiting for?"
"Nothing," I said, holding the fork in my dead hand. I stabbed the steak with the fork to hold it still. With my other hand, I used the knife to saw at the meat, trying to get through it, but my other arm was too weak, couldn't hold the steak steady in one place. It slid all over the plate. I switched hands again, but my bent arm didn't have the strength to cut through the meat, just scratched shallow trenches in its browned top.
"Oohh," old lady Rhonda said, "this will be fun."
"What?"
"Let me help you."
"I can do it," I said, because I'd been feeding myself since I'd broken my arm. I just hadn't eaten anything that took two hands, usually soup or chili or SpaghettiOs: an entire diet from the dusty shelves of liquor stores. I'd braced the cans between my legs as I spun the opener around the rims.
"You have to let me," she said. "As a favor."
I mauled the meat one last time, hoping I could do it myself, but it was no use. Part of me wanted to throw the fork and knife across the room, but I handed them to old lady Rhonda, who smiled. She cut a little piece of meat and buzzed it in front of my face, flying it in zigzag patterns and making zooming airplane noises. "Open the hangar!" she said.
I ate it up.
"I really wanted kids," she said. "I had seven sisters. There was always something fun going on in that house. Not like me and his place upstairs. So morose. We were barely married. Just walked by each other on our way to the bathroom."
Another bite wiggled through the sky, doing tricks, old lady Rhonda making swooping sounds. This chunk of meat was a little sinewy so I swallowed it without really chewing.