Take a Load Off, Mona Jamborski

by Joanna Franklin Bell

  Deliveries won't be an issue for a while. I am slowing down. Something is wrong. I thumb the business card for the nursing agency, wondering at what point I would call. What would I have to feel like, I wonder? Would I have to feel excruciating stabbing pain? Would I have to start turning colors, like specifically, black? Would gangrene be enough to move me to call? Right now, I feel like the status quo is still acceptable, so I decide again to keep on keeping on, just monitoring my left side, and moving with care. I move with care anyway.

  To kill time I call the precinct, and learn that Javier's maroon Camaro was found two states away, but not Javier himself. That's good enough news. I'm happy that whatever he is running from will keep him far away from here and still moving.

  I have a laundry service pick-up soon, and I wonder how I will handle getting the bedclothes removed this time. It's a challenge on my best day. Getting the new sheets tucked back on might be impossible this week, but I have bunked on my couch before, so it won't kill me to do so again while I allow myself to heal. Teeny Asian Man will at least continue to grant me my anonymity, grabbing my bag of linens and my tip and scurrying away lest I detain him with my awfulness for one second longer than absolutely necessary. He certainly won't call me out on my flaws and tease me about salads.

  Oh, shit. That reminds me: tips. I have two ten dollar bills. As far as cash goes, that's every penny available to me in the world. What's in my bank account isn't relevant when you've got a teenager with a pizza, garlic bread, and chicken wings who knows you'll slide a tenner under the door for him, if he'll leave the delivery and walk away. Shit. And with, what, two days till laundry service day? That will take care of one of my tens right there.

  I need to hatch a plan, and my plan might require mending fences.

  I log on to my account at Food Mart and order a bottle of Advil capsules, five bags of frozen peas, and a heating pad from their pharmacy section. I like peas a little, but only canned peas. Don't ask me why. Fresh: blech. Frozen: blech. But they are nice and starchy from a can. A bag of frozen peas is simply what characters in books are always putting on their injuries. I'll pile a few on my side, and alternate with the heat, and see if I can't heal myself up.

  It's a shot in the dark that I'll get Moises – I know Food Mart has several delivery boys, and today is, what, Wednesday? Thursday? I've lost track. I could get anyone.

  I get Moises.

  "Long time no see," he says by way of greeting, two hours later. "I was wondering when you'd order something so you could apologize."

  "I … apologize? I mean, I know I owe you many thanks for—"

  "I'm kidding." He shakes his head, holding my bag. "Do you want me to put this away for you? I gather you're still sore, considering. Or, maybe you're making a pea casserole for the whole floor here."

  I smile. "No, definitely no pea casseroles going on."

  He nods and walks to my kitchen. I hear him toss the peas into the freezer, and I grit my teeth for a moment when I think what else is in my freezer that he might be seeing. Well, I can hardly hide my habits. He's the one who delivered every flavor of Pepperidge Farm cake a few weeks ago.

  "Where do you want the Advil and the heating pad?" he asks, coming back out. "Coffee table? Bathroom? Bedroom?"

  "Coffee table is perfect. Thank you."

  "It won't work, just so you know," he says. "When my friend's brother ran me over, we put frozen everything we could find on my knee. We used up all their mom's frozen corn, frozen green beans, frozen some kind of potato thing. Next day we did heat. I still ended up in physical therapy."

  I'm stunned. He's speaking so matter-of-factly that I almost don't realize what he's saying.

  "You were right," he says. "About some of it anyway. I wasn't in a gang. I wasn't delinquent. I was just a nut. Total ADHD as a kid, and couldn't focus on anything as I got older. I was bad in school, I was bad at home. I just felt like I was going to explode all the time. I ended up in a boarding school up north. Not like juvie hall, but kinda. They let us out for classes, and one hour of Social and Rec, it was called. The rest we were locked in our rooms. But hey, look."

  He pulls a yo-yo out of his jeans pocket and effortlessly swings it around for a minute, ending with a Walk the Dog that he holds easily in place, before snapping it back up again.

