My mother is convinced I'll never grow up. "When are you going to grow up and accept responsibility?" she asks at the kitchen table, where I'm eating lunch with my older brother David."Well let me finish my grilled cheese first."
"You eat too much cheese, your arteries are going to be clogged by the time you're thirty."
"No, it's all right, I drink red wine."
"And you drink too much. Your liver's going to fall out."
"No, ma, that's David. David drinks too much. I'm Brian, I grew pot in the attic the summer you and Dad were in Canada. Remember? You found the pictures when you were looking for my winter clothes in the shoe box underneath my dresser."
"Well let me just say I'm not going to be the one to bail you out in the middle of the night when they throw you in jail. Both of you. That's for sure."
"All right, Ma."
"And David, if you want to move to Michigan and live with that girlfriend of yours, I say take your dick and go right ahead. Just don't think I'll be there to take care of the babies when they start arriving."
"Thanks mom."
"And Brian, don't think I don't know about the acid you've eaten, the skinny-dipping, the shoplifting--was it cheese?--the classes you've skipped, how that stain really got in the back of the Buick, what you were doing in the bathroom, the black girl you dated--"
I probably would've stopped him, but before I even notice, David has the Derringer out and spent and my mom is bleeding from the shoulder.
"Jesus God!" she yells, "You tried to kill me! You little shit! I'm your mother! Go to your room this instant! Brian, you too! The both of you, go to--"
But I get the butter knife deep in her side before she can finish, and she gasps, sputters, chokes. David gets up for a beer, I finish my grilled cheese. She's becoming hysterical, screaming as she slouches from her chair. "Jesus Lord God etc. etc. etc.!" she yells. Then she calls my father. "Bill! Bill! Our sons are trying to kill me, help!"
He walks in from the shop, covered in sawdust. "What's going on in here?"
"Look at me! Just look!" There's blood all over the table, chair, mother, floor. "They're trying to murder me, you never did teach them any discipline or how to be strong like men, and how many times do I have to tell you to not drag all that oil and dust in from the shop? Or did you notice I just waxed the floor? And David's drinking again, Brian's still talking about that commune in Vermont--you're their father, do something!"
He asks David for a beer, and walks back out to the shop. My mother is slumped on the floor, weeping, quietly invoking God et. al. under her breath. David asks her if he can borrow thirty bucks till tomorrow.
She parts her trembling lips. "Absolutely not…we talked about this. If you want any money from now on, you're just going to have to go and get yourself a job, like adults do. You're not a little boy anymore."
"But Ma, I'm going to go talk to this guy in the morning, he knows the guy over at the studio and says I'm a sure in. Just $30 so I can get a sharp tie?"
Her eyes are closing...I believe it must be her final breath. "Well," she gasps, red spittle forming on her lips, "go bring me my pocketbook."
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James Cook: cookja@ucsu.colorado.edu
Shin Yamasaki: