Little Nightmares, Little Dreams

by Rachel Simon

  That night I called my son Jacob. He’s the best of all my kids. Can talk about current events without getting too far from what I think or pushing any cockamamie ideas. Comes over to play pinochle when I ask him to and otherwise leaves me alone. Not like the others. They’re always calling up, You all right, Ma? We’re worried about you. I can predict every word they say — anything too deep for Erma Bombeck, they don’t even think about. Never visit when I want them and always bothering me when I don’t. Jacob’s wife is pregnant. My sixth grandchild but first from her. Finally. He said, Be careful, Ma. We don’t want anything to happen to you. That bus station’s in a bad part of town, you know. I said, Don’t get all worked up. I’m no junkie like that bimbo was.

  I thought that was it. But two weeks later I found the second one.

  I’d gone out back and was dragging the trash cans down the alley to the street when I saw this big green Hefty bag lying crossways in front of me, just below the living room window on the side of the house. One end of the bag looked like a cantaloupe, the other like a big carrot, and in between like a sack of potatoes. I went to kick it out of the way and my foot hit something soft. I decided it wasn’t potatoes.

  So I put down the trash and ran inside and called the cops. This time I didn’t have to go to work so I was able to wait around. Two cops came, two know-it-alls who thought I was making a big deal over a sack of litter till they untied the bag and we all got a look. That’s Nicki Lazaro, I told them — he’d never shown up for some big trial, who wouldn’t know his face. Damn if it isn’t, they said. They shook my hand and radioed for help.

  Two cars came, then three, then four. Soon the whole sidewalk was full of them, talking and taking fingerprints and shooing away reporters. My neighbor Nadine came home and had to get escorted to her door. She looked like she was going to cry. Me, I never shed tears, not even when my husband died. He kept a bottle of schnapps in the glove compartment, drank to and from work, and at home whiskey in the basement. I learned early, there’s nothing to be gained by crying.

  The next day George himself taped the new clipping onto my cash register. I was right up there on page one, side by side with heads of states. A lot of the shoppers recognized me from the picture, and half a dozen stuck around to ask questions, making my line get all backed up. I didn’t want to be bothered, but what can you do. Everyone wanted to hear about it. They treated me so special, it was like I’d been the one that died and I’d come back to tell them about it.

  That night Donna, my youngest daughter, called. She’s always whining about something that’s not right, her job, her house, whatever. She’d been planning her wedding, all the time yakking about pleasing everyone — Politics, she informed me, must be handled with subtlety, feelings are as delicate as doilies, Mother, I’m sure this is something those diplomats you read about know all too well — until I told her I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. I couldn’t stand to spend seven months of her juggling the bridesmaids, the seating arrangements, the colors of the clothes, everything. Why doesn’t she just elope. That’d spare us all.

  Donna acted all upset. Ma, what’re you doing living in a place where the Mafia dumps bodies, she said. I said, Just one body, and look, I’ve lived here since you were a baby and I’m not going to leave now. Besides, it’s close to work. She said, Arthur says you can come stay with us when we get married. I said, Nothing doing. I can live how I want here.

  Donna made sure everyone else called me, but I held my ground. Dead bodies can pop up anywhere. There’s a lot of us living, so there’ll be a lot of us dying. That’s just the way it is.

  A few days later, I gazed out the window at work and in the street beyond the parking lot a teenager who was being chased by a woman in curlers ran in front of a car and got blown clear across the roof of the A&P. The next night, while I was out buying a present for the new baby, I glanced at the guy in front of me. One minute he was tapping the sales counter with his credit card, the next he was sprawled on the floor, hands clutching his chest. That weekend I was walking down the street to buy a can of soda. Two sisters in separate cars slammed head-on into each other. While riding the Monday bus home from work, I looked out the window. The Aliens and the Boostmen broke their truce and stormed onto enemy corners, slicing one another into coleslaw. Even strolling in the park a week later, I saw a retired gym teacher skid on his bicycle, sail over his handlebars, and smash into a brick wall.