  "That's what you can learn how to do when you're locked in a room for 17 hours a day," he says. He flips the yo-yo through a triangle he made with the string and suspends it somehow, in the middle, then takes a step backwards and swings it around his head, looping it over the outside of both hands and somehow ending in a perfect Walk the Dog again. "I'm blowing your mind, aren't I. Gyeeh," he says, ending with his short blast of a laugh.

  That's the truth.

  "You're incredible," I admit. "So back up a second. You were run over? With a car?"

  "My friend's dipshit older brother backed his car down the driveway while we were horsing around on top of it. I rolled off and he didn't stop. When he realized something was wrong, he put the car in drive and went back up the driveway. So yeah, uh, he actually ran over this leg twice."

  "And you went to physical therapy?"

  "That's an understatement. I had exercises I had to do for years. It'll pretty much hurt my whole life, just a question of how much." He shrugs. "What else do you want to know?"

  "Is your mother Portuguese?"

  His yo-yo stops in mid-air as he stares at me. "Is my mother Portuguese?"

  "Well, yes, I guess that sounds odd but because of—"

  "Gyeeh." The guffaw always comes with a quick grin. "Her maiden name is Pawelczic. So, no. She's from Brooklyn."

  "And your father?"

  "Israeli. He came here with his parents to go to med school before he met my mom and got married. The rest of his family is gone. Wiped out. Hazards of living in Europe in the 1940s."

  "So he's a doctor?"

  "You'll never guess which kind," he says. I am not used to the bald thing yet. His scrape is healing well. It just looks like a smudge against the side of his head. The whiteness of his pate makes his eyebrows even darker and his eyelashes look twice as thick. The dark blue color of his eyes is disconcerting now as well.

  "You're right, but I could try," I say. "Wait, so how old are you?"

  "Turning 20."

  "Is your mom Jewish too? Just that your name is a variation of—"

  "She was bat mitzvahed and everything. My mom just thinks she's fancy. She read a lot of books before she had us, when my dad was finishing school and his residency and all. My little sister's name is Sirena, so. What are you gonna do."

  "So you finished school and got a job at Food Mart?"

  "I finished school when I got my GED, almost four years ago. I wasn't going to sit through regular high school after juvie. There wasn't a single book on any syllabus I hadn't already read in that place. I got my GED and just started taking classes at the community college. I have my AA. Now I'll transfer to wherever for my Bachelors. But in the meantime, I work."

  "Got it."

  "All figured out now? How close were you?"

  "Not close."

  "My turn?"

  "No. You already know you're right."

  "Gyeeh. Damn straight."

  I cannot ask him to take my bank card. Even if I tell him to just bring me 200 dollars all in tens, he won't do it. He won't enable me to keep hiding here, especially knowing that I'm hurt and probably should be calling the home care nurse. I have to think of a different way to get some cash back in this place. I open my desk drawer and hand him a ten, ready to thank him for the delivery, when I meet his eyes, and I stop short. He's stuffing the yo-yo back into his pants and already glaring at me.

  "You think I'm gonna take your second to last ten? What kinda person do you think I am?"

  "Moises, it's a tip. You earned it. This wasn't my life savings here. Javier did a little damage but nothing I'd even notice in the long run."

  "Really? How fast are you going to notice
when you can't get to a bank after one more tip?"

  I sigh. "It's a problem. But I have one more chance to figure it out before it's gone, and I'm all about milking my last chances. But, that doesn't mean you don't take this. You take this, because this is how it works."

  "Mrs. Jam, as much as I hate to offer this, I can go to a bank for you. Assuming they'd let me. Or I can ask the store if you can overcharge your grocery order and let me bring you the cash back. I'm not going to get you thousands of dollars so you can hole up in here forever, but if you need to get through a couple weeks or something, I got that."

