Jukebox, that’s not for sale. That goes out tomorrow, but all the other stuff, that’s for Thursday. There’s gonna be some furniture, I got stuff at home, I’m bringing that, armchair, I just bought it last year at Katelman’s, I never set in it much, I never set down. Some old guy offered me thirty-five bucks, I can’t sell it for that. Old tightwad.

Oh there’s a lot come through to look. But they don’t care about the stuff. They come to take a look at me. Ain’t it the truth. They come cruising in here like I was an accident on the freeway. Wanta see me cause I got my name in the papers. That’s the way people are. I hope they sell this stuff. Burlington Lunch.

No, I got rid of some furniture after my second husband died. Oh I loved my first husband, we had a son and daughter, my son’s in California, and my daughter she’s here and there, couldn’t never keep up wtih her, she was always running through the house, running into doors. But he died, and so course you think you gotta have a man. And my second husband, he was in the civil service, he was a sonofabitch. I married this old fart, he didn’t do nothing but lay down on my sofa every night, he wore the springs out on my sofa. Brand new furniture, completely paid for. And he died. Died on my sofa, I had to get rid of it. He didn’t mess on it or anything, but just the idea. You don’t wanta think of him laying there. Yeh, the curtains too.

So I had to keep busy, so I saw in the paper the Burlington Lunch. They used to have the bus station here, so it’s the Burlington Lunch. And I had my pension, and I always wanted to run a lunch counter. Lotta regulars, the guys came over from Markels and the Ford place, mechanics and the salesmen, people from over’t the stockyards. We’d kid around, lotta laughs. And I can understand how they felt, you know, here you known Edna for a couple years, she’ll kid around, lotta laughs, and then this happens, they think it’s a joke. But it’s no joke. I guess I shut’em up.

No joke. I don’t know what my life’d be like. You always wonder, is it coming back? I gave my address, I thought it might come back, but I dunno if they’d have the right maps. There’s some that never use maps but they always get where they’re going. Should I put some coffee on?

Oh I couldn’t put up with the joking, carrying on. Young Rollie, the mechanic, he was nice, he always had a hello, but. . . Salesmen was the worst. They’d try to act cute. Come in and order pancakes. Pancakes for lunch. Smart, see.

Now these stools are new. I just put those in last year. They spin around good. I wouldn’t mind keeping one. Sit there and spin around.

I shoulda kept my mouth shut. But I told people what happened, it got in the newspapers. They sent somebody out, said, “Well was it men from Mars?” Men from Mars. They thought I was joking, they thought I was drunk, they thought I was crazy. Look at you and grin. But I was walking back from the Seven Eleven, you’re not crazy when you’re walking back from the Seven Eleven, I had to go up there for some half-and-half and I can’t stand that damned creamer, so I had to go up to the Seven Eleven and I was walking back and there it was.

There it was. Those dumb movies, all that science fiction stuff, but you can’t describe it. Describe what it’s like being born, nobody ever done that. Everybody’s done it, but nobody’s ever described it. There it was. What’s the word? My nephew uses all those words, there’s a word for it, what’s the word?

Now that jukebox, they just put that in here, this company, it goes out tomorrow, it’s not for sale. I can’t stand that damned thing. They all sound like they got the piles.

I shoulda kept my mouth shut. Nobody believes it. You know if some movie star said it, you know why then they’d believe it. Or a politician. You gotta be a politician or a movie star or else you gotta be drunk. Hell, I could lie. I learned how to lie, I been taught by experts. But try to tell’em the truth, it’s not on the menu. You know they offered me $5,000 from the National Enquirer. But they never called back, cause later I found out they’d got some other guy who claimed the Russians was from another planet. And this other guy, he killed his cat cause he said it’s the Antichrist. That’s the stuff they print.

But there it was. Like you weren’t over here and you weren’t over there, you were just being there. And I walked up in there, they gave me these pancakes. Sorta like pancakes. Cornmeal pancakes. I ate a whole pile of’em. I was hungry. I was gonna get some ice cream at the Seven Eleven, but it’s fulla this artificial stuff, and I ate all these pancakes and I put a couple in my pocketbook, case I got hungry. They were just pancakes. And I talked, I just started talking. And they were there, they were just being there, they didn’t ask any questions, I just started talking. Seemed like what I was there for. Start in talking, talking and talking, so much that wants to come out, and there they were, listening, there they were. I didn’t know I had stuff to say, I didn’t know I had stuff like that. I talk to the cat sometimes, and there’s Rollie, mechanic, he’s kinda nice but. . . I can’t describe it. They didn’t say nothing. Just listen. Just echoes. Just like I was asking my questions, my own questions, to myself, and I never asked questions. . .to myself before. It hurt. It hurt just terrible. It hurt so much, I never been in such pain, such terrible pain, just cut into my head, and it wasn’t something they’re doing. It was something in me, cut into my head, stuck into my eyes, and I cried and I cried and I cried. . . And I never felt so good before. Never felt so good.

Cause I never lied. Not to them. First time I never lied. Even my first husband. We’d sit there and say “Well how are you” and we’d say “Fine.” But even him. There was one time we went out camping, fishing, with some other couples, and we almost went in. . .naked swimming. We almost went in naked swimming. We joked about it. We never did it. Even him, I couldn’t come out and say it. You gotta wait for the man to say it. Sit around wait, if he takes a notion to say it, and then he never says it. But them, they never took me up in there and said, “What’s your husband’s name?” They didn’t care if I was married to a hog. They just called me Edna. “Edna.” I could hear it a thousand times, in the echoes.

