Everyone's a critic

continued from here
Another quarter heard from 

or everyone’s a critic

Dear Ted,
     Your friend has the epigram half right, the crushing of a thought, event, or feeling into as few syllables as possible. But He doesn’t get the other half, I don’t think, making the thought, event, or feeling painfully clear (as painful as brain freeze and not unlike it). I write because you asked.
     While I’m at it: What are you doing to poor Nils? Granted, he is something of a blowhard, a Cives Gloriosus, still you don’t mislead people, at least not intentionally! That’s not who you are! Is it? At least in your blog, though you are genuinely confused about nearly everything, you are also thoroughly honest; you do not dissemble, and you are never mean?
     Have I been reading you wrong?
                                                            Yes or no? – Trudy

 I hate it, the telephone. (I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.) I answer it when I feel I have no other choice. But I don’t call anyone.
     Today though, I call Nils.

“Bueno,” he says. He’s learning Spanish. “Eduardo,” he says before I can answer. He can see me – or he can see my name – on his screen.
     “Si! Para continuar in Inglés, oprima el dos,” I say, and I push two, and it boops. “I need to talk to you,” I say, “in Inglés.”
     “Are you going to vote? Did you decide to vote, then?”
     “No,” I say. “Still no.” I wait, but he doesn’t interrupt. It’s gray outside – it’s going to rain – and it’s gray in the kitchen because the sun is behind the clouds on the other side of the house.
     “But I misled you,” I say. Again, I wait. No interruption. The kitchen is the usual mid-morning mess: Roz has piled her breakfast dishes and Uncle Albert’s breakfast dishes in the sink. Mine are still on the table. It’s my job to clean everybody’s up – to scrape them, to rinse them, to put them in the dishwasher. To wash out the sink and to mop down the counters.

     “I told you,” I start. “Wait a minute,” I interrupt myself. “Sorry,” I say. I can hear Uncle Albert stomping around on his three legs upstairs. “Uncle Albert,” I say to Nils. “Maybe I should call you back.” Uncle Albert’s going to call me at any minute to help him down the stairs. That’s what I hear.
     “Okay,” Nils says.

 “Ted!” Uncle Albert calling me. And I go up, and we negotiate the stairs down, and we get him in his chair in front of the television – with his computer on the swivel table on one side of him. And I bring him a cup of Russian tea for the electrical-heating-gadget on the table on the other side. And he has the remotes. And he’s dialed in one of the music channels

and he’s listening to Johnny Griffith and Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, “Tin Tin Deo,” then something by Buddy Rich. And he’s talking to his computer in French, an email to je ne sais pas qui.

I call Nils back. And he answers, “Bueno.”
     And I say, “Yo. Lo siento. I told you Roz didn’t want to talk to you, but in fact Roz wasn’t here.”
     “Oh.” And he waits, and I wait, too. Then: “Why did you do that?”
     I say, “I don’t know. It seemed a good idea at the time.” Maybe he’ll let it drop, I’m thinking, because beyond that I have no explanation. Like Eve in the Garden: being “Queen of the Universe,” wise as The Creator – it seemed a good idea at the time. Maybe he’ll let it drop.
     But he won’t.
     “Okay,” he says, but I can hear that it’s not.

 10.30.21