A. Homes - The End of Alice

Do they let you have silverware in there or do you just eat with a spoon?

Beloved, by now I would have thought you’d know the etymology of the expression finger-licking good .

His mother calls and invites her to dinner. His mother calls and speaks to her mother. It’s the way these things are done. All the while the lively leprechaun lolls in the background, pretending to be infantata, too small to reach the telephone, to let the touch-tone language of love link her.

Instead, she makes her mummie do it.

Like good witches in fairy tales these mothers are nearsighted, afflicted with an astigmatism of affection. They are brainless-bat-full in the belfry, the last lost generation of homemakers, trained to be deaf, dumb, and blind. They stay in the house, floating from room to room, cans of Endust and Lemon Pledge in hand, palms pumiced into soft cloths, seeping polish from the pores. Whatever they caress is transformed, the tarnish lifted. Surfaces gleaming. And when they are done — and they are never really done — but when they sit down to rest, they regress. Like little girls they play at the great game of keeping house. They chat it up on the telephone, whilst working the emery board forward and back, dipping the thin brush into the red lacquer and sweeping it over their nails. They chat it up as though the telephone were not the crown jewel of communication culture but a set of empty orange-juice cans strung together with string, stretched from house to house. Receivers tucked under their chins, they move through their kitchens making the sandwiches, stirring the sauce, frosting and defrosting their freezers and fridges, constantly keeping the curly cord wrapped around their neck — it’s a wonder more don’t strangle themselves.

“I don’t think we’ve ever met,” one says to the other.

“No, I don’t think we have.”

What does it matter. They’re all the same, all on the same boat, the same sinking ship.

“How lovely,” her mother says, hanging up the phone. “That was the mother of the boy you’re giving lessons to, inviting you for dinner. It’s so nice, you made yourself a little job. You never tell me anything anymore. Where is he in school, St. Andrew’s? A lot of the boys go to St. Andrew’s.”

Babbling in the background.

Our girl lies on the sofa, eyes closed, listening to her mother’s orchestrations, the Symphony of the Emptying of the Dishwasher; a cacophony of china, ringing glasses, the percussive rumble of the silverware bin and the lyrics of her litany. “You know, you could help me in here.”

“When’s dinner?” the girl asks.

“Six-thirty.”

“Tonight?”

“Is that a problem?”

She is horrified. As though she would need weeks of warning. Truth be told, for the young one, the one who is not so practiced, there is little need for planning. Things here are best served by moving forward without delay.

Daydreaming, she lies on the sofa, pinching her nipples, testing them, sensitizing them for future use. Her open palm rubs up and down her front. She spreads her legs. Her mother comes in — but doesn’t notice at first.

“Sweetie, what are you doing?” the mother finally asks.

“Scratching.”

“If something is irritating you, why don’t you go upstairs, take your clothing off, and run a nice bath. Put a little cornstarch in it. A good soak is always a relief.”

“That’s an idea,” the girl says, stopping her work, but remaining on the sofa.

“Where are all your friends this summer? You used to have so many friends.”

The girl doesn’t answer.

Six-thirty P.M. Fast approaching his house. Out the kitchen window slips a thin curl of black smoke. It rises. She charges up the back steps, hurls herself against the back door, which pops open as if it were a prop. The toaster oven is engulfed in flames. She snatches an open box of baking soda that just happens to be on the counter and throws the contents over the fire. The flames subside.

The mother of the house rushes into the room. “I smelled something burning.”

“It’s out,” the girl says, shaking the empty box of Arm & Hammer like a rattle.

The mother takes the girl’s head between both hands, fitting her fingers into the depressions, the dents behind the ears, the place where forceps went, a reminder of birth. “Precious,” she says, kissing the girl full on the lips, slipping her tongue in and out. “Precious, thank you.”

Six-thirty. Fast approaching. The father works on the car. He is shirtless. He is wearing gym shorts. He is covered in grease.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” she asks, coming up the driveway.

He sighs, rubs his blackened arm across his forehead, leaving an oily streak, filling in the blank between his eyebrows. “Stand over me when I go under,” he says. “When I ask for it, give me what I need.”

She nods.

He lies back on the dolly and inserts himself headfirst under the automobile. He’s in up to the waist. She squats over his knees.

“Higher,” he says.

She slides up.

He bends his knees, trapping her on top of his crotch. Each time she bends to hand him a tool, she rubs against him. He’s hard. He’s calling out: “One-half inch. Allen wrench, screwdriver. Phillips head. Awl. Awl.” He drops his tools, holds her by the hips, and grinds against her, marking her with streaks of grease. He moans. When he’s finished, he slides out from under the car and wipes himself off with an old T-shirt, a cum rag. “Thanks,” he says. “Thanks for your help. It’s just not something you can do with only two hands.”

Six-thirty P.M. In front of the house, in the turtle-shaped kiddie pool, the littlest one lies facedown. She plucks him from the water and lays him out, rhythmically pressing his chest with her hands. Bending low over him, she blows air in and pumps water out. He sputters and puffs. Hearing his coughs, his racked choking, the family dashes out of the house. They are all over her, offering her everything, anything she desires, their firstborn son?

They reprimand the little one for being so stupid as to nearly drown himself.

“I thought I was a goldfish,” he says.

“You’re not.”

Six-fifteen P.M. The first real day of summer, she departs her doorstep, showered, shaved, conditioned to conquer. Minutes later she is at his driveway, exhibiting serious symptoms of heat and humidity — huffing, puffing, redfaced. She’s unaware that she did not walk here, but truly trotted, fast flew over the green grass and the neighbors’ privet hedges. She is sweating, discharging salty rivulets down her chest and into her brassiere where they pool betwixt her breasts. She wishes she hadn’t eaten all those desserts. The fifteen mysterious pounds absentmindedly assembled during the school year are at once fully present and accounted for. Her shorts have worked their way high into her crotch. Her thighs, like clamps, hold them bunched up so the flesh is free to rub against itself, twin thighs trading smacky wet kisses back and forth until they erupt in a pimply rash.

She thinks of turning around and going home, trying again. She could take another shower, change her clothes, and borrow the car. After all, she is old enough to drive.

At the bottom of his driveway, she rests, brings her head to her knees, blood runs to her brain. Slowly straightening up, she blots her forehead with the sleeve of her blouse and waddles up the flagstone path to the front door — twice pausing to pluck the shorts from her crotch.

She raises the brass knocker and raps.

Inside the house, the mother is yelling, “Did you feed the dog? It’s your dog. You’re the one who wanted a dog. I thought you loved the dog. Why don’t you feed the dog?”