kitchen floor with my head resting against the hood of my ancient Hoover.
I ask, 'What were you thinking?'
'Mattress, Dolph?'
'Don't go out of your way on my account. I'll just stretch out on this cold tile floor.'
'Pillow?'
'No, thanks. This hard plastic vacuum hood will suit me just fine.'
This morning, in addition to sleeping on the floor, I awoke to find I had once again wet my pants. It's been happening much more often than is necessary lately and it's beginning to really scare me. This time the urine was induced by a dream in which I had been presented with two citizenship awards, the ceremonies back-to-back. The first award was in the shape of Tommy Keen's head. Made of gold-plated lead it was all I could do to carry it off the stage and into the waiting limo for the next ceremony. It was goofy, the way dreams are. Gill was the limo driver but he didn't seem to remember me. I asked him please to pull over somewhere so I could pee and he kept saying I could use the bathroom at the Pavilion. We argued back and forth until he hit a red light and I jumped out of the limo, leaned against a building, and unzipped my fly. The next thing I knew my face was pressed against the hood of a vacuum cleaner and I was lying in a puddle of urine. I didn't even get to find out what the second prize was. This morning I woke on the kitchen floor in a puddle of urine and understood that something has to change as I am not about to buy rubber sheets or adult diapers. This simply cannot continue.
After my mother's death the most shocking discovery in the box marked 'POISON' were not her letters, but the stack of New Year's resolutions she'd spent so long composing. Each of the fifteen cards was dated in the left- hand corner and, in her slanted, childlike writing, each one read the same: 'Be good.' It shook me up as, in the three years that I myself have been making such lists, mine say the same thing, relatively. I have taken to softening my approach as a safeguard against failure. The last one reads: 'Try to think about maybe being good.' 'Try' and 'maybe' give me the confidence I need in order to maintain the casual approach best suited to my ever-changing circumstances.
I looked up at my tightly bound telephone and told myself that I would remain on that floor until someone called, at which point I would answer and redirect my life. Whoever they were and whatever they wanted, I would take it as a sign.
After what seemed like hours, I got off the floor and took a shower, keeping the bathroom door open so I could catch any incoming calls. On the off chance my caller would tell me to quit drinking, I positioned myself on the sofa with two six-packs and a bottle of nice scotch. Then I turned on the TV and ate a sandwich made from leftover chicken lo mein. I call it a Chanwich. At a pivotal point in 'One Life to Live' my telephone rang. A woman who introduced herself as Pamela was determined to woo me away from my current long-distance carrier.
'We've been observing your calling patterns, Mr. Heck, and notice that you seem to have several European friends. Did you realize that our company can save you up to twenty-three percent on overseas calls?'
I wound up switching to her company because, seeing as I had made a commitment to change, it seemed cowardly not to honor it. After our conversation I hung up the phone, expecting it to ring again a few minutes later. I thought I was on a roll and that who knows? anyone might call, anyone at all.
The phone didn't ring again until sometime around ten in the evening, by which point I was pretty well potted. It was a woman's voice and she started in immediately saying, 'All right now, I realize you probably don't remember who I am, do you?' She gave me a moment to guess but I could not begin to identify her.
'It's me, Trudy Chase. I used to be Trudy Cousins. Chase is my married name even though I'm no longer married ifthat makes any sense! Anyway, I don't live in Piedmont anymore but I still have the good oldPost- Democrat delivered to my door every day and that's where I read the obituary on your mother. I know it's been a while but I just wanted to tell you that I'm very sorry to hear about it.'
I didn't know how to respond.
'You really don't remember me, do you?' she said. 'It's me, crazy Trudy who used to sit beside you in Mr. Pope's senior English class. Remember me? I was the crazy one. I was the one who wrote 'Don't follow me I'm lost too' on the back of her graduation gown. It's me, crazy Trudy.'
Suddenly I remembered her perfectly. Even at eighteen she struck me as hopeless.
'So, Trudy,' I said. 'What's going on?'
'Oh, you know me. I'm just as crazy as ever. No, I take that back I'm probablycrazier if you can believe that!'
I thought for a moment before saying, 'Oh.' Because that's really something I can't stand when people refer to themselves as crazy. The truly crazy are labeled so on the grounds that they see nothing wrong with their behavior. They forge ahead, lighting fires in public buildings and defecating in frying pans without the slightest notion that they are out of step with the rest of society. That, to me, is crazy. Calling yourself crazy is not crazy, only obnoxious.
Trudy went on to tell me that she's lived here in Manhattan for three months, having been transferred from the home office in Piedmont. She chuckled, adding that the people here think she's just about the craziest person they've ever met. She's so crazy that she planned an office party for Lincoln's birthday and petitioned her boss to free the slaves in the accounting department. And she even wore a tall hat and a fake beard! The members of her tenants association thought she should be committed after she hosted the last meeting. . by candlelight!
'Ha, ha,' I said. 'That sounds pretty scary.'
'Nothing scares me,' she said. 'That's how crazyI am.'
On my silent TV I watched as a defeated wrestler shook his hairbrush at the referee, obviously screaming for a rematch. 'Nothing?'
'Not a damned thing,' she said. 'Nada. Othing nay.'
The very idea that, out of nowhere, a member of my 1975 graduating class would call meand speak pig latin created a mixed sense of repulsion and endless possibilities.
Trudy spoke of her involvement in any number of organizations. She is, for example, volunteering to walk the dogs of recent stroke victims. 'I usually walk with a woman named Marcie, and, Jesus, if you thinkI'm crazy, you should meet her! We call ourselves the Poop Troop, and next week we're getting our uniforms. You should join us sometime.'
I pictured myself wearing an 'I brake for hydrants' T-shirt and a baseball cap decorated with a synthetic stool.
On top of everything else Trudy also finds the time to play on her company volleyball team, iron for her crazy arthritic neighbor, and teach underprivileged children to make fudge. She didn't say it in a boastful way. She wasn't looking for a medal or trying to make me feel selfish. She invited me over to her apartment for a get-together, but I bowed out, claiming I had a business meeting to attend.
'Well if your meetings are half as crazy as mine you're going to need all the luck you can get,' she said.
She asked if she could call me after my meeting and I told her to hold on a moment as I had another call coming in. She's been holding for fifteen minutes now and I still can't make up my mind. I look over at my mother's card on the refrigerator. BE GOOD. But she never specified: Be good to whom? If I'm good to Trudy Chase, I'll tell her never to call me again. If I'm good to myself, I'll wind up making fudge and walking the dogs of stroke victims. Which is worse?
Essays
Diary of a Smoker
I RODE my bike to the boat pond in Central Park, where I bought myself a cup of coffee and sat down on a bench to read. I lit a cigarette and was enjoying myself when the woman seated twelve feet away, on the other side of the bench, began waving her hands before her face. I thought she was fighting off a bee.
She fussed at the air and called out, 'Excuse me, do you mind if we make this a no-smoking bench?'
