I Was a Short Order Cook for a While After Cat Ballou

Lee gets out for the day, to see mother! Was it worth it?

I was reading the back of the Scarface VHS box when I heard unsure footsteps out on the little deck. I walked over and pulled back the shade just as a guy about my age was about to knock. He motioned for me to open the door. I shrugged.

“I don’t want to have a raised-voice conversation. Let me in?”

I opened up and the guy came in. He had on one of those sweaters with a collar under a tweed blazer, like a businessman at a Saturday meeting. Today was a Tuesday. I think.

“Lee, how are you.” It was a statement, not a question. “Dope works for me. I want to see a movie. Join me, what do you say?”

I asked him how do I know he is who he says. He dialed someone on his phone and handed it to me. Dope was on the line.

“Heya, Lee. It’s good. Have a fun afternoon.” I handed Collar Sweater back his phone.

“Okay, what do you want to see? What’s even out?”

The title was just, mother! This girl lives in a big house out in the middle of nowhere with a writer who spends a lot of time outdoors. The house is beautiful but looks unfinished. It’s her project. One house is a lot. The shack they’ve got me in is a fraction as big and I can barely stay on top of it.

She’s trying to paint walls and get the guy to talk to her, but people keep coming over. First just one man, he says he’s lost. Then the man’s wife. Then others. More. I feel like I’m not supposed to say. But it’s a lot, and it’s all on the girl’s shoulders.

It keeps going like that. But I’m not knocking the movie. Things can get worse for this Jennifer Lawrence girl, and you, and me. I cringed at a few of the escalating developments but after a while it’s a rollercoaster I became resigned would never stop. And the final shot of the movie left me with more questions. Final shots usually answer questions.

Collar Sweater had a lot of questions too. We went to a Chinese place afterward and hashed it out a little bit. I mostly smiled and seconded what he had to say. There was something special to me in mother!’s mystery. They went to the trouble of making a fully closed loop, with no link to reality, except in feeling. I don’t care what it means because I know how it feels.

The guy drove me back and shook my hand. “Maybe again sometime,” he shrugged.

“Yeah,” I said. I went inside and hoped more and more people would visit me.