  "That's … very kind of you. I don't think a couple weeks is going to make the difference, though. I'm here for the long haul, for better or for worse, I think. I mean, maybe in another year, and that's if I really start with the jumping jacks, you know? It would take a year. Look at those steps! Do you even think about those steps, when you're going up or down? They're impossible. They might as well be the cliffs of dover. I have no chance to get out of here under my own power, not any time soon. So, your offer is very sweet. You've made it clear you are not an enabler. I am not asking you to be one. But at the same time, a couple weeks isn't going to matter."

  "Ask me what kind of doctor my dad is," Moises says suddenly.

  "What? Why? Are we done with the…. Okay, what kind of doctor is your dad?"

  "He's a bariatric surgeon," Moises says, "so I know all about people who are trapped. In various ways. Whether it's by their flights of stairs or just by their own mind. People think it's not a disease, that it's just like poor little rich girl syndrome, having so much excess of everything that it turns in on itself. But there are diseases of excess, and welcome to America, this is where you'll find them. This country is toxic in its excess, its lack of a kill switch, its total inability to cut something off or change something drastically because it might impinge on freedoms. Well, look where freedom gets us. Freedom of speech gets us hate groups that are allowed to spew their crap. Freedom to bear arms gets us kids who get shot by the guns in mommy's purse. Freedom of assembly gets us riots. The only place we need freedom—" he stops and taps on his bare skull—"is right freaking here. Right here."

  Another Moises speech. I wonder if it's an age thing or just a Moises thing. I remember a lot of college kids speechifying on campus, but it was usually an hour before dawn and a twelve-pack deep. Not so Moises.

  "So let me make you a deal," he says.

  "I can only imagine," I respond. I'm cautious. Whatever I was expecting, it isn't this. A bariatric surgeon? What were the chances.

  "I'll come here twice a week. Order something, anything, and I'll deliver it. Or, I'll just come when I'm done my shift. Three times a week. I'll use your bank card – there's an ATM like two blocks down your street, did you even know that? I'll get out whatever you need to get through a week at a time. And when I come back, you go for a walk with me."

  "I go for a…?"

  "Walk. Down this hallway. Down to there, that wall. And all the way back here. And we'll do it until the stairs don't look like a cliff anymore. And once they don't look like a cliff, you'll walk your ass down them, and go make an appointment to see my dad."

  I sigh, both touched and annoyed. "That's a great plan, and a very sweet gesture. But I could walk this hallway for two years before I could tackle the steps."

  "So you walk the hallway for two years. So what?" He shrugs. "You got something else to do for two years?"

  "So is this what happens? Is this how I get saved? An earnest straight edge delivery boy is going to make me his hobby, between getting his degrees?" I keep my tone light but I can hear the bite in my words, and so can he.

  "Yes, frankly. Yes, that's exactly what's going to happen. You, Mrs. Jam, are going to be my hobby."

  Nothing like having my own mean word tossed right back at me.

  "I'm not a hobby," I whisper, looking down, suddenly feeling shaky. "I was a wife, once. I was someone's daughter. I was almost someone's mother. I've been someone's friend. I'm not your goddamn hobby."

  "Gyeeh." He snaps me out of it with one laugh and I'm shocked. "Yes you are." He refuses to be pulled down by my humiliation. "Hobby lady. Hobby. Hobby hobby hobby."

  "Moises! I've had enough. Okay, I'll walk with you! Next time. Now go away. I need time to absorb my … new identity here. And to try to decide how insulting it is."

  "I'll keep calling you that until it loses its sting."

  "No, please don't. Really."

  "Listen," he says, suddenly serious again. "I leaned on plenty of people learning to walk again. Okay? I had a couple friends whose hobby it was to keep me going. There was, uh, one girl, at therapy, whose hobby it was to keep me putting on foot in front of the other. Okay? Don't knock it. Go with it."

  Go with it. That's the second time he's said that to me.

  "Right-o," I say. "I'll go with it, next time. Right now, the side of my body has a date with a bag of peas."

  "Hope that works for ya," he says. "If you broke a rib, it just needs to heal in its own time. If it's anything else, you'll be figuring it out soon enough."

  "I know it," I say. "Scram, now, please. This is as long as I've stood in one place since I had the cops in here."