  Every time, I was quick to find a phone and call the police. They’d come and pat me on the back and say, Good work, Bea. They got to know me. They started calling me their divining rod. You got a nose for death, they’d say. You’re better than Jeane Dixon.

  Freddie thought it was great and began keeping a Bea Glatt bulletin board in the front of the store. He called me Grandma Death. People would come behind the belt so their relatives could snap a picture of them alongside me. George said we were beating out the A&P across the street for the first time in years.

  My kids phoned all the time until one night I yelled at them to stop. All this attention, it was really starting to get to me.

  The next day my children showed up at my house. All five of them plus spouses, and the grandchildren too. The girls wore party dresses, the boys suits, and the women new curls and flowers in their hair, even Donna, who usually lets the weather do her styling. The first thing I said was, What’re you doing coming here dressed like refugees from a wedding. There’s no party. I got things to do. They said, We just wanted to visit you, Ma. You’re precious to us. See? We brought you a cake and some presents.

  So everyone sat around the kitchen table and ate the cake. I cleared my throat and did some laundry and showed my general irritation. I told them to wash their own dishes and while they did I sat in the living room, nose in the paper. When everything was clean and put away, they packed themselves around me and pulled out presents. One of the grandkids gave me a silver star made out of tin foil which he pinned on me so I’d be the official sheriff. Another handed me sea monkeys. They never die, Grandma, she said. You just add water when they stop moving.

  I said, You’re trying to make me feel bad for finding all these dead people. Well, I’ll have you know I have nothing whatsoever to do with it. They just appear and I report them.

  We’re not trying to make you feel bad, they said. That’s the furthest thing from our minds.

  They took a roll of pictures — the first time in maybe three years anyone but Jacob thought to bring a camera — and Donna’s fiancé made a videotape of the kids kissing me. I told them I had to take a nap. From my front window I watched them get into their cars. I wondered if any of them would die soon. Not that I wanted them to, especially not Jacob. I just wondered.

  A month and eight corpses later, I got a wake-up call from a producer in Hollywood who asked to make a movie of me. He just called out of the blue. A story of your life, Mrs. Glatt, he said. At first I thought it was a joke, but he wired me a contract the same day. I stared at the letter in the Western Union office. With this money, I could pay off the mortgage and my debts and even panel the living room in gold if I wanted. Finally I’d have the good life. I signed the contract right there in Western Union and sent it back. On my way out, a truck on the street lost control and plowed into an office building. I didn’t wait around to see what happened.

  That night, all these reporters came by with their cameras running and mikes growing out of their hands. We hear from our sources in Hollywood you got a movie contract, they said. You’ll put Philadelphia on the map. They asked if I’d ever seen anyone die before the junkie in the bathroom. No, I said. Not even when I miscarried twenty-eight years ago. Not even when my husband died.

  Then one of them laughed nervously and said, So tell us, you’ve seen so much death — do you have a way of knowing ahead of time who’s going to die?

  I said, Hey, I’m not the Grim Reaper, if that’s what you mean. I just see what’s already there.

  He said, Well, there’s
a lot of people out there who think you have magic powers, that you’re making this happen.

  That’s crazy, I said.

  The next day at work, shoppers peered inside the plate glass and when they saw me, spun around and headed to the A&P. The place was so empty that I had time to browse through a tabloid at my register. The lead article was about me, my face covering the front page and under it the caption, Grandma Death. I glanced up to mention this to the other cashiers, but they’d all called in sick, so I read the two pages, then turned to the crossword puzzle. Halfway through my shift, George tiptoed over, head down, and said, I’m asking you nice. Please go home for the day. I said, Paid? He said, Anything you want.

  So I went home and settled down to some soap operas and potato chips and waited for Donna or Jacob or any of the others to call and congratulate me for making it into the movies. The soap operas turned into the evening shows. I ate a bowl of soup, watched more TV, and still they didn’t call. I’d raised them to read the paper every day. I used to tell them, The world is bigger than your own backyard, and knowing how things work is the only way to feel you’ve got any control at all. But here they were, ignorant of my fame. Well, it wasn’t going to be me that told them. I waited up all night for someone else to do the enlightening.

