Oh God, vacation packages. I look at these photos, it’s all cliché. White beaches. Stunning babes and studly studs. Freedom, relaxation, blah blah. I look at this stuff and I don’t have one original idea — except I want to go there, fast.

Never mind.

Yeh, that’s it. That’s what this crap is about. Lobster liberation.

Ok. Ok. I was fifteen, and very messed up, but outside I was the model student and very happy and a perfect little lady, and was that ever false advertising!

And we took a trip— my dad and his brother were very close, and both families went to Rehoboth — beach in Delaware. And my cousin, Ronnie, he was about a year older, and behind my glasses and braces and zits I was lusting madly. And actually he turned out to be gay— lucky for me. But we hung out together.

Ronnie!

Well so either you could burst into tears and never speak to me again, or you could take off your glasses.

I’ve got a lobster, from the grocery store, and we have to set it free.

I’m serious, Karen. Mom asked me to go to the grocery store, and so I’m just coming out, and here’s this lobster tank, and. . . This one lobster, I stopped because, it’s so strange, it’s green, it’s not brown, it’s green, well, it’s like greenish-brown. And it’s got a nose. A big white nose. It wasn’t a nose. It was a barnacle, actually, right on the nose. But it looks like a nose. I mean if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, must be a nose.

I mean he’s not a vegetarian. This isn’t an animal rights humanitarian Buddhist thing. I just felt, he’s special, he’s just very peculiar, and so maybe I’m an elitist, but I just don’t think he’s destined for somebody’s dinner.

Ronnie, I appreciate your insight. It’s just not every day I think about driving the getaway car for a crustacean.

Michael, I’m sorry. I need to work.

What are we gonna say when we get back?

Ok, then we say we just drove down south of town, just a few blocks. It’s chilly so we didn’t want to walk.

That’s a song.

You wanta carry Leonard?

No name.

No name. Let’s do it.

Sandpipers there. Put him down.

He’s in rigor mortis.

        GO.

        GO.

        NOW.

I can’t go there.

        GO.

It costs too much.

It’s not my style.

        GO.

Need a four-wheel drive.

Can’t see around the curves.

        GO.

I’m too old.

I need to lose weight.

I need to get my act together.

        NOW.

I need more information.

Am I ready for this?

Am I dressed right?

Will I have to take my clothes off?

        NOW. GO. NOW.

Bridge is out.

We’re lost.

We’re late.

We’re low on gas.

        GO.

It’s a detour.

It’s a cop.

It’s an avalanche.

It’s a troll.

        NOW.

Need a better map.

Need a translator.

Need time.

Need a game plan.

Need to pray.

        GO. NOW. GO. NOW. GO. NOW.

Where to?

So I drive in from the airport, late morning, rental car cause I really want to see some of the island tomorrow before I fly back. So I bought a guidebook, and my appointment’s at three, and I’ve still got some time to kill.

So drive into Honolulu, and walk around Chinatown, then to a garden, trees, red flowers, is that bougainvillea?— Can’t get the right angle. Show people the snapshots and they say, “Oh, yeh. Flowers.”

And I’ve still got an hour to kill. That mountain there. What is that? Check the map.

Diamond Head. That’s the volcano, yeh. That’s on my list. It’s extinct, but then you should never say extinct in relation to a volcano — that might be pushing your luck. Inactive. Retired. On sabbatical. No surprises.

Could I drive up there, quick snapshot, maybe, the distances are . . . not far . . . and just see what—

I dreamed this. Last night. Motel in L.A., reading the guidebook, and then . . . Pele.

Which is funny, because I’ve never been interested in mythology, religion, that stuff, although I realize these concepts speak to a deep longing, and blah blah blah. Most of my dreams focus on data systems.

But volcanos, yeh.

So drive up, yeh, up around, into a tunnel, out, and— Diamond Head.

God, I dreamed this. I’m in the crater. What used to be the crater. Kinda like it’s filled up with . . . Oklahoma. Flat, kind of, arid, dry vegetation, military buildings, fences, “Keep Out,” “Danger,” “Death.” Rock walls around, like a huge stadium. Parking lot. So park.

