PARTISAN REVIEW
437
Gerald Rosen
From BLUES FOR A DYING NATION
PRE-GAME SHOW
"Ain't no mother-fuckin machine gon make no fool a
Moms! No
sah!
Not Moms! 1 waren't bo'n yestiday ya know."
We are in line at the tollbooth gates. One lane to the right of
the line which is being blocked by Moms. I'm sitting in the back
seat, reading General Eisenhower's joke book,
At Ease: Stories I Tell
to Friends.
I'm going into the army,
1
guess. But through the dense
sweet smoke which fiIIs our little car, over the edge of the page,
1
can't avoid the pull to the periphery.
1
watch her. Her movement
lures my eyes toward her - toward activity.
"I
put one fuckin dolla in this fuckin machine and
1
ain't movin
one fuckin step till
1
gets my change."
We move ahead one notch in our chain.
She slams the door of the ancient wreck she is driving. "No
sah,
1
been round too long for them to pull that kinda shit on me!"
As she mounts the tollbooth basket in the automatic change
lane, she lifts her dress to spread it over the edges of the basket rim.
I
can see the enormous black balloons revealed as, her back toward
me, she lowers her soft bulk onto the basket.
My wife, Edith, who is driving, searches for change to pay our
toll. She isn't aWare of what's about to occur. Next to her, on the
front seat, slouches our friend Warren, stoned. Staring down at his
toes.
The toll basket is made of silvery metal, pocked with rows of
tiny circular holes. Through these little apertures 1 can see Mom's
flesh, in blackheads, protruding.
Then, with her feet up off the ground, her knees pressed against
