Boyfriends - Carol Arnold

“Roland’s a masochist,” Lulu said, looking first at me then at Mom. She pronounced the word slowly, impressed with herself at being able to diagnose things mental. She’d taken Psych 101 at Rosemont JC the year before, and since then no one could get out of the room without a mental condition.

Mom was shivering in her red chair. The heat had been turned off again, and Lulu and I were over there to take care of things. So far all we’d taken care of was getting in a fight.

“He likes to be humiliated,” Lulu say. “That’s why he wants you to throw up. Why don’t you just pee on him instead?”

“Ha, ha, Lulu,” I said. “You’re so funny I could split my sides.”

“How about pee your pants?” She slapped her thigh and let out what was supposed to be a laugh but sounded more like a wounded hyena. I ignored her and turned to Mom.

“Mom, about the heat. How come you don’t pay the bill?” Her housecoat had daisies on it. It was so thin I could see her shriveled nipple through one of the yellow petals. It looked sad.

“Now, don’t get on me again. Times are hard enough without you two girls jumping all over me.” She brushed a wisp of white hair out of her face and screwed up her eyes.
Since Dad died she’d been living on his social security and railroad pension. It wasn’t a lot of money but I couldn’t see she needed more.

“Where’s your money going Mom?” I asked.

She looked over at Lulu, then down at her feet. Her right big toe wiggled up and down like it was doing a dance. It started me going, my toes wiggling around in my sneakers too. Something was up.

“So, Lulu, do you know anything about this?” I asked.

Mom blurted out the answer. “Fabion needed some money,” she said. Fabion was Lulu’s boyfriend, for fifteen years. Lulu didn’t believe in marriage, said it dragged you down, but if she were going to marry anyone, it would be him. Plus, she liked the way his hair poofed up on his head.

“Oh,” I said. “Mr. Perfect needed money?”

“Just temporarily,” Lulu said, “only until he sells the Corvette.” Fabion had been working on an old car for years, “cherrying it out,” he said. He had it up on blocks in their garage. As far as I could see he’d already cherried it out, and all he was doing now was rubbing it down. Every day he’d take a shami-cloth and rub circles around over and over. It shone like a mirror.

“Yeah, when hell freezes over,” I said, wishing I knew the mental condition for Fabion. ODD? I had heard Lulu say it about someone else, someone who thinks nothing is clean enough.

“What do you know?” Lulu said. She rolled her eyes and stared at the ceiling.

“I’d rather have someone who wants me to pee on him than someone who rubs a car over and over like it’s a goddamn baby,” I said.