STUPID MEN, SMART CHOICES

I was on my third scotch and Maalox

when the phone rang. It was Veronica

again. Her sultry voice cracked on the line

like lima beans in a popcorn popper. She

was in trouble but this time there was

nothing I could do for her. I listened

to her story like the Roto-Rooter man

listens to a drain: all ears. She’d fallen

again, this time so hard and so fast

she felt she had been clobbered

by an Acela running amuck

on the slow track from Boston to

Gloucester. She said she liked the rhythm

of his talking, it was so down to earth

she sometimes felt she was buried alive

a comforting feeling for someone whose

anxieties were often indistinguishable

from her ecstasies. But things had gone

wrong, terribly wrong and now she was

on the run, not only from him but from

herself.

Like a dream about a dream, it always

began that way.