Manners by Alex Strum
Ma witnessed us fighting at Easter dinner, a small argument over how to cook candied yams, but it wasn’t just a fight to Ma, she must’ve seen a way to exorcise her own ghosts from her relationship with Pa, and she began calling me every week to quiz me on my marriage, which didn’t take Sylvia long to figure out.
“Tell her we don’t have problems, tell her to mind her own business,” and I’d say, “I ain’t gonna disrespect my Ma,” and then Sylvia’d get all hot, like it was a competition to see who could control my life more. Then they both started calling me at work where I teach civvies how to fly—
“Hey, watch your altimeter, you’re descending too fast, excuse me, I have to take this”
"Ground Zero convergence" photo by Flickr user gaspi *yg
—and sometimes the students would get pissy, mostly just their nerves, but this Indian-looking kid never did. He was cool and focused and would apologize for having a question when I was on the phone during his lesson, Ma saying, “Call me back, I want to know how that talk went,” but it’s pointless cus there was no talk, I made it up to get her off my back. She’d tell me that I shouldn’t be thinking divorce yet, and I’d sigh, saying that nobody said I was, although in reality that’s exactly what I was thinking and I bet Sylvia was, too.
If that wasn’t enough, my son Jeffrey called a classmate a “faggot” and his asshole principle wanted to know if that language came from home. Hey, I didn’t make the English language.
A week later, I called in sick one morning, slept in until almost noon, poured myself a bowl of cereal, and hey, there’s that swell Indian-looking kid, he’s on TV, he’s been gettin’ real good, but wait, a passenger jet crashed into a tower in New York City, he was the one flying it, how is that possible, what is this a joke, Jesus fucking Christ, am I to blame for teachin’ this kid to fly, or is Ma to blame, or my wife, or my Easter dinner, or my yams?
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Alex Strum is a freelance writer living in Boston. His non-fiction has appeared in The Smart Set. This is his first fiction publication.
