Read Online An Atomic Romance by Bobbie Ann Mason - Free Book Online
Authors: Bobbie Ann Mason
Tags: Fiction
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freight agent. Reed had always thought Danny Boy was a con man. He exuded false charm in proportion to the scheme he was promoting. One plan was a mobile unit—like the bookmobile—that offered appraisals of antiques and heirlooms; another was organized trips to the casinos in his van. Reed imagined a produce truck packed with illegal immigrants.
Reed hung around the hospital all morning. He meandered down the corridors. Every time he passed the door to radiology, the yellow radiation-warning sign jolted him—a safety reflex from his training. When he spied a tower cart of lunch trays in the hallway a few doors down from his mother’s room, he decided to get her meal and help her with it. The staff simply plunked down the trays in front of the patients (who could be helplessly supine or asleep), jerked the metal domes from the plates, and vanished.
Each meal was identified with a room number and menu selections on a pink slip of paper. He found hers on the bottom tier. When he stood up with it, he heard “Hello, Mr. Futrell” behind him.
Reed had been avoiding the social workers, who he imagined were stalking him with their clipboards, but here was the pretty blonde. She had been looking for him, she said. She wanted to know his decision about the nursing home, and she told him again that his mother needed physical therapy. “Speech, walking, and occupational rehab,” she added.
“She doesn’t need occupational rehab,” he said. “She’s retired.”
“Occupational means help with grooming, dressing, transferring. There are six life-activity criteria—”
“Oh. I thought you meant learning welding or something.” He waited for her smile but got nothing.
“We would be glad to fax out to the nursing homes in the area,” she said, brandishing her clipboard. “Do you want us to fax out?”
“I’d like to fax you out, baby.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“My mother loves irony,” he said, knowing he wasn’t making sense.
After helping his mother with her lunch, he drove to a Mexican place and bought a pair of hot tamales, a chimichanga, and a twenty-ounce orange drink. He ate in the truck with a big-bands medley blasting on the CD player, but he hardly heard it. His mind was a blur. He knew his mother wanted to be cared for by her family, not by a SWAT team in hospital scrubs. But what could he do? His natural pursuits involved machinery—motorcycles, old trucks—although he didn’t care for the typical stuff like tractor pulls and NASCAR. He wasn’t a gearhead. He was a stargazer, and it probably showed in his off-kilter personality. He felt helpless to deal with his mother. He wasn’t a hand-holder. Still, it bothered him that women attributed so many failures to men: men couldn’t show feelings; men didn’t know how to plump pillows or select place mats. It was wrong that his sister was in California while he was here. Yet he doubted that Shirley could care for their mother any better than he could. Shirley, married to a systems analyst, managed a small balloon-delivery company. She didn’t clean her own house or go to flea markets or bake.
He longed for Julia’s company. She was serious, but not like his sister, whose thoughts came boxed, with instructions. Julia would listen with deep delight to any fool thing he said. He remembered her tickled gasp when he told her about the praying mantises that used to collect in the filter rooms at the plant.
“We’d find hundreds of them stuck in the filters. That was before the safety standards got uprated.” He exaggerated a little. “I got a trophy mantis that barely fit in my lunch box.”
“Does the safety manual tell what to do about a praying-mantis invasion?” She was teasing.
He laughed. “Probably. I don’t see many around anymore.”
“They probably heard the Rapture was coming,” she said.
Her hands swept the imaginary swarm of praying mantises into the sky.
8
Reed, trying to catch up on his sleep, had been dumping
Reed hung around the hospital all morning. He meandered down the corridors. Every time he passed the door to radiology, the yellow radiation-warning sign jolted him—a safety reflex from his training. When he spied a tower cart of lunch trays in the hallway a few doors down from his mother’s room, he decided to get her meal and help her with it. The staff simply plunked down the trays in front of the patients (who could be helplessly supine or asleep), jerked the metal domes from the plates, and vanished.
Each meal was identified with a room number and menu selections on a pink slip of paper. He found hers on the bottom tier. When he stood up with it, he heard “Hello, Mr. Futrell” behind him.
Reed had been avoiding the social workers, who he imagined were stalking him with their clipboards, but here was the pretty blonde. She had been looking for him, she said. She wanted to know his decision about the nursing home, and she told him again that his mother needed physical therapy. “Speech, walking, and occupational rehab,” she added.
“She doesn’t need occupational rehab,” he said. “She’s retired.”
“Occupational means help with grooming, dressing, transferring. There are six life-activity criteria—”
“Oh. I thought you meant learning welding or something.” He waited for her smile but got nothing.
“We would be glad to fax out to the nursing homes in the area,” she said, brandishing her clipboard. “Do you want us to fax out?”
“I’d like to fax you out, baby.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“My mother loves irony,” he said, knowing he wasn’t making sense.
After helping his mother with her lunch, he drove to a Mexican place and bought a pair of hot tamales, a chimichanga, and a twenty-ounce orange drink. He ate in the truck with a big-bands medley blasting on the CD player, but he hardly heard it. His mind was a blur. He knew his mother wanted to be cared for by her family, not by a SWAT team in hospital scrubs. But what could he do? His natural pursuits involved machinery—motorcycles, old trucks—although he didn’t care for the typical stuff like tractor pulls and NASCAR. He wasn’t a gearhead. He was a stargazer, and it probably showed in his off-kilter personality. He felt helpless to deal with his mother. He wasn’t a hand-holder. Still, it bothered him that women attributed so many failures to men: men couldn’t show feelings; men didn’t know how to plump pillows or select place mats. It was wrong that his sister was in California while he was here. Yet he doubted that Shirley could care for their mother any better than he could. Shirley, married to a systems analyst, managed a small balloon-delivery company. She didn’t clean her own house or go to flea markets or bake.
He longed for Julia’s company. She was serious, but not like his sister, whose thoughts came boxed, with instructions. Julia would listen with deep delight to any fool thing he said. He remembered her tickled gasp when he told her about the praying mantises that used to collect in the filter rooms at the plant.
“We’d find hundreds of them stuck in the filters. That was before the safety standards got uprated.” He exaggerated a little. “I got a trophy mantis that barely fit in my lunch box.”
“Does the safety manual tell what to do about a praying-mantis invasion?” She was teasing.
He laughed. “Probably. I don’t see many around anymore.”
“They probably heard the Rapture was coming,” she said.
Her hands swept the imaginary swarm of praying mantises into the sky.
8
Reed, trying to catch up on his sleep, had been dumping
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