We’ll also need a nurse so I contact Margo. Margo was my mother’s roommate in nursing school, best friend for life after that. When I was a kid she used to sit at our kitchen table, blowing smoke out her nostrils like an angry bull. Nicest woman in the world though. A laugh that could swallow a room. I haven’t seen her since my mother passed. My mother didn’t last much longer after that incident with the tardy ambulance. I catch a bus out to the Jersey suburbs, an hour ride to Hackensack. As the city peels away, it feels much saner. Suburban. Almost like life as it was. From the bus you can see into people’s lit-up living rooms. The houses out here aren’t full of tappers in their silver torpedoes, just people on flowered sofas, planted in front of TVs. Yes, they still make TV shows somewhere. The rest of the country is still pretty shiny, from what I hear. Apparently the West Coast is more or less the same. Sunshine. Palm trees. Beautiful women in drop-top convertibles. Singing surfers.
