Troy said, “Ah lissen’ ta yawl tawk back thien ‘n’ Ah thank Ah eevan got a lee’le
smorter mahsailf.”
I showed him how to fill out an application form
with the right way to answer those tricky multiple choice questions by which
employers weed out an outer fringe (i.e., ethnics, senior citizens, educational
and penal system reboots and the handicapped) who they believe can’t adapt to
emerging capitalist technocracies. Being unremittingly non-comformist myself,
I’ve learned by innumerable and varied trials, how to fill out those
insufferable catalogs of racism and condescension—by answering lie with lie. He
got work wearing a vest with a name tag on it, but felt uncomfortable when some
guy sitting in the john making noises like a pig knee deep in shit called him
by his name when he was cleaning in there. Phield gave Troy some pointers on
how to study for a GED so that he could go to a trade school and he nailed work
as a welder before he even finished the study; and now he makes more money in a
year than I ever made in at least the best five of mine.
He bought a house with a double garage and
then built an addition to the back with the approximate dimensions of Fred’s
old apartment. It’s uncanny. The table that sits in the middle of the room
looks amazingly like the one that we used to play cards on at Fred’s. When Troy
got as many of us as he managed to contact to come to his housewarming, Uri
got him (with support from Troy’s wife Anna) to change the dreadful mauve paint
on the wall that I’m positive now contributed largely to our frequent bouts
before with group depression.
Anna said, “Try to clean up a little. I plan
to use it a couple of times a week.” Troy made her quit working and now she
sells lotions to the ladies; it’s kind of a cover for their own gabfest.
Anna (R.N.) was part of the glut of health
workers at the start of the recession that got her laid off from a 40 dollar an
hour job (that she had for exactly 2 days
short of 3 months) and took one in fast food for minimum and helped put
them back on their feet. About life, she might have invented the phrase, “It is what it is.” She’s a jewel.
Colby and Jefferson took jobs out of town
and they dropped in for a few minutes. We’ll have to iron out some kind of
schedule if Troy wants to restart the group.
Phield was in New York, but he called and
talked to Troy first, then Troy put him on speaker: “As charter member of this Shakespearean if not Biblical heterogeneity,
I certainly hope to utilize my rights of attendance as often as my schedule
permits.” He pronounces the ‘ch” in “schedule” as the common digraph “sh,” the
way the British do.
Troy said, “Ah need yawl’s hailp gittin’ Doctor Phiel’s drift mos’ o’ th’ tahm.” He
got enough of it to get his GED though. His awe of Phield is not unjustified.
Jap arrived. We got as giddy as a Valley
Girl on her first date. He didn’t disappoint: “My embolism for Dr. Phield remains unhinged. It is quite expiring to
hear him import his wisdom among his carabinieri without a soupcan of
contraception nor dismay.”
Jap has a five year old son
Hammond by a former relationship, and when he married, Ham became Big Brother
to the boy and girl that Jap was just working on then with Meg. He brought Ham
with him to the housewarming, and while we—Troy, Uri, Anna and Greta (one of
Anna’s friends) and I—were sitting at the table drinking coffee, Ham burst in
and sat down in an obvious funk on the couch.
Anna said, “What’s the matter, honey? Are my
kids giving you a hard time?”
And Ham said, “Marnie said that boys are
nasty and don’t have a pretty bushina like
girls do. And that their tentacles
hang down like turkey swaddle.”
Anna looked at Troy and said as she got up,
“No more TV in their bedrooms! Or computer!”
The rest of us grinned like Cheshire Saps
and looked at Ham as if he’d just read us the Rosetta Stone.
Noe.
