The OK End of Funny Town by Mark Polanzak

Author:Mark Polanzak
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BOA Editions Ltd.
Published: 2020-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

It was a white Christmas that year, first in a decade we were told. Mom said we were too grown-up to get presents, to get a tree, to put up the little white lights, and we agreed. I didn’t want any gifts anyhow, at least nothing that she could have given me. We gave Mom a nosegay of daisies and yellow roses though, and, of course, she cried, and Christmas was saved only when Simon rolled up an eternally constipated snowman to sit on the snowtoilet. He called Mom out to see, and she laughed. When she laughed, it was good. I watched through the window, her breath a misty cloud, then gone. The snowman strained. It was good for her and for Simon.

After New Year’s, a new orange bottle fluttered into existence on the white laminate countertop of our kitchen. Mom called them her happy pills. She didn’t seem to be taking the proper amount at first. It is slightly more upsetting, I noticed, to have someone around who is too happy rather than too sad when you know it’s just manufactured smiles. Either way, throughout that winter, Mom was out of bed before me, with breakfast made and everything.

“Am I doing an okay job with you, sweetie?” she asked, over scrambled eggs and coffee.

“Of course, Mom. You’re the best.” I didn’t look up.

“Good. I’m so proud of you, you know.”

“I know.”

“Dad is proud of you, too.”

Pregnant pause.

“You can talk to him, you know.” She brushed my hair back with the tips of her fingers. My head, a block of ice.

Along with my mother’s newfound energy came a confusing and weird spirituality. This involved, as far as I could tell, a mixture of referring to Dad as still with us and watching The X-Files. After an episode in which the ghost of a little girl keeps appearing to her mother, and the ghost-girl helps solve her own murder, my mother declared, “I believe that.” I told her to hang a shingle, do some readings.

One night, my eyes shot open, awoken by what I thought to be, please God, a scantily clad and thieving nymph. Out in the yard, under the gently falling flakes, in her pale blue nightgown, my mother stared intently at the pink toilet, part of which had peeked out from the snow. The silver handle glowed in the spotlight of the full moon. I stood next to my mom in my boxers and slippers, glancing at her, then the toilet, then her. Her eyes were bright and fixed on the thing. She smiled a calm and all-knowing little smile, and a tear rolled down her moon-white cheek. I put my shivering hand on her warm and steady shoulder.

“Sweetie?” she whispered. “Did you hear it flush too?”

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