Sam Lipsyte - Venus Drive

It was also silent on the topic of the morphine drawer. My mother left a lot of dope behind. Also some syringes for the hormone she had to shoot. Her bones were doing a slow rot but she’d be damned if she got a habit. I guess I’m supposed to flush all these pills down the toilet now, but they tend to make my old-lady duties more bearable. Maybe it has something to do with my bubble days, but I’ve always needed something, just to do anything, or even to figure out what I need.

I promised my mother I would straighten out, but she was sort of in a coma. I don’t think it counts.

Today I’m doing Hilda’s dishes. I like to break one each time, so there’s one less to do the next.

“Oooh!” she says. “That sounded like a saucer.”

“Close,” I say.

“A parfait glass?”

“No, think flatware.”

We sit, after, for tea.

“When are you going to get a job?” says Hilda.

“What, are you my mother?”

“Your mother was a saint.”

“I have a job,” I say. “I’m freelance, self-employed.”

“The bums are freelance, too,” says Hilda.

“It’s okay,” I say, “I don’t expect you to understand. Although, I must say, Mrs. Lizzari has been very supportive.”

“She hated your mother,” says Hilda.

“I don’t believe that.”

“Nobody believes anything anymore,” says Hilda. “Why would I make something like that up? By the way, did I tell you already that I want to die?”

“Yeah, you told me. But I don’t believe it.”

“Why would I make it up? What’s the point of living? And the rent going up. They want me dead anyway.”

“Your rent’s not going up,” I say.

“Well, it’s not going down, either,” says Hilda. “I’m done here. I can’t even read. I love books and I can’t read them.”

“I’ll read to you.”

“Read what?”

“Books.”

“I don’t think so, dear. I don’t really care for them. But one thing you could do for me is kill me. No one would know.”

“I would know.”

“You’ve done worse, I can tell by looking at you.”

“You’re blind, Hilda.”

“I’m not blind to the world.”

I’m not blind to it, either. There are all sorts of possibilities out there. You just have to be able to think sideways, is all. You have to know how to predict demand. My ideas are a bit subtle, and they may look funny on paper, but somebody’s bound to bite. I’ve always been far-thinking. I could always listen to Top Forty radio and tell you which song would be a hit. Same thing with the Fall TV lineup. I know what the kids want, too. That’s easy, though. It’s just a crapshoot whether you get the colors and the chemicals right. But the old ladies who want to die, or have their lightbulbs switched, that’s an untapped market. I’m living in a gold mine, or maybe a silver one.

Mrs. Lizzari comes to the door in her brassiere. It’s the old kind, a severe network of clasps and fastenings, which is the new kind, if you pay attention to these things.

“Hey, Mrs. L.,” I say. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Anything, honey.”

“Can you fill out this consumer research survey I’ve worked up?”

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

“It shouldn’t take you long at all.”

“No, honey, I’m sorry. I’m on a government roll. I get money. I wouldn’t want to anger anyone.”

“No one will mind,” I say.

“No, honey. Come back tomorrow. I’ll have some more cookies.”

Mrs. Lizzari closes the door before I can get a fix on the smell coming from her rooms. That’s something right there. Old Lady Smell. You could market objects scented with it. A mild version. For the grievers.

Sometimes I take out my mother’s cremains and set them on the dining room table. I keep them just the way the undertaker gave them to me, sealed in a cardboard box, cinched up in a velveteen sack. People like to call them ashes but it feels more like a couple of rocks, especially if you hold the whole thing in your hands, or swing it, as I do, on occasion, bolo-style from the sack cord. I’m still not sure why I do this, but it feels good, standing there in the dining room, windmilling my mother around.

One of these days we’ll decide where to scatter her cremains. People say water is poetic but I think they just secretly like the convenience. Any creek or river has a little God in it. My mother’s old neighborhood would be a good spot, but they bulldozed it for condos years ago. Besides, as I may have mentioned, she never seemed to care where she was, as long as the right people were around. The great sorrow of her life was that they tended not to be, and a sunshot vista, or a sparrow on the windowsill, this was no consolation.

Once she told me the story of the time a minor movie star was leaving a party and motioned her to join him in the elevator. She hesitated. The door shut.

“I was waiting for your father,” she said. “He was in the can.”

“That guy just wanted to fuck you,” I said.

“How do you think anything beautiful begins?”

I’m a little worried about the morphine supply. I’d better get myself a crooked doctor or cancer soon. I’d better get myself a winning business plan or I’ll be twitching the nights away on the flower-print couch.

Hilda hands me something in the hallway.

“Read it,” she says.

“It says you’ve died, Hilda. Congratulations.”

“Very funny.”

“It’s just your light bill. You should see Mrs. Lizzari’s.”

“She’s afraid of the dark.”

“Guess so.”

“I’m not,” says Hilda. “Know what I mean?”

“Listen,” I say. “Let me ask you something. Say somebody, a messenger of mercy, maybe, was willing to put his freedom, or even his life, on the line, just to make sure yours ended in as quick and painless a manner possible. Would you be grateful? Would you arrange for payment, even? How bad do you want it, Hilda?”

“You’re a sick boy. Your mother said you were a problem, but I always told her it was a phase.”

“I thought it was, too,” I say.

Mrs. Lizzari is down on the corner with her walker, her mesh grocery sacks.

“How’re you fixed on light, Mrs. L.?”

“I’m a Broadway star up there!” she says.

Home, I boil some pasta and peas, fire up my mother’s old Fischer radio. The youth of America sing their anthems of youth. Once I knew the words. I troll for soothing locutions, catch a familiar voice.

“Our culture is afraid of death, and considers it something we must wage a battle against. I say, surrender, submit. Go gentle. Terminal means terminal.”

It’s Tessa, I realize, even as the host breaks her off.

“Well, I guess you’re saying just lie back and pray the Eastern religions are right about reincarnation.”

“No, I’m saying just lie back.”

Mrs. Lizzari calls me for a special batch, almond-ginger. When I get there she hands me a small canvas, lighthouse generica, a hammer and nails.

“Over the mantle, dear,” she says.

“So, tell me,” she says, hoisting her cookie tray, “what made you say those things to Hilda?”

“What things?”

“Horrible things.”

“I was just trying to help.”

“We don’t need any help in that department, thank you.”

When I leave I still have the hammer in my belt loop. I bang it on Hilda’s door.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s your local service representative,” I say, wave the hammer through the chained slit. “Whenever you’re ready, Hilda. Just let me know. There’s no reason you should suffer.”

“Who’s suffering?” she says.

You can hear them in the hallway, their early wheels. Mrs. Lizzari is in her house gown, helping the medics make the corner with their gurney. Hilda is up to her neck in sheet.