Close Calls
by Yvonne Chism-Peace


     The day Flo moved out, her mother had indulged in a considerable amount of weeping and gnashing of teeth, which was natural. After all, her daughter had never been out of Mrs. Coddles's sight overnight, not even for a prepubescent pajama party. After her commuter years at college, Flo still chose vacations to accommodate her mother's inability to drive the family car, her mother's fear of flying, and her mother's superstition about women on ships. Such foibles had kept Mrs. Coddles in a state of semi-widowhood for thirty-five years of marriage because hubby was "born a ramblin' man." Once Flo suggested a senior citizen train excursion to which her mother responded with a squawk somewhat like a cockatoo.
     Flo's first home away from home was just far enough to require her mother to take two buses for visits, yet close enough for the cheapest local phone rates, so...
     At first Mrs. Coddles talked about crime prevention: police-regulation gates on all the windows since Flo rented the ground floor of a renovated video game arcade; a deadlock with pin tumblers on the front and back doors; an alarm system activated by human halitosis and hooked up to the local police station. An unlisted phone number with caller I.D. was par for the course - oh, why hadn't somebody invented telephones with TV?. Mrs. Coddles was even so circumspect as to suggest Flo recruit a female police cadet for a roommate: "Remember your dog allergy," her mother trilled. "Remember we had to change the dogwood wallpaper in your bedroom."
     Then Mrs. Coddles talked about real estate: did Flo know that the Macrobiotic Astrologic Survivalist Temple was buying up West Philly and pushing regular African American Mainstream Believers into Cobbs Creek which was a swamp? Did Flo notice that 52nd Street had finally gone the way of all flesh - decay - and was buried under Golden Arches? No McNuggets, no Quarter Pounder, just the twin hoola hoop halves stuck in sand imported from Libya!
     Since Flo now lived around the corner from 52nd Street, Mrs. Coddles was hinting: PLEASE COME BACK HOME. Forget your five-year lease with a promise of no rent hikes for a decade.
     Then Mrs. Coddles talked about interior decorating: how could that cheap absentee landlord dare install a bathtub the size of a Corningware casserole? Shouldn't Flo wallpaper the place because the landlord's chartreuse paint was embarrassing and probably lead-based? When is she picking up the "things" her godmother down in Maryland had promised when she set up housekeeping: a genuine 1930 Singer sewing machine, some depression iced tea glasses (quite valuable now), and four Dresden thimbles her deceased husband brought back from the last honest war?
     It was no surprise that Flo was the first to feel the wear and tear of these marathon local phone calls. One Saturday evening she casually answered her mother's perfunctory "How are you?" with "I have the sniffles." Usually she simply said, "Ooooh, I'm just fine," or "I'm fine," or "Fine."
     For what seemed like eternity, Mrs. Coddle was lost for words. Flo stared at the second hand on her watch and held her breath even though she'd never learned how to swim. Then the dam broke.
     "Well, don't take capsules there's a lunatic loose they never caught him I never even trusted aspirin I nearly died of influenza taking those horse pills the year after you were born and your father brought me to this cold place because of that job at the navy yard but my old mother she came up to take care of me right away and saved my life with a hot cup of beef tea and some salve on my chest what could we do without our mothers?"
     "I think it's ragweed," said Flo. "Bushes next door."
     "Lord give me strength you shouldn't have moved there I suffer so much with my sinuses worse than black lung that's why I had to get my tonsils removed and they were just about rot but people back in the day were just too superstitious didn't trust hospitals you go in for a bunion come out with a wooden leg."
     The daughter's sniffles had cleared up by the following Saturday, but she did have a slight case of indigestion - too much pizza and diet soda after her weekly "How To Succeed Through Bankruptcy" class.
     "Well you were lucky I thought my appendix was going to burst last Wednesday we didn't want to worry you so we didn't phone but your father was ready to call the ambulance just like the time I was carrying you and my water broke at the beauty parlor and I swore before all those sisters and you know I am not a blaspheming woman never again no pain like that in all creation and what could those sisters do but agree?"
     For Flo her mother's calls were like mosquito bites that didn't itch right away, but eventually swelled into ugly dark brown lumps. What did she have to do for a little bit of the spotlight? Dump the family goldfish down the drain? Total the family car? Shoplift?
     As Flo rehearsed their next conversation, a shadow of doubt crossed her mind: Could she win and lose at the same time?
     Flo began close to the climax: "I woke up this morning with a slight headache."
     "Too much sleep the bed will make you sick old people used to say mostly women and they must've known something since they survived a lot in that place if you know what I mean yes the bed can cause you a world of trouble I'd sleep upright in a rocker just like my Aunt Louisa and she lived to be 105 but I wouldn't want to slight your father and that cotton candy mattress he bought every morning God sends I wake up with a woodpecker tapping between my eyes just like an alarm clock until I get my cup of tea but your father does bring me my cup of tea first thing even before putting in his teeth I give him credit for that."
     "The pain started at the top of my head, Momma, then spread to my left ear."
     "That Walking Radio! I knew it! - HOSEA! HOSEA! - Humph! When his soaps are on your father can't hear a nuclear melt-down I warned him not to buy you that walking radio - didnıt want any child of mine head-jerking like a zombie in public itıs a wonder you don't dislocate your neck itıs a miracle you're not already deaf and God knows I've tried to spare you my trouble why do you think I never got your ears pierced like every last one of your 144 girl cousins? When I was five I almost had my right ear amputated having my ears pierced at the doctorıs of all diabolical places even if he was my pastor's child my ear swelled up and looked like Dumbo for weeks never did shrink back to normal to this day I can't wear anything but a Veronica Lake page boy."
     "Then it spread to my jaw."
     "Lord give me strength your wisdom teeth are cutting through at last! Count yourself blessed you escaped all these years I had all four of mine pulled before I was fourteen aaaaaahhhhhhhh! it still makes me shriek my mouth was so tiny and the dentist must've been first cousin to a Chesapeake lobster how did I survive?"
     "Then it crawled down my neck."
     "You sure your place hasn't got roaches? I love you but I can't visit you if you do just mention them and I break out in a rash- Lord, let me stop I feel an itch under my little toe already."
     "Then it spread down the entire left side of my shoulder and arm-"
     "A spider once bit me there on an eighth grade camping trip - why do you think I never let you join the Brownies? My whole arm turned black just like gangrene they thought it was rabies."
     "It inched right down to my fingertips---"
     "Well, why didn't you shake the DAMN roach off! Oh, excuse me Lord didn't mean to disrespect."
     "I couldn't move. Momma, when you have a heart attack, you can't move!"
     At first, Mrs. Coddle's response was like a cliché. Silence before the storm, silence before the starting gun of a race...
     "Momma?"
     Silence like a radio station doing its civil defense duty.
     But Flo didn't like it.
     "Momma?"
     Flo held the receiver closer and tried to scream. SILENCE.
     "THIS IS A TEST, MOMMA! DO YOU HEAR ME? THIS IS A TEST."



About the author:
The poet Yvonne writes short fiction under the name Yvonne Chism-Peace. Recent fiction has been published online by Inkburns and Moondance ( Autumn 2002), as well as Clever Magazine, Feminista, Moxie, and In Posse Review. Her books of poetry are IWILLA SOIL, IWILLA SCOURGE, and IWILLA RISE (Chameleon Productions Inc. 1985, 1986, 1999) for which she won NEA fellowships. She was the poetry editor at MS. magazine (1974-1987)


© 2009 Yvonne Chism-Peace