What am I doing here? Ok, it’s on my list, and if I see it today, then I don’t have to see it tomorrow. So I see it. Good. Great. No big deal.

There’s a trail. Up to the rim. I got, what, forty-five minutes. Trail, sign says, damn, takes an hour and a half up and back—

Pele, she’s the goddess of . . . volcano or something. Yeh, I spose if you got a volcano, you better have somebody in charge. So . . . Pele.

So here, we had five temples, so the god of the winds, who was Pele’s nephew, wouldn’t blow out the fires, the line of signal fires around the top of the rim, they burned to signal the boats that went out, to come back.

Temples. . . Barbed wire, quonset huts, “Keep out.” Can’t stop progress.

God, the way the wind shapes the trees.

I could climb up. Stand on the peak of the rim. Talk to the wind, “Hello, there.” I could ask about Pele. “Extinct? Inactive? Just thinking about it?”

I can’t get to the top, no way, I don’t have time, but— Let’s see, thirty minutes, so I could hike up there till quarter after, get a better view, maybe, take some pictures, and then turn around, and that’ll still give me time to drive down for the appointment. Having communed with nature.

Or I could just stand here.

“Stand here”? That’s weird. No, I’ve got time. Start up the trail.

Nice wide trail. Slow and steady.

Wonder what the latitude is. It’s incredibly arid. No birds. Trees are scruffy little runts. Some kind of ferns or locusts. Claws into the rock. Bone fingers.

So we’re supposed to feel the gods were here. I could hike up there and have a profound experience. Fifteen minutes, why not? Guess if you believe in data systems, then you might as well believe in the gods. Maybe I’m here for a reason. Maybe I’m nuts.

Where that came from?

And she’s not saying nothing. Not today. Not to me. Not Pele.

How do you abolish a religion? Just tell the gods they’re no longer required? We’re down-sizing. We’re out-sourcing the divinity. We need gods with better brand recognition. Gods we can franchise. Gods that are multinational. Gods that take human sacrifice by the millions and not by the twos and threes.

No temples, no fires, no more. Wonder the boatmen find their way. Steps.

Steps. Numbered. Up and up. I’ll just get up and have to start back. Eleven, twelve, thirteen. It’s time right now. Twenty-two, twenty-three. My God, in forty minutes I have an appointment for a major contract, and what am I doing here?

Forty, forty-two, forty-four. This is nuts. I’ll die. My wife will be horror-struck, and then very pissed.

Sixty-two, sixty-three. I could pitch straight backward from here and croak ergonomically, instead of this pointless, idiotic climbing up steps and steps and—

Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine— Yes!

A tunnel. Bottom of the trail, it says take a flashlight. There’s a tunnel, there is. Railing, ok. Circular staircase. Why am I doing this?

For a good reason. Yes, dammit, I’m looking for—

Something. Voices. Birds. Fires. Gods. Thunder. Erupting. Ecstatic. Real. And I’m here, I’m alive, I’m—

At the top.

I’m out of film.

I want to feel something now. Hear voices. Gods who have suffered no abolition.

Five temples. Then they abolished that. And some point in time, the Army took it over, and they put in gun emplacements.

Nice view. Waikiki. Hotels.

I could have saved all the trouble. I could have just stood still in the center of this dead, extinct, impotent, cold-ass volcano and yelled for the gods to come out of hiding, “Come outta there!” Nothing but wind.

No film. I am a dead, extinct, impotent, cold-ass tourist. Voices: “I’m hungry!” “You got some more film?” “Jenny, we have to go.”

My appointment. I have to go.

But I did it. I made it in twenty minutes. I did. Twenty minutes, I’m in good shape, yeh. Poor guys drudging up here, they see the steps, they’re ready to die in place. Twenty minutes up, maybe fifteen down, and I won’t have to do this tomorrow, check it off the list and—

What did I do? I did it again. Climb way the hell up Diamond Head to set a record? I don’t live my damn life, I send a representative.

