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"Hello?"

"Mom?"

"Yes?"

"It's Gerard." A slight pause on the line, and then a muted chuckle.

"Darling, I know."

"Oh, yeah. Who else calls you mom? Except Mikey..." he smeared at his eyes with the heel of his free hand. He'd been driving for about ten hours, and couldn't remember anymore why it was a good idea to drive back to New Jersey all of a sudden anyway. What was so wrong with fucking plane tickets, after all?

"Gerard? Gerard! Answer me!"

"Huh? Hmm, whadjasay?"

"Why are you calling me, baby? Are you okay? You haven't called in a while. Are you still down south? Are you talking to your brother much? You don't call, I have to get all my information from Mikey, it's like pulling teeth."

"Don't get mad at Mikey, Mom, he doesn't know anything much anyway," he mumbled sleepily, cheek pressed against the greasy glass of the booth in which he huddled. "Hey, I'm calling you from a payphone. Isn't that weird? That they still exist? I didn't know they still did…"

"What's wrong with your cellphone? Why are you using a dirty payphone?" He stubbed the toe of his boot into the grimy cement and sniffed.

"For the novelty of it."

"Ah." She sounded less than impressed.

"So listen, Mom, this thing…something…a crazy thing happened. This morning actually."

"It is morning, sweetheart. It's actually two thirty in the morning--"

"It was a figure of speech Mom."

"I was sleeping, you know, your call woke me--"

"I'm sorry Mom."

"I do work, you know--"

"I know Mom."

"But I picked up, like I always do, hoping it'll be you, my son who never calls--"

"I'm sorry, Mom."

"No telling how many salespeople I've spoken to because I picked up, wishing it was my son on the other line. I'm delusional, expecting my child to call. I guess I'm just delusional."

"Mama? Can I tell you about my day now?" She laughed, and he felt a bloom of affection grow in his chest for her.

"Go ahead," she said, with laughter still in her voice.

"I saw Egan today Mom."

"…Well there's a name I haven't heard in a while. God in heaven. How is she? How are you? Where'd you see her? How does she look?"

"Different." The word fell, dull and flat, all wrong to describe her, but the only one he knew to use. He had looked at her and seen someone familiar whom he couldn't quite place. It was indescribable and disconcerting, this feeling. "She's not the same. She still kind of looks the same, actually, she hasn't gotten any taller or anything. She has a kid."

"God in heaven," she breathed over the line.

"Yeah." He picked at the flaking paint of the phone's box, wincing as bright headlights washed over him, temporarily turning the world to washed-out orange. Things like that always made him feel like he was in a spotlight. It made him nervous, antsy. "I think I need to go, but I'll call you when I can?" he asked, though he meant to tell. He heard the smile in his mother's voice when she replied.

"Just don't make me have to hear about your life from Mikey. Or on the news. Call me some, huh?"

"I can't promise that, but--will you hold on a second--" he interjected fiercely as his mother made sounds of protest, "I'm gonna be home in a day or two I think. So then I won't even have to call. Okay?"

"Even if you are home, I still won't see you," she retorted acidly, displeased at having been cut off. Gerard was an intelligent man, and recognized this was the best he would get. He knew a lost cause when he saw it.

"Okay Mama. I love you, but I've gotta go now. I'll call you soon."

"Like hell you will," she muttered, then more softly, "I love you too Gerard. You're my baby boy."

"One of two."

"However you wanna see it, sweetheart. Goodnight."

"Good morning," he retorted, with a wiseass grin on his face. His mother laughed, and the line clicked off.

~*~

That night he slept in an old motel off the highway. It looked like time had lapsed once the fifties began, and just forgot to pick back up when they were over. The aqua glow of the pool in the headlights of his car looked freshly Technicolored. He paid for and accepted his key quietly, and drove the thirty feet from check-in desk to room with more caution that necessary. He was no longer seeing straight, or in single vision. He managed to struggle through the locks somehow, and his bed took him out at the knees. He didn't get back up.

He was standing in a rectangular room, in a hotel that was lit low and dim. Everything around him had a pearlescent glow to it, soft and luminous. He watched from the corner as beautiful women, luxuriant and gorgeous, stepped up to be displayed one by one on a bamboo stage at the back of the room. As they stood, swaying slightly, an old woman called out a bunch of mixed up words, and each girl folded in on herself, slowly becoming a swan. Then each took flight through a nearby window into a sky as dark and deep as an ocean. This went on all night, as countless girls surrendered their human form to take wing, leaving all else behind. All the while the rickety old chairs before the stage were slowly filling up with men who watched the spectacle before them, some stoic, some with tears in their eyes. As the night faded and dawn bled in, pink and cold, the old witch woman who called out the strange words, came around and fed each man an oyster shell full of blinding aqua water. Their eyes went fuzzy and their faces slack. They sat there all day, and all night, and all year, and forever, until finally one stirred, blinking, and turned slowly to watch the sill of the window. Sitting there--how had Gerard missed her?--was a girl more beautiful by far than any other. She'd been the last to go. And now it seemed she was the first back, perched on that sill just as light and pretty as you please. She leapt down and crossed the floor in quick, flighty steps, so sure of herself as she made her way towards the first man in the first seat of the first row, the one who'd awoken just moments before.

"Say," she smiled coyly, "Don't you remember me?" He shook his head.

"That isn't right," she frowned. "I've been gone, but I'm back now." The man stood and strode to the door, and the beautiful girl reeled on the spot like she'd been hit. He approached the door and she suddenly snapped to, the clack of her heels ringing through the room as she sprinted towards him.

"Stop!" she cried, but the man put his hand on the door and pushed, only pausing to look back over his shoulder at her and say, "This is just another day in my life."

"But I've been missing you," she pleaded, all hope draining from her face. "I've missed you every fucking day." The man shook his head and pushed through the door.

"That's all it ever was. My whole life, it was all just missing you."

He opened his eyes to his motel room. "I don't think it meant anything," he whispered to the ceiling.



Author's Note: Two updates in as many days. Fancy, fancy...