One evening, years ago, my friend Lucy's phone rang, and the name showing in the phone's little window was "Ma."
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| Image: Teece Aronin |
"Hello?"
When Lucy answered the phone, she heard distant conversation and could tell that people were playing cards - gin, to be exact. Lucy knew the voices well; they belonged to her mother, Darlene, her Aunt Zelda, and her sister, Jo-Jo. Darlene and Zelda were sisters.
Her mother's phone was likely at the bottom of her bag, and something in the bag had likely butt-dialed Lucy. Assuming that were true, the women were probably at Jo-Jo's or Aunt Zelda's. If they were at Jo-Jo's, they were gathered around Jo-Jo's glass-top wrought iron dining table, always splattered with wet rings because Jo-Jo didn't know what a coaster was.
If they were at Aunt Zelda's, they were sitting at the 1940's-era enamel kitchen table that had been Lucy's grandmother's. The table had caused a huge fight between Darlene and Zelda when Darlene accused Zelda of practically snatching it out from under the bowl of oatmeal their mother had nosedived into when she stroked out during breakfast one day. Darlene had complained that the oatmeal, like the body, wasn't even cold yet.
"Hello?"
More ghostly chatter.
"Hel-lo!"
Lucy yelled at least five more times before the conversation sucked her into its weird spell.
Darlene: Her therapist told her it was free-floating anx-XI-ety. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Imagine having your anxiety hovering around over your head all the time - like a big, black cloud.
Aunt Zelda: For God's sake, Darlene; that's not what it means. It just means that you're anxious for no real reason. Your adrenaline cells have stomped their foot down on the gas pedal and now the pedal's jammed. Don't you ever watch Dr. Phil?
Darlene: No, Zelda, I don't. I didn't have the good fortune of marrying a barber, and therefore I have to work during the day.
Aunt Zelda: Jackie is a much-in-demand hair stylist, and besides, there's always TiVo.
Aunt Zelda had a way of sounding sage, droning, and boastful at the same time.
Jo-Jo (referring to her husband): I think Billy has anxiety. I don't know if it's free-floating or on the ground, but he definitely seems anxious. Sometimes it drives me up the wall because I literally have to scream at him to snap him out of it. He has issues up the win-wang."
Darlene: That's yin-yang.
Jo-Jo: Win-wang, yin-yang, wherever they are, they're there.
Darlene: You know, there's all kinds of anxiety. There's the free-floating kind, and there's panic attacks, and there's ODC . . .
Aunt Zelda: Good God, Darlene; it's not ODC, it's O-C-D - obsessive-compulsive disorder. It can make you do things and think things you don't want to. The obsessive part is thoughts you can't stop thinking, and the compulsive part is things you can't stop doing. Some people have one or the other, and some have both. I read about it on the internet.
Jo-Jo: I think I have OCD. I can't stop thinking I want to divorce Billy, and I can't stop myself from screaming at him.
Aunt Zelda: I knew a girl in high school who, when she got her driver's license, she found she had a compulsion for driving into potholes. I mean no one knew she had OCD - she just happened to share the whole pothole thing with me one day and asked me if I thought it was weird. Of course, I tried to be reassuring and said it seemed perfectly normal to me. She just couldn't stop herself whenever there was a pothole coming. She'd even purposely veer right into them. I always emptied my bladder first if she was going to be driving.
Darlene: I might've known her. Who was she?
Aunt Zelda: I'm not telling, but she's a therapist now, which just goes to show you can conquer your demons.
Darlene: Come on, Zelda; what's her name?
Aunt Zelda: I said I'm not telling.
Darlene: Oh, screw you, Zelda.
Jo-Jo: You know, I hate it when the two of you talk to each other this way.
Aunt Zelda: Shut the fuck up, Jo-Jo.
Jo-Jo: Dammit, Aunt Zelda. I hate it when you swear.
Aunt Zelda: Oh, I'm sorry. Jo-Jo, shut the frig up. How's that?
Jo-Jo: Better.
Aunt Zelda: Gin!
Darlene: Zelda, you asshole!
Jo-Jo: Ma! What did I just say?
Darlene: "You said that to your aunt."
Jo-Jo: I think next time we should play Scrabble.
Aunt Zelda: I once played Scrabble with a man who was a master at the game. When he played the word BEARS for 72 points, I said that's amazing! And you know what he said? He said: "It's not the bears, it's where you put the bears."
Darlene: I'd like to tell you where to put the bears.
Jo-Jo: You know, what that man said - about the bears - that applies to a lot of things in life.
Aunt Zelda: That it does, my dear niece, that it does.
After more helpless shouting to her mother, Lucy hung up and went to bed. The next day, when she told her mother what happened, her mother yelled at her for eavesdropping.
