between the lines, or outside them entirely

Snippets of the unsaid, and the silences that speak volumes:


Every day, I see him at the public library: using the same computer terminal, the same black duffel bag lying on the floor next to his chair. His hair is thick and curly, almost wild; his clothes show signs of age but are still cared for, and he keeps them as neat as discarded clothing can be. Through the thick squares of his brown plastic glasses, he stays perfectly focused on the screen as he types, frantically pounding each key in succession.

As he hunches over the keyboard, I notice, yet again, the pre-printed message on the back of his lime green t-shirt, the same one he's been wearing for weeks: “I’m the son of rage and love.”

*******************

“I can’t believe you’re having this conversation from the supermarket,” the woman at the laundromat yells into her cell phone over the roar of the dryers. “Can you even concentrate on what you’re buying?”

*******************

“How are you doing today?” the telemarketer asks as I pick up the phone.
“Fine, but I don’t really want to talk to you.”
Long pause.
“Oh…well…uh…I’m calling you today because…,” he restarts the pitch, his tone tentative at first, then gradually building toward smug.
“Really. I’m not interested.”
Click.
"But..."
I shrug as I put the phone back in its cradle: does anyone actually want an honest answer?

*******************

“Any spouse or dependents?” the bank rep asks as part of setting up my new Health Savings Account.
“No”
“That’s why you’re so cheery.”

*******************

“I get lots of suggestions: footholds, pictures on the ceiling.”
“Pictures on the ceiling?”
The gynecologist nods. “One woman thought we should have pictures of guys being tortured on the ceiling so she could look at them during her exam.”

*******************

“So you see,” my friend tells me as she evokes the grandest spirit of the recent holiday season, “that’s why lots of women want to marry men from orphanages.”

Guilt-ipulation

Guiltipulate (v): to manipulate using guilt. The primary weapon in the arsenal of lonely and slightly depressed Jewish mothers and grandmothers. Variations on this technique may also be employed by certain East European and/or Catholic maternal figures. This technique is so enduringly popular worldwide that it must, at some point, have worked well on someone. See also: guiltipulation (n), guiltipulating (adj), guiltipulatingly (adv)

Real-life examples of attempts at guiltipulation via telephone:

12 years ago when I was living in New York:

“Hello.”

“Oh...um..." My grandmother sounds confused, as if she’s dialed the wrong number. “Hi.”

“What’s wrong?”

She breathes loudly into the receiver, huffing and puffing. “It’s just that I didn’t expect to find you at home,” she says, finally. “I thought I was going to leave a message.”

“Well I’m here today,” I reply. “I’m at home.”

Long stagnant pause.

“So, grandma, why did you call?”

She hangs up.

***********************************
5 years ago:

“I just called to tell you I love you,” my grandmother says quickly, before I can even greet her. “Just in case I die before I talk to you again.”

*************************************
last week when, not coincidentally, my parents were out of town again:

“Hello,” my grandmother’s voice drops discernibly between the first and last syllables. I know this sound, the sighing whine: it means she was hoping to catch me live but now has to deign to leave a message. She sighs loudly before continuing. “I wanted to wish you a happy new year and to tell you that I have no food.”

I call her back 10 minutes later.

“Hi grandma.”

“Oh,” she snaps. “It’s you.”

“Happy new year,” I say, even though there are still a few days left in the old one.

“It’s all taken care of,” she says.

“Huh?”

“The food. We don’t have any now, but we’ll be fine.”

“I was in the shower when you called.”

“Well, it’s fine anyway,” she says. “We figured it all out.”

“Oh.” Long pause. “What do you need from the market grandma?”

“I don’t know," she says. "But it’s fine. She (the woman who takes care of my now quite handicapped grandmother) is just going to shower me and put me in the chair and I’m going to stay here all alone while she goes out to the market before the holiday.”

“So you’re okay?”

“I told you, it's fine. I’ll just stay here by myself in the chair. You know I should never be alone now. In case something happens.”