Rivendell
Tips from the Oedipal
John Olivares EspinozaI'm in the lobby of a major bank, my leg falling asleep to the lullaby of customer wait. A woman as old as my mother walks in, thin in her jogging suit. Her son walks in behind her, late thirties, takes a seat next to me. He smells like an auto shop. He's wearing shades, I guess to protect his eyes from the radiation of fluorescent lighting. Or maybe he's eyeing the other customers as they leave the bank. He says he's gotta make sure no one makes a move on his old lady. I say I know what he means. Then he tells me to check out his old lady. They just had a baby. She's his wife and I cough. He asks me to guess how she's in great shape. He tells me how. He made her jog to the Ritz-Carlton and back each morning after the pregnancy. Says her body is clear of the roadmaps of stretch marks. He tells me how. Every night he rubbed her down with a coconut oil concoction. I wonder if the light bulb was on or off at the time. I hope for off. I wouldn't want to see her glisten like a date fruit. He asks me if I ever had fresh milk from a mother's breasts. Not lately, I say. Say as he was watching his son breast feed from his mother. His son was enjoying it. So he ws curious and asked for permission to suckle. He demonstrates. He puts his two hands in the air in front of him to form a breast. He begins licking at the air-tit. I look around to see if anyone else is watching. And people think Freud was sick. He even wipes his chin. He asks me if I knew breast milk had a blue tone to it. I think a blue closer to what? The sky? The ocean? A petunia? What else? It takes someone like him for me to see nothing much around us is naturally blue. All I wanted was a bank account. His wife walks up to him. She squeezes his hand before he chains him arm with hers, like a child about to to be taken out for an ice cream cone.
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