Oh idiot. Move it. Keep moving, lope down past this old lady you’re making feel so damn much older, and leave her in the dust, and three teenage kids that are already middle-age flabby, and—

There’s a woman, maybe thirty, blonde, down the trail, carries her baby in a front harness thing, and the baby’s cute, and so’s the lady, and I lope up longside, say, “She doesn’t look the least bit tired”—

She cries. Not fear. Nor pain. She cries because she’d gone all the way to the top, and she’d seen the gods. And she was crying for me. Cause she knew I couldn’t see, cause I was so damned scared to see, and so she was crying for me.

And then, I’m at my appointment. Five minutes late, but I made it. I have not the foggiest notion. I took care of my business, had supper, I walked on the beach, by great hotels where the tourists erupt and excrete and dream.

That night I dreamt. I was a hundred years old. I’d agreed to be a hundred years old. Agreed to risk life, agreed to live . . . oh god, a hundred years. I was climbing steps. Climbing to the rim of the crater. The sharp lips of Pele. Slowly.

Earth shaking under me, low growlings, like babies being born. Birds fly up by the millions, clouds of orange and green and white, and the mother is screaming and laughing, growling and crying and laughing, and I’m going up step by step — sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four — to the top, and get there before I wake— and the trees in blossom— eighty-nine, ninety — filled with lava, fluid— ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine—

Please come with me.

I didn’t realize they wouldn’t speak English.

I didn’t realize it was this far.

I didn’t realize it was so huge.

        ENTIRELY

I didn’t understand exactly what would be expected.

I didn’t anticipate mosquitoes.

        DIFFERENT

I had no idea what they were really saying.

I didn’t pack for this weather.

        FROM WHAT

I wasn’t aware of the extra charges.

I didn’t plan for a change in plans.

        WE EXPECTED

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. They come cruising in here like I was an accident on the freeway. Wanta see me cause I got my name in the papers. 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.

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. 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 thought it might come back, but I dunno if they’d have the right maps. There’s some 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?” 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. 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. 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. Corn meal pancakes. I ate a whole pile of’em. And I put a couple in my pocketbook, case I got hungry later. They were just pancakes. And I talked, 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. . . 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 wsn’t something they’re doing. It was something in me, cut into my head, 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, 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, and he looked at the pancakes, he sent one to the lab. It finally come back, it was all dried up like a turd. And the lab said it’s corn meal. Wrote that in the paper. So what? 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 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. 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 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. 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. 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.

Be mindful when you choose to tell it.

Take care to whom you tell it.

It will change as you hold it in your hands.

Need more space?

So you’re probably wondering if I flew from New York to go shopping at Northridge Mall? And the answer is, of course, all the best people do.

No, I. . . Well ok. I’m an actress, professional actress. And yes, you’ve probably seen me in something, and I guarantee you won’t remember what, so enough said on that.

And I don’t go much outside New York, but I hadn’t worked for awhile, and I’d just had a break-up— of a relationship—

And so I needed a paycheck. So I was hired for a dinner theatre tour. Four theatres, twelve weeks of Neil Simon with mushroom dressing. One of those limbo experiences: hotel, dressing room, ho ho, yuk yuk, clap clap, dressing room, bar, hotel.

And the real icing on the cake: the theatre is in a shopping mall. Northridge Dinner Theatre. It’s horrible. They bus these people in, and they eat, and they’re sitting there, once in a while they chuckle, and somehow you think somebody’s going to get up and try to change the channel.

So there’s a blizzard predicted. Great, some excitement. It starts to snow about six. Small audience, lot of cancellations, end of the show somebody says, “Myra, we’re snowed in.”

Oh! . . . I think— No, I was going to say something cute. It’s a habit. Too many sit-coms.

So we were snowed in. Wind blew up drifts six feet deep. I thought, hey, people don’t get trapped inside shopping malls, we’re Americans. Turn around, people just standing there. Muzak still going. It’s Day of the Dead.

I guess it— restored my belief— I don’t know, my — my belief in what’s possible— some day — for people — maybe.

I wonder what that town is. Lights are beautiful.

