ma'am

When the boy woke up that morning, he wasn’t aware that lasagna would be the last thing he ever would eat. Well, at least the last thing he’d eat cooked by his mother’s hands. He also wasn’t aware that his favorite memory of her would be her fat fingers clutching at her fat throat as she fought for air.

The morning had just started and all he was aware of at that moment was the need to sneak into the den so he could watch television. It was Saturday and there were big cartoons. If his mother heard that he was awake, she would call him to her bedroom and make him massage her feet. The boy hated it. Sometimes he tried to do a poor job at it so he would be dismissed but was seen through. Then he would try to hurt her so she would let him go, but would be slapped.

He couldn’t understand how a person could make another person do something that provoked such disgust and rage. But maybe there was something wrong with him, too, since he hated it when she ate. And people have to eat. Her mouth made sounds when she ate. It revolted him and filled him with rage. It made him want to slap her across her cheeks. It made him feel guilty. He didn’t understand it himself.

All he needed to understand right now was stealth, and he’d made it to the den. He held his breath as he turned on the TV. The set made dull clunks as he changed channels to find something to watch. He settled on the gnomes dressed in red tights and bright green hats and dared to turn the volume up so he could just hear it. Mission one accomplished. He waited and watched.

Ten minutes later he was satisfied he was in the clear and could go fix a sandwich. As he lined the makings of the PB&J up on the counter, the spoon clattered to the floor. He panicked. He held his breath and he prayed, whispering in his mind a plea to whatever god there was of Saturdays that she hadn’t heard. Seconds that felt like hours passed and no sound came from the back of the house. He’d just breathed a sigh of relief as he heard his mother call him. He didn’t answer. He hoped that if he didn’t answer she would think she’d been mistaken. She beckoned again.

The boy picked the spoon up from the floor and laid it on the kitchen counter and said “Ma’am?,” as if he didn’t know what was coming. She told him to come to her. As he entered the hallway he said “Ma’am?” once more. His mother told him she knew he’d heard her the first time and he’d better come before the count of three. He protested with grunts and huffs and puffs. His mother’s intonation of the word “two” silenced him immediately.

His heart fell in direct correlation to the bile rising in his throat. He hated this. He hated her. Right now. Right this moment. She uncrossed her legs and sat up in bed, back against the headboard as she lifted the covers to expose her feet. They were powdery white and looked contagious. Why couldn’t his father stay home from work on Saturday to prevent this? She never did this when he was here. That meant, to him, his mother was ashamed of it in some way. To hide it from his father. They never spoke of it to his father. But he was old enough to know what every kind of abuse was and the body parts involved, and he knew this wasn’t an evil thing. It wasn’t a reportable thing. If anything, he didn’t mention it because he was ashamed of being made to do it and also that it made him hate his mother to both their very cores.

She warned him to do it the right way or he would be in there longer. See? She knew he hated it. So why would she make her own son do something that he hated and made him so hateful towards her? Did she realize that it made him hate her?

Except for the gross factor, he didn’t know why he hurried, because there would be no returning to cartoons and sandwiches. After this he would be made to clean the house as she laid in bed, getting up only to tell him what he had not cleaned well enough.

He made 3 attempts to get up to leave before she released him to the vacuum. Always with the same warning that he’d better do it right the first time if he knew what was good for him. He never did it wrong. How do you do it wrong? Vacuum the floor? The vacuum was a red-plaid behemoth that weighed 50 pounds and didn’t work properly, but it wasn’t feet, and he hurried off.

His mother yelled at him to clean the bathrooms when he was finished with the vacuuming. He hated this almost as much as feet, because this is where feet were cleaned and where feet made a ring around the tub that he was made to scrub.

Between the first and second bathroom’s cleaning, his mother usually got up to “prepare” lunch. As his mother didn’t cook, this meant putting a frozen dinner in the oven. He could do as much. He thinks that his mother is under the impression that her “fixing” of the meal is caretaker-ly and on some level cancels out his indentured servitude.

