Black Maps by David Jauss

as—”
    â€œLook, why don’t you just get the hell out of here. I’m sick to death of your stupid face. Just get out and leave me alone.”
    During the silence that followed, Jimmy’s jacket suddenly slipped off the coat rack and landed with a muffled thud on the floor. “Jimmy?” his mother said. “Is that you?”
    Jimmy sighed. “Yes,” he said, and stepped to the doorway of the living room. Mrs. McClure turned in her chair. “Why, hello, Jimmy! Aren’t you getting to be a big boy?” She said things like that every time she saw him, as if she hadn’t seen him just the week before. He hated that, and hated even more the times she tried to act like she was his mother. Last month, when it was time for parent-teacher conferences, she’d gone to his school and talked to Mrs. Anthony about the Unsatisfactory he got in Conduct. She had no right to do that; that was his mother’s job, not hers.
    â€œAren’t you going to say hello, Jimmy?” Mrs. McClure said.
    â€œHi,” Jimmy answered. But that didn’t satisfy her; she kept looking at him, as if she were waiting for him to say something else, and he thought again how her long nose and chin made her look like a witch.
    â€œCome on in and sit down,” she said then, as if it were her apartment, but Jimmy stayed in the doorway. Finally, she turned back to his mother, who was lying on the couch in her flannel nightgown and blue terrycloth bathrobe, an arm crooked over her eyes to block out the light slanting through the tall windows. Mrs. McClure always opened the drapes when she came. “No wonder you’re down in the dumps,” she’d say. “You keep this place too dark.” Now she said, “I suppose I should be going. But don’t forget what I said about a new hairdo. I think you’d be surprised how much better you’d feel about yourself.” She nodded her bangs at his mother’s greasy brown hair to emphasize her point. “And the Rosary Society at St. Jacob’s is sponsoring a clothing drive. Perhaps you’d like me to bring around a few things in your size?” Jimmy looked at Mrs. McClure and tried to imagine his mother wearing her pink dress and nylons, her hoop earrings and silver and turquoise bracelets. But he couldn’t and he started to giggle. He didn’t think it was funny, but he started to giggle anyway.
    â€œShush,” his mother said, without removing her arm from her eyes. Some days, that was the only thing she said to him. She got headaches easily, so he had to be quiet around her. Sometimes he even watched TV with the sound off, guessing at what people were saying. It was kind of fun, watching the mouths move and no sounds come out, and sometimes in school he’d pretend he was deaf and dumb until Mrs. Anthony threatened to send him to the principal’s office. Just thinking about how red Mrs. Anthony’s face got when she was mad made him giggle more. He wished he could have seen her face when she first saw all the broken windows. He imagined it getting so red that steam blew out her ears, just like in the cartoons, and he started laughing. His mother gritted her teeth. “I said, Stop it .” But he couldn’t stop.
    Mrs. McClure turned to look at him, her head tilted a little, like a bird listening for worms underground, and he began laughing hard. But then—he didn’t know how it happened—he was crying. His mother didn’t get up, but she pointed at him. “Now look what you’ve done,” she said to Mrs. McClure.
    â€œLook what I’ve done?” Mrs. McClure said. “Can’t you see why he’s crying? He’s just come home from school and you haven’t even said hello to him. All you’ve done is snap at him.”
    â€œWhy don’t you just shut the fuck up.”
    â€œI have a job to do, Marjorie, and I intend to do it. But if