Disturbing Some Animals
As soon as I make it to the dingy hallway of my apartment, I glance guiltily to the end of the hall, where Irene’s door is.
I let myself into my unlocked suite and Ernest nervously follows me in. After I unclip his leash he shuffles around, smelling
each item, then exhaling little puffs of air like he’s wondering what my deal is. He’s pressing his wet nose on my clean furniture,
but I try not to think about it.
Alice is floating listlessly in her bowl, her eyes tracking my movements. I left her here during a fire evacuation. This might
just be the final nail in the coffin of her already dismal opinion of me. Although she’s seen me eat sashimi before—she knew
what I was capable of.
It’s time to tidy my mess. I slide off my slippers and align them in the row of shoes near the wall. I grab the Cheetos bag
and toss it, then consider the two pieces of the vase I broke/stole last night. Another flash of memory returns. I’d stumbled
into the table and knocked the flowers over. Like a moron, I’d brought the broken vase back with me, figuring I could glue
it back together today and nobody would notice if I got it back in time (I definitely underestimated the rest of the mess
in the lobby). I should’ve just left it. Now I’ll have to sneak it to the bin when the coast is clear.
I rinse off the shards and leave them drying in the sink, like some kind of low-stakes criminal souvenir.
I retrieve my phone from atop my dresser. I haven’t left it alone for this long in . . . I can’t remember. At least I remembered
to charge it before I passed out last night. I take a breath and face the screen.
My work-friend group chat is filled with messages from last night and this morning. The messages are of the “hope you all
got home okay,” “feeling like shit,” “surprised that I actually got drunk” variety that usually accompany a night of regrettable choices.
I type: All good here! Never drinking again! Coffee soon?
My message looks too upbeat, not at all like the shithole inside me. Corbin and Lisa heart it immediately. They’re probably
standing around the espresso machine gossiping right around now, and a pang overcomes me. I just want to sit in my tiny office
in my little rose-colored velvet chair that’s designed for crossing your legs on (I got it last year with my small bonus),
stare out my narrow window that has a view of the side of another building (like an industrial late-stage capitalist art installation),
and drink the office coffee that’s so much better than the drip machine I have at home.
A side message appears from Olivia: Best wishes to your mom. Let me know if I can help with anything here, but I’m sure things will be great when you return!
Love you!
Olivia and I are the same breed of person. We didn’t come from money or get help from our parents. She knows how hard-won
everything I’m now at risk of losing is. She’s a level below me, and my promotion to director would have cleared the way for
her to move into my old role. Falling off the treadmill now feels like I’m letting her down too.
I heart Olivia’s message but can’t handle saying anything more.
I also have three missed calls from Mom Cell A. When I don’t answer—which is often, these days, as I’ve been so tied up with work—she leaves me what’s basically a podcast in my voicemail. But today, she just sent two texts.
Mom: Is it legal for a restaurant to steal your money in a slot machine?
Mom: I think I’m being cheated and it’s not professional.
Ah, shit. I immediately call via FaceTime.
She picks up after the first ring, and I’m greeted with the boldest sight in the world for 11:04 a.m. She’s dressed in a shiny
metallic blouse and has more makeup caked on her face than I’ve worn over this entire moon cycle. “Mom, you’re in public,
I see. Haven’t they suffered enough?”
She immediately flicks her hand at me. “I don’t have time for silly jokes, this is an emergency.”
It’s the blinking lights in the background and the machines I notice next. “Mom, are you in a casino?”
Her eyelids flit downward for a second, shameless. “Safa says they have nice beef dip, and we’re watching the Britney Spears
drag queen. She’s not good so she does the lunch crowd, but I feel like she can get better with encouragement, so I clapped
a lot. I’m very supportive.” She grins, as if everything she just said is perfectly mundane.
“Cool.” The least amount of words is usually the most efficient way to deal with her lately.
She leans toward the screen conspiringly but doesn’t quite lower her voice when she cups her mouth to say, “But there’s a
big emergency here. I found a scam.”
“Oh?”
“My hand slipped and pushed the button of the slot machine too early, before I could infuse it with luck, and the machine stole from me. The asshole tried telling me I couldn’t get a respin with new money on the house.
Now this fucking manager guy is telling me I need to calm down, but how can I when they’ve stolen from me? ”
She angles the phone toward a dignified-looking older white-haired guy in a starch-pressed casino uniform.