  In the morning the phone rang. It was George. He said, We’re going to have to let you go. We’ll send you a check for the next ten years.

  Fine, I said. Who needs Shop-Rite anyway, when Hollywood’s waiting.

  I brought the phone into my front hallway, where I could hear it when my kids got wind of the big news, and I sat on my steps in the sun to catch Nadine the minute she came home so I could crow to her about the movie. All day long, not a single car passed on the street. Not a single person, either. The block was quiet, and when it got dark Nadine’s windows were still black. At eleven-thirty I went inside.

  Three days I waited, first on my steps, then in my living room. Finally I called Donna, just to see if she had any idea what was going on in the world at all. Her phone rang twice but when a voice came on it wasn’t her, it was a recording saying the line had been disconnected, and there was no forwarding number available. One by one I tried the others and with each I heard a recording and that’s how I started to get the picture. I saved Jacob for last, but even with him it was the same.

  So I called the only person I thought would care. The Hollywood producer.

  Hello? I said, Is this the office of Mr. So-and-So?

  Yes, it is, a woman said, but he’s not here anymore.

  Don’t tell me he moved too, I said. Everyone’s taking off on me.

  He didn’t move, she said. He had a coronary. Yesterday. Haven’t you heard?

  I threw down the phone. If I didn’t figure something out, I’d spend the rest of my life stuck in that house with nothing to do, seeing car accidents and CLOSED signs whenever I went out.

  For days I sat on the sofa, not doing anything. Sunlight would come in the east window, creep across the rug, and slip out the west window. Water dripped from the kitchen sink. I waited for the mailman, but he never came. Waited for the gas reader — once a month would be enough for me, but he didn’t come when he was supposed to either. I listened to what the city sounds like when there are no voices. Except for the clunks of the corner traffic light as it changed green to yellow to red, I didn’t hear a thing, not birds, not even insects. No oil truck filling my tank, no young couple fighting next door. The quiet was so loud it hurt my ears.

  After a few weeks I figured I had to do something. I tried dealing myself up for solitaire but got nothing but face cards, nines, and tens, and then I remembered Jacob’s pinochle deck was all I had in the house. So I turned on the TV — reruns only, just to be safe — only every person reminded me of someone I’d known, and later that afternoon the picture blinked out because the electricity stopped running. And when I picked up the phone to call a repairman, I found my line was dead. That night, in the dark and the quiet, I puzzled it out: I hadn’t got mail so I hadn’t paid my bills. Soon everything stopped working except the water.

  It’s been maybe six weeks. I stopped going upstairs or showering; now I live on the sofa. My food’s almost gone so I make half a can of soup last a day, and with the heat out I’m always huddled under a blanket. I want more than anything to go to a sale in a department store or get stuck on a rush hour bus or even haggle with Donna over the cut of her wedding dress. But everyone thinks I can cause deaths, and it’s reached the point where I’m not sure if I can or I can’t.

  On the sofa, under the blanket, I keep busy by thinking about Jacob. I wouldn’t risk getting in touch, and besides, I have no idea where he is, so I’ve taken to writing him letters in my head. Stop by for a round, I tell him. Bring your deck, we’ll mix it with mine. We’ll take our sweet time playing.

  By now I’ve written about fifty letters. I don’t sleep much anymore, my mind’s so busy scribbling.

  Jacob, I say, I’ve been wondering if you’re thinking about me. I want to hear what you would have to say about my life. I wish I could even imagine your reply.

  Magnet Hill

  You need A way out when you date idiot guys. I mean something to shove between you, something to hold them off. Like doors, they’re good. And streets, they’re better. Busy streets. Fat, crowded, city ones. Me, look at me, I lost my worst date in Philly, took off when his eyes were turned. Slipped into this record store across the street, watched him through the window with cars shooting by, watched him look for me, his mouth hanging open like a door in summer. Got bored and bought some records, then checked out a bar on my fake ID, met a few guys, drank beer. Had a good time.