I go on, don’t I? Well take your time. It’s all gotta go.

And all I had left was these coupla pancakes. And somebody come out from the paper, somebody told’em, and he looked at the pancakes, he sent one to the lab. It finally come back, it was all dried up like a turd, I threw it away. And the lab said it’s cornmeal. Wrote that in the paper. So what? Why shouldn’t it be cornmeal? Why shouldn’t they have cornmeal, wherever they come from? Maybe they stopped at the Seven Eleven.

I saw this little kid shooting off this rocket, little toy rocket. I thought what if I go over and talk to him. He’s just a little kid, seven, eight years old. I wonder what he’d thought. He’d thought I was some crazy old woman, some crazy old granny, gonna give him an apple with razor blades. I called my son. I didn’t tell him nothing.

And people coming in here, get snotty, and I told’em where to go. And they did. I lost all the business. People couldn’t trust you to fix’em ham and eggs. Said I couldn’t take a joke. Damn right. All my life I took a joke. They thought I was a fake, cause I tried to put it in words. Words and lies and figures and make it balance out and sell it to somebody like a goddamn used car and swear up and down it’s gonna run. But I. . . transcended. Is that the word? Transcended. That’s the word, my nephew uses all those words, transcended. . . Oh they heard every word.

Oh people laughed, yeh. But it wasn’t that. That was just rain on the roof. But once it happened, I couldn’t do nothing. I couldn’t wipe the counter. I couldn’t turn the eggs on the grill. I couldn’t make the change. I kept thinking back there. Being there.

But the auction’s on Thursday, you come on Thursday, there’s a lotta good stuff. There’ll be some furniture, all my furniture too. Get what’s left. You have no idea.

I never even told my son. I’m gonna get on the bus. Friday. Get on the bus, it’s the Trailways now. And I’ll ride till I get off. Somewhere out West. And then I’ll walk. And maybe they’ll see me. Maybe they’ll pick me up. Never can tell. Pick me up again. Go out in the country, out where it’s clear. I’ll start walking down the road. And the road gets smaller, and rougher, and then it forks off, and it’s nothing but dirt. And the dirt road’s just a track, two tracks and horse manure. And there’s no road then, just going across the fields till there it is. There it is. and that’s where it is. “Edna.” And the Burlington Lunch, tear it down, put up a Pizza Hut, and you never remember Edna, that old bat, what’s her name, Edna? Maybe Rollie, he’s kinda nice, he might remember, but. . . They just call me Edna. “Edna.” Hear it a thousand times, in the echoes.

In the Middle East the stalemate continues, as new villages are added to the toll. A spokesman reports that a cloud hung over negotiations today, and a pillar of fire by night.

Well ok. Rosalie, I give up. You brought it up. You said there was something else. What else is special?

Ten past the hour.

You mean seriously, we’re off the air? We’re cancelled? We’re zipped? We’re out on our assets?

You get it?

Talk!

How’s the weather out there? It’s raining in the station.

Rosalie’s ticklish. You know, researchers have found a link between sex, drugs, and alcohol. They go together.

That’s the first time you laughed at one of my jokes.

Here’s the stock market report.

That’s a sign of the times. Twenty-five years ago, I couldn’t say—

Beep.

Thanks, Doug.

Nostalgia Time.

What were they to do? No service station, no phone, no way to get a signal back to the fort before daybreak would reveal their position to the lurking natives. They heard coyotes howl.

A lone announcer was slumped over the controls, his back bristling with arrows, and a scribbled note under his head—

Sending out their message—

You try that again you bastard!

Are we on?

Well you know what they say: There’s quick money in yoga.

Time for our special guest. We don’t have a special guest. Traffic report. We did the traffic report. Quarter past the hour. Don’t you miss the old commercials we used to have?

See, they beep. If they beep there’s gotta be somebody listening. Oh for a word from our sponsor.

Drop us a card.

Wire your congressman.

Take a stab.

We’re lonely.

—Where Soviet troops are reported to be occupying East Berlin and riots in support of the workers have broken out in five Western cities, with NATO forces on red alert—

One thing I said. I’d like to buy a big jigsaw puzzle. A thousand pieces the size of cookie crumbs. And there’s no picture at all. I spend weeks to put it together, and then it’s together, there’s nothing on it. He got a kick out of that.

Say it.

Made it!

In sports, Wavering Monarch paid 6.40 in the seventh by half a length. The Pirates’ Winegar said, “That’s all, folks.”

Makes you think.

Don’t answer. They always call, and when we answer there’s nobody there. If we answer there’s nobody there. Don’t answer.

Don’t flake around. Come on. Call.

Carlos!!

Shelf Six. Reel Ten. Side One.

I was testing. How much time we got?

I was testing.

I was testing.

I won’t fall apart. We’re making up a story. Once you have a story, you don’t fall apart, because then you still land in a story of falling apart. Say you love me.

We’re on the air.

You can’t see that, but we did it.

Solvet saeclum in favilla,

Teste David cum Sybilla—

It’s a fake!

One doesn’t ever know better.

I didn’t do it.

What can they ask? We had to live. It took a lot of effort. It was all a slap in the face, one slap in the face after another, just to live. What can they ask?

What can we do?

We could forget.

Except for the hopes.

Otherwise, we could forget.

The circuits are clear.

Can you see us?