Pucker by Melanie Gideon

his buddy on the shoulder and giggles nervously. “You want fries with that?”
    The other one, whose face is covered with acne, replies, “I’d like my burger well done, sir.”
    â€œLet my people go,” I say.
    They look at me with startled faces. What? The creature speaks?
    I sigh. “The burning bush? The Red Sea parting?”
    Dolts. The light slowly creeps back into their faces as if I’ve released them from a burden they no longer have to carry. Funny, this guy is funny? Of course they are immensely grateful, but they have no idea for what. They know only that something overly swollen has been punctured and now it’s safe to breathe.
    â€œYou’re all right, man,” the acned one says. He looks at me good-deedishly, as if I’ve been waiting all these years for him to bestow on me his blessing. I feel bad for him. He has angry red boils scattered over his cheeks, miniature mountains of pus lodged in the corners of his nose and lips. I know something he doesn’t: the closer their experience is to mine, the meaner they get. Me and this zitty kid are family. Of course I could never suggest that. He would kill me. I shrug and step out of line. I no longer have an appetite.
    When I was young, I was ugly, but I still had youth on my side: my limbs were plump and rounded; I had baby teeth like everyone else. I was precocious and brave, wise beyond my years. I was the sad, cute burned boy. Those years are gone. Now, in place of the compassion, I see mostly revulsion and fear. A burned boy grows up into a burned teenager with size-twelve feet. He does not get more endearing. He simply takes up more space.

NINE
    W HEN I GET HOME, JOE COSTANZA, one of my mother’s regulars, is leaving. We meet on the stairs. He looks shaken. I know he’s been asking my mother the big question: time of death. Only he didn’t want the information for himself, but for his eight-year-old daughter, Audrey, who’s been in and out of the hospital with some illness they haven’t been able to diagnose yet.
    My mother tried to dissuade him. For weeks she put him off, telling him no parent should be privy to this data. I guess he finally wore her down.
    â€œHey, Sport,” he says to me in a weak voice.
    â€œHi, Mr. Costanza.”
    â€œI’m afraid our session took it out of your mother. It’s good you’re home,” he says.
    I always wonder what my mother’s clients make of her bedridden status. Does it make them uncomfortable to have some woman in a nightgown telling their fortunes, or does it somehow add to the authenticity of the experience?
    â€œShe’s been under the weather,” I say. That’s an understatement, but I know a minimizing of the situation is required.
    He grips my shoulder once tightly and turns to go. He swivels around when he reaches the bottom stair. “She was right. I shouldn’t have asked.”
    â€œProbably.” What else can I say to him?
    â€œI just—when do I tell my wife?” he asks me.
    â€œNever!” I’m shocked that he’s even contemplating this. “You asked the question. It’s your responsibility to bear the answer.”
    â€œYou’re right; you’re right, of course,” he says, his face knotted in pain. “But how do I bear it?”
    â€œYou just do,” I say.

TEN
    â€œT HOMAS!” MY MOTHER HOLLERS WHEN I get upstairs.
    Now that she’s ready to talk, I’m not. I stand in the kitchen ignoring her. After all these years, just like that, she tells me I have to go back to Isaura?
    I pound down two Dr. Peppers and pick up the phone to call Patrick. Then I remember it’s Friday night: he’s out with Meg. I feel sorry for myself for about half a minute—oh, poor me, the rest of the world out on a Friday night, that kind of sorry-ass feeling that I rarely indulge—then I get up and leave. I have to get out, away from my mother and