Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask | Page 9

then stood up and went into the kitchen.
I was alone in the room, looking around at the things that Mom had chosen years ago. It occurred to me that coffee table was appallingly '70s, and I realized that I had never considered the furniture on any level except *our home's furniture* . My sister came in and caught me staring at the coffee table. Instead of bugging me about it, she just sat down.
"So the Scary Bus Lady wasn't looking at me," I said suddenly, grateful for the unbidden topic but not really able to summon a lot of enthusiasm for it.
"Were you buying a ticket?"
"No, this was today. She just came out of the back, though. It took her four entire seconds to lock on."
"I think she just stares at everyone who comes in."
"Yeah." I shifted uncomfortably. My back was still sore from the ride up. I wondered if I had time for a bath before dinner, but then Mom came out. Mom, who despite having a cancer growing inside her and probably wanting a cigarette very badly was still making dinner for her lousy son, a selfish brute whose primary concern was his own minor back pain.
"Suppertime."
* * *
My mom's cancer changed my television viewing patterns profoundly. I was in the habit of flicking on the tube and surfing while eating dinner: a little bit of the news, a little bit of a fashion show, a little bit of the *Simpsons* rerun and then I was usually done. I figured it was better to sample small bits of crap rather than to eat a whole meal from one pile.
The first day I was back from London I hunkered down in front of the tube with my macaroni and cheese and flicked it on. I was going back and forth, trying to find something interesting and artsy on the brainer channels, and passed the operation channel twice.
On the first pass I caught the words *diagnosed with breast cancer.* My heartbeat speeded up as I flicked past ten channels on automatic before stopping on a music video.
*I wonder why someone dying of a terminal disease agrees to be ogled by gawkers? How much do they get? Are operations that expensive in the States?*
I ate my macaroni. I thought about all the good food my mom made for me, and how I was wasting all her efforts by eating this lazy processed crap. I flicked away from the video where a man with a bubble guitar was soloing, sped past the operation channel and landed on a cartoon. But the bright sugarworld couldn't erase the glimpse I got of scalpel cutting into breast.
As I watched *Sailor Moon* for the first time, this is what I was thinking: *How will my mother, who can't bear being seen in public without her make-up, deal with a missing breast? Why should she have to endure something that she'll find so disgraceful? Where is the justice in that?*
I remembered Mom holding me up and turning on the water in a hospital bathroom. I was crying from the need to pee, a thirteen-year-old man-child with his tonsils newly removed and swaying from the anaesthetic. Mom smoothed down my hair and called me Ryan O'Brian like she did when I was a kid and it made me feel less ashamed because it's OK if your mom sees your thing when you're a kid, it's OK if you cry, and Mom feeds you sherbet when you're a kid.
"I am Sailor Moon, champion of justice and fighter of evil -- and that means you, Negaverse slime! Prepare to be punished!"
I liked this tough-talking little manga girl. I put my clicker down.
* * *
We stopped by Sok after class. Cassandra was working in another section. Mary got mint tea -- she followed some routine, a seven-herbal-brew cycle. I didn't know how she kept track.
"Don't you worry that you're using some valuable part of your brain for that? That you're using synaptic energy for something that is essentially useless?" I was jealous, of course.
"It's not useless," she said, her eyebrows crimping. "It keeps my palate fresh. Everything loses its magic, even Chamomile." She breathed the word like it was a lover's name. "But Chamomile is three teas away... there's still Raspberry, Licorice, and Peppermint."
"No, I understand that... but you could keep it on some scrap of paper instead of filling up brain cells."
"I remember things without trying. Like your phone number, 535-6222. I've called you at home -- what? Once or twice?" She shrugged.
This disturbed me. I was completely reliant on my phone book and wanted other people to be similarly dependent.
"It doesn't take any energy," she said.
"Ah," I said, pointing at her with my spoon, "no *detectable* energy. Your brain, however, must have finite resources, don't you think?"
"I *think* she