Ok. We stood around, there was a loudspeaker announcement, “Attention Shoppers, Northridge Mall will close in ten minutes.” Oh really?

Somebody said, “Anybody have a radio? We could check the weather report.” Weather report, guess what, it’s snowing!

So we stood there, waiting for the teacher to tell us what we do. And I think what happened, the Muzak was turned off, they made an announcement that the roads were totally closed and we’d have to spend the night. And they could contact our loved ones by cellphone or smoke signals because the phone lines were down—

But it was somebody’s birthday, some little girl—

No, the first thing was, this guy came on the loudspeaker, he says, let’s see. . .

“Hello, shoppers. . . I always wanted to say that. Hi, this is Randy, at Pennys, I’m the assistant manager, and we don’t want anybody to have a bad night, so you come to home furnishings, we have bedding, mattresses, you can make up your own little nest.”

And we did. Other stores brought stuff out. It was summer camp.

God, these bumps!

It was a strange night. Next morning, Saturday, some little girl has a birthday, and she’s sad because she’d been going to have a party, and it was so sad this little girl felt bad because in this country you’re not supposed to be miserable until you’re at least fifteen.

I continue this endless monologue. I’m sorry.

It’s a long way down. And I was almost there. I get like this in winter. I have dreams.

It was beautiful. People really opened up. There was a ton of ice cream, and they turned on the fountains and let people play with the controls, the fountains and the lights, and then one of the cast said, “Let’s do the play,” and I thought, “Oh God, not that play!” so I said, “No, let’s do a talent show.” And we did.

I went around recruiting people, and they’d all, “No, I don’t have any talent,” and I’d work on’em—

What would you do for a talent show?

She’d been just sitting there, just— And I said, “Hi, I hadn’t asked you: can you do something for the talent show?”

And she said. . .

She said, “I just come down to the Rite Aid, to get the pills.”

I said, “What? Sorry. What?”

“To get the pills.”

She looks at him.

“Well, we’re having a talent show. Would you like to do something?”

“I don’t have any talent.”

And all of a sudden, I said, “My mother committed suicide.”

“She probably had a reason.”

“I don’t think she did.”

“You get awful tired after a while.”

And we talked. She talked about her ex-husband, and her son’s ex-wife who wouldn’t let her see her granddaughter, and her son never came to visit. And I told her my winter dreams.

I think my mother would forgive me for telling a total lie. She’s fat and happy in Florida.

“I know one poem.”

And it was a great show. There was a kid with magic tricks. Half of a barbershop quartet, and the contest for the best chicken imitation. Some songs, and a very large lady did a clog dance, and an old man did a dog act, very seriously but without the dog.

And we did a comedy improv. We asked what people were afraid of, and the little girl said she was afraid her daddy wouldn’t remember to feed the dog, so we did a skit where the dog got hungry and ate up Daddy.

Oh God, it’s what theatre is supposed to do, I don’t know, bring people together, celebrate—

And this old lady, we were just about to finish up, and she walks up. . .

“This is a poem I learned, long time ago. It’s by, I don’t know, Shakespeare, maybe.

    Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

    Is hung with snow along the bough

    And stands along the woodland ride

    Wearing white for Eastertide.

    Now of my threescore years and ten

    Twenty will not come again

    And take from seventy springs a score

    That something something something more.

    And since to look at things in bloom

    Fifty springs are little room

    About the woodlands I will go

    To see the cherry hung with snow.

I have a hunch you want to do some work.

People were glowing. It really opened something up, what people are all about, and what I want to do, I mean like this, I never talk to strangers—

And we said goodbye, and she said, “Thank you.” And it, I don’t know, just— restored my belief— in what can happen. It’s possible. It really is possible.

I don’t even know her name.

It’s hard to find happy endings.

I don’t know, maybe I just don’t like to see women drunk. Maybe I feel guilty about my mother — we were never close. Or I just don’t like people who go off on wild emotional tangents, all this New Age crap, people had better grow up.

My mother was in a nursing home, and she died of a heart attack. I mean obviously I made it up. I can’t imagine she believed it.

Suicide, come on!