  "Scramming now." He nods and is gone.

  Chapter 14

  I can't tell if the peas helped. The cold was distracting, so maybe that's why I feel better. Same with the heating pad. I think just my skin is getting the temperature changes – whatever hurts is deep enough in there that it's immune to cold and heat. Maybe it is just a cracked rib. Heck of a good diet, though – I've eaten very little and I'm almost excited that I could be ushering in a new body. I have to be realistic – I'll never be thin again. Even if I do lose hundreds of pounds of fat, I'll be one of those people draped in extra skin. But maybe a new pervasively sore cracked rib will be enough of a downer to control my appetite. Until I get used to it – and then start eating again to console myself for dealing with the pain. I sigh. I'm screwed.

  Moises didn't take the ten. I still have two. I know my bank card will work in the ATM – I keep my cards active online. Banks don't actually monitor those cameras that take the photos when someone uses the machine. There's not a row of employees in a vault somewhere, comparing the transmitted face with the image on the card, sitting there in real time, eagerly looking back and forth, quickly trying to correct for passage of time, haircuts, dye jobs, and weight changes, before they cry fraud and slam a hand on a buzzer, calling in the bank police squad. I am sure Moises will be able to withdraw money. I wonder if I should call the bank to let them know just in case. I don't know which branch oversees this ATM – it's inside a Royal Farms store. Well, three years ago it was. What if Royal Farms was bought out? What if it's a Wawa now, or a 7-11? Or a Highs? Or a Quik Stop? I wonder what has changed, out there, in three years. When I went away to college, I was so shocked each semester to come home to discover a new building in town, or a missing one, or a new exit ramp off our highway, reconfigured to dump our cars better into the little streets. The intersection that called so many helicopters in my old neighborhood has changed twice, since I was a kid, the civil engineers apparently having a real head-scratching time figuring out how to stop killing people there.

  I had heard the mailman's soft knock earlier while I was laying on the couch with the peas, and I could not sit up to watch him walk across the parking lot without a massive reconfiguration of my body's position, so I let it go. I blew him a kiss that went somewhere towards my ceiling. A more inventive hermit would have rigged up all kinds of gizmos by now, the better to see outside with, the better to reach lamps and light switches. I walk to the door to retrieve my mail, now that I'm up, wondering what invention I should be using to pick up my mail, instead of huffing and straining and bending over. I've given up on that extended reach wand, as seen on tv, which does such a crappy job of the grabbing part, especially on featherweight slim envelopes that slide right out of its claw, that I'd rat
her just bend over and pick stuff up myself.

  And what do you know, here's another envelope from Bruce Warrington. The plot thickens, does it? Or perhaps he's writing to express his displeasure?

  Ms. Jamborski:

  You are the biggest pain in the ass I have ever met, and I do mean biggest. Your letter could win awards for snide. I think now that you have cut yourself off from the outside world because of your odious personality, rather than your unsightly body. However, whatever your motives were, your letter did the trick and my wife is no longer worried about how I spent my time away from her. I think she rather feels sorry for me now, knowing in what an unfriendly building I lived, and what a smug and useless neighbor I had. So for that, you and I can declare our debts mutually cleared. Indeed, I hope to never cross your path again, but I do thank you for your timely and "insightful" response to my query.

  Bruce B. Warrington

  I should save these letters. I hope I still have the first one. I can hear his sanctimonious voice in my head. Ah, the dentist must be a thoroughly despicable woman, to have somehow deserved a man like him. I wonder if she nags at him to brush his teeth. I wonder if he begs her to use pliers on him while she sits astraddle his chest. I bet he gets excited when he sees the water pick coming. He lays down and trembles in anticipation when he hears the whir of her drill, presenting her his posterior angle, before she flips him and tongue-ties him with her floss. "More fluoride," he moans, "more fluoride!" She ties her surgical mask over her face and he prematurely ejaculates on the lead apron. Oh, I could write an entire fetish novel about the images in my head, and Mr. Warrington's teeth, and his hounding wife. I would title it, Plaque and Smack.