Mom?

I…no…Mother I am working. Yes. Call me on the cell. All right.

Hello? Hi Mom. Yes, I did get the cookies. They were delicious. Thank you. Last night? I was…hold on Mom, I’ve got a call on the landline. OK.

Hi, I’m Candy. Would you like to find out how many licks it takes? Gary, isn’t it? How old are you? No Gary, you’re not eighteen…you are sixteen going on seventeen. May isn’t it? Never mind…I just know.

You can’t call my number if you’re under eighteen Gary. Now why would a nice boy like you call this number? I’m sure there are girls to talk to at school. Oh, geek is an ugly label and you have no reason to wear it. I can tell you’re a sensual soul Gary, you’re just ahead of your peers. Now if you talk to that girl in chemistry, Melissa I think, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. All right…goodnight love.

Hey Mom…just an underager…no, he’s a good boy, just needed a push. Where were we? Last night? Oh yes, I went and got…hang on Mom, duty calls.

Hello, I’m Candy and I have a creamy center…well hi Richard…interview me? That’s a first. Yes, I have the time. Time moves in mysterious ways Richard, different speeds from person to person – sometimes frenzied, sometimes achingly slow. For you, it’s moving at roughly two dollars a minute. But ask your questions; I always wanted to be a character in a book. Besides, there is something almost sublime about a man named Richard calling me for an interview. Just a sec.

Mom? Someone wants to interview me on the other line; it might take a few minutes. No, I don’t think he’s married. Hmm? He writes fiction…no, I won’t ask him how much he makes. Just hold on a few minutes, ‘kay?

All right Richard, fire when ready. No…no, I’ve gone by Candy for a long time, ever since I threw up when we watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in first grade…I think those Oompa-Loompas are horrifying creatures. I don’t know…those orange faces…and green hair…can we move on please?

Just a moment Richard, I’m going to put you on hold. Busy night.

Hi, this is Candy and I can moan in almost twenty different dialects. Hi Stan! It’s been weeks. Well, this month I would work on being prompt…I foresee that being important…oh, and stay away from the sushi at that Japanese place on the corner this week…bad ju-ju there. What? Now Stan, you know I don’t do lottery numbers…it’s bad karma. But I am having visions of a red head, a tight white uniform, and a steamy encounter in the back of an ice-cream truck…am I right? Good. I’ll let you hold on to that image and take it from there…no need to run up your bill until you get back on your feet. You’re welcome love. Goodnight.

Still there Richard? Go ahead.

Well…I got my start as a phone psychic. I have a gift. Oh…let’s see, I know that you enjoy silent films and your power animal is the dolphin. Mine’s the lemur.

But that’s the problem. People don’t want accurate readings. They don’t want to know that their child’s turtle will die in thirteen days. They are not impressed when I can tell them what size undergarment they wear or their dead grandmother’s favorite cleaning agent, upon hearing their voice. They don’t want specifics. They want vague assurances of job security and a strong love life. They want to huddle in little corners, receiving promises.

Did you know that an old superstition says that corners attract evil spirits and trap ghosts? True story. There’s a supposedly haunted house at the edge of town, that has no corners…well, almost. A married couple into séances built it during the Victorian era, pretty good as far as eras go. Well, anyway, they design a cornerless house, so they can channel spirits better, good flow and all. Peachy keen idea, but the builder messes up, closes off a set of walls with a ninety degree corner. The story goes that the husband died of heart failure in that very spot…and the house hasn’t been the same since. True story.

Then again, most every house has at least four corners…so by that logic the average house is at least four more times more evil than the haunted house. Oh well. I find bisecting lines a turn-on myself.

Anyway, with sex lines, I’m able to be a lot more specific. I just have the knack. Almost as soon as the receiver hits my ear I know whether your turn on is a blue-eyed farm girl on a green prairie…or getting slapped in the ass with raw steak during foreplay. No explanations necessary, Richard…I don’t judge.

The job transition wasn’t as tough as you’d think. I’m very flexible – I go with the flow in a manner that I’d like to think would get a rise out of a Taoist. Come to think of it…I think I once did.

Oh, just a second.

Hey Mom, sorry I kept you. What were we talking about? Oh, last night…I went and got a tattoo. Mom…Mother, don’t shout, it’s a very pretty tattoo. Well…it’s a German symbol…no not that German symbol. I think it stands for the goddess Nike…or something…I don’t know. I was pretty plastered. No…the artist was very nice; she just has some troubles to work through. Nyx…I said her name is Nyx. Hang on Mom.

Hey Richard, sorry to keep you. What? No, I said Nyx…yeah, I was talking on my cell. Well, Nyx is the goddess of night and one of the oldest deities. She flies around on a freaky chariot, turning the sky black. Pretty scary huh? But most people don’t know that Nyx has three guises, three masks. The first is all chaotic because she was born from chaos. The second mask is dark and macabre because she’s the goddess of night. But the third is bright because she is also the mother of light.

I’m sorry, what’s your next question?

Ashamed? Richard, I haven’t felt ashamed since I threw up in first grade. Yeah…Oompa-Loompas…ugh! But never ashamed…it’s just sex-talk, Richard. It’s so perfectly natural. The line between slutty and sensual is as thin as self-esteem and twice as protective as latex.

