McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales - Michael Chabon [90]
I flipped the picture on the piano down so I didn’t have to look at it. I was careful when I put it down, so I wouldn’t scratch the polished surface. Then I thought, What the fuck. I took the picture and held it on edge, and gouged a big scratch into the piano. It dug through the polished black surface, leaving a white scratch. I gouged another, and another. Made the piano look like hell.
I began to wonder why I had never done this before. I hated this fucking piano. I didn’t know why I had left it here all these years. I told myself I didn’t know what to put in its place. It took up a lot of space in the living room and I would have to redecorate if it was gone.
Well, I’d have to redecorate now.
I thought maybe Mother would like to see her piano. I went out to the car to get the digital camera, but her eyesight isn’t good anymore, and I thought maybe she couldn’t see the little screen at the back. So I opened the glove compartment for the Polaroid, and it fell out along with the gun. The damn glove compartments just aren’t large enough in newer cars. I don’t know what the manufacturers are thinking. Saving money, cutting corners, screwing the consumer. The usual shit.
I picked the gun off the floor and put it on the seat, and took the Polaroid back inside. I took several pictures of the scratches from different angles, but none really showed them off to advantage. I wasn’t sure Mother would really notice. But I owed her a visit anyway.
I went back to the kitchen, had another belt, and smoked a satisfying cigarette. Janis never let me smoke in the house, but those days were over. I stubbed the butt out in the sink, relishing the black crust against the porcelain. Like gunpowder against pale skin.
Then it was time to see Mother.
She was in a very nice home on Third Street, opposite a church. The building was from the fifties, single story, ranch-style, designed not to look institutional. The sign was made from cutout white letters and said “SeaSide Convalescent.” It was at least five miles from the ocean, but it had a pleasant ring.
I parked down the block, and scooped up the Polaroids. The gun was still on the passenger seat and I couldn’t leave it there so I stuck it in my pocket, pulled on my jacket, and went inside.
The SeaSide lobby was small with a cheery ocean motif, sea fans and starfish painted on the walls. You didn’t mind the bedpan smell. The room was crowded with three elderly women in wheelchairs, waiting to be taken somewhere. One of the women was reading a book, one was asleep, and the other was just staring at nothing.
The receptionist was a harried, frowning fat lady who was talking on the phone. I heard her say, “They’ve been waiting an hour, George,” and then she listened a moment. “It’s too early for your lunch break, George, get your ass over here.” With the phone to her ear, she glanced up at me, still frowning.
I said, “I’m here to see Mrs. Chambers.”
“And you are?”
“Her son.”
She held out her hands, snapped her fingers. “Identification?” Into the phone she said, “George, did you hear anything I said?”
I gave her my driver’s license. She hardly looked at it.
“George, damn it, you better get over here now. Someone might decide to call the INS, you know what I mean?” She cupped her hand over the phone. To me: “You know where she is?”
I said I did.
“Go ahead.”
I slipped past the wheelchairs, and went down a long hallway. The doors to individual rooms were open on either side. Cheerful sunlight poured in. But people in the rooms looked insubstantial as ghosts against the white bed linen, and the hallway smelled faintly of beef stew. Or something like that.
Mother was in a room near the back. It looked out onto a small enclosed garden with potted trees. You could see a row of garbage cans off to one side. She was sitting in a wheelchair, watching a soap opera.
I said, “Hello, Mother.”
She looked over at me and said nothing.