220
DON ZACHARIA
stood up, I started to tell him about the Geneva Convention when
he stabbed me in the stomach."
"Is that it?"
"Yes. "
"Oh, Noel, I like that a lot better than the last one. Listen,"
she says, "listen!"
I sat up. "I don't hear anything."
"Listen."
"I still don't hear anything." I was getting alarmed.
"The phone is ringing. Constantly."
"You're hallucinating. You're smoking so much of that] a–
maican ganchi you've become permanently spaced out." I pick up
the phone. "There's no one here. Hello," I talk into the mouth–
piece, "hello, hello, hello, hello--"
"Hello, Noel, how are you?"
It was my mother calling from Florida. How are you--I'm
all right-- You never call us--I'll call you tomorrow--How are
the children--They're O.K.--What's the matter? You seem so
distant on the phone--I was sleeping--Don't you feel well-–
Yes, yes, I feel well--Have you heard from the children-–
They're O.K.--Have they written you-- Yes, I got two letters
from them yesterday--Why don't they write me-- I don't know,
you know children. I'll tell them to write you--What are you
doing now--I was rinsing out my mouth and getting ready to go
to sleep--You told me you were sleeping. Are you sure every–
thing is all right--Would you hold on one sec, Mother, I have to
close the window--
I muffle the phone under the covers. My red-haired friend
had gone down on me the minute the phone rang. She had a thing
about that and had done it before. But this time when she heard it
was my mother she had got to work in earnest and was now doing
something with her teeth on the side of my prick that is not such
an easy thing to describe.
"Look," I say, "it's my mother."
She stops for a moment. "Do me a favor, Noel. It's very
meaningful to me.
If
you do me this favor someday I'll do you a
favor. I want you to come in my mouth while you are talking to
your mother."
