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Oprah Will Die (continued from preceding page)
be contacted? You don’t know. You believe that some of those you loved had feelings for you, but you do not have proof of that, could not claim to read their minds, know only that several certainly acted the part for a while. It might be a sign, though a sign of what you are not sure, that at least two of these men uttered the words, “Elizabeth, you can’t make some- one love you.”
You did not feel like you were trying to make anyone love you, only that you were trying to do or have something that seemed in short supply in your
life. But, perhaps, that very attitude was what they meant.
~
The dishes get finished. Your Aunt Patsy, your cous- ins, and your sister and all the kids leave, bed times being the excuse for taking off a little early. Your mom and you sit at the table and have a last cup of tea while in the rec room your father alternately yells at the football players and laughs at the movie Toy Story.
Your mom says, “Maybe for Christmas I will put ched- dar in the broccoli dish.”
You feel bad, and though it’s hokey as hell and of- fends your sensibilities, you know what you are going to say and that your mother wants to hear it, which makes your neck feel stiff, but you say it anyway, “But Velveeta’s the tradition.”
You’re still not sure that a sticky gold block of chemi- cals that arrives in a blue foil wrapper is a tradition worth keeping, but your mother feels that it is, and so it is in a sense.
~
Driving home, think again of being on Oprah. The same dark blue, plush chairs. The set still in its “serious guise.” Oprah again telling you to stop the negativity, just knock it out of the ballpark. But this time you say, “Oprah, death is important. It’s impor- tant to remember.” As you say this, you feel like a puffed-up phony. There’s a longer pause than seems normal on Oprah. But Oprah’s a pro, and she quickly regroups. “Of course, death is important but life is more important. And there’s no point to relentlessly focusing on death.”
You feel like a phony again. Still you know you have a point too: remembering death is important, but you don’t know how to explain why and that makes
you mad so you say, “Oprah, you will die! You will die! You will die!” “Elizabeth,” Oprah commands as if she is God, fully expecting you to cease and desist. But, you think, Oprah is not God and there’s no com- mandment that says, “Thou shalt think positively.” Quite to the contrary, there’s a lot about dying on a cross. So you continue your mantra, working it up into a sing songy chant: “Oprah you will die, die,
die. Oprah you will die, die, die.” “Elizabeth!” Oprah repeats, furious now. Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Finally, she gives up and goes to commercial break. You con- tinue your chanting until a cameraman escorts you off stage. The audience doesn’t applaud, and your show never airs.
Your vision of the Oprah show fades, and you move on to thinking about Callie again.
Callie ran away when you were 11. For days, then weeks, then months, you stood in the backyard, calling “Callie, Callie, Callie.” Your voice growing more anguished as time went on. To comfort you, your mother told you that Callie had probably found herself a new home with a little old lady who fed her tuna fish, and that’s why she had not returned. Think of how you had clung to the preposterous idea that little old ladies with tuna fish were harboring all the stray cats of the world.
Realize, as tears well in your eyes, that Callie must be dead. You know that you are not really crying for Cal- lie, and yet you are crying for Callie, heaving great big sobs. You no longer can see where you are going. So you pull over to the side of the road.
You remember that you used to think it was hilari- ous that Callie misunderstood God, mistaking the word ‘brains’ for the word ‘trains.’ But now you feel angry on her behalf. Who could blame her for not wanting trains? If she had thought God said ‘lanes,’ she would have said “yes.” Cats like to trot down lanes, but what would she do with trains? She mis- understood God. Who knows if he was even speak- ing clearly, and her life was altered irrevocably. It wasn’t right. Recognize that you are sitting on the side of the road, crying, your head resting on the steering wheel, furious at an imaginary conversa- tion between a God who may or may not exist and a cat you had more than 20 years ago. Laugh, but remain outraged, nonetheless.
A 2020 recipient of a Queens Council on the Arts New Work Grant, Lannon has work published at Story, New World Writing, and Queen Mob’s Teahouse, among others. At work on a second novel, she is looking for a publishing home for her first novel.
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