Удушье (Choke)

You can't win. Every man who's ever passed through Eva's life has probably been her big brother in some form. Whether she knew it or not, she's spent her whole life waiting and expecting men to diddle her. For serious, even mummied up in her wrin­kled skin, she's still eight years old. Stuck. Just the same as Colo­ nial Dunsboro with its granola crew of burnouts, everybody at St. Anthony's is trapped in their past.

I'm no exception, and don't think you are either.

Just as stuck as Denny in the stocks, Eva's arrested in her de­velopment.

'You,' Eva says, and pokes a trembling finger at me. 'You hurt my woo-woo.'

These stuck old people.

'Oh, you said it was just our game,' she says and rolls her head, her voice getting sing song. 'It was just our secret game, but then you put your big man thing inside me.' Her bony, carved little finger keeps poking in the air at my crotch.

For serious, just the idea makes my big man thing want to run screaming from the room.

The trouble is, anywhere else at St. Anthonys it's the same deal. Another old skeleton thinks I borrowed five hundred dollars from her. Another baggy old woman calls me the devil.

'And you hurt me,' Eva says.

It's tough not to come here and soak up the blame for every crime in history. You want to shout in everybody's old toothless face. Yes, I kidnapped that Lindbergh baby.

The Titanic thing, I did that.

That Kennedy assassination deal, yeah, that was me.

The big World War II gizmo, that atom bomb contraption, well guess what? That was my doing.

The AIDS bug? Sorry. Me, again.

The correct way to handle a case like Eva is to redirect her at­tention. Distract her by mentioning lunch or the weather or how nice her hair looks. Her attention span is about a clock tick long, and you can shove her on to a more pleasant topic.

You can guess this is how men have been handling Eva's hos­tility for her whole life. Just distract her. Get through the mo­ment. Avoid confrontation. Run away.

That's pretty much how we get through our own lives, watch­ing television. Smoking crap. Self-medicating. Redirecting our own attention. Jacking off. Denial.

Her whole body leaning forward, her little stick finger trem­bles in the air at me.

Screw it.

She's already pretty much engaged to become Mrs. Death.

'Yeah, Eva,' I say. 'I boned you.' And I yawn. 'Yup. Every chance I got, I stuck it in you and humped out a load.'

They call this psychodrama. You could call it just another kind of granny dumping.

Her twisted little finger wilts, and she settles back between the arms of her wheelchair. 'So you finally admit it,' she says.

'Hell yes,' I say. 'You're a great piece of ass, baby sis.'

She looks off at a blank spot on the linoleum floor and says, 'After all these years, he admits it.'

This is role-playing therapy, only Eva doesn't know it's not for real.

Her head still loops in little circles, but her eyes come back to me. 'And you're not sorry?' she says.

Well, I guess if Jesus could die for my sins, I suppose I can soak up a few for other people.