What Is All This? (56 page)

I think, after I fall on my bed and turn over on my back and feel myself drifting off, that I've ruined it with her for good.

Hi.

Hi.

I'm sorry, did I startle you?

No, I think I startled myself.

I must have had something to do with it.

You just about had everything to do with it.

Isn't that close to what I just said?

I don't think so. My being startled came from my reaction at suddenly seeing you and being said hi to from you on your bike.

It still sounds close. But next time I won't rush up on you like that.

I don't think there can be a next time like that.

You mean next time you'll be ready for my racing down the street on my bike in the night and suddenly stopping and saying hi to you like that?

I mean next time I won't be surprised by my reaction at suddenly seeing you and your saying hi to me like that.

But if you're not startled or surprised by your reaction next time, then it'd mean you either saw or heard me or were told I'm racing down the street toward you on a bike.

What I think is that my surprise to my reaction at suddenly seeing and hearing you on your hike doesn't make sense.

I'd think that every reaction by someone rational to something real happening would have to make some sort of sense.

Well, they say it's not supposed to make total sense.

They”? Who's “they”?

The people who talk about the things I'm now talking about, such as my suddenly being surprised by my reaction at suddenly seeing you and hearing you say hi to me from your bike.

If you suddenly got surprised by my suddenly racing up to you on my bike on this empty street in the night and saying hi to you, then I think your surprised reaction to being surprised still makes sense.

Then the they who are they and not is they are wrong and you're right and I'm wrong. And though I still think I'm right by being wrong when I say they could be right when they say my reaction to my reaction doesn't make sense, it does make sense.

I think all this talk about what doesn't or does make sense is making less and less sense to me the more we talk. And if we're going to continue to talk we should both feel that what we're both saying makes sense.

All right, then—you biking back from work?

Yes, and you?

Walking back from the store.

Returning something? For I don't see any packages.

I didn't say what kind of store.

Was it a shoelace store where you bought just one pair of shoelaces?

A yo-yo store where I bought just one yo-yo.

Is it in your pocket?

No.

Up your sleeve? I can see it's not concealed in your hand.

It's in my mouth, its string end looped around a back bottom tooth. I bet you thought that lump in my cheek was my tongue.

Either your tongue or a large new sourball or even a larger sourball when new that had been slightly sucked.

I didn't say I went to a sourball store. And of course I couldn't have just come from a tongue store, as there are none.

I didn't say what kind of tongue I meant. For you could have gotten a tongue in a shoelace store. And if it were a sourball in your mouth, then had it left over from the last time you went to a sourball store.

I actually did have one left over. Till a minute before I first saw you, when I sucked down and swallowed the sourball in my right cheek to make room for the yo-yo I bought.

You could have put the yo-yo in your other cheek. Or if you like the right cheek for your yo-yos, then taken the sourball out and put the yo-yo in the right cheek and the sourball in the left.

I could have, but I only thought of putting the yo-yo in my mouth after I'd sucked down most of the sourball and bit into the little left and swallowed the pieces. Had I known I was going to bump in to you, I would have saved half the sourball I had left.

I don't eat sweets.

I could still give you half my yo-yo. It isn't a sweet or sour, comes apart easily and I'm sure in the short time it's been in my mouth, hasn't been changed in any physical or chemical way.

It would depend what flavor it is.

Wood.

I prefer plastic.

I think sucking a plastic yo-yo would make you sick.

But wood could give me splinters while plastic wouldn't.

If I can't give you a wooden yo-yo half, instead I can demonstrate my little yo-yo trick with the whole yo-yo in my mouth and its string end looped around my back tooth.

You only have one back tooth?

I've several. But the right lower's the one I choose for the loop to be around, as it's the biggest and I believe my strongest tooth. And because it's a bottom tooth, the string has less chance of slipping off than it would around an upper tooth which, if my lips or front teeth couldn't grab the departing string in time or my tongue couldn't pin it to my teeth or gums, the yo-yo would fall to the floor. And if the floor happened to be this sidewalk, the trick couldn't be tried again till the yo-yo was washed and the string, except for its loop end, had thoroughly dried.

I was only asking. Now I'm watching,

Well, as the yo-yo fully unwinds out of my mouth, I lean over a ways like this and do the walk-the-dog trick on the sidewalk and then jerk my head up so the yo-yo can rewind into my mouth. Then I close my mouth and stand straight and bring my feet and the inner condyles of my femora together again, or stand straight and bring the feet and condyles together and then close my mouth, and the trick's done.

That's quite a finish.

You're not in too much of a rush to watch it? If you are I could save the trick for another night when there might be a bigger moon and no clouds or perhaps during one of the hemisphere's rare auroras, or at least under or near a streetlamp.

I've time and there's plenty of light.

Or even one weekend or holiday afternoon when you're cycling down the street toward me and I happen to have a yo-yo in my mouth with its string end looped around that back tooth.

What I think is that you're dawdling on doing the trick because you don't have a yo-yo in your mouth.

Want me to open my mouth so you can see it?

Almost every time you opened your mouth to speak I saw you had no yo-yo inside. That is, once you said you had a yo-yo inside your mouth and I began making an effort to look for it.

Then I must have swallowed it.

Isn't that a risky thing to do with a yo-yo?

Why? My digestive track's like an alligator's.

Is an alligator's especially fit or equipped to digest yo-yos?

An alligator's or crocodile's or any of the large loricates who can digest an iron wrench without a problem.

That would be fine, if your yo-yo was made of iron and not wood.

The iron yo-yo I had was too prone to rust, didn't taste as good as the wood, and either chipped or dented a ceramic or linoleum floor tile if I landed it too hard, or my front teeth if I jerked it back into my mouth too fast and without perfect control.