Be mindful when you choose to tell it.

Take care to whom you tell it.

It will change in your hands.

The problem with journeys is finding a good mattress.

The problem with journeys is if you have any expectations.

The problem with

Problem with journeys

The problem

Figuring out what really happened.

Figuring how to pay for it.

Knowing who to blame.

Coming home.

The problem is coming home.

The problem is how do you describe it.

Holding onto it.

Holding

The problem is telling the truth.

Something good in there?

Next Christmas, Diane came again. And I knew from the minute they walked in. I knew Kevin was having an affair— Kevin and Diane. I don’t know how I knew, they say a mother knows. That’s a good one! I didn’t know the half.

There’s goulash in the freezer.

How about cause somebody might be hurt? That was the reason. I didn’t tell Henry cause I didn’t want to hurt him. And she still writes, but they find excuses not to visit. It just about kills me. That’s what you get from all this telling the truth. Heartache.

I guess I’m ready. I don’t know how I raised a daughter that’s always on time. I expect the baby’ll do the same. If it’s due Thursday, it’ll be two o’clock Thursday.

We were doing the laundry, and I stood there, armful of wet towels. Till she said, “Mom, you’re dripping.” And she kept saying, “Mom, we all love each other. We love each other.” As if that mattered. She acts happy about it.

I don’t know what else. I know we cried, and I yelled at her, and then we hugged, and I said, “You know I’ll always love you, just don’t bring that girl here again, I never want to see her, and don’t tell your father!”

She says both of’em, she loves’em both. She says, “We’re totally honest, Mom, we tell each other everything.” I said, “You haven’t been married thirty years.”

We had to get her to the airport. Drove twenty minutes, never said a word.

Hello?

That was dumb. I called up later, said I was sorry.

It was sunny. I packed all wrong. Sunny the whole time.

It’s her life. I think it’s not for us to say. It bothers me. Does the baby have two mommies? What happens when the neighbors find out, or at school? I’ve got stuff to worry about for the next twenty years. And I can’t hardly talk to Diane.

But I don’t think it’s for us to judge her, for me to judge her, or for you. That’s between her and God, and you’re not God.

What do I say? What am I sposed to say? I didn’t have an affair. Did you? I didn’t rob a bank.

What I never told you was—

I never told you when Cat was in high school, and she thought she was pregnant.

I never told you your mom told me your dad hit her.

I never told you Cat hates the name Catherine.

And I never told you sometimes you hurt me in bed, when we were in bed. And that I fell in love, maybe fifteen years ago, with your brother, and didn’t ever tell him, but I’d cry myself to sleep about it, and you thought I was crying about the dog.

And how much I hated Cat when she told me, “We tell each other everything. Nothing withheld. No lies.”

We’re like we first met. Two sticks of wood. Scared to death.

Not there.

Triple A?

I checked.

The Thomas Guide is very detailed.

Things fall through the cracks. Must be a special place.

It’s not a place. It’s a trip. They show places on maps, they don’t show trips.

Lotta people looking for it.

Billions.

You only get there hitchhiking.

That’s dangerous. It’s illegal, isn’t it?

You have to have the thumb for it.

Oh blessed thumb.

Oh blessed thumb.

Oh blessed thumb.

Hello? Oh hi, Joan. Yeh, intelligent people take their cordless phones to the bathroom. What’s up?

Oh yeh. I know, look, I’m sorry, I’ll get it in the mail on Monday. Ok, today. Is it that much of a rush, I thought her fall tuition wasn’t due yet. Oh yeh, it is November. Time flies. Well look—

Joan, please. I’m not a deadbeat, I think we can agree on that, can’t we? I never missed a support payment, and I’ve been pretty good on the tuition, but I—

Could you cut me a little slack, please? I’m walking around with five broken ribs.

I fell down stairs.

Well I didn’t want to bother you, I felt, I don’t know, that’d be intrusive.

