We Come to Our Senses Read Free

this scene.
    ON the way in to work the gravelly sound beneath my car broke into a roar. The front end shook and the gas pedal mudded. I made it into the lot, hazards flashing, and told my supervisor I had to take it to the dealership service shop immediately. (Only the dealership service shop requires annual certification of every mechanic.) He said this was not a company problem, and that I had to do it on my own time. I called him sir, and reminded him that the dealership service shop would not be open on my own time until Saturday, and that I was sure the car wouldn’t make it that long. He told me that I should look for a ride from a coworker. Or rent a car.
    I had to sit down. I had to sit down as he took the last of the coffee from our station and then walked away, leaving the empty pot spitting on the machine. I could almost feel myself on the shoulder of the tar-stinking road, choking on theemissions of commuters, all of them able to get home and watch the shows. I can’t stomach the hot smells of anyone else’s car. I won’t ride in someone else’s baby-seated, taco-wrappered, cola-ringed, faded-upholstery, dust-caked vehicle. And my rent is due and my cable bill is due and my phone bill is due and my insurance is due and my water bill is due and my gas bill is due and my electricity bill is due and I have to get to my VA appointment, and I have to buy some dinners and there’s just no way. No way I can let my goddamn car die before I’m through writing my notes.
    AFTER a nap and a Swiffer and a brief hang-up on Helen’s answering machine, I turned on the oven. I enjoy “Rooster” sandwiches, though without the tomato or lettuce that they always slop on at restaurants. Breaded chicken patties on a white hamburger bun, alongside cheese, a seep of mayonnaise, mustard and maybe ketchup, are mine. I realized as I sucked in the gas-blast that I was missing the season finale. I ran to the television while the oven hissed. Hit myself in the stomach, then below. It was already six minutes into the half-hour program! I ran back to turn off the gas, waved my hands around to chase the excess. Hit myself again. Bun crumbs on the linoleum had to be wiped. I turned the oven back on, preheated, positioned the patties on a nonstick tray, and slid it in.
    At the climax of the program, the phone rang. I couldn’t answer. Helen told the machine she was coming into town and wants to talk about how she screwed up both our lives and wants to change that and to please take a deep breath, and did I ever think about her suggestion that I adopt a cat? and . . .I realized that I will be dead before she gets here, and more directly that these were my final finales. I pressed Volume Up on the remote.
    The middles of the patties were uncooked, and strings of chicken slag lodged in my teeth. I ended up throwing most of the Rooster away, then waited for the commercials and rushed to the bathroom to vomit. As a child, I learned that you must flush the toilet to get low water before vomiting, to minimize backsplash.
    CONVERSATIONS swirl from beyond my partition. None of them are about the first six minutes of the finale. The clerk with the dirty pants is slamming the door of the copy machine. I have got to get a two-day package together for Brendel’s before the end of the day. I have got to finish my notes. I have got to finish my notes.

Darla
    THE HIGH SCHOOL kids are out for summer, so all over this spit of a Mississippi town young women walk around in t-shirts over wet swimsuits. They cruise the Walgreens in coveys and type on thin phones, buy glamour mags and flavored water, their flip-flops slapping linoleum, their tan legs all over the place.
    The boys in their wake call out Hey and Hey, y’all. They huddle up around hand-me-down trucks at the far end of the parking lot and trade licks. It’s the worst.
    YESTERDAY afternoon, Darla came home, pitched her keys on the counter and asked what