Thursday morning at nine-o-five

 Thursday morning at nine-o-five. 

“What do you think?” Maggie said.

     I didn’t know what I thought. So, again, I waited.

     “I think you should call him,” she said. “Like I said. You should.” [See previous post.]

I didn’t think that, that I should. Or, I didn’t want to think that. But I called.

     “Yes?” Uncle Albert’s voice said.

     “Ted,” I said.

     “I know. What?”

     I hesitated, long enough to think about waiting him out, long enough to know it wasn’t going to work. I said, “Am I picking you up?”

     “Why wouldn’t you be?”

     “I don’t know,” I said, pants on fire.

“You’re lying,” Uncle Albert said. “Maggie called and told you I fell.”

     This time I did wait. I watched the second hand on the kitchen clock. It went past the six and just past the seven. I thought, “The coffee smell has already gone out of the room,” thinking of it as an actor in a stage play. [Exit Coffee Smell, stage left.]”

     “She told me,” Uncle Albert said.

     “Good for her,” I said, “but she told me not to. Tell you," I said.

     “Unless you asked,” I added. And I went right on because I didn’t want to hear what he was going to say next. “You didn’t answer my question,” I said. “Am I picking you up?”

     “I hope so,” Uncle Albert said. “There should be a new issue of Les Inrocks.” It’s a magazine Dr. Feight subscribes to for Uncle Albert to read while he’s waiting for me. It covers pop culture. It is pop culture.

     “Okay,” I said. “That’s what I wanted to know,” I said, as if it were.

continued . . .

09.08.18