Timothy right off the bat because he's just so damned nice how could you not like him?'
'Talk about nice, how about that Chip?' Gill said.
'A chip off the old block,' the ugly bearded man said, at which point everyone broke into laughter.
'Ha, ha,' I said. 'A chip off the old shoulder.'
Gill and his companions ignored me until the skinny hag turned to me and said, 'You, sir, are standing in the way of our evening and I for one don't appreciate it.' I suddenly under-stood why she was missing her front tooth.
Gill said, 'Dolph, maybe you should just try to keep quiet and listen for a change.' I nodded and leaned back in my chair, thinking, Listen to what? He's so nice, she's so nice, aren't they so nice. Nice is a mystery to me because while on some mundane level I aspire to it, it is the last thing I would want a table full of dullards saying about me.
'Nice job, Byron.'
'Hey, Kimberly, nice blouse. Is it new?'
'I love your haircut, Pepper. It's really nice!'
I don't understand nice.Nice is a lazy one-syllable word and it says nothing at all. I prefer to surround myself with more complex words, such asheroic andcommanding.
'That Dolph, is he a national treasure or what?'
I sat at Gill's table for another ten minutes or so during which time I heard the word 'nice' twenty-three times until I couldn't stand it anymore. When I finally left, the idiot with the beard called out, 'Nice talking to you,' which I guess brings the tally up to twenty-four.
I wrote Gill after my mother died, hoping he might pick up the phone and give me a call but instead he chose to mail this hokey calligraphed sympathy card, which I fear he may have actually made himself.
My mother chose to be cremated and the memorial service was sparsely attended just me, three of my four sisters, my mother's boss from the collection agency, and a few of her acquaintances from the firing range.
During that time at our mother's house my sisters were remote and mechanical, acting as though they were hotel maids, tidying up after a stranger. They spoke as if a terrible chapter of their lives had just ended, and I felt alone in my belief that a much more terrible chapter was about to begin. I overheard them gathered together in the kitchen or talking to their husbands on the telephone, saying, 'She was a very sad and angry woman and there's nothing more to say about it.' Sad? Maybe. Angry? Definitely. But there is always more to say about it. My mother made sure of that.
Three days after the memorial service we met with her lawyer, an energetic woman with very long fingernails painted to resemble American flags. Someone, her manicurist I suppose, spent a great deal of time on the stripes but the stars were a mess, a clot of glitter.
She opened her briefcase and informed us that my mother's house, car, and personal possessions were to be sold at their cur-rent market value. That money would be added to her life insurance, pension plan, and bank holdings and, according to her will, would be donated to her specified charitable organization, The National Rifle Association.
After the initial shock had worn off, my sisters found themselves plenty more to talk about.
I thought it was funny but, then again, I guess I could afford to think of it as funny. On the afternoon of my last visit, after the radiation and chemotherapy had left her with what would soon become pneumonia, my mother handed me a check for forty thousand dollars and warned me to cash it fast. Mrs. Gails's television was blaring a rerun of a vile situation comedy in which a pleasant-looking, vapid teenaged boy acts as the gamekeeper of four terminally precocious children. 'Leave,' Mom said, pointing to the door. 'And on your way out I want you to shut off her television. It'll take the nurses a good twenty minutes to turn it back on. Give me the gift of peace. It's worth the forty thousand dollars, believe me.'
As I left the room she offered to double the money if I smothered Mrs. Galls. 'Use the pillow,' she called. 'The pillow.'
I didn't mention the money to my sisters as, like my mother, I may be mean but I'm not stupid. The money has allowed me to take my time and relax a little before stumbling into another meaningless job. I really appreciate it and every afternoon when I roll out of bed I look up at the asbestos ceiling and silently thank my mother.
For most of my adult life I've held some sort of a regular daytime job so I'm really not used to being at home during a weekday. With all this time on my hands and neither Gill nor my mother to talk to, I find myself watching a great deal of daytime television and drinking much earlier than usual. It had always been my habit to watch television after returning from work. I knew about detectives, lawyers, police dramas, laugh-track comedies, infomercials, movies both good and bad, pageants, commercials, late-night public relations festivals disguised as talk shows, and the valium of anything presented as educational. So it was with great joy that I entered the world of daytime television. Why, I ask, are these programs broadcast when most people are off at work? Daytime TV is a gold mine of pathological behavior.
I move the television from room to room, captivated by just about everything that appears before me. At first I found myself watching with the volume turned to a whisper, lying on the sofa with the TV eight inches from my face. There were times when, in order to reduce the strain on my neck, I actually placed the portable TV on my stomach. I realized later that I'd been think-ing about Mrs. Gails. Watching anything at top volume meant that I was, somehow, like her. I pictured my mother's ghost on the other side of my living room, stuffing Kleenex into her ears and calling for the nurse.
'Day and night he's got that TV going. He's brain dead what more evidence do you need? Pull either his plug or mine because I just can't take it anymore.'
All of my neighbors work during the day so little by little I found myself turning up the volume and living a normal television life. I start with what is left of the relentlessly cheerful mid-morning advice and interview shows, move through the soap operas, and arrive at the confessional talk shows, which are my favorite. It is their quest for issues that makes these shows irresistible. Recently I watched as a sweatshirt-wearing family appeared to discuss the mother's hiring of a hit man.
'Yes, I set your mattress on fire but only because you bit me on the head.'
'I never bit you on your damned head.'
'Don't you lie to me. You bit me on the head and I've got the scars to prove it.'
'I never bit anyone on the head unless maybe they deserved it because they came home all messed up on needle drugs.'
Regardless of the truth I am captured by the story: How could you bite anyone on the head? How could you open your mouth that wide? More interesting are those shows where only one of the guests feels it necessary to state his or her case. I watched a program dedicated to medical mishaps where a denim-clad woman was interviewed alongside her helpless, elderly father. The father, an alcoholic, had received thirty-seven shock treatments following an episode of what his daughter referred to as 'Barrel Fever,' the D.T.'s. The man sat stooped in a wheelchair, random tufts of dirty white hair clinging to his blistered scalp like lint. He spent a great deal of time clearing his throat and examining a stain on his trousers while his sixty-year-old daughter proudly faced the camera to recall the torment he had visited upon her life. Her father drank and drank until the fever set in, at which point he mistook his wife and children for insects.
'He thought we were bees,' the daughter said. 'He thought we lived in a hive and came to carry him off to our queen. Remember that?' she asked. 'Remember that, Daddy?'
The old man touched his sock and licked his lips. The shock treatments had left him weak and muddled but still his eyes were bright. Whatever his stories he was determined to carry them to his grave in a dignified manner. He remained silent, nodding with pleasure each time his drinking was mentioned.
Given the rarity of truly bizarre acts, the daytime talk shows are forced to pretend that one story is as compelling as the next: the women who have made a lifetime commitment to wearing caftans appearing on Tuesday are equal to the posse of twelve-year-olds who murdered a neighbor's infant son on the grounds that he was ugly. I'd rather hear about the twelve-year-olds and had, in fact, looked forward all day to watching that show when someone dropped by and ruined it for me.
Since losing my job I have become acquainted with my building's super, a pale, burly, redheaded guy by the name of Tommy Keen. He's big all over tall and wide dressed in undersized T-shirts that reveal the pasty, sweating flesh of his arms and stomach. Every now and then I'd hear a rap and answer to find Tommy swabbing the tiles outside my apartment, pretending he had knocked accidentally with the mop handle. The guy obviously needed a