  This is what I say to my girlfriend Jeannine. We’re on our lunch break at Burger King, where we work. Jeannine, I tell her, guys are what I know best, you should listen. She says, You’re right, but sometimes it isn’t so easy for me. You’re smart, you can think fast. I can’t. I just end up going along for the ride.

  Girl, you gotta use your head, I say, use your noggin, God gave it to you for some reason right?

  Jeannine, she’s a wimp, never knows what to do, and I tell you, I can’t stand it, she goes along with everything. She’s still in high school and hates it. Won’t do the smart thing and leave. Her folks would throw her out if she did. No problem, I say to her, there’s a room open down the hall from me. No, she says, I gotta stay, they’d hate me if I left. She doesn’t need the money, but since her brother runs the Burger King her folks make her help.

  While I’m talking, Jeannine’s playing with this gold necklace that spells out her name in script. Fine, right, she says, but what if you’re with a guy and you’re not near home? This last guy, Bob? He took me to the mall, took me to this sick movie with blood, and I said I didn’t like it but he wouldn’t leave —

  Hey, Philly’s near Wilkes-Barre? I say. But I was smart, I brought money. You gotta take care of yourself.

  Well, OK, what if someone asks you out when you don’t have money on you but you like him and then it stinks. Then what do you do? Once I was hanging in the mall and the hottest guy came up and we started talking and he asked me to go for a ride so I went, but it wasn’t what he wanted, a ride, I mean.

  Well, you figure something out. Did you?

  She shakes her head no, looks down at her fries.

  You shoulda done like me. I do what I need to. The motto is, Don’t let them win, never let them win. Like once I was down in Wildwood and I met this guy who drove me to his hotel to do some coke. He wouldn’t stop talking, went on and on about his ex-girlfriend, his parents. A real bore. I said, I gotta go now, and he said, But it’s been so long since I’ve had someone to talk to, and he laid out another line. Finally I went to the bathroom. At first I thought about the window, but it was the fourth floor, I couldn’t do that. So I found his shaving cream, sprayed it on my hair till I looked like I was in a Prell commercial. I came out, said, coke makes me wild, I drank all your Listerine. You wanna take off
your clothes? I got this thing about ripping off Band-Aids.

  He drove me home fast, you’d better believe it.

  Jeannine looks at me, sucks on a fry. She thinks over what I say. To her I’m like a big sister, like a teacher. I’m eighteen and tall and my tits are big and stand up without a bra, and guys can’t help seeing me. I’m a neon sign on a back country road. Jeannine respects that, it’s how she wants to be.

  Jeannine’s sixteen, dumpy, cute like a puppy. She’s got good hair, and she highlights it too. Laughs a lot around guys, never knows what to say. Gives in even if it’s not what she wants because she doesn’t like to hurt them. It’s crazy she’s that way. I coach her. I say, Hey, don’t worry, they’re flies at a picnic. Swat them, and others’ll buzz right in to take their place.

  She listens to me. Not like the other girls here. They’ve got boyfriends, one each, some of them guys I dumped. These girls, they talk about me over the grill, call me a cold bitch, a ball breaker. Right before Jeannine came to work here in June, I almost told them off. But I felt the same way I did a few years ago, when I finally got wise and left my father’s house — not that I didn’t want to chew him out, but I figured, why the hell bother.

  Jeannine, she likes me, calls me her best friend. I got her to stop playing rusky roulette, got her on the pill. Made her wear make-up, learn to dress tight, so guys look. I tell her, Remember: always be in control. You’re the one who makes them look, you’re the one who makes them get lost.

  Sometimes I get angry with her, she’s such a kid. Doesn’t know what to do with herself. Sometimes she makes me think of people on TV, in places where they get these floods. You see pictures of them getting carried away by the water, reaching out their arms.… Sometimes they grab hold of a house or a tree and save themselves. But sometimes they get swept away with the brown water and broken-up cars. That’s how I think about Jeannine. And it drives me nuts that anyone can be like that.