Gone running

I had had my head down all day working when I heard them shooting the hell out of the place over at the gun range up the hill. Which is how I knew there must have been a bad one earlier. 

They do this every single time. Preparing for a seizure that is not arriving no matter how much they believe they wish it would. Or would not? I can only imagine how these people think. Firing at a phantom that does not and has never existed. 

Their quarrel is with the wrong ghost in my opinion.

God it must feel so good to feel oppressed by merely hypothetical political violence.

I drove over to my mother’s and spent the afternoon shift babysitting her so my brother could pick his kids up from school. I can’t believe my children have to babysit me she said. Still together enough to know that that was what was happening these past two weeks. Not together enough to function on her own otherwise. 

I asked her if it was alright if I went for a quick jog and she stiffened. But I can’t run with you she said. What if someone comes in the door and kills me while you’re gone she said? 

Now I’m dead she said. Just like that. 

No one is coming to hurt you ma I said moving in to hug her. 

Her hair is still so thick and beautiful. Of all of the things she has passed on to me couldn’t one of them at least have been the hair. 

After some silence she said what if you ran around the track at the high school instead? 

She has never wanted to disappoint me. Not for one second. Even amidst all of this. 

I could wait and watch and know you weren’t very far away. It would be like when we were young she said. You were so fast she said. 

I wasn’t but I didn’t want to argue the point. 

I have never wanted to disappoint her either. Not for one second. 

I said sure mumma that sounds like a plan and she wrapped her arms around my neck like I was the Coast Guard pulling her from the water. Like a helicopter that would soon deliver her back to land. 

It occurred to me then for the first time in my long life how the switching between ma and mumma when I address her indicates a profound calibration of the distance between us. 

We sat in the rocking chairs on her porch while she chain smoked. Both wondering what the fuck had happened to us. Had happened to every one of us. I suppose. I can only imagine how people think. 

We didn’t do the track thing obviously.

This piece was originally published at Flaming Hydra. It does not appear in my new book We Had It Coming but it easily could have!

Come see me at The Sinclair in Cambridge on Saturday November 8 with Dave Wedge, Bill Shaner, Eoin Higgins, and Evan Greer; Wednesday November 12 at the Francis Kite Club in New York City with Spencer Ackerman, Kylie Cheung, Edward Ongweso, and Grace Robins-Somerville; and Thursday November 6 at the Pen & Pencil in Philadelphia with Emilie Friedlander of the Culture Journalist podcast (+ more to come).