CORAL

My fat aunt Coral is a riot and a lousy person. She is just so pink and fat. She laughs too much, and wears too much enormous jewelry. She is like a pig on a pearl leash sniffing out gossip then trotting up to your table and vomiting. I like her gossip because it’s so malicious, and it’s nice to know who’s dying. She is shallow and destructive.

My dad and Coral are siblings but don’t talk much. When she comes over he likes to say hi then take a nap or run errands. Then Coral will put her feet up, and talk to my mom for hours. She asks for tea, but mom knows this means cake.

I typically avoid my family but with Aunt Coral I don’t mind hanging around and listening. It’s great listening to people gossip because it’s the one time they mean what they’re saying. It has to be a huge relief to people. Aunt Coral likes to kick off her tight shoes – it probably feels like that. She just gets so comfortable, it’s like she’s lounging on her skeleton. And then she says the most shocking things about everyone I ever heard of, and never stops smiling.

I like Aunt Coral, though it’s hard to guess why. She’s maybe the only person in my family who has a sense of humor. She’s healthy-looking, though she can’t be healthy. Mostly, she talks to me without changing her voice, like I’m an everyday person. She even talks to me when other people have left the room. That’s a small thing, but it means a lot.

One time she told just me that her one daughter wasn’t even her husband’s daughter, but just from some fling with the butcher. I thought why are you telling me this, but I guess it was because she needed to tell someone and that I likely wouldn’t tell anyone. In reality, I could easily go out of my way to tell someone, it’s just that I wouldn’t, it’s not me. I might tell my memorandum book, that’s it. Believe me, I can keep a secret.

The last time I saw Aunt Coral she was maybe fifty pounds heavier than the previous time. She wheezed just coming up the front steps, and right away sat down. She doesn’t leave her house much now but sits in her armchair with the phone in her hand. “I tell people the truth,” she told my mom once, “but I tell my telephone everything.” All day she sits there soaking up gossip and getting fatter and fatter. She needs a cane now just from the knee strain, and soon might need a wheelchair, too. That’s sort of pathetic. But I’ve kind of been looking forward to it, too.

                                                              

Artwork by Rolli

Rolli is the author of the new short story collection God’s Autobio (Vancouver: N.O.N.). Visit his blog (www.rolliwrites.wordpress.com), and follow his epic tweets @rolliwrites.

DENTISTRY

I bit the dentist. If you gouge your hook into my cavity and ask me if it hurts I’m going to bite you. Like the crocodile in Peter Pan. My main virtue may be my strong teeth.

I get my dentistry done now at the hospital. They put you under and after you can’t have solid food or your lungs will collapse. The doctor illustrated this by drawing eyes on a sandwich bag, then blowing it up and popping it on his chest. At the same time as the pop the nurse jammed the IV in. The last thing I remember is the doctor crumpling the puppet with its head blown open.

I couldn’t eat for three days. I could have broth but chose not to. Not snacking is murder. I wanted some mixed nuts but kept imagining my chest flattening like the card guys in Alice’s Adventures. Or my head blowing open.

On the fourth day I ate breakfast and threw up. Life is simpler, my mom said as she wiped it up, when you don’t bite people.

She’s probably right.

 

                                                                           

Rolli writes – and draws a little – for adults (Hayden’s Ferry Review, New York Tyrant, Rattle) and children (Ladybug, Spider, Highlights). He’s the author of the new short story collection, God’s Autobio (Vancouver: N.O.N.), which has so far been reviewed by no one.

 

Divine Mother (from The Sea-Wave)

One time when the old man went into I think it was a liquor store I was of course sitting and waiting outside. I got tired of looking at the things on the sidewalk because the people in this area were not what you would call direct eye contact people. So I swung back my better left arm to try and get a book out of my knapsack, which is always an amazing struggle. When people see me struggling like this it hurts my feelings if they try to help because I am not a vegetable. It hurts my feelings as well and angers me if they just walk past without making a slightly concerned facial expression. The perfect sort of person in my imagination is usually a younger woman in a skirt who walks up with a mildly concerned face but then stops just short of me, smiles in a “boy did I underestimate her” kind of way, and then turns and walks off, smoothing her skirt, and smiling in a way that can only mean pride and kindness. I guess there’s just no pleasing some people, and I guess I just can’t help but get so angry at people.

I’d struggled my hand into the knapsack and was struggling with the corner of what I believed to be David Copperfield when a younger woman in a skirt came up to me, smiling. She smoothed her skirt and said -

“I have developed a unique ability to connect directly to Divine Mother. I converse with her virtually every moment. As a matter of fact … I am conversing with her right now. Yes, Divine Mother.”

Then she took hold of my handlebars, and started wheeling me down the street. I have to admit that I was a lot more frightened by this than when the old man first stole me. Because he might’ve been crazy, there was the chance, but with this person, well, there was just no question. I am generally not good with crazed people. Broken physically I can understand and appreciate but mentally broken is just … wacky.

She just kept pushing me, and telling me wacky things about Divine Mother. The further we got from the liquor store the more shaky and edgy I felt. But that must be how a lot of drunk people feel. No one was paying any attention. Because so many of them were drunk-looking or crazed. The ones who weren’t drunk or crazed-looking either didn’t care or just saw a mother, what they thought was a mother, chatting away to her wheeler daughter, heading home after a fun outing to the liquor store. I often wish I had a flag that said “Help.”

We were heading towards the alley. I knew that if she turned down that alley, I would probably not see the old man or possibly the world ever again. I wondered if I could rock myself out of my chair. I did that once to protest going to a musical. But that was onto a carpet, not the sidewalk. I chickened out.

We were maybe ten feet from the, I want to say mouth of the alley, though that’s dumb. Also, it was a pretty narrow alley, more of an ear hole than a mouth. There was a drunk or a homeless drunk man slumped against one side of it, and his legs ran across and his feet touched the other side of it. I thought we’d have to stop, but she wheeled me right over top of his legs, but he didn’t say anything. I tried to judge from the way his legs felt when I wheeled over them whether they had rigor mortis or not. But I just couldn’t tell.

We were six feet into the alley now, which was pretty dark. I was pretty much choking on my heart. There was a grunt behind us. I guessed that the legs probably didn’t have rigor mortis after all. There was another grunt, and then my chair came to a stop.

I wondered what was going on. No one was saying anything, but there was a lot of foot scuffling, and grunting and breathing noises. Finally the strange woman let go of my handlebars. Then I saw her run past me, and down the alley until she vanished.

Then someone else took command of the chair, and wheeled it around. I was surprised to see the homeless man still lying there.

“I am so sorry,” said a sad voice. It was the old man. “I am so, sorry.”

I could breathe again. It was amazing.

Then the old man wheeled me over top of the homeless man’s legs, out of the alley, and into the sunlight.

It’s weird, but I was really so proud of him.