the hump would her name be now? Godzilla knows. Madame Doctor? Commissar? Prisoner X? She never says a word, never hangs up, and once I even laid the phone down, ran to T-Bone’s trailer and dialed her old number in Baltimore. Needless to say-life is a dream-it was busy.
In the cobwebby, dusty old Winnebago, hearing the munching of beasts in the dark through the open portholes, holding the cool receiver in my hand, I felt the small hairs wave on the back of my neck. Then I told myself: this is one last favor she does me, to visit me in this ghostly way, so that I will never want to be with her-to show me, instead of her beautiful face, her other face, deformed, fearful, old-so I’ll be glad I’m on my own. All the same I have her, I am her.
Finally I hang up the phone and think: It can’t be Zuk. Even if she’s alive, how could she possibly know where I am? Where did she get my number? What could she have to say to me?
JAIMY GORDON
