A More Prestigious Prison

A More Prestigious Prison



Alice Wren McCormick knew for a certainty two ways to have a miserable day: gum it up yourself, or have a bat-shit crazy mother to do it for you. Alice had experienced the nuances of both fields of endeavor; today, it was her mother's turn to shoulder the responsibility. To be fair, she only had herself to blame. She knew the drill when the phone rang. Check caller ID. Always. Had she followed this simple rule, so ironclad and ranked in importance just above "drop and roll in a fire," she could have avoided the morning TMI report from Loretta and gone blithely about her day. There would be no mind-numbing conversation with her mother about bowel movements, bunions, or The Pain. She would have ignored the strident tones of the ring. She would have smirked over dodging yet another tirade from the Mayor of Crazytown, had a third cup of coffee to celebrate the near miss, and then let the guilt settle over her like a heavy quilt. Then she would have called back, making up an excuse for not answering and stumbled badly over the subterfuge of the mundane. There was a script to be followed, with a few minor variations, in the start of each day.

In all actuality, Alice was a firm believer in the yank-the-damned-bandaid-off approach to life, and in all dealings with Loretta, it was best to keep the mental gymnastics to a minimum. One had to be sharp to match the convoluted meanderings of Loretta's mind. Coffee helped; and by the third cup Alice could almost convince herself that she was equal to the task of the restraint and subterfuge needed to navigate these conversations. Almost.

Her mother's voice piped through the phone, a chipper, early in the day tone that would fade as the sun zipped across the sky. Alice sighed, tucking her phone to her ear as she reached to turn the tv off before wandering through the family room. It was early enough that she was the only one moving about; summertime being a haven of late nights on XBox and late mornings in snoozeville for her 16 year old son. Her mother's voice bellowed through the line, having exhausted the news of her stomach's morning presentation. For some reason this was Loretta's official daily temperature; the grading of her bowel's performance. Actually it was a two-level report: how well she had slept, which included how many times she had awakened, how long it took her to fall back asleep, and the actual time she decided that feet needed to hit the floor, and how easy and plentiful her tribute to the commode was. Alice had told her several times that in fact, she did not wish these little daily newsflashes, but her mother's selective hearing kicked in and pleas for an embargo on too much information went unheeded. Morning calls from Loretta were a quirky version of the rooster crowing; Loretta ascended to the morning, descended to the throne, and raced to call Alice with the daily report all before Regis and Kelly began their perky banter. Alice once told her sister Anna that she actually would have preferred a rooster to these calls and Anna had just laughed and said,

"Well, what girl doesn't wish for a nice cock?"

Alice had chalked that up to Anna's not wishing to talk yet again about their mother. Or copious amounts of wine. Hard to tell with Anna. Her mother's voice cut into her thoughts as it changed in tenor, and Alice's guard immediately went up.

"By the way, what are you doing today, sweetie?"

There was always something about this question, the way it was almost sung in a too-innocent tone, that told Alice that she was about to be hit up to do something she would not enjoy. "Hey, can you drive me to the Aldi's?" would be a simple request. There would be no recon of Alice's plans if it were that simple. Alice never minded chauffeuring her mom around town, as often the outings provided Alice with a surrealistic and darkly humorous tale to share with her husband. But there were times that her mother commandeered her for search and destroy missions, in which some arcane and useless object was sought after and Alice's sanity was slowly destroyed. Alice had spent one memorable road trip to her sister's stopping at every Walmart between Chattanooga and St. Louis looking for a battery powered card dealer that would deal five decks of cards. By the time they stopped in Clarksville for the night, Alice had plucked a bottle of Arbor Mist from a grocery store shelf with the desperation that passengers must have shown when grabbing at life rafts on the Titanic and placed it carefully in the back of the van to take in with her bag to the hotel. Time in a car with Loretta was always quality time, and the quality generally was of the need for alcohol inducing variety.

"Um, not much, Mom. I work tomorrow, so I'm doing some house stuff today..."

"Good! Hey, I have a favor." There was an expectant silence, and Alice, being no novice to this script, dutifully replied.

"What's up, Mom?"

"I need you to run me over to Homestead so I can talk to my friend Connie about joining our card group."

"Sure, not a problem. You expanding the gal pals get together?"

"Oh no, we had to dump Eileen."

Alice stood still, not sure she had heard that correctly. "What do you mean you dumped Eileen?"

"Well, she was so slow, it just held the game up. Plus, she gets to talking and I get tired of nudging her along. So we dumped her."

"Well, she's 83, Mom, and she's alone. That's why she loves to talk to you all."

"Well, I know, but it gums up the card game. We can talk to her anytime. I want to play cards."

Alice held stock still, immobile, for a moment. "Ah, you know what? I forgot all about Sarah's doctor appointment. This afternoon. Early. Can you just call Connie?"

"Well, I can, I guess, but I thought if we went there to talk to her, she could tell them that I'm her sister and you're her niece and they'd give us family passes at the lunch room there. The food there is so good!" Her mother's voice rose a little in excitement; anticipation of the double whammy of eighty-sixing the card-game lagger tinged with the satisfaction of free food due to a ruse.

Alice was truly, for the first time in a long time, shocked. Eileen had been a friend of decades to her parents. She was true and stalwart, in good times and bad. A tiny bird-like woman with kind eyes, Eileen encased a truly warm and caring heart within her petite frame. Countless times she and her husband, Ted, had stood by as her parents navigated rough waters in their lives, and had been supportive. In the world of people who were not crazy, Eileen was a treasure. On planet Loretta, Eileen was ballast to be jettisoned when her caring heart became secondary to her usefulness as a Hand and Foot partner.

Dislike, distaste, and disillusionment flared through Alice. It was not a new feeling; she and Anna often joked that they were the Queens of Dis, and that Loretta had handed down the crowns. Sipping at her coffee, she took in a breath to tamper down the flash of anger that zipped through her at the ugly callousness.

"Mom, I can't. Not today. Sarah has an appointment and I have things to do." Things to do being, anything but that. Some lines were hard to cross, and hurting kind hearted people was kind of a firm mark in the sand for her.

"Well. Some day soon then." Loretta's voice became brisk; the tone of the greatly put upon when one's subjects did not fall into line. The tone had long since lost it's edge for Alice. All it brought now was a relief at having dodged a bullet. "I don't want to intrude on your day."

"You're not, Mom. It's just a little crazy here. I have a ton to do." Alice knew, even as the words left her mouth, how weak that sounded. But, there was a script, and it had to be followed. "Why don't I come get you tomorrow and take you out to lunch?"

Loretta perked up. "Perfect! I need to go to Old Time Pottery and to Costco!"

"OK, mom, I'll talk to you later today. I need to go." And she quietly hung up the phone, temper still simmering.