What about the string? Should I put my mind at ease because the string's also made of wood?

The string's made of string.

Then it must be a vegetable fiber, which shouldn't do your digestive system any harm if the wood doesn't.

I'm allergic to all fruits and vegetables, so I'm sure it wasn't either of those.

Maybe it was made of dried meat or fish.

Allergic to all animal flesh too—dried, fried or fresh. And anything grown in the ground except trees, shrub stems or the harder vines makes me unwell. But I think we better check whether the string's still in my mouth before we get upset. It could have come undone from the peg that joins the two yo-yo disks.

Doesn't seem to be inside.

Did you look way back to the right lower molars?

I envy you. From what I can make out, you haven't a filling in your mouth.

Forget about that. Is the string there or not?

Seriously, though, how can you have no fillings? You must be a few years older than I and so have had even more time to get cavities and impactions and lose a tooth or two. But you've all your teeth and apparently no cavity that large where the tooth had to be drilled and filled.

You didn't check the upper set.

I'd need a dentist's mouth mirror and penlight for that.

I could stand on my head on the sidewalk so you could see it.

I'd have to get on my knees to look, which would dirty my skirt.

What if I stood upside down on this car hood and opened my mouth extra wide?

You'd get dirty and probably slide off the hood and break some of your beautiful teeth.

Then I'll just have to take out the top set and show it to you in one piece.

You saying you've had less success with the upper set than your lower?

I'm saying I've two sets of uppers. One for taking out and showing people who are interested in upper sets or really any kind of sets, teeth, twins, etcetera. And a second set underneath the first for the prehension and chewing of food and as half of a defense and offense weapon and for clasping and carrying things.

You've got a pretty full mouth.

I'd even have more in it if I hadn't swallowed the yo-yo.

You forgot the string.

I didn't forget the string, just which side I put it in. For I occasionally loop its end around the lower left molar to give the right molar a rest if I'm doing the trick several times in a row. And the last time I looped the string around the tooth was a while ago.

Just waiting for someone to bike along to do the trick for?

All the bikers on the block but you have seen it, which was why it was in my mouth so long.

No new uni-, tri-or hydrocyclists move into the neighborhood in the last few days?

One, but he didn't stop pedaling long enough to be shown the trick to.

I'm sure there's a good reason why, but I better go.

You have to?

The babysitter leaves to babysit for her own child when my husband comes home at five. And after an hour of babysitting alone with his son, my husband can go wild.

Paints his face, dons a malamute's garb, does a snarling yipping dance—wild like that?

Just a few booming curses at my maiden and pet names. It isn't easy taking care of a sleepy-hungry two-year-old between five and six.

I bet it was even harder before he turned five.

You know, sometimes it can be difficult talking to you.

That's because I only have you for a few minutes. But at four I expect he got so out of hand now and then that you and your husband had to shout “four” and then duck, or just flee the house or crack.

No. We both had to shout “duck” and then fall on all fours in the house and quack.

You have more than one two-year-old who was four?

One's enough for the time being.

One might be enough, but there's nothing you can do about it once his second birthday comes.

It already has: three times. Which is the favor I want to ask of you, which I don't think I've alluded to yet. You see, tonight's Tim's second birthnight again and neither my husband nor I—

Bill.

Phil. And we don't want be around as we weren't for Tim's last three anniversaries, as we feel if we're not there when his birthnight comes, he'll always remain one.

One what? And how do you elude your son during the same day of his birthnight?

He was born at night, so we always assumed that's when his anniversary is. Though whenever we travel around the world and Tim's second anniversary comes, I always check my terrestrial calendar as to what hour and day it is where I am when it's nine at night in New York on November tenth.

But that's not tonight.

And I'm not at some other part of the world but New York.

And a good thing it is for me too. As I'm tired, grimy and thirsty and I'd hate right now to be talking to you so far away from my own kitchen, shower and bed.

Worse came to worse, you could always babysit for Tim while we're out trying to avoid him, and celebrate his second birthnight with him and later wash up and sleep on our couch.

If I spent the night with you all in another part of the world, I might not have the time and means to get back to my job and room in New York.

You could make it your job to get back to your room by doing your yo-yo tricks in the streets.

But if I swallowed my yo-yo, the country I'd be stuck in with you might not carry them.

Then carry a few dozen extra with you and make your plane passage back by introducing the yo-yo craze to that country.

How does one go about introducing a yo-yo craze to a country? Does one say “Yo-yo craze, this is country. Country, I want you to meet yo-yo craze”?

I think it would be protocol in the host country to first introduce the country to the yo-yo craze and then the yo-yo craze to the country. After that, every five years you could reintroduce them the same way and become financially set for life.

But in those five years when I'd be away someone else might reintroduce the country to the yo-yo craze, and when I came back it would be old hat.

You're not missing my point? But say you were a couple of days late after the five years were up and someone got there before you with the reintroduction, start an old hat craze in that country.

You think I also have those in my mouth?

I didn't even see an old jacket, which is why I said I envy you so much. No matter how well I take care of my teeth, I get one to two cavities a year.

With me, no matter what I do, I can't get cavities.

I don't know why you'd do anything to get them. Though if you ever do get a cavity, I'll give you the name of a good dentist. If he's too busy to take on new patients, I'll try to give you my teeth with cavities in them in exchange for the equivalent of your perfect teeth. If by some luck I don't have cavities this year, I'll give you my old fillings, which you can then tell my dentist you want repaired or replaced for me.

I wouldn't have any place to put your fillings.

Since you swallowed your yo-yo, you could put the fillings in your cheek.