I rarely open the mail. Instead, I let it make a big pile of
itself until it sloshes to one side or the other. Today we had a long
purposeful rain to which I responded by scooping up the top third of a mound of
envelopes and sitting down with it. (If a
check comes in the mail, I can feel it before I see it. That I’ll open like an
addict. The rest? Why bother? Not like in the days of Jane Austin or Charles Dickens
when revelations of inheritance or unforeseen cousins or declinations of affection came in the mail.)
I must have fallen asleep while opening these. My head jerked
up and my eyes beheld a darker room. I heard the lady next door
shouting in the hall, “You got power? You got power?” as she knocked on doors. She knocked
on mine. “You got power in there?” I ignored her. She has no life. The lights zapped themselves on. I saw
the microwave and the alarm clock flashing in that eerie way that will
continue after our race is extinct and no one is left to reset them. I had
slept through an event. In my hand was a card from Starbucks offering me any
drink for free because I have used my gold card so frequently. It is more than
a month old but I know they will honor it. I need it now. Why wait? I put on
clothes and go down the elevator mumbling to myself, “I got power. I got power.
I got power.” I cross the lobby and burst through the door and onto the
sidewalk where I come face to face with Olympia Dukakis who looks at me as if I
were about to accost her. She holds onto her stylish shoulder bag with the wary
reflex of a New Yorker. I draw in a startled breath and blurt, “I got power.”
She looks at the card in my hands, and casts her eyes down with a slight smile
as she steps around me and regains her stride.
I cross the street and push my way into Starbucks where I order a “grande bold no room black
eye.” I take it home and the rain has stopped. I put the mound away and make
plans to do the laundry tomorrow. I rarely do the laundry. Instead, I let it make a big pile of itself until it sloshes to one side or the other.