She turned the oven on to preheat and instructed the boy to put the frozen lasagna in the oven for an hour before taking it out to cool. Turning the oven on to preheat was her cooking. She returned to her bedroom and would wait for the boy to tell her it was ready. She never let him put it on the plate. Maybe it was the actual spooning of the food onto the plate that told his mother she was feeding her child.

The next 15 minutes spent at the table included the dressing-down of his vacuuming skills; the bathroom he would have to redo after lunch because there was soap scum on the shower curtain, and her god-awful chewing. He’d gladly take a slap to the face and tell her to chew with her mouth closed but she already was. Yet the sounds that poured our ofher face caused a rage in him that couldn’t be quelled. Why couldn’t they be like normal families and eat in front of the television, for pete’s sake?

He took the lasagna out of the oven after the hour had lapsed and called to his mother. She plodded to the kitchen in her purple housecoat that smelled of bed sheets and bent over the lasagna to inspect it. If there was a way, any shortcomings of the lasagna would be heaped upon the boy.

He opened the cabinet and reached for his favorite glass - the one with Tweety Bird on it. As he filled it and his mother’s jumbo plastic cup with ice and Diet Pepsi, he heard her opening the fridge just behind him. She was getting the big can of grated parmesan cheese out to shake all over the lasagna. She knew he didn’t like this, either, but insisted it would make the food taste homemade.He set the glasses down by the plates on the table and took his usual seat. His mother took his plate first and scooped a generous portion of the lasagna onto it. Sighing at the stinking powdered cheese on it, he thanked her. He waited until she’d served herself and was seated at the table to see if there was any blessing to be said before he started sneak eating the layers beneath the top one. That day, no. He was glad because he didn’t want to thank God or anybody else for the lip-smacking he was about endure.

As expected, she told him she had looked at the bathrooms and they both needed to be gone over again. The mirrors were not clean enough. Than the chewing. Then she asked him if he’d put the vacuum away just as he found it - her way of saying she found no errors with vacuuming. Than the chewing. She told him he’d better have his room straightened before his father got home or he’d be sorry. Then the chewing.

She’d gotten through more than half of her lasagna when she told the boy to get up and pour her some more drink. His chair whines as it scrapes back against the floor when he rises from the table. The ice rumbles in the bin then clatters in her cup.

He could still hear the smacking of her cheeks as he filled the glass. Then he hears a small gasp his mother makes. A chair whining as it scrapes back against the floor as his mother rises from the table. The rumble of the plate against the table and then the shatter of it as it smashes on the floor. A momentary absolute absence of his mother’s mastication as her horrid chewing stops. The slap of her palm on the countertop which makes him flinch as it reminds him of so many slaps to the face. He turns to see his mother. Is she blanched or flushed? He doesn’t know the correct word. Her forehead is white and her neck is red. She’s bent at the waist and slapping the countertop repeatedly with her left hand as her right hand encircles her throat. She suddenly looks up at the boy, as if she’s just remembered he’s there, and her eyes plead with him to help.

“Ma’am?,” he asks. He knows what is happening, though he doesn’t quite know how. The lasagna wasn’t very cheesy and there weren’t any meatballs. His mother is now holding her neck with both hands, bending and rising at the waist, very fast, as if doing a Jane Fonda workout. Or Richard Simmons. She’d met Richard Simmons once and he’d told her to lay off the bread and cheese.

“Ma’am?,” the boy repeats. His mother has taken to her knees, clawing at her throat with one hand while trying to get a fat finger down the inside of her mouth with the other, as if trying to hook a fish. It seems his mother has now forgotten him, or cast him aside, as she realizes he is of no use to her here and now. This is no floor to be vacuumed or toilet swabbed or foot massaged.

Her frantic clawing slows and she tumps back on her butt, back against the fridge, hands still at her throat, squeezing now, as if applying enough pressure will cause the obstruction to burst forth from her windpipe. To his shock and chagrin, a giggle bursts forth from him as it occurs to him her eyes just very well may pop out of their sockets. For a moment, he’s not sure if this is really here and really now. But if it is, it’s not the worst thing in the world to happen. What will there be to miss? Certainly not her feet or her chewing.

As his mother slumps over in dead silence but for the dull thump of her forehead against the lineoleum, the boy dreams of next Saturday’s big cartoons.