I know you do. I care about you too. Look, I wasn’t saying that as an excuse for the check, I just forgot, I’m sorry, I—

No. Well you know I told you I was moving. I have no use for a whole damned house, and I’m not really having money problems, I finished a big contract, but things are slow, so I found a nice apartment —

Yeh, same number, I mean you just called, right, we seem to be talking on the phone right now, yes? Right, so I put stuff in storage, and then Friday before I left I fell down the stairs.

He heard himself yell out, but couldn’t tell what he was saying. He felt the floor before he hit it. Then he hit it.

Great peace. Just lay there. For the first time in months I felt no need to check the calendar, finish the worklist, balance the checkbook, seek company for the evening, breathe.

Well, one good thing. I found an ashtray.

It was lying right at my nose. Fell out of the box. It hurt to reach for it.

What if it’s a fake?

What if we can’t afford it?

What if they close it up?

What if it rains?

What if bad guys attack?

What if mama dies?

What if there’s no one to play with?

What if I get lost?

When we get to Yellowstone, will there be the lava pools that burble like oatmeal, but a zillion times hotter than oatmeal, so you fall in you’d curl up to a little black shrivel? Will the lava be there all night, or only when they turn it on? I think it’ll be there all night. I think it’s real.

Will we see deer? Will we see wolves, and mountain lions, and ducks? Can we feed the ducks, if they have ducks? Would they have ducks if they have grizzly bears? Could the bears eat a tourist? Can we watch?

How far is it to Yellowstone?

Yellowstone. Why do they call it Yellowstone? Are there yellow stones? Are the yellow stones gold? Can we look for gold? How will we know it’s really gold? If we find the gold, can we buy stuff?

When we see mountains, will they be up in the clouds? Will they all have snow on top? Can we go to the top? And hang down over the cliffs?

How much farther? How far?

Didn’t I ever tell you about Yellowstone? Trip to Yellowstone, my mom took me on?

Look, I’m sorry to go nattering on, but this damned ashtray, I mean, why did I find this ashtray? Why did I descend to the Underworld and bring this back? Do I sound like a total nut case?

I was nine, I guess. I’d thought about it for months ahead.

Remember thinking we’ll drive there, across the prairie and the brown grass, not much to see, billboards, farmhouses off in the distance, nothing. And then the mountains rise up, blue and white, and I’ll be stunned, and then a gate, saying “Welcome to Yellowstone,” and it’s green.

Green, and heavy sunlight, you can swim in almost, and the sound of the hot mud pools, flustered. And I knew there were prehistoric fish, with jaws and big teeth, and they swim in the rivers of lava.

Rumble of bears, and I roll up the windows because I’m scared. And then slowly I roll them down.

The grizzly comes to the window. The biggest, darkest grizzly, and I don’t put my arms outside the window, but he comes and he stands.

And tells stories. Stories of all the grizzlies, and how the grizzlies fought the Indians, then how they made friends.

And here I am, lying on concrete, stone cold, pain, pissing my pants, twenty-two hours before the real estate person came — rescued by the realtor — and I’m reaching out, holding this ashtray.

But I’m there in Yellowstone.

I drift off, I’m dreaming of grizzlies bathing in lava, taking a shower in the geysers, lying down under the snow, in caves under the snow, and dreaming of me.

What if it’s a fake?

What if we can’t afford it?

What if they close it up?

What if it rains?

What if bad guys attack?

What if mama dies?

What if there’s no one to play with?

What if I get lost?

So I guess one way to interpret that, in this context, is that I had these wonderful visions built up for our marriage, and it broke down, lousy fuel pump, and never got there.

So are you getting any better?

So how’s your significant other?

Since we can’t hear each other?

    Ok.

        Ok.

What if we run out of gas?

        On the New Jersey Turnpike. We did.

What if it’s a fake?

        I always believed it anyway.

What if we can’t afford it?

        Charge it.

    Forget it.

        Raise your own.

What if they close it up?

    Stand there and imagine.

What if it rains?

        Get wet.

What if bad guys attack?

What if mama dies?

What if there’s no one to play with?

What if I get lost?

        They did. She did. I did. Yes.

Funny that it’s taken us this many years, and two dogs and a daughter and a divorce, just to find the seed of something. Friendship?