Удушье (Choke)

A fat man comes jogging down the hall with one hand pressed over a bouncing chest pocket full of pens and another hand on his hip holster of hot pepper spray. Keys jingle on his other hip. To the front desk girl, he says, 'So what's the situation here?'

And Denny says, 'Is there a bathroom I can use? Like, for civilians?'

The problem is Denny.

So he'll hear her confession, he needs to meet what's left of my mom. My plan is I'll introduce him as Victor Mancini.

This way Denny can find out who I really am. This way my mom can find some peace. Gain some weight. Save me the cost of a tube. Not die.

When Denny's back from the bathroom, the guard is walking us to the living part of St. Anthony's and Denny says, 'There's no lock on the bathroom door here. I was settled on the can and some old lady just barged in on me.'

I ask if she wanted sex.

And Denny says, 'How's that again?'

We go through a set of doors the guard has to unlock, then another set. As we walk, his keys bounce against his hip. Even the back of his neck has a big roll of fat.

'Your mom?' Denny says. 'So does she look like you?'

'Maybe,' I say, 'except, you know . . .'

And Denny says, 'Except starved and with no brain left, right?'

And I go, 'Stop already.' I say, 'Okay, she was a shitty mother, but she's the only mom I have.'

'Sorry, dude,' Denny says, and he goes, 'But won't she notice I'm not you?'

Here at St. Anthony's, they have to close the curtains before it gets dark, since if a resident sees themself reflected in a window they'll think somebody's peeping in at them. It's called 'sun-downing.' When all the old folks get crazy at sunset.

You could put most of these folks in front of a mirror and tell them it's a television special about old dying miserable people, and they'd watch for hours.

The problem is my mom won't talk to me when I'm Victor, and she won't talk to me when I'm her attorney. My only hope is to be her public defender while Denny's me. I can goad. He can listen. Maybe then she'll talk.

Think of this as some kind of Gestalt ambush.

Along the way, the guard asks wasn't I the guy who raped Mrs. Field's dog?

No, I tell him. It's a long story, I say. About eighty years long.

We find Mom in the dayroom, sitting at a table with a shat­tered jigsaw puzzle spread out in front of her. There must be a thousand pieces, but there's no box to show how it's supposed to look. It could be anything.

Denny says, 'That's her?' He says, 'Dude, she looks nothing like you.'

My mom's pushing puzzle pieces around, some of them turned over so the gray cardboard side shows, and she's trying to fit them together.

'Dude,' Denny says. He turns a chair around and sits at the table so he can lean forward on the chair back. 'In my experi­ence, these puzzles work best if you find all the flat edge pieces first.'

My mom's eyes crawl all over Denny, his face, his chapped lips, his shaved head, the holes open in the seams of his T-shirt.

'Good morning, Mrs. Mancini,' I say. 'Your son, Victor, is here to visit you. This is him.' I say, 'Don't you have something important to tell him?'

'Yeah,' Denny says, nodding. 'I'm Victor.' He starts picking up pieces with a flat edge. 'Is