I provide an important relief…and people really need it out there. And I’m good. Folks just open up to me for some reason…and I listen to the stuff that’d make a bartender blush.

Hold that thought, Richard…

Hello, don’t tell me your name, I just want you to tear into me…oh…my…you are a naughty one…you don’t get to be naughty very often do you? That’s too bad, I…

…sorry, I dropped the phone. My hands must have been trembling in anticipation of you penetrating me with your…Mom? I…no…I picked up the wrong…listen, Mom, I’m pretty busy right now. Why don’t I let you go and call you tomorrow? All right…I love you, too…no, not in that way…goodnight.

OK…where were we, naughty boy? You sound panicked…what? Your wife is home? Your wife won’t be upset…in fact she will be far more receptive to your naughty ideas than you think…trust me, I know. In fact, if you just go tell her, most of those pesky perceived marital problems will melt away…I promise…yes…even the harness…especially the harness. Bye now.

Sorry Richard, where were we? Oh yeah, too many people wandering about, weighed down by guilt and shame. A very smart girl recently told me that daytime TV plays out like Gothic horror and the newspaper reads like a penny dreadful…and it’s true. Folks out there are controlled by their trauma, real, imagined, or forgotten – boo-boos running soul-deep. Folks feeling like the marks left stain them, curse them to things predetermined. I think that is positively icky-poo.

Me, I’m more into transcendence than pessimism. Fate’s an alibi, man. I believe in perpetual motion. We are more ourselves during transition – from one job, one identity, one metaphor to another. Guilt or glory in the past only holds us down. Too many people put too much emphasis on beginnings and endings and not enough on the middle. You’ve gotta accept the now, to change.

“I Love the Now,” that’s a Jimmy Buffett song. You a Buffett fan Richard?

What? Well, yes…I suppose it is easy to make fun of. Call it New Age – call it flaky…and maybe it is. Take the craze with angels. People want easy answers and things taken care of for them and so they turned those complicated and terrible beings of the heavens into the spiritual equivalent of a smiley face. But is that so wrong? Sure, the New Age angel may be too whispy to exist and too unambiguous to make sense in our world…but I don’t mind the thought of a smiley face swooping down to save us from the Gothic fates every so often.

You have to trust in the duality of things. Trauma is the undeserved tragedy and if it exists…than miracles have to exist because they are the unearned lucky break.

Richard, did you know that freedom smells like chocolate? It’s true, according to a former inmate of Alcatraz. You see, there was a chocolate factory on the San Francisco bay. When Alcatraz closed down, a nudist colony almost moved in. Can you imagine? Dozens walking the prisons grounds naked and free and smelling like chocolate…

Just a moment Richard.

Hello, this is Candy and I know you want to jump my bones…no sir…the suicide prevention hotline is a 1-800 number…yes…why don’t you just talk to me? What’s your name?

Did you know that Bob is the most statistically common name for imaginary friends?

Now tell me Bob, why are you standing on that window ledge? I see…oh dear…well Bob, I can’t say I know what the answer to that is, but I do know that you don’t really want to jump. No Bob, I know what you really want.

Now isn’t that better? I know, Bob…everyone has bad days. You’ll make it better. You’ll improve. You’ll floss. I know that when we hang up, you are going to climb off that ledge. How do I know? I trust you Bob. And I know it is nigh impossible to kill oneself while sporting a gigantic erection.

All right. Night love.

I’m back, Richard…just a wrong number. Like I was saying, there are far too many people wandering the buffet line who feel that being marked by trauma makes them damaged goods. But scars only have the resonance you give them.

But hope is a hard thing…I mean, just listen to the radio. I heard three stories today. Story one told of a 269-pound woman who sat on her boyfriend and beat him to death with a giant stiletto heel. She said it was self defense. The second story featured a loud, drunk man yelling at some poor woman through her backyard fence. Then he stuck his penis through a hole in her fence. The woman’s pit-bull bit it off. Then, after the commercial break, the newsman tells me how one ice cream vendor doused another vendor in gasoline and then set him on fire for selling ice cream in his neighborhood.

But I do find hope, Richard.

I see the words “FUCK YOU” scratched on the stall walls of a truck-stop women’s room, and I find hope – that someone would have that kind of omnipotent optimism, to scratch such a personal message in such a random place, and know, know it will reach the proper recipient.

Writing on the stalls, Richard, writing on the stalls.

I find hope when I divine answers from tea leaves and crystals, when I read the funnies during late breakfasts, and when I read possible futures in my alphabet soup.

I find happiness in voodoo dolls smiles.

I know that trauma spelled backwards is “amuart,” and that somehow makes me feel better.

Life is an island, Richard, if you don’t bring it with you, you ain’t gonna find it.

Another inmate on Alcatraz, locked in isolation, said if you close your eyes you see a light. If you practice and concentrate on the light, you can control it, put your own TV in it and see anything you want. You can go on trips with that light, see anything you need to see.

Sorry Richard…another call.

Hello, this is Candy and I want to be your sticky fantasy…hello Clara, I’m wearing an itchy, itchy sheer thong. What are you wearing? OK…I…uh…you’re at a police station? Bend over so I can use the handcuffs…