their items like science projects, sudden experts. I miss the tellers at the banks, I miss the gas station attendants, and when I collect my receipt from the girl whose job it is to oversee all eight automated checkout stations I say,“Does it bother you that these machines are replacing you?” and she says, “No, I have this job,” and I say, “Yeah but I mean—” and she says,“We’ll just have different jobs,” and I say, “Yeah but I mean—” and she says, “We can get jobs at another store,” and I say,“Yeah but I mean—” and she cuts me off and says, “Yeah they suck, I know, everyone hates them,” but this time she’s whispering.
It’s exactly what I wanted her to say, and I go to my car and raise the hatchback, load the slippery bags, and they promptly
slump and release their contents. I miss stiff brown bags with toothy edges. I miss those boys who used to load my bags. I feel old, and rich, and stupid.
REFRIGERATOR
The year I spent in the studio apartment, I let the bulbs burn out one by one until I was living by refrigerator light. In the dark, I’d want something, a pen, a cigarette, a sentence from a book, and I’d open the door. Light came to mean cold, and wanting something meant cold, too.
I could hear the man next door, everything he watched on television, and when he turned his television off I could suddenly hear him breathing and I knew we were sleeping side by side or head to head (I couldn’t decide which was worse), the one faint wall between us. I felt pinned between him and the refrigerator, which turned on and off so loudly—refrigerators are so loud, and hulking, you just never notice unless you’re trying to sleep in a kitchen.
Soon the refrigerator seemed as human as the man next door. I pictured the light still on inside it, pressing and humming, the rumbling life that we know is encased in a body’s skin.
Do you see what I mean?
MOTORCYCLE
The Judge asked, “Why are you on disability?” and the plaintiff said her arm had been reattached after fifteen hours of microsurgery.
The Judge asked, “Then why do you want the Harley-Davidson back from your brother, who has been keeping it
as collateral and over this year rebuilt it from salvaged original parts along with ordering some new ones?”
The plaintiff said, “This is all I have left of my husband.”
He’d given her the motorcycle, and they’d been riding double. In the accident, her arm was severed, and he’d been killed.This is what I pieced together. What a gory moment in history. The motorcycle was scattered, and her husband’s body was scattered. She’d wandered around the dark road with her arm dangling by the inside flap of her skin and muscle, stumbling and unable to tell what was him and what was machine. Somebody sorted it out later, while she was in the ambulance and in the hospital. They divvied up the parts into two piles: people parts for burial in one box on the side of the road, and motorcycle parts in another box on the side of the road, for trash, they assumed, until her brother claimed the parts, knowing her.
“Knowing he could use me,” she said.
She couldn’t spell. The notes of agreement submitted to the Judge as evidence proved it. When the Judge said, “Give your brother the five hundred dollars, and you, sir, give her the motorcycle,” and then cracked the gavel, the plaintiff said, “Yes!”—a whispered hurrah—and made the kind of gesture you make to celebrate when you score in pinball.
Now comes what I have to confess.
Some things she didn’t say in court that I was hoping she’d say were:
“Brother, how could you have put that bike together when you knew I’d want to do it when my arm worked better? I wanted to line the parts in rows in my driveway. I wanted to lift them and fit them into one another. Not because I never learn and I’ll just get out on the road, reckless again, hair in
the wind. And not because I don’t hate the machine for what it
It’s exactly what I wanted her to say, and I go to my car and raise the hatchback, load the slippery bags, and they promptly
slump and release their contents. I miss stiff brown bags with toothy edges. I miss those boys who used to load my bags. I feel old, and rich, and stupid.
REFRIGERATOR
The year I spent in the studio apartment, I let the bulbs burn out one by one until I was living by refrigerator light. In the dark, I’d want something, a pen, a cigarette, a sentence from a book, and I’d open the door. Light came to mean cold, and wanting something meant cold, too.
I could hear the man next door, everything he watched on television, and when he turned his television off I could suddenly hear him breathing and I knew we were sleeping side by side or head to head (I couldn’t decide which was worse), the one faint wall between us. I felt pinned between him and the refrigerator, which turned on and off so loudly—refrigerators are so loud, and hulking, you just never notice unless you’re trying to sleep in a kitchen.
Soon the refrigerator seemed as human as the man next door. I pictured the light still on inside it, pressing and humming, the rumbling life that we know is encased in a body’s skin.
Do you see what I mean?
MOTORCYCLE
The Judge asked, “Why are you on disability?” and the plaintiff said her arm had been reattached after fifteen hours of microsurgery.
The Judge asked, “Then why do you want the Harley-Davidson back from your brother, who has been keeping it
as collateral and over this year rebuilt it from salvaged original parts along with ordering some new ones?”
The plaintiff said, “This is all I have left of my husband.”
He’d given her the motorcycle, and they’d been riding double. In the accident, her arm was severed, and he’d been killed.This is what I pieced together. What a gory moment in history. The motorcycle was scattered, and her husband’s body was scattered. She’d wandered around the dark road with her arm dangling by the inside flap of her skin and muscle, stumbling and unable to tell what was him and what was machine. Somebody sorted it out later, while she was in the ambulance and in the hospital. They divvied up the parts into two piles: people parts for burial in one box on the side of the road, and motorcycle parts in another box on the side of the road, for trash, they assumed, until her brother claimed the parts, knowing her.
“Knowing he could use me,” she said.
She couldn’t spell. The notes of agreement submitted to the Judge as evidence proved it. When the Judge said, “Give your brother the five hundred dollars, and you, sir, give her the motorcycle,” and then cracked the gavel, the plaintiff said, “Yes!”—a whispered hurrah—and made the kind of gesture you make to celebrate when you score in pinball.
Now comes what I have to confess.
Some things she didn’t say in court that I was hoping she’d say were:
“Brother, how could you have put that bike together when you knew I’d want to do it when my arm worked better? I wanted to line the parts in rows in my driveway. I wanted to lift them and fit them into one another. Not because I never learn and I’ll just get out on the road, reckless again, hair in
the wind. And not because I don’t hate the machine for what it
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