fresh.
Act hurt. Affect a slump. Pick up a magazine and pretend you’re reading it. The cat will rejoin you. Look at the pictures of the food.
Your mom will try to pep you up. She’ll say: Look! Pat Benatar! Let’s dance.
Tell her you think Pat Benatar is stupid and cheap. Say nothing for five whole minutes.
When the B-52’s come on, tell her you think
they’re
okay.
Smile sheepishly. Then the two of you will get up and dance like wild maniacs around the coffee table until you are sweating, whooping to the oo-ah-oo’s, jumping like pogo sticks, acting like space robots. Do razz-ma-tazz hands like your mom at either side of your head. During a commercial, ask for an orange soda.
Water or milk, she will say, slightly out of breath, sitting back down.
Say shit, and when she asks what did you say, sigh: Nothing.
Next is Rod Stewart singing on a roof somewhere. Your mom will say: He’s sort of cute.
Tell her Julie Steinman saw him in a store once and said he looked really old.
Hmmmm, your mother will say.
Study Rod Stewart carefully. Wonder if you could make your legs go like that. Plan an imitation for Julie Steinman.
When the popcorn is all gone, yawn. Say: I’m going to bed now.
Your mother will look disappointed, but she’ll say, okay, honey. She’ll turn the TV off. By the way, she’ll ask hesitantly like she always does. How did the last three days go?
Leave out the part about the lady and the part about the beer. Tell her they went all right, that he’s got a new silver dart-board and that you went out to dinner and this guy named Hudson told a pretty funny story about peeing in the hamper. Ask for a 7-Up.
HOW
So all things limp together
for the only possible
.
—Beckett
Murphy
B egin by meeting him in a class, in a bar, at a rummage sale. Maybe he teaches sixth grade. Manages a hardware store. Foreman at a carton factory. He will be a good dancer. He will have perfectly cut hair. He will laugh at your jokes.
A week, a month, a year. Feel discovered, comforted, needed, loved, and start sometimes, somehow, to feel bored. When sad or confused, walk uptown to the movies. Buy popcorn. These things come and go. A week, a month, a year.
Make attempts at a less restrictive arrangement. Watch them sputter and deflate like balloons. He will ask you to move in. Do so hesitantly, with ambivalence. Clarify: rents are high, nothing long-range, love and all that, hon, but it’s footloose. Lay out the rules with much elocution. Stress openness, non-exclusivity. Make room in his closet, but don’t rearrange the furniture.
And yet from time to time you will gaze at his face or his hands and want nothing but him. You will feel passing waves of dependency, devotion, and sentimentality. A week, a month, a year, and he has become your family. Let’s say your real mother is a witch. Your father a warlock. Your brothers twin hunchbacks of Notre Dame. They all live in a cave together somewhere.
His name means savior. He rolls into your arms like Ozzie and Harriet, the whole Nelson genealogy. He is living roomsand turkey and mantels and Vicks, a nip at the collarbone and you do a slow syrup sink into those arms like a hearth, into those living rooms, well hello Mary Lou.
Say you work in an office but you have bigger plans. He wants to go with you. He wants to be what it is that you want to be. Say you’re an aspiring architect. Playwright. Painter. He shows you his sketches. They are awful. What do you think?
Put on some jazz. Take off your clothes. Carefully. It is a craft. He will lie on the floor naked, watching, his arms crossed behind his head. Shirt: brush on snare, steady. Skirt: the desultory talk of piano keys, rocking slow, rambling. Dance together in the dark though it is only afternoon.
Go to a wedding. His relatives. Everyone will compare weight losses and gains. Maiden cousins will be said to have fattened embarrassingly. His mother will be a bookkeeper or a dental hygienist. She will
Act hurt. Affect a slump. Pick up a magazine and pretend you’re reading it. The cat will rejoin you. Look at the pictures of the food.
Your mom will try to pep you up. She’ll say: Look! Pat Benatar! Let’s dance.
Tell her you think Pat Benatar is stupid and cheap. Say nothing for five whole minutes.
When the B-52’s come on, tell her you think
they’re
okay.
Smile sheepishly. Then the two of you will get up and dance like wild maniacs around the coffee table until you are sweating, whooping to the oo-ah-oo’s, jumping like pogo sticks, acting like space robots. Do razz-ma-tazz hands like your mom at either side of your head. During a commercial, ask for an orange soda.
Water or milk, she will say, slightly out of breath, sitting back down.
Say shit, and when she asks what did you say, sigh: Nothing.
Next is Rod Stewart singing on a roof somewhere. Your mom will say: He’s sort of cute.
Tell her Julie Steinman saw him in a store once and said he looked really old.
Hmmmm, your mother will say.
Study Rod Stewart carefully. Wonder if you could make your legs go like that. Plan an imitation for Julie Steinman.
When the popcorn is all gone, yawn. Say: I’m going to bed now.
Your mother will look disappointed, but she’ll say, okay, honey. She’ll turn the TV off. By the way, she’ll ask hesitantly like she always does. How did the last three days go?
Leave out the part about the lady and the part about the beer. Tell her they went all right, that he’s got a new silver dart-board and that you went out to dinner and this guy named Hudson told a pretty funny story about peeing in the hamper. Ask for a 7-Up.
HOW
So all things limp together
for the only possible
.
—Beckett
Murphy
B egin by meeting him in a class, in a bar, at a rummage sale. Maybe he teaches sixth grade. Manages a hardware store. Foreman at a carton factory. He will be a good dancer. He will have perfectly cut hair. He will laugh at your jokes.
A week, a month, a year. Feel discovered, comforted, needed, loved, and start sometimes, somehow, to feel bored. When sad or confused, walk uptown to the movies. Buy popcorn. These things come and go. A week, a month, a year.
Make attempts at a less restrictive arrangement. Watch them sputter and deflate like balloons. He will ask you to move in. Do so hesitantly, with ambivalence. Clarify: rents are high, nothing long-range, love and all that, hon, but it’s footloose. Lay out the rules with much elocution. Stress openness, non-exclusivity. Make room in his closet, but don’t rearrange the furniture.
And yet from time to time you will gaze at his face or his hands and want nothing but him. You will feel passing waves of dependency, devotion, and sentimentality. A week, a month, a year, and he has become your family. Let’s say your real mother is a witch. Your father a warlock. Your brothers twin hunchbacks of Notre Dame. They all live in a cave together somewhere.
His name means savior. He rolls into your arms like Ozzie and Harriet, the whole Nelson genealogy. He is living roomsand turkey and mantels and Vicks, a nip at the collarbone and you do a slow syrup sink into those arms like a hearth, into those living rooms, well hello Mary Lou.
Say you work in an office but you have bigger plans. He wants to go with you. He wants to be what it is that you want to be. Say you’re an aspiring architect. Playwright. Painter. He shows you his sketches. They are awful. What do you think?
Put on some jazz. Take off your clothes. Carefully. It is a craft. He will lie on the floor naked, watching, his arms crossed behind his head. Shirt: brush on snare, steady. Skirt: the desultory talk of piano keys, rocking slow, rambling. Dance together in the dark though it is only afternoon.
Go to a wedding. His relatives. Everyone will compare weight losses and gains. Maiden cousins will be said to have fattened embarrassingly. His mother will be a bookkeeper or a dental hygienist. She will
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