hear about it until yesterday. Just shut up and write it down. I don’t know what his occupation was, but I do know they cremated him and Bob has the ashes in an urn in his living room. Bob’s in-laws will not come into the house anymore because they believe cremation is evil.
There is only one other one who died this week and she is not actually dead yet. She is only dying. Normally this doesn’t count, but don’t question my judgment, okay? Just write it down. She could be dead anytime now. Anytime. Okay? So don’t question my judgment.
~
I was blowing on the campfire, trying to get some flames to come out of it so Tutti would quit telling me how fucking cold she was. It was almost time to go to bed.
~
She drank coffee and stayed up late, watching TV. She watched old sitcoms. He watched documentaries. He watched them during the day. He watched National Geographic films about whales, or Australia, and these films rose up between him and certain consequences of the way he lived that he felt blowing toward him inevitably.
“I’d like to go to Australia sometime,” he told her. “I’d like to see whales.” They would drink coffee and talk about the films he had seen that day. But she said almost nothing.
The day after he went to get the cream, he could not believe how quiet it was. There were gulls spiraling in the air above the parking lot. There were red and blue and gray cars with no one in them. Inside the grocery store the cashiers stood idle, twirling their hair with their fingers, or tying and untying their aprons.
He was a large lumbering man who moved slowly. Once inside a store, he liked to stop and pick up a piece of merchandise and turn it over and over in his hands, considering the possible uses he might put it to.
She would grab a cart and hurry up and down the aisles, now and then coming back to collect him, to bring him along, to show him something.
~
“What do you want?” I said. It was Tutti. She was calling from work. “Did you call just to bug me?”
“Yes,” she said.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “There’s no one here.”
“You want me to come down?”
“No,” she said. “I have appointments at three and four.”
“Did you think I was coming down earlier to get those papers you copied?”
“No,” she said. “I just called to tell you they were ready. You sounded like you wanted them so bad.”
“I did. But now I don’t care.”
“You going to go now?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Okay,” she said. “See you.”
“See you,” I said. I hung up.
The phone rang.
“Hello,” I said. No one answered. “Hello.” I stayed on the line for a moment. I was thinking Tutti was playing a joke on me. I stayed on the line until I heard the dial tone and then I hung up.
The phone rang again.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hi.” It was Tutti.
“Did you just phone and hang up?”
“Yes,” she said. “I thought I had the wrong number. I called to tell you you hung up too fast.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean, you shouldn’t have hung up so fast after we said goodbye. You should have waited a minute.”
Tutti and I used to do that when we were dating. I would say goodbye and she would say goodbye and then neither of us would hang up.
“I’m going now,” Tutti said.
“Okay,” I said.
“All right,” Tutti said.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll see you,” I said.
“See you,” she said.
“Goodbye,” I said.
Neither of us hung up.
“That’s better,” Tutti said. “You can go now. You’ve done your job.”
“Okay,” I said. “Goodbye.” I still didn’t hang up.
“You can hang up now,” Tutti said.
“Why don’t you hang up first?” I said.
“I like to hold onto the phone a little longer,” Tutti said.
“You hang up first.”
“Okay,” I said. “Goodbye,” I said. I went to hang up but then I stopped. I put the phone back to my ear. “Tutti?”
“Why didn’t