“You do?”
“Well, I mean I don’t trot over to Motel 6 with my hand in a glove and a Fleet by my side, but there was a time I got paid decent money as a young student nurse to do that kind of business. No way I’d stand around and do it for free or personal enjoyment. You have to be a real pervert to do that. Hooch wrote a few stories about it, even used the Huggies and Pampers logos next to his column sig, which was a riot, but I guess the readers didn’t find him all that amusing, probably on account of being bald and having the Gorbachev thing going on up there.”
“What do you mean the Gorbachev thing?” she asked. I guess she was too young to know who the man was. She sounded like a high school senior and I had to do most of the talking.
“He was the…Never mind. Hooch had that discoloration on his head like Gorbachev, only his is shaped like a…well, let’s just call it a male member, and this got some people behind his back calling him a dickhead, only I don’t ’cause I was brought up Baptist and you go to hell for saying those kinds of words, according to my mother. Besides Hooch, the only other competition was Regal Hildebrand, who lives near the Biltmore House and is married to a rich gynecologist and writes about things like decorating and the Junior League fund-raisers and when the daylilies are ready to bloom. That’s boring as all…Hold on a minute, would ya? Something’s trying to crawl out of me. Oh, help!” A contraction hit hard and I knocked the phone to the floor where it bounced across the hardwoods and finally hit a coffee table and flew back toward me.
“Sorry about that.” The woman reporter said nothing. I couldn’t even hear breathing, so I decided to finish my story before delivering a child.
“I was saying that no one can relate to those rich-woman tales of constipated living. If she was smart, she’d be writing witty prose about what it’s like to be married to a gynecologist and how it sure helps they make a lot of money ’cause everybody knows what they face day in and day out. I dated one for six months who was partially fingerless, but don’t put that in there because he’s still mad on account of an incident with my old Subaru.” Silence filled the phone and I was certain she had gone on a bathroom break. I continued talking as if my best friend were on the line.
“My family grew up near a gynecologist and before Mama got her renewed religion, she called him the Cul-de-sac Pussy Peeper, only don’t quote me on that because Mama doesn’t use the P word anymore. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is this Hildebrand woman really has it in her to be funny. She got drunk one time at a Christmas party, purely by accident, I assure you, and told about the time her husband had to open his secret drawer when an unwashed woman came in for her P and P—that’s the lingo for pap and pelvic. He has this drawer, see, that has these things in them that look exactly like a Pest Strips but impart a lavender aroma, and Doc Hildebrand hangs them on one of the stirrups when the patient’s not looking because he said a lot of these people don’t bathe and have pubic vermin. That’s exactly what Regal Hildebrand called them. Pubic vermin. I loved her that day. I loved her for an entire hour but haven’t cared for her since.
“You know, both of them are really much better writers than me, but they just don’t use their best material and I always—”
“So you don’t think you are a good writer?” Oh my gosh, she was still on the phone, meaning all that talk was on the record.
“I’m just saying I have better material. Better hair—most of the time—and better material, with the exception of the Diapered Detective series Hooch got hold of.” Oh, why couldn’t I shut up? The drugs to stop labor were kicking in and I was on the record saying all sorts of crude things and had no good food and was craving a Big Mac and large fries something awful.
“That’s a good topic,” the woman said. “Let’s talk about your material. Tell me some of the more memorable stories you’ve done.”
Oh, mercy. Here we go. The ceiling was spinning, my stomach squeezed itself into a tight ball, and the baby kicked my bladder so that I’m certain I partially wet my elephantine underwear. I had panties so big that when it was all over I’d planned to use them as tablecloths.
“There’s just so many stories,” I said. “Let’s see, there was the 105-year-old who tried to kick my ass and the—”
“Did you say a 105-year-old tried to kick your rear end?”
“No, I said she tried to kick my ass. She was having her birthday party at Miss Margaret’s Place of Rest and Restoration and all her family was gathered, the both of them. She saw me and I tried to smile real nice and she said, ‘Why don’t you wipe that stupid grin off your face? You look like a little retard.’ She sort of hissed her statements through a set of yellowed hamster teeth and I was taken aback. Old ladies usually just smile and nod in and out of sleep when they get past, say 101 or so. Not Miss Tolly, the one they kept calling Jolly Tolly for reasons unbeknownst to me.”
“Did she physically attack you?” the reporter asked and I could hear her keys clacking away on the computer. Why couldn’t I just shut up? Why wouldn’t this medicine that’s supposed to stop my uterus from throbbing keep my tongue from throbbing as well?
A vision of the woman appeared in my head. She wore her pink cardigan with the moth holes, her blue-and-yellow-print housedress and taupe granny shoes. Her face looked like a crinkled brown paper bag and she had a zigzagging line of orange lipstick going in all directions around her mouth. She kept raising her top lip like a dog will when it’s mad and wanting to bite.
“She was a cantankerous thing,” I said, “and tried, sure enough, to beat me about the head and chin, but I held her off. I said, ‘Well, Miss Tolly, I’m here to do a nice write-up about your life and wanted to ask a few questions.’ She raised up both her fists and her lips high enough to show off those dangerous teeth and started shaking like a little dog. She sorta kangaroo-pumped those fists straight out, jabbing them boxer-style. I was afraid, let me tell you. She wheeled her chair closer to me, got in my face, and said, ‘What do you mean coming in here with your stupid nosy questions trying to pry into my bidness, you little idiot?’ The staff had invited me, not knowing she’d behave like this. One of them started crying on account of Miss Tolly’s horrible manners.
“After I asked her about growing up on a farm she got all upset, raised her fists again, and said, ‘I’m ready to fight that little nosy thing sitting there next to me,’ but the staff pulled her off. I tell you, I liked her. I was laughing away. I’ll tell you another thing. She hated me the whole interview, but when it was time to go, I asked her if I could have a hug. And that’s another reason I probably get voted this thing each year. Other than the good hair, I also give hugs.”
Miss Tolly had shrugged her shoulders when I asked for a hug, but I leaned in and squeezed her gently. It was like hugging a withered tree. She was stiff and didn’t respond, but she smiled. I saw it. A tiny little grin creeping from the side of her face. “I think the hug may have won her over.”
The magazine writer typed so fast I thought her keyboard would explode. From experience I knew reporters liked it when they snagged a good quote, and I could tell I was a good one due to the medicines supposed to quiet down my uterus.
“Are there any more memorable stories; things you’d like to enlighten us with?”
I tried to think what I might be missing on TV by taking so long on this interview, and then I remembered we didn’t have cable at this point in our lives. Might as well keep her on the line, this live human being. There was already a good chance with what I’d spilled so far I would lose my job, so I decided to pull out all the stops and gun it.
“There was the woman who kept calling about the ring of midget prostitutes living up under her single-wide,” I said. “She claimed there was a band of them, about eight, and most were hookers. She kept saying, ‘They’s hiding under there and making the awfulest moaning sounds you ever heard. I can’t get no sleep. That one little whore gets them all riled up and they bang on pots and pans all night and cook the smellingest foods up under my trailer. I can hear them moaning and hollering and