Alone she sat alone, surrounded by all the world shouting buy-buy in the by-and-by from the black and white television, the three hundred twenty-nine channels clicking on one by one on, lasting five seconds, four, set on a timer that would occasionally hold for a count of six, then fall back to a three-second pause, so the next cycle, better behaving, would fast catch back up, but it never did. She felt beyond practice of use herself, but grateful redundancy in more than word alone.
The blue chimes jim-jammed in the holiday chill due to the window open. The widow from Toledo told herself she admired the hot air. “It tries so hard, itself sweaty e’en indoors, dontcha know,” and Jim poured her another ice-popping fizzy drink. Her tongue was always hot from saved-up chatter. She lived for one.
“You don’t have another doctor’s appointment ’til next month, Mama, so the diabetes should be in arrears or at least in check.” He laughed. “A check shall be in the mail!”
“How is your di-a-be-tisss, son?” She sipped cold. She needed no help.
Her only son and child childless drank his water, iceless.
Jim stood, performing more of his last calisthetics of the morning. He had trouble with certain words and more, come from genetics, the talk. This was his warm-down after a morning run of cruisin’ past the nearby campus, all on break.
“I do not have the diabetes, Mama, you know I do not.”
He had flown home two days before, direct from Idlewild, with all his bags by then their tags the JFK like that, transferring to LaGuardia and/or Teeterboro for show— “JFK a president, not so good, a louche, not a very kind or generous president even, and father? What with his own time, money, energy profligate prostate prodigal like that.” He breathed hard, and stretched. He was proud of his alliterations and his physique for his age. They paid well back East for such, the fancy advertisers for his copy. He almost said penis, but not in front of his aged mother. His mind and more upon p’s and q’s.
“Diabetes done.” One of them. “Dog-tired daggard.” Talked over the other.
“You don’t need to set up that threadmill again, I hope, not after all that huffin’ ‘n’ puffin’ right before turkey.” She made her way to the kitchen like an antiquated conveyor belt, plodding for a reason out of rote or else, but unknown top-of-mind to her by then if ever she’d rightly understood the passage of time, its bequeathing more than burnt meat. “Bad for the heart,” she kept repeating as she griddled hotcakes and sausage, loaded with thick gravy sauce of peppercorn flecks and coarse-salt flakes, mired in thought within and talk without, spilling her mind and mouth across the tiny room, finally:
“Junior, why you got to leave again so soon? I wish I could see you more often, even without a wife in tow.” It slipped out. “More ‘cakes?” She almost said kid. He had stopped caring.
She set the chipped plate on the makeshift dining table, recent gift of a good-wish donation outlet (thanks to a church-lady’s phone call). She did not let Jim fuss over her with gifts but so much, and he eww’d over the grease dripping off and out onto his mama’s paper napkin “borrowed” from the fast-food joint a block away, her standby restaurant in shuffling distance when funds were tight and days not so snowy. His mother, long forgotten of the Senior Jim, folded two of those serviettes up her kitchen-coat sleeve, ignoring Jim’s last of innumerable grunts, his lack of real-world rest, no more verbal response yet. He bent another time or two. She ate, but in the kitchen, free hand on the counter wiping, efficient and productive. Already her thanksgiving meal, her boy home, regardless of his ways or hers. Countless reasons over grace, bowed, praying.
“I’ll be back by suppertime,” he said, primed for action outside the house. “I love you, don’t you forget, don’t stay up if past your bedtime. I’ll get mine, don’t you worry.”
A rural native of the southeastern United States, R. P. Singletary writes across the genres of fiction, drama, poetry, and hybrid forms – and dabbles in other media. His short monologue “MONO fe in gratitude” appeared Off-Broadway this past autumn as part of the 2024 Apron Strings project at AMT Theater in Hell’s Kitchen (NYC). His solo show of 50 literary+visual works “ONE OF US” filled the ATL-Fulton Library Headquarters Gallery in autumn 2008. Published fiction, poetry, drama, and hybrid works in LITRO, Feign Lit, The Wave – Kelp Journal, Worktown Works (U.K.), en*gendered, The Collidescope, Rathalla Review, Wicked Gay Ways, Cowboy Jamboree, Stone of Madness, 100subtextsmagazine, and elsewhere. Affiliations: Dramatists Guild, Authors Guild. See his website and socials @rpsingletary.