Lucy Harrison
T H I N G S T O D O T O D A Y
- Wake up.
- Shower.
- Take 4 aspirin and drink a large glass of grapefruit juice.
- Look at the hole in your living room wall.
- Call Roy.
- Hang up on the third ring.
- Watch the weather channel. Look outside, where the rain is drip drip dripping off the black skeleton branches, wet and cold and dull.
- Drive to work.
- Forget your umbrella.
- Finish up the Schorr account. Try to finish it. Sit at the computer, staring at the screen, watching the cursor blink and blink and blink.
- Nothing and nothing and nothing.
- Call Roy.
- Hang up when his taped voice comes on the machine.
- Tell your boss, when he asks, that there is nothing wrong at all. Watch him fiddle with his necktie, his broad blunt-fingered hands tightening and untightening the knot. Say: "Nothing. I'm fine."
- Take the Kleenex he offers you. Blow your nose. Say you're sorry.
- Turn off the computer. Don't save the current file or document.
- Call Roy.
- Leave a message. Explain that it was all a terrible mistake. Explain that you've never done anything like that ever before. Hang up before you start to cry.
- Go to lunch with Carrie and Joan from data processing. Let them pick the restaurant. It doesn't matter.
- Order the grilled mahi-mahi sandwich, no dressing, pickle on the side, the way Roy likes it.
- Stare at it when it comes. Push it around your plate with the knife. Don't eat it.
- Smoke a cigarette in the restaurant bathroom.
- Look at the payphone on the wall of the bathroom. Tell yourself you're not going to call.
- You're not.
- Call Roy. Hang up.
- Brush your hair and splash some cold water on your face. Try to breathe normally.
- Tell Joan, when she comes in to the bathroom, that there is nothing wrong at all. Say: "Nothing. I'm fine."
- Divide the check 3 ways.
- Remember to leave a tip. Roy always tips at least 20%. Tell Joan and Carrie that.
- Turn on the computer in your office. Watch the cursor blink and blink.
- Put your fingers on the keyboard. Type: "Screw it screw it screw him."
- Stare at it awhile, then delete.
- Answer the phone.
- Tell Tom that it was all a terrible mistake.
- Tell him not to call you again.
- Tell him you don't usually drink like that.
- Tell him you definitely don't want to see him tonight.
- Tell him you're insane.
- Call Roy.
- When he answers, say: "It's me, don't hang up."
- Listen to the empty line crackling and hissing at you when he hangs up.
- Open up the Schorr account's spreadsheet.
- When you see the empty rows and columns, try it again.
- And again.
- Tell your boss you're sorry.
- Tell him you don't know how this could have happened.
- Watch him tightening his necktie.
- Tell him nothing like this has happened before.
- Tell him you're having some personal problems.
- Drive home.
- Stop off at the liquor store to buy some bourbon.
- After all, it can't hurt now.
- Look at the hole in your living room wall.
- Read the note your landlord has written, in red, on an 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper and taped over the hole: "Some people think they're pretty funny, but they won't be laughing so hard when they get the bill."
- Call Roy.
- Hang up when his machine comes on.
- Look up "Jezebel" in your collegiate dictionary. Read the definition.
- Look up "scheming."
- Look up "evil."
- Look up "woman."
- Cook spaghetti. Forget to put water in the pot, so the house fills up with smoke.
- Have a bourbon and coke.
- Or, if you forgot the coke, have a bourbon and water.
- Call Roy.
- Tell his machine that he's just lost the best thing he ever had.
- Tell his machine that he's a fine one to be talking, anyways.
- Tell his machine that Jezebel was a Phoenician princess of the 9th century BC, and a queen of Israel, and that you are proud to be compared with her and that you wouldn't take him back now if he came crawling on his knees.
- Watch the weather channel.
- Look at the big red cloud hanging over your area.
- Wonder if maybe it's raining outside and you just can't see it in the darkness.
- Have a bourbon. Forget the water.
- Look up "forgiveness." Decide there is no hope.
- Look up "hope." Decide there is no God.
- Look up "God."
- Call Roy.
- Tell his machine that you are sorry. You are so sorry. Please.
- Hang up.
- Throw the phone at the living room wall, so it leaves a black mark next to the hole.
- Some people think they're pretty funny, but they won't be laughing so hard when they get the bill.
- Realize the phone is off the hook.
- Realize that Roy might be calling you now.
- Right now.
- Run and put the receiver back on the hook.
- Pick up the phone on the first ring.
- Say: "Hello?"
- Say: "Oh."
- Say: "Oh, it's you."
- Say: "No, I'm not drunk."
- Say: "Yes. All right. All right."
- Say: "Fine, Tom, come over then."
- Hang up.
- Have another bourbon.
- Turn on the outside porch light.
- Watch the rain washing down the window.
- Watch a moth, trapped between the screen door and the glass, frantically bumping back and forth, trying to get to the light, or failing that, at least away from the dark.
- Finish off your bourbon. Tilt the glass back.
- Oh, you say.
- Screw it.
- Screw it.
- Screw it all.
° ° °
Oyster Boy Review 7
|