I sit up higher in my seat. “None of what you’re doing sounds good or reasonable.”
One of those novelty giant plastic cups with the long swirly straws suddenly pops into frame. My mom takes a giant swig of
what looks like a margarita. “I know they cheat us, but they don’t have to be so rude on top.”
My mom isn’t exactly great with people she thinks are trying to cheat her. Last time I was over for dinner, she got a telemarketer
scam call with an automated voice that said her credit card was compromised. She let it go through to one of the call center
guys and told him that her brother was going to fuck his mom (my mom’s version of a comeback, for some reason). The guy on
the other end began thoroughly cussing her out. This all happened on speakerphone, and once she hung up, she continued eating
her dinner completely casually, nary a look in my or my Aunt Safa’s direction.
But the real problem is, whenever my mom gets into these kinds of scuffles, she ends up saying something along the lines of
“You can’t talk to me like that, my daughter is a very important manager.” Then proceeds to try to get me involved.
I take a deep breath. “You didn’t use the ‘my daughter is a manager’ threat?”
The wide-eyed flash of her eyes is my answer.
“Mom!”
Her voice (miraculously) lowers to respond, “Just a little bit, but I didn’t give out your name yet.”
“Yet?! Mom, you have to stop with this. Last time, my assistant had to field a call from the car wash. It was a mess.”
Hurt creeps in behind her eyes. “You should want to help me, after everything.” Her eyes cast down for added sympathy. “I’m your mom. When I’m dead, you’ll see.” This is
her evergreen comeback, but it has become less of a casual threat after Dad’s funeral.
And that’s just it.
My mom was never super reasonable, but since my dad passed, it’s like she’s become addicted to chaos. I mostly checked out
of my relationship with my dad eight years ago. In all that time, I only communicated with him in the most basic surface-level
ways, just to keep family gatherings peaceful for my mom’s sake.
But the last time he got drunk was five years ago, when Mom called me to help pick him up from the police station. I guess
he came home too drunk for his front door keys to work. He apparently thought Mom had changed the locks, so he sliced through
the screen of an open window and crawled inside before passing out on the living-room couch. Only problem was, it was the
next-door neighbor’s house. Anyway, Jim and Pauline didn’t take too kindly to this, and the cops were called at one a.m.
It happened the night before my first solo pitch for a micro soda company. I only ended up getting three hours of sleep and
uploaded the wrong campaign. Twice.
After his death, something unruly was unleashed inside my mom. Something I’m not sure I can handle.
“I do want to help, of course I do,” I say. “But actually, I should talk to you about my job . . .” I try to lock eyes with
her without success. The frostiness of her eyeshadow feels almost reckless with how sunny it is today.
“What was that, Mona?” she crows, the screen tilting as she lifts her drink again. The casino manager’s torso comes into view
briefly—he’s still standing behind her.
“Things have been kind of weird at work lately, with everything that’s happened.” I force each word out with the hope that
she’ll hear them. “Since Dad and all.”
Instantly, her eyes drift away from the phone screen. It’s like her mind is traveling a million miles away.
All the pain and angst of the past twenty-two hours hits me at once. I don’t know what I expected. She’s still too caught
up in her grief, and if I tell her I’m having trouble at work, that’ll only add to it. And she’ll probably end up doing something
a lot wilder than arguing with casino managers. Besides, it’s not like she can help me—it’s never been that way.
“Hey, Mom, I’ll try and come by for a visit soon,” I say, forcing a smile on my face. “Just please, stop arguing with the
man for doing his job. You know what it’s like.”
Her gaze turns down again. My dad worked in construction, mostly as a roofer, but he took on anything he could get. Even still,
relying on his income when he couldn’t always retain a job was volatile. So Mom ended up spending decades waxing and threading
eyebrows in her basement salon. I think some customers knew how much she needed them. Every now and then, someone used that
desperation to say and do horrific shit.
“I’m not being that rude,” she replies. “I know the limit.”
Now she’s working part-time at a small salon in a strip mall in Killarney. At this stage of her life, she should be having
some well-deserved peace. But Dad died, and his debts didn’t. So yeah . . . it’s not me she needs to worry about. “Just try
not to play the machines anymore. They’re designed to keep you losing money—you could get addicted and it could . . .” The