Boomerang
Home. It feels like I’ve been gone for a million years and like I never left. I emulate my parents’ routine, a balanced breakfast at eight in the morning, soft boiled egg, one piece of toast lightly buttered, or cereal, fruit, plain yogurt. The papers, The New York Times and local, my mother does the puzzle, my father supplies answers. I have been living amongst savages and have lost the practice, more than a practice for me, an obsession, and an addiction to reading. Reentry is challenging and my mother stares at me hard as if she can discern all the drugs, the alcohol, and the men.
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Go West, Young Woman
During the rest of the weekend, I obsessively reviewed what I’d worn to work. I took out all my clothes and tried to eliminate anything that was overly feminine or revealing. But my clothes were not the problem. There was nothing to suggest sexual availability. For the second time in my life, I had failed to keep a man from sexually abusing me; a man that I knew, a man that I thought respected me. I hated myself even more than usual. On Saturday afternoon I went to the package store and bought several bottles of wine. I spent that night drinking.
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Work, Part II
After I graduated from pole climbing, I was told to report to work the following day. I would meet my gang of employees and start my job as a resident installation foreman for New Jersey Bell Telephone. “Fresh meat!” The speaker was about seven feet, hugely muscled, tattooed. with a buzz cut. “Excuse me?” I’d heard him, but I hoped he wouldn’t speak to me like that again.
“I said, ‘fresh meat.’ Where are you from, baby? You’re new, right?”
I nodded.
“So, which side? Business or residential?”
“Residential.”
”You just get out of pole school or what?”
“Hey, looky, look! It’s our new management hire!” A very spiffy, buff man with slicked-back hair and a wide smile was standing at my elbow. ”Howdy, Mary Ellen.”
“Molly.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” the fresh meat guy said, spitting on the ground. “She’s one of them bitches?”
“Watch your filthy mouth Halloway and fuck off!” The spiffy man extended his freshly manicured hand. “Welcome to hell, Molly. I’m Marco Lopez, and I will be your tour guide.”
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