Flatscreen Read Online Free PDF

cart without paying much attention to what went in, I had the urge to go with them, let them nurse me back to health, mother me.
    Benjy called. Parked outside. Hurry up. Followed Sheila and Mary to checkout. They went to twelve items or less. Watched from my own lane, hiding behind a food mag asthey made small talk with Nikki, my favorite cashier and unknowing object of my romantic observations.
    Outside, got in Benjy’s car, watched Sheila and Mary get in a Porsche station wagon. Wanted to say, “Follow those lesbos.” Didn’t because Benjy already thought I was an idiot.

ten
    Facts About My Mother:
    • Not that she can’t cook. Stove-slaved for hours in evenings before Dad returned, quiet set in, sound replaced by smell, tired man too tired to acknowledge the falling sun that lit the sky and illuminated his family as they gathered, rejoined to suck the sweet flesh (chicken) Mom had so diligently prepared.
    • He preferred to read the paper. Benjy brought his laptop to the table. I ate with ugly manners. Mom couldn’t see me. Tilting stacks of magazines and mail obscured her view.
    • When Dad left, the cooking turned to cleaning. Energy was there, but her focus was gone; no attention for recipes or timed flips or fileting the salted, freezer-stiff whole kosher fish she insisted on buying.
    • I took over. Been watching her for years. She’d let me hold the knife when it was time to carve the turkey.
    • Dad bought an electric knife, though this is not a thing about my mother, or maybe it is.

eleven
    Cooked with the screen door open, baseball on the little TV. Season was ending. Air from outside felt like winter. At peace in the kitchen, my Zen space, like others have baths, beds. Made Moroccan chicken in a tagine Uncle Ned had brought back. He’d bought the tagine from a gypsy in Tangiers for five bucks and a box of cigars. People said I was like him because he was a fuckup. Then he died. They stopped saying it.
    Meal was a masterpiece: tender chicken in light stew with green and black olives, raisins, chickpeas, garnished with pomegranate seeds; salad with candied walnuts, pear, fresh blackberries; warm pita for dipping. No one ate with me. Benjy was out to dinner with Erin Kahn. Mom drank Slim Fast in front of the tube, watching Jack Bauer save us all, again.
    Sat alone in the kitchen, table set for one, trying to eat slowly, savor. Tough without conversation. On the screen, Wakefield floated that knuckleball, dizzied batters. But there was futility in his toss, windup lazier than usual, body understanding the end of a long season. We’d won in ’04, and it was supposed to be gravy from here on out, butdidn’t feel that way. Just a season among seasons, peanut shells to be swept, fresh grass awaiting snow.
    Mom was asleep on the couch, toes dangling from under the Slanket, glasses on. The weatherman chuckled, proclaimed rain, wore an ugly tie. I’d seen him once at Whole Foods—Mitch Lieberman—fawned over by eager women, each with a nice Jewish niece who stayed up nights awaiting the slow suffocation of ring on finger.
    She snored lightly, like a woman who can’t whistle trying to whistle. I removed her glasses, placed them carefully on the coffee table. Long time since I’d touched another body. Hers was cold, curled—a private space. Part of me hoped she’d half-wake at my touch, reach for my hanging hand like a nightmare-ridden newborn seeking sleepy solace. I stroked her hair, pulled the blanket to her shoulder.
    In bed, watched an indie flick about some sad sack writer, failed in New York, returning to his childhood home. He had a successful brother who encouraged him to pack it in, join the family business. Scene played out like the one I’d had with Benjy earlier. “I talked to Dad today,” the older brother said.
    Couldn’t sleep. Figured Benjy had one hand on Erin Kahn’s stomach, his fingers inching their way under her shirt as he nibbled the skin behind her ear. Got out of bed,