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Authors: Tama Janowitz
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paintings, was, "You've always sounded so pompous to me, Marley. I wonder if other people feel the same way about you that I do? Or is it just because I'm your mother that you come across as pretentious. . . ."
Let's face it, my mother was in outer space. She made me mad. There was no use in my trying to talk to her. I got up and walked out, leaving my mother alone in the loft.
Well, I really just went up the street to buy some beer. I only wanted to get away from her for a couple of minutes. But when I got back with the Rheingold, she was gone. This made me feel even worse. Because the neighborhood was not exactly safe, and it was already past dark. All the Cuban fritter joints had closed up for the evening and there was nobody out on the street but a bunch of men standing around drinking. Which was okay for me, because though I'm a skinny guy, I've always been tough. But for my mother, wandering around pregnant with my brother . . .
I cracked open the quart of beer and there on the table my
----
mother had scribbled a little note. It was lucky I found it, the table was so covered with old paint rags, napkins, telephone numbers, and unopened bills. The note was short: "As long as you have confidence in yourself, Marley, I suppose that's what's important. I'm leaving you five dollars, buy yourself something to eat."
My mother had never outgrown a certain girlish style of writing, at least in her personal correspondence. And yet her monthly pet column, appearing in various women's magazines, which she churned out with regularity, was highly professional, though the subject matter was generally quite deranged. Articles on homosexuality in the household pet; hookworm; rabies, and other lurid topics.
I was so mad at myself I went over to the sink and smashed the three plates I hadn't yet broken. I'm a very volatile type of guy. Why had I spoken to my mother that way, calling her an old bat? Maybe it was the cold, my apartment was without heat. I have never done well in the cold, nor in the heat either, for that matter. The cold hadn't seemed to affect the cockroaches, however, they were more active than ever. I figured the least I could do would be to poison the roaches, a task I thoroughly enjoyed. In this way I supposed I would be pleasing my mother. I would use the money she had left me to go buy roach poison and some ice cream. If my mother thought I was looking skinny, she who had never before paid the slightest attention to my appearance, then I really must be looking frail. So I threw my coat on and went back out.
On the street I realized I felt extremely giddy. Here I was, Marley Mantello, a genius of an artist, and shortly about to have a new brother. Already I thought of the kid more as my own son. The discussions we would be able to have! All that I knew about art would be his by osmosis. It was as if I was in a cyclotron, whirling about. I could feel the various amoebas and molecules inside me hopping like Mexican jumping beans. Oh, it was amazing how lucky I was, though it was no more than I deserved.
I couldn't control myself; once inside the grocery store I
----
leapt up, accidentally knocking over a package of Japanese rice cookies. Oh, I was an elegant chap, and though my Italian almond-colored loafers were scuffed, what a team my son and I would make once he arrived! It would be him and me against the world.
Then I spotted an artist friend of mine, standing next to the piles of dried apricots and nutmeats. "Larry!" I said.
"Hello, Marley," he said, in the voice of a zombie. Humped over alongside the apricots that way, he gave me quite a jolt. It was screwy, the way he was standing, one shoulder lower than the other as if he had got the plague. Maybe he was trying to steal the fruit, though I could have told him that this wasn't the place to try. "How have you been, Marley?" he said.
The last time I saw Larry, he looked like a human being. Now he had slithered into some preliminary reptile. On his head
Let's face it, my mother was in outer space. She made me mad. There was no use in my trying to talk to her. I got up and walked out, leaving my mother alone in the loft.
Well, I really just went up the street to buy some beer. I only wanted to get away from her for a couple of minutes. But when I got back with the Rheingold, she was gone. This made me feel even worse. Because the neighborhood was not exactly safe, and it was already past dark. All the Cuban fritter joints had closed up for the evening and there was nobody out on the street but a bunch of men standing around drinking. Which was okay for me, because though I'm a skinny guy, I've always been tough. But for my mother, wandering around pregnant with my brother . . .
I cracked open the quart of beer and there on the table my
----
mother had scribbled a little note. It was lucky I found it, the table was so covered with old paint rags, napkins, telephone numbers, and unopened bills. The note was short: "As long as you have confidence in yourself, Marley, I suppose that's what's important. I'm leaving you five dollars, buy yourself something to eat."
My mother had never outgrown a certain girlish style of writing, at least in her personal correspondence. And yet her monthly pet column, appearing in various women's magazines, which she churned out with regularity, was highly professional, though the subject matter was generally quite deranged. Articles on homosexuality in the household pet; hookworm; rabies, and other lurid topics.
I was so mad at myself I went over to the sink and smashed the three plates I hadn't yet broken. I'm a very volatile type of guy. Why had I spoken to my mother that way, calling her an old bat? Maybe it was the cold, my apartment was without heat. I have never done well in the cold, nor in the heat either, for that matter. The cold hadn't seemed to affect the cockroaches, however, they were more active than ever. I figured the least I could do would be to poison the roaches, a task I thoroughly enjoyed. In this way I supposed I would be pleasing my mother. I would use the money she had left me to go buy roach poison and some ice cream. If my mother thought I was looking skinny, she who had never before paid the slightest attention to my appearance, then I really must be looking frail. So I threw my coat on and went back out.
On the street I realized I felt extremely giddy. Here I was, Marley Mantello, a genius of an artist, and shortly about to have a new brother. Already I thought of the kid more as my own son. The discussions we would be able to have! All that I knew about art would be his by osmosis. It was as if I was in a cyclotron, whirling about. I could feel the various amoebas and molecules inside me hopping like Mexican jumping beans. Oh, it was amazing how lucky I was, though it was no more than I deserved.
I couldn't control myself; once inside the grocery store I
----
leapt up, accidentally knocking over a package of Japanese rice cookies. Oh, I was an elegant chap, and though my Italian almond-colored loafers were scuffed, what a team my son and I would make once he arrived! It would be him and me against the world.
Then I spotted an artist friend of mine, standing next to the piles of dried apricots and nutmeats. "Larry!" I said.
"Hello, Marley," he said, in the voice of a zombie. Humped over alongside the apricots that way, he gave me quite a jolt. It was screwy, the way he was standing, one shoulder lower than the other as if he had got the plague. Maybe he was trying to steal the fruit, though I could have told him that this wasn't the place to try. "How have you been, Marley?" he said.
The last time I saw Larry, he looked like a human being. Now he had slithered into some preliminary reptile. On his head
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