Kamby Bolongo Mean River Page 3

  By this time I think I said to myself this is definitely not Charlie talking. First of all Charlie doesn't know this many people and never would. Also Charlie doesn't talk like this. Charlie needs time to think about what he's saying and he could never say all this without thinking about it for a very long time.

  Then I decided it was the security guard from the private school that chased Charlie and me away all the time.

  So the security guard said I'd like to say Bennie Mangine was there and responsible for the whole thing but I'd be lying. Considering what Jenn Untermeyer did for me the night of Bill Shedd's going away party there's no way I can put her in the middle of this. Along those same lines Grace Heaney gets a pass too. Of course Sam Marichino was in it up to his ears but given his condition.

  This is when I said I have to go now they have to give me my pills.

  Then the security guard said it's almost finished and then we can both hang up on each other.

  He went on to say Fran Pollo was acting awfully strange so maybe she'll stay in I'm not sure. She did let me feel her up when we were sixteen so I'm sure I owe her something. Denise Livingston never seemed quite right to me. Her eyes are too far apart from each other. Sal Gonzalez saved my ass once. We were getting on a train and I was drunk and not paying attention and I stepped into the gap and Sal grabbed my arm and kept me from breaking my ass. So regardless of the possibility that Sal may have been responsible I could never name him.

  I said how could you again so he would feel like this was an actual conversation and I was playing the part of somebody he was talking to.

  Then he said at any rate those are the people I'm cutting. I'm not sure if it'll make a difference. By the time the cops got there it was out of our hands. I'm not sure who called them. The one with the mustache said what's the problem here and I said there's no problem. Then he said well someone has a problem and then the other one said does it have something to do with and I said yes officer it does.

  This is when we hung up on each other.

  After he said yes officer it does I said can we hang up on each other now and he said yes.

  I don't know what this intruder meant by cutting the people and I don't know why he told me all this in the first place.

  Should the phone ring I will say who are you cutting and what does it have to do with me.

  Charlie would get himself cut all the time because he was a boxer so this is why I thought this was Charlie and something happened to his voice.

  The one cut that gave Charlie the most trouble was over his left eye. All another boxer had to do was look at that place over his eye and Charlie would start bleeding.

  It was embarrassing to me as both his trainer and brother.

  We didn't have a cut man so that was my job too along with everything else.

  I would hold a gauze pad to the cut and tell him to stop bleeding already. We would talk strategy as I would hold the gauze pad over his eye and Charlie was usually gasping for air because he was never in good shape despite all that training we did. Maybe the other boxer had a vicious overhand right and I would tell Charlie he had to look out for it. I'd tell him to stay out of the corners and keep to the middle of the ring. I'd tell him if he made it out of the next round alive it would be a miracle.

  Then I would smear Vaseline on the cut because that's what professional cut men do.

  Then I would tell Charlie to go out there and keep his left up.

  Should the phone ring I will say to the caller are you wearing a uniform. I will ask them if they sweat too much in their uniform and if they sweat too much do they chafe too.

  If the answer is words then fine I know words and can talk words but if the answer is the caller hanging up then don't bother calling me again.

  Why I sweat too much is they don't have air conditioning in here. I ask the doctors who bring me my powder and uniforms about the air conditioning and they say I shouldn't worry about things like that.

  I tell them one less thing right.

  Then I tell them this is cruel and unusual. I tell them this is what they do to prisoners of war. I tell them they wouldn't have to bother installing the air conditioner because I could take care of it myself. I tell them I was very handy around the house which is a lie but what do they know about it. I tell them Mother made me go out and get a job installing air conditioners because she was unemployed half the time. I tell them all they have to do is buy one for Christ's sake and bring it in here.

  Sometimes Charlie and I would pretend to be a military policeman and a foreign prisoner of war. What would happen is I'd be the MP and Charlie would be a foreign agent trying to spy on Alaska. So I'd catch him and throw him up against a wall and frisk him and tell him he had the right to remain silent and that anything he said could be used against him in a court of law with a trial by hung jury. Then after frisking him I'd put the handcuffs on and take him to the cooler which was Mother's bedroom in this particular case.

  We made the handcuffs from two of Mother's bracelets but she never found out about it so that too was one less thing.

  Should the phone ring Mother would be embarrassed by how I conducted myself over the phone.

  What would happen is the phone would ring and back then I didn't say the hello how are you at all. What I said was hello and after the caller said hello back I'd say what do you want.

  When Mother heard me say this she said what the fuck is wrong with you. She said you don't speak on the phone that way.

