Read Online Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel - Free Book Online Page B

Don’t you think, Dwight”—she turned to me on the street—“that in New York you can become more inert than you notice. You can mistake the city’s commotion for your own.”
    “Yeah,” I said in order to seem like someone who participated in conversations and responded thoughtfully to questions. “I wouldn’t want to become one of those like balding solo guys walking around in tight jeans and a leather jacket with a cute little dog poking out.”
    “It’s like I said mom. Dwight is gay. It explains everything.”
    Mom wouldn’t have it—she has a need for grandkids. “Dwight is very masculine,” she told Alice.
    In accidental confirmation of her thesis I let loose a ripping burp.
    Mom groaned. “The Episcopal disease.”
    I felt bad. The likelihood of my seeing mom and of my being hungover were both markedly higher on Sundays—a meaningless statistical convergence that nonetheless could create a false impression. I said, “If I really drank too much I wouldn’t be hungover now, mom. In fact I’m a lightweight. I should really drink more—or at least more steadily.”
    On the north side of Eleventh Alice and I kissed and hugged mom and said our see you soons. I looked for a moment into mom’s splintered blue eyes and saw there that love was so strong in her that she feared the thing. I think she guessed accurately enough what it was like to be somebody else (such as her husband or one of her kids) that the guess freaked her out and so she kept from making it. In fact I could see how one might do just that, avoiding sympathy out of an excess of it. “Love you,” we said to each other and let go.
    Mom had latched and unlatched the little clinking metal gate and gone beneath the scaffolding when she turned around. “I hope you kids are off to do something fun. Come here Dwight, let me give you some mad money.” I went up to her as she pressed some bills into my hand and folded my fingers back. “Take your sister to the movies. You know she studies all the time.” She drew back. “And buy yourself some breath mints.”
    I returned to Alice and asked if she wanted to see a movie. “Maybe there’s some documentary? About exploitation?”
    “Just take the money.”
    “Come on, Alice. Obviously the last time we hung out was pretty weird. I’m sorry that I acted inappropriately.”
    She didn’t say anything. And indeed we hadn’t really talked that much since the fall.
    Then she said, “So are you seeing anyone yet?”
    “What do you care? You’re a nun like mom.”
    “It’s more likely that I’m single because once upon a time mom wasn’t.”
    “What is that? That’s like nonsense. Was that like translated from French into professor talk? You’re like a Communist nun.”
    “So I’m a nun because—?”
    “I hope you don’t say any hurtful things that I think you’d want to take back right away. It was a trying day for everyone.”
    “Fine. Don’t worry about it. So I asked you a question. Are you seeing anyone?”
    “What do you mean—shrink or a girl?”
    “Girl. Woman.”
    “Kind of. Yeah. Vaneetha. Still.”
    “Kind of,” she repeated. “All you are is kind of.”
    “I’m feeling some real tension between us, Al.”
    “What is this way you talk, Dwight? Everything you say is in quotes.”
    “Everything everybody says.”
    “I’m not going to stand here arguing with you on the street.”
    “You think mom can see out? From behind the, like, shroud? Because I really don’t think so.”
    Alice told me to take the money. I tried forcing it into her hand. Then she pushed the small sheaf at me while I yanked my palm away. The two twenties dropped and fell facedown on the gum-spattered sidewalk.
    “Pick them up,” Al said. “Mom will see.”
    “What kind of Communist are you—”
    “Of course I’m not a Com munist—”
    “—if you don’t think somebody’s going to pick some money off the street. Those aren’t like injured people lying there. Without health