It Looked Different on the Model - Laurie Notaro [49]
I had approximately three to four minutes to move the carcass from my yard into my neighbors’ yard so my sister would think it was their dead person. But, ever the optimist, I decided to hope against hope and resuscitate him with the power of fright.
“Young man,” I commanded loudly, as I stood over him and the kingdom of the ants. “Young man! Are you all right?”
While there was no outward response, I realized that he absolutely had to be alive; his knees were still bent, his feet flat on the ground, and again, citing my Law & Order training, I knew he certainly hadn’t been there long enough for rig (shop talk for “rigor mortis,” FYI) to set in. And as far as the phrasing is concerned, I frankly have no idea where within me “young man” came from, except that I suppose nothing terrifies a young vagrant as much as an old lady armed with a cane and a cordless phone that has the cops on speed dial.
But he didn’t budge. He didn’t flinch. An ant sauntered across his nose.
“Young man!” I attempted again. “Who should I call for you? Should I call your caseworker, should I call your sponsor, or should I call your parole officer?”
The ant traipsed around the rim of the left nostril, then wandered over toward the right one.
“… because I can just as easily call the police,” I added. “And their number is shorter.”
And who knew that those words were so magic that they could roll a boulder away from the mouth of a cave and the dead would suddenly awaken.
“Whuuuut?” the kid mumbled, raising himself from the dead as his eyes fluttered open despite the swarm of insects establishing a colony on them.
“I asked you if you needed me to call your parole officer or the police,” I clarified. “Because it appears you may be in some form of distress.”
Now, it’s true and I will be the first to admit that there have been times in my life in the not-too-distant past when I have woken up in strange places—like on a friend’s bathroom floor, where I landed after I fell off the potty and horked on the wall during the way down the night before my college graduation ceremony because I got too friendly with a bottle named Jack. However, I never, ever, ever decided that someone’s yard looked like a very good place to lie down in broad daylight after I had been up for five days while smoking meth out of a pipe with a crust of battery acid on it.
“No, I’m fine,” he barely spit out as he finally rubbed his eyes. “I’m good.”
“If you’re so good, why are you unconscious in my grass?” I demanded, towering over him, my hands on my hips.
Two minutes and counting.
“I’m not,” he said—still, I might add, lying down. “I’m cool. I was just walking down the street and it looked like a good spot.”
“A good spot?” I asked. “A good spot for what?”
“To sleep,” he said, almost as if I was stupid for not figuring it out.
“Well, you need to get up,” I informed him. “You need to be on your way.”
“Why?” he asked incredulously.
“Because you can’t sleep in my yard,” I explained firmly.
“Really? Why not? It’s just grass. Grass belongs to everybody,” he shot back in a very snotty tone, as if the problem was me, as if the issue was that I thought I was just too good to have a random tweaker, after being awake for the better part of a month, collapse in my yard on his way to the bus station, drool in my grass, and let my bugs crawl in and out of his orifices while he slipped into an exhaustion coma—all as my sister took pictures and immediately emailed them to my mother while she was attending to her duties as a Eucharistic minister at church.
“That is so funny, because I didn’t get your contribution this month to pay for the fertilizer, water, or the guys to come and mow the People’s Grass,” I informed him. “This is private property, which means, in People’s Terms, ‘not yours.’ ”
“Maybe I’m not done sleeping,” he replied.
“Well, if I call