  I said I think I do and she said you say the hello how are you who may I ask is calling can I take a message please.

  Mother said who taught you to be rude like this over the phone.

  I said no one did Mother.

  She said are you rude like this in school.

  I said I don't think so.

  She said from now on you are polite to anyone who calls here on the phone or anyone who speaks to you at all and don't ever let me find out otherwise.

  Should the phone ring and it's Mother on the other end I am always polite these days.

  Yes I am wearing a uniform is both polite and an act of kindness.

  A caller calling on the phone and talking words I understand and not hanging up is an act of kindness.

  How a caller can do this is to say one word at a time very slowly. So if they want to ask how I am feeling they should say how and then wait a minute or two so I can think about the word how. How is what the Indians on TV would say to each other as a way of saying hello. They would ride up on their horses and then raise their right arm in the air like someone swearing to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help them God does when they take the stand in a trial by jury. An Indian would never say the hello how are you because for him hello and how mean the same thing. Indians aren't stupid like that because they're Indians. This is something Mother would say to us because whenever Charlie and I would see an Indian on TV we'd always turn to each other and say How and then one or the other of us would say he smoke'm peace pipe how. She would tell us not to make fun of the Indians which isn't what we were doing I don't think. This is when she said Indians aren't stupid like that because they're Indians. She also said that Indians couldn't help being Indians themselves and we shouldn't blame them for it.

  Sometimes Charlie and I didn't understand Mother so we didn't know what she wanted us to do half the time. We would look at the floor and nod up and down until she was finished talking.

  Charlie and I never pretended to be Indians the way we pretended to be boxers which is something Mother wouldn't have wanted us doing had she known about it. So I would need enough time to think about all this before the caller moved on to the next word in how are you feeling. Then I would need a few minutes to think about are which would make me think of the letter R and how Mother would make us read all the R words in the dictionary and then test us on them. That's all the time I'd need with are which is why it would be hard for callers to know how much time to give me for each word. Some word
s you need more time with than others.

  So yes I am wearing a uniform is an act of kindness the same as a caller talking words so I can understand them. These are two things Charlie would do if he had the sense to do them.

  Calling someone on the phone can be an act of kindness but it rarely happens that way. Most calls are cruel and unusual like the callers who say the hello how are you and then go right into who they're cutting or when they try to sell you something you don't need like a newspaper.

  Why do callers think I would want to read a newspaper every day because what's in a newspaper that has anything to do with me here.

  The trouble with Charlie is he hasn't been the same since the boxing. I think all that boxing turned him into a cruel and unusual person.

  The last time I saw Charlie he spoke like he had been given too many pills. I never saw Mother give Charlie his pills so I don't know if she made pill circle or squares for him every day. I don't know if she kissed his forehead or tucked him in goodnight the same way either.

  Charlie's bedroom was on the other side of the house so I don't know what went on over there other than when we used to box together.

  The last time I saw Charlie his hands were shaking and he couldn't keep his head still.

  I remember when we all took Charlie to the doctor that one summer. This was before his hands started shaking or his not being able to keep his head still but it was probably the start of it all.

  What happened was we found this boxer Charlie could spar with on one of our morning jogs. I saw him pummeling a football player at the field we always jogged past and thought we should go talk to him.

  So we had this fellow come over twice a week to spar with Charlie in Mother's room and everything was fine for a while.

  I would have Charlie start off with some jabs and combinations and I would tell him to watch his footwork. The trouble is Charlie would sometimes forget he was supposed to fight right handed and switch his stance to southpaw.

  Charlie was born left handed but you can't expect to box and be left handed at the same time so we trained Charlie to box as a righty or what we call conventional in the business.

  Too many times Charlie would look down at his feet and this fellow would catch Charlie with a vicious uppercut and so we had to take Charlie to the doctor.

  The doctor wired Charlie's jaw shut for him and he had to stay like that for a month.

  So there was Charlie with his jaw wired shut and he had to drink all of his food through a straw like an idiot.

  This is when we'd go to the ice cream truck every day because Charlie couldn't eat Mother's sandwiches and coleslaw. Mother tried to put the coleslaw in a blender for him but what happened was Charlie didn't like coleslaw that way.

  Mother would tell him I don't need this kind of aggravation.

  She would tell me the same thing whenever I needed powder for the chafed parts.

  Whenever I needed powder for the chafed parts Mother would bring it to me in my room like she did with my pills. Sometimes she would put it on herself but when I got older she let me do it.

  That's because I was getting too old for Mother to be poking around down there.

