MONO ISSUE 1 PDF FLIPBOOK - Flipbook - Page 29
WHAT I'M DOING
by Samuel Reifler
WHAT I'M DOING is making it seem like I don’t want to have an abortion by saying I do want to
have one and sounding like I really don’t. It’s to punish Tommy for just assuming I’m going to have
one, instead of going, “C’mon, J. J, let’s have a kid and move back to Phoenix. Mom wouldn’t mind.
She’d love to take care of a baby.” He did say that once, only I didn’t happen to be pregnant. Of
course, because of the booze and the substances, Tommy has said just about everything there is to
say, or he will say it sooner or later, until he drops dead. For Tommy, it’s going to have to be something medical, like dropping dead. Whatever the opposite of accident prone is, that’s what Tommy is.
He’ll be just sitting there on the sofa with a beer, watching some football game, while everyone else
is getting hit by cars while they’re changing a tyre.
But the sex thing, male and female, is strong, going back to primitive times and all, and Tommy
has gotten kind of eaten up over this pregnancy business. I guess he thinks he’s finally having his
accident. I could tell him that it’s my accident, not his, but let him squirm. He isn’t good for much
else, anymore. Ever since he found out I was pregnant he’s been fucking me like I had VD or
something. If he had his head on straight he’d realise that now we could really go crazy. No sense
mentioning it, though. You can’t tell a guy anything, he’ll just go ahead and do the opposite, like a
cat. It’s women who are like dogs, all loving and intelligent, not the other way around, even if the
other way around’s the traditional point of view, and people automatically say “he” about a dog and
“she” about a cat, if they don’t know. You notice things like that if you’re someone who can think
outside the box, like me.
Thinking, inside the box or outside, is not Tommy’s thing, so when thinking is unavoidable, he’s
not very good at it. Typical. That’s why, even though you can’t make a guy do anything, it sure is easy
to get him to think all kinds of shit. I’ve never said, “Boo hoo, you’re making me kill my baby.” I
wouldn’t lie like that, I’m not that kind of a person. I keep telling him that I really, really do want to
have an abortion. It’s not my fault he thinks I’m saying it just to try and cheer him up.
We’re at the bus stop, waiting for the bus to Allentown. We’ve already gone through our routine,
you know, “J. J, you don’t have to get on the bus if you don’t want to,” and “I really, really do want to
have it taken out, honey.” Now he’s just sitting there, twirling his can of Dr. Pepper back and forth
between his palms, staring at this big round propane tank across the road, as if it were the most
interesting thing in the world, even though we’ve passed it a dozen times since we’d been in Ephrata.
He reminds me of a monkey, a monkey like the ones you see at the zoo, who stares into space like
he’s about to invent the wheel, while his hands are busy with his cute little monkey hard-on.
I’m feeling kind of friendly again. After all, what does a monkey know? I point at the propane tank
and say that it looks like an elephant, with the pipe going into the ground like a trunk and the wire
coming out the back like a tail. We smoked a joint back at the motel and have come down to where
we could have a nice riff on that propane tank. I expect Tommy’s going to say something like the
little propane tanks that are scattered around are the elephant’s turds, which is where my head is at,
but instead he says, “Who the fuck cares?” Now that isn’t very nice at all, and instead of some cute
monkey, it’s just another ass-hole sitting there. “You’re nothing but a worthless piece of shit,” I say.
It makes no sense to try and communicate with assholes, though “worthless” turned out to be some
kind of subliminal message, because the next thing Tommy says is, “I’m sorry, J. J, I’m just not
ready.”
29
