Mother Nature: The Journals of Eleanor O'Kell by Michael Conniff
Authors: Michael Conniff
Tags: Science-Fiction
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word.” After what happened at the Convent, I say, you’ve got to be kidding. “Never forget that you’re an O’Kell,” he says. “Take off that habit and you’re still made of money.”
June 20, 1970
I need to do something special. Something spectacular . If I knew whom to pray to I would get back down on my knees.
June 23, 1970
Charles Evans meets me at the Monkey Bar. He takes me upstairs to his room in the hotel but he’s too blotto to finish the job. “Where’s your habit?” he says. “Where’s your goddamn habit?” He blubbers like a bad novel. Men are so expendable, so easy to do without.
June 30, 1970
I go to an anti-war protest at the bandshell in Central Park. Bad language and finger-pointing about the government. The stink of pot is everywhere. Hippies who smell like a bad idea are selling pills by the handful. In the end everyone sings “Give Peace A Chance.” It’s too automatic for my taste, lines that have been learned but not lived.
July 13, 1970
Becca tells me Mother has taken a turn for the worse. Mother ? Whatever became of Mother? Not just in her life, but in ours? She is bed-ridden or at least house-bound, from what Diana and Becca tell me. She has been dying for so long she might as well be dead. I wonder what it would be like to care.
July 26, 1970
I will go because I blame her, because I want her to pay in some way.
August 1, 1970
I walk down a twisted Park Avenue lobby, the corridors lacquered in marble, the mirrors lit by a golden light. An elevator man with white gloves and highball skin swings the elevator door open right into the penthouse. The apartment looks as if someone will be right back, with dark wood shining everywhere and a floor you could eat off of. But no one meets me or greets me. It is dead quiet and I wonder if my Mother is dead. I wander down hallways looking for signs of life, but the master bedroom is empty. I find her finally in a matchbox room off the kitchen, a maid’s room with a single bed and stiff white sheets pulled up to her chin. Mother? I say. Her eyes are closed and her face looks broken down, like continents breaking up. Her white hair, no longer fisted into a bun, is wild against the lace pillows. She opens her eyes without moving her head. Mother? I say again. She jacknifes up into a sitting position on the bed, the sheets still pulled up to her chin. “ No heroic measures !” she says. I will tell them, I say. “And who the hell are you?” Eleanor, I say. Mother says: “It will be a cold day in hell before my Eleanor ever comes to see her Mother!” Today’s a cold day, Mother, I say.
August 11, 1970
“I’ve been expecting you. I’ve been expecting you all because of the money.” I have more money than God, I say. I don’t need your money. “Why, then, Eleanor? Why now?” I tell her I wish I knew.
August 12, 1970
What’s your name? “Sliv,” the elevator man says. Sliv, I say, I need you to look in on my Mother when you’re working. Once or twice a day. “Oh I’m already looking in on Missus O’Kell,” Sliv says. “She pays me to do it, but I don’t take nothing for it. I leave the money right there.” He opens a vase on Mother’s front table and it’s stuffed with cash, fives and tens and twenties. “I don’t need the lady’s money. I got what I need.” Why do you do it, then? “I like the lady. She’s a good egg, and somebody needs to do it, to look in on her to make sure everything’s square.”
August 20, 1970
Mother sleeps most of the day every day. When she wakes up I ask her why she stays in the maid’s room. “I will never sleep in the ‘master bedroom’ again.” Why not? “Because I’m not a slave,” she says.
September 7, 1970
I come to look in on Mother every day. Dreams send words to her lips like “elevators” and “lightning.”
October 14, 1970
“Do you know what it’s like to be a bastard?” Mother asks me. “Your father was a
June 20, 1970
I need to do something special. Something spectacular . If I knew whom to pray to I would get back down on my knees.
June 23, 1970
Charles Evans meets me at the Monkey Bar. He takes me upstairs to his room in the hotel but he’s too blotto to finish the job. “Where’s your habit?” he says. “Where’s your goddamn habit?” He blubbers like a bad novel. Men are so expendable, so easy to do without.
June 30, 1970
I go to an anti-war protest at the bandshell in Central Park. Bad language and finger-pointing about the government. The stink of pot is everywhere. Hippies who smell like a bad idea are selling pills by the handful. In the end everyone sings “Give Peace A Chance.” It’s too automatic for my taste, lines that have been learned but not lived.
July 13, 1970
Becca tells me Mother has taken a turn for the worse. Mother ? Whatever became of Mother? Not just in her life, but in ours? She is bed-ridden or at least house-bound, from what Diana and Becca tell me. She has been dying for so long she might as well be dead. I wonder what it would be like to care.
July 26, 1970
I will go because I blame her, because I want her to pay in some way.
August 1, 1970
I walk down a twisted Park Avenue lobby, the corridors lacquered in marble, the mirrors lit by a golden light. An elevator man with white gloves and highball skin swings the elevator door open right into the penthouse. The apartment looks as if someone will be right back, with dark wood shining everywhere and a floor you could eat off of. But no one meets me or greets me. It is dead quiet and I wonder if my Mother is dead. I wander down hallways looking for signs of life, but the master bedroom is empty. I find her finally in a matchbox room off the kitchen, a maid’s room with a single bed and stiff white sheets pulled up to her chin. Mother? I say. Her eyes are closed and her face looks broken down, like continents breaking up. Her white hair, no longer fisted into a bun, is wild against the lace pillows. She opens her eyes without moving her head. Mother? I say again. She jacknifes up into a sitting position on the bed, the sheets still pulled up to her chin. “ No heroic measures !” she says. I will tell them, I say. “And who the hell are you?” Eleanor, I say. Mother says: “It will be a cold day in hell before my Eleanor ever comes to see her Mother!” Today’s a cold day, Mother, I say.
August 11, 1970
“I’ve been expecting you. I’ve been expecting you all because of the money.” I have more money than God, I say. I don’t need your money. “Why, then, Eleanor? Why now?” I tell her I wish I knew.
August 12, 1970
What’s your name? “Sliv,” the elevator man says. Sliv, I say, I need you to look in on my Mother when you’re working. Once or twice a day. “Oh I’m already looking in on Missus O’Kell,” Sliv says. “She pays me to do it, but I don’t take nothing for it. I leave the money right there.” He opens a vase on Mother’s front table and it’s stuffed with cash, fives and tens and twenties. “I don’t need the lady’s money. I got what I need.” Why do you do it, then? “I like the lady. She’s a good egg, and somebody needs to do it, to look in on her to make sure everything’s square.”
August 20, 1970
Mother sleeps most of the day every day. When she wakes up I ask her why she stays in the maid’s room. “I will never sleep in the ‘master bedroom’ again.” Why not? “Because I’m not a slave,” she says.
September 7, 1970
I come to look in on Mother every day. Dreams send words to her lips like “elevators” and “lightning.”
October 14, 1970
“Do you know what it’s like to be a bastard?” Mother asks me. “Your father was a
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