McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales - Michael Chabon [91]
“Miss me?”
“You’re a joke.” She turned away from me to the television.
I said, “I wanted you to see some pictures I took today.”
“Still peeping in bedrooms for a living?”
“Only yours.” I took the Polaroids and spread them out on her lap, one after another, like cards.
She frowned. “What’s this?”
“Your piano.”
“It’s all messed up.”
“That’s right, Mother.”
“You can’t take care of anything, can you?”
“No,” I said. “I did this myself.”
She didn’t understand. She shrugged and looked back at the television. I heard a voice say, “Margo, you’ll never get away with this, you know that, don’t you?”
“Mother,” I said. “I did this to your piano.”
She sighed. “Why don’t you grow up, Ray? How old are you now, anyway?”
“And you know what I’m going to do next? I’m going to have someone come in with an axe, and smash it up, and burn it for firewood.”
“You smell like liquor.”
“Are you listening, Mother?”
She turned to me, suddenly interested. “Got any with you?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. But you can’t have it.”
“It’s in your pocket. I can see it.”
She was seeing the gun. “No,” I said. “It’s not liquor. And you can’t have it.”
“I don’t care, Ray. Why do you bother to come here? I don’t care if I never see you again.”
“I thought you’d want to see the piano.”
She swept her hand across her lap, sending the pictures flying. “You worthless piece of shit.”
“Now, Mother.”
She paused. She squinted at me. “What happened, did she leave you?”
“Who?”
“She did, didn’t she?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That’s why you’re here. Stinking of scotch at eleven in the morning.” She sat back in the wheelchair. “You want to make it my fault. Your worthless life is my fault. Your good-for-nothing life is my fault. Christ. What a disappointment you are. You pussy. Give me the fucking bottle in your pocket.”
“It’s not a bottle,” I said. I brought out the gun to show her. “It’s this.”
“I’m so impressed. Put your little penis away, dear.”
I just stood there. It was always the same with her. I had some idea when I came to visit her, some plan for how things would go, but it never turned out right. She could always change things around. I continued to hold the gun in my hand because I didn’t want her telling me what to do. But I felt foolish.
“Put it away, Ray. You might scare the nurses.” She sighed, and rolled her eyes upward. “And to think that once I had hopes for you.”
I bent over in front of her wheelchair, and began to pick up the pictures of the scratched piano. She smacked me on the head. “Get away from me, you little turd.”
I don’t know exactly what happened but when I looked up the gun went off, firing past her ear. It shattered the window behind her. The noise was loud. There was smoke in the room. I said, “Mother, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it—”
“You can’t do anything right, can you? Look at the mess you made. They’re going to charge you for it.”
Because I wanted to scare her, because I wanted her to take that back, because I was angry, I stood up and shoved the gun against her forehead, the barrel right above her eyes. I said, “Mother, this is it.”
“This is nothing,” she hissed.
So I shot her and her brains spattered all over the back of the room, like sticky red-and-white cottage cheese. Now the room was really a mess, I thought. People were yelling somewhere down the hall. I saw a nurse poke her head in and then run off, screaming, “He has a gun!” My mother’s head was tilted way back on her neck, at an extreme angle. So I could only see her chin and her nostrils. Blood was dripping onto the floor from the back of her head. Maybe it wasn’t my day, I thought. But it wasn’t hers, either. From out in the hallway, a guy yelled for me to put the gun down, so I put it down. I felt better then.
Weaving the Dark
By LAURIE KING
As the darkness gathered around her,
she embarked upon the greatest adventure
of her life—in her own backyard.
We’re all blind to something