Read Online When the Messenger Is Hot by Elizabeth Crane - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Elizabeth Crane
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will have to work out before she has a real relationship with anyone but that he truly enjoys her company and was hoping that they could continue fucking for an indefinite period of time as he likes fucking her very much . Josie, who has an opening to hurl a great variety of insults at Hyman regarding his own mother and father and regarding his obsession with his SAT scores, instead calmly stands up and says, But I donât fucking like you very much , which is the best she can do under the circumstances, which even Josie knows is the kind of response that in seventh grade would have provoked the sarcastic Nice comeback in return, and which of course produces loud guffaws from Hyman as Josie leaves the restaurant without saying good-bye. Several years and a few more appreciative boyfriends later, Josie plans to tell Hyman, if she ever sees him again, that he was an elitist fuck , but when the time comes and Josie runs into Hyman on the street, even after he says, I see you still have the same haircut , Josie still canât bring herself to say anything rude but keeps the plan open for another time.
Year-at-a-Glance
W HEN MY DAD comes to me with the all-purpose serious tone that turns up in a variety of scenarios ranging from me forgetting to pick up milk to him forgetting to get me the concert tickets I asked for to car accidents varying in degree from chipped paint to fender-bender, I naturally fail to understand, upon hearing the words cancer and lung and mom in the same sentence, that it may not turn out well. Which is followed by me spending the next two years failing to understand that. And so of course, when the doctors tell us that sheâs expected to have a full recovery, this is then followed by me believing them, followed by me moving out of town as proof of my faith in the medical community. Subsequent things that will help me not to understand this:
⢠my mother saying Iâm fine and demonstrating this by renting a U-Haul and driving me and everything I own from New Jersey to Chicago
⢠my mother reupholstering the sofa
⢠my mother retiling the bathroom
⢠my mother performing in Mahlerâs Eighth and receiving rave reviews
(My mother is already an opera singer, so itâs not like the old doctor-will-I-ever-play-the-piano kind of situation, still, someone with a lung problem singing, you know, opera, is not only impressive but is a fine tool for furthering denial.)
Several combinations of chemo and radiation and new age crap later, when the doctors say that if this round doesnât work she might only have a few months, I begin a six-hour crying jag that turns my face into a pomegranate and results in the sensation of having a big wad of bubblegum burst inside my skull, which is followed by me wiping away my tears and realizing that the doctors must be completely wrong. I fly back to New York to see her more often even though the city makes me want to slash my wrists and even though I think I wonât live through one more person pressing up against me on the subway and even though my mother is even more mood-oriented than before the cancer/lung thing. As a show of my faith in her ability to function as usual, I let my mother drive to Taco Bell (when she sends me back into the house to retrieve her book â a tattered Week-at-a-Glance calendar/address combo crammed with assorted scraps of paper, napkins, unpaid bills, to-do lists, fabric swatches, and bus tickets, held together by the combined strength of a rubber band and a size 10 clamp â the opportunity for better judgment arises and is ultimately rejected upon returning to the car and witnessing the first glimmer of hope Iâve seen in my motherâs eyes in months). This even though Mom was more than a little stressed out as a driver before she was attached to an oxygen tank and on prednisone and Xanax and antibiotics and whatever else and because she wants a chicken taco really bad and because driving
Year-at-a-Glance
W HEN MY DAD comes to me with the all-purpose serious tone that turns up in a variety of scenarios ranging from me forgetting to pick up milk to him forgetting to get me the concert tickets I asked for to car accidents varying in degree from chipped paint to fender-bender, I naturally fail to understand, upon hearing the words cancer and lung and mom in the same sentence, that it may not turn out well. Which is followed by me spending the next two years failing to understand that. And so of course, when the doctors tell us that sheâs expected to have a full recovery, this is then followed by me believing them, followed by me moving out of town as proof of my faith in the medical community. Subsequent things that will help me not to understand this:
⢠my mother saying Iâm fine and demonstrating this by renting a U-Haul and driving me and everything I own from New Jersey to Chicago
⢠my mother reupholstering the sofa
⢠my mother retiling the bathroom
⢠my mother performing in Mahlerâs Eighth and receiving rave reviews
(My mother is already an opera singer, so itâs not like the old doctor-will-I-ever-play-the-piano kind of situation, still, someone with a lung problem singing, you know, opera, is not only impressive but is a fine tool for furthering denial.)
Several combinations of chemo and radiation and new age crap later, when the doctors say that if this round doesnât work she might only have a few months, I begin a six-hour crying jag that turns my face into a pomegranate and results in the sensation of having a big wad of bubblegum burst inside my skull, which is followed by me wiping away my tears and realizing that the doctors must be completely wrong. I fly back to New York to see her more often even though the city makes me want to slash my wrists and even though I think I wonât live through one more person pressing up against me on the subway and even though my mother is even more mood-oriented than before the cancer/lung thing. As a show of my faith in her ability to function as usual, I let my mother drive to Taco Bell (when she sends me back into the house to retrieve her book â a tattered Week-at-a-Glance calendar/address combo crammed with assorted scraps of paper, napkins, unpaid bills, to-do lists, fabric swatches, and bus tickets, held together by the combined strength of a rubber band and a size 10 clamp â the opportunity for better judgment arises and is ultimately rejected upon returning to the car and witnessing the first glimmer of hope Iâve seen in my motherâs eyes in months). This even though Mom was more than a little stressed out as a driver before she was attached to an oxygen tank and on prednisone and Xanax and antibiotics and whatever else and because she wants a chicken taco really bad and because driving
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