  Always Mother had me hold my situation so she could get to the chafed parts. She would say hold your situation so I can get to the chafed parts like that.

  Once part of my situation slipped from my hold and Mother said I don't need this kind of aggravation.

  The next time it happened she said no one wants to see that.

  I didn't forget about the you in how are you but when I think too much about one word and then another I sometimes decide I've had enough of the words and will listen only to the voice from then on. The words aren't as important as the voice and when you listen only to the voice you don't have to think about the words themselves. You can listen to what comes between the words and behind them.

  Should the phone ring there will be a caller on the other end though it probably won't be Charlie. Sometimes I ask the callers why they aren't Charlie. I'll say why aren't you Charlie like that and this is when they usually hang up.

  It is probably not anyone's fault that they are not Charlie.

  What bothers me is they never apologize for intruding and they never apologize for not being Charlie. And none of them ever try pretending to be Charlie. How one of them could do this is to sound cruel and unusual by talking all slowly and mumbly.

  I can pretend several accents in several registers myself but what I can't do is actually become the person I am pretending to be the way an actor like Charlie Robertson does. This is because I've no idea who it is I'm pretending to be. I don't know the good or the bad or what that person eats for breakfast every day. This is one reason I am not a professional actor and why callers usually hang up before it goes too far. Some of them get upset with me but who made the mistake in the first place is what I have to say.

  Actors are killers just as cigarettes are killers just as drugs are killers just as drunk drivers are killers just as doctors are killers. Doctors are probably the worst killers of all these different kinds of killers.

  Charlie would say the same thing if he was here right now. That Charlie isn't here right now is his own fault but I am not angry with him about that. I remember Mother telling me not to be angry with Charlie because he can't help being the way he is. I wanted to ask Mother if I could help being the way I was or if she could help either but I decided against it. Mother didn't like it when you asked her too many questions.

  She would say I am not on trial here whenever we asked her questions.

  Charlie probably doesn't know that I am the only one here and the only one that has ever been here.

  Charlie doesn't know about here.

  Here the four walls are painted white and everything else is blue. The bed in here is blue and so are the table and chairs. The blankets are also blue and what's good is it's the same shade of blue as some of my pills.

  Here there is a bathroom on the other side of the mirror.

  What happens is I have to knock on the mirror whenever I have to use the bathroom which is quite a lot.

  I have always had to use the bathroom quite a lot and this always worried Mother especially. She would hear me in the bathroom and ask if I was okay in there. She would say are you okay in there like that and I would say this isn't a good time Mother.

  Why I can do several accents in several registers is because I have the ear for it. Mother would tell all kinds of people I had a great ear. She said it was a gift. All the people would look at me and smile and say I was so gifted and then Mother would have me perform for the people. I would do something like pretend to be Joseph Goebbels having his way with Mamie Eisenhower and the people would laugh. Then I would dance a jig because I was a good dancer too Mother said. Then Mother would clap for me and say to everyone doesn't he have a great ear.

  I remember not knowing what she meant when she told people this. I didn't know which ear was great and which one wasn't. I would stare into the bathroom mirror for hours until Charlie pounded on the door and ordered me out.

  This is another thing Charlie and I did when we were kids. I'd pretend to be an SS officer and he would be my prisoner because Charlie liked the way I could say we have vays of making you talk.

  An SS officer is not the same as an MP or security guard but it was close enough for Charlie.

  Mother taught Charlie and I how to dance jigs all over the living room floor one summer. Every night when she'd get home from work we'd dance jigs like this. I was always the best dancer which made both Charlie and Mother jealous.

  Should the phone ring there will be someone on the other end talking words. It is often words on the other end though the voices change. It is easier when I know the words when I can say the hello how are you and they ask the same right back. I'm fine I have a headache I didn't sleep last night are all good answers and I try to alternate between those three.

  Sometimes I will admit to something else but only if th
e person on the other end wants to hear it. Almost no one wants to hear it which is why I almost never admit to something else.

  Last night the phone rang and it was words on the other end.

  I went first and I said the hello how are you like I always do.

  I'm fine today and how are you is what came back.

  I have a headache I didn't sleep last night is what I said to that.

  I'm sorry to hear that Johnny is what the caller said to me next.

  This is when I said what did you say to me.

  I'm sorry to hear you aren't feeling well today Johnny.

  Why are you calling me Johnny.

  Why shouldn't I call you Johnny Johnny.

  This is when I said who the fuck is Johnny Johnny.

  What did we say about swearing Johnny.