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MASHED SWEET POTATOES
matthew savoca
The phone rang. I answered it. It was my uncle. He said, Hey Arr-Churr. I
said, Hi. He said, The power is out in half my house down here. It’s because of wires
rubbing against a tree. They can’t fix it until tomorrow. I didn’t say anything. Neither
did he. Then he said, Better change dinner to tomorrow night then. I don’t have
power in my kitchen. I said, You can run an extension cord from another room. He
said, Yeah maybe that would work. Hold on, he said. Then he shouted something to
my aunt. He came back to the phone. He said, No it seems better we wait until
tomorrow. Are you busy tomorrow? No, I said. Okay, I’ll call you tomorrow in the
morning, we’ll see if they have it fixed yet. Okay, I said. See ya buddy, he said. Bye, I
said.
I hung up the phone. I looked at the clock. It was eight twenty one. I got up and
turned on my computer. I checked my email and read a couple of news websites and
a couple of comic websites and some blogs. All of this took about an hour. During
this hour I was clicking on links and reading my screen and then clicking more links.
One of the links I clicked on was the profile of a girl in Italy on this hospitality
exchange network. There was a picture of her next to a river with a scarf covering half
her face like a bandit. Underneath the picture it said, That’s me when I was looking
for gold in the Rhein. I clicked on the picture and was taken to another website
where there were more pictures. There was a picture of her in her kitchen with a
black witch hat on. Underneath the picture it said, A witch in my kitchen by courtesy
of my guest Pep. I clicked on another picture. It was a picture of her in the woods
kneeling down and biting her lip a little. Underneath the picture it said, I get nervous
when I’m lost in the woods. I clicked on another picture in which she had a shaved
head. Underneath the picture it said, This is me with the shortest hair ever, I’m the
one on the left. There was also a man in the picture. I clicked on another picture
which was a side view of her cooking in front of a stove. Underneath the picture it
said, Cooking in Santa Severa. I opened a new tab on my web browser and typed in
maps.google.com. I typed in Santa Severa. A map appeared and I clicked the plus
button a couple of times. Santa Severa is a town on the beach close to Rome. I went
back to her profile. I scrolled down. I read her interests section. I read the section
about books and music that she liked. Some of the names in the section were Robert
Wyatt, King Crimson, Soft Machine, Van Morrisson (but only the first two albums),
Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Philip K Dick, Silvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Shakespeare,
Proust, Beckett, Philip Larkin, David Lynch, Kieslowski, Star Wars (but only the
originals), Altman, Jane Campion, Stanley Kubrick. There were more things in the
list. I scrolled up and clicked the button that said Send A Message. I typed, You are
impressive. Then I clicked send. I turned off my computer monitor and went into the
kitchen to eat breakfast.
Later the same day I got a message back from the girl. It said, Am I? I