Face Off

Mom and I were in the back yard. I was breaking down box after box. One was for a deer meat compressor, another was for an exercise machine that hangs laundry, and the last was for a shipment of five hundred masks.

"Why, Mom? Why in the world would you need so many masks?"

"I bought them cheap on Amazon two months ago," Mom said, smiling. "They took forever to arrive."

"Well, now you can rob five-hundred banks. Or maybe just open up your own mask outlet store."

Just then the door crashed and out came the original dog from hell not called Cerberus.

"Bingo!" Mom cried. She clapped her hands.

Bingo ignored her and snapped at my balls. "Help," I said.

"Bad dog! Be good!"

"Bingo! Bad! Stop growling in alternative weeklies!"

"Mom, Bingo doesn't listen to you. And I think we're well past time to have Bingo put in a home. Just not this one."

"What are you talking about? Bingo, be good. Go on."

I punched a box and flattened it with a karate chop. "By the way, Pat came by my place the other day."

Mom gave me a horrified look. "He... knows where you live?"

"Yes. But I didn't see him. He just left a note on my door. And I quote:

I AM IN DEEP SHIT. JUST WENT TO THE

STORAGE UNIT TO PUT IN SOME CAMPING
GEAR AND DISCOVERED MY PASSPORT MISSING,

ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE, AND PATENT

PENDING GONE!!!! ALSO, I THINK ROBOTS

ARE STEALING MY LUGGAGE.

DASVIDANIYA--

THAT'S RUSSIAN FOR GOODBYE

I DON'T KNOW WHY I KNOW THAT

SINCE I'VE BEEN STUDYING LATIN FOR

SEVEN YEARS.

"I don't like this, Greg. I hope he isn't going to harm you. I think he's mentally unbalanced."

"How can a person who writes in all caps be unbalanced?"

Mom winced and sizzled her lips. "Ssss. My arm is really hurting me today."

Last week Mom had fallen and broken her face. She had bruises around her eyes and nose and mouth and chin and heart.

"But I truly believe an angel is watching over me," Mom said. "It could have been so much worse. And I didn't break my glasses. Not a scratch."

"But if an angel is watching over you, shouldn't the angel prevent you from falling in the first place? Did the angel look away for a moment, but as you were hurtling face-first Gabriel swooped in and rescued your glasses?"

Mom looked at me. "Why do you have to be so snide?"

"Hey, you can't spell 'egregious' without greg." I grinned. "But seriously, Mom, did you take your Tramadol this morning?"

"That's your answer for everything, isn't it? Just more drugs?"

I thought a moment. "Yes."

"I'll take one later. After I feed Bingo his steak. And lobster."

"I hope with a vichyssoise reduction. Dogs like vichyssoise reductions."

Bingo was growling at the fence. Voices came from the other side. I was just relieved I wasn't currently being growled at. Mom brought up how nice it had been to see some of the family for Mother's Day. 

"Chris's hair looked so nice after his haircut," she said. Then came the frown emerging from bruises. "And when are you getting a haircut? And please do something about your awful beard."

"Once I comb out the dead crickets the beard looks fine, Mom. And I don't know if I can match Chris and his hair. Every hair on his head gleamed preternaturally, each one harmonically balanced with his inner qi, and stuff. As for me, my hair is getting so long I'm thinking of getting it styled. I don't know. Something fun."

"Giddy up."

Just then a rock came hurtling over the fence and landed in the grass. Bingo waddled away in fright, and Mom yelled, also in fright.

"Quite the guard dog you have, Mom," I said with a dry wit.

I went over to check out the scene. There was a note wrapped around the rock. It read:

YOU ARE IN DEEP SHIT.

WE KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING.

I looked around wildly.

"Pat?"

"What is it? What is it?"

"Nothing, Mom," I said, going across the yard. "Someone just threw this rock over with a note attached. Apparently 'they' know what we're 'doing.'"

"Oh! We shouldn't be in a gathering, that's what it means!"

"A gathering of two?"

"Of three! Bingo, come on, let's get back inside, let's go!"

"Crazy times," I muttered.

I flipped the rock back over the fence. Glass shattered. I rushed for the back door.

"Hurry up, Bingo, goddamn you!"

But a fat, surly animal was blocking my way. As I tried to get around Bingo I fell on my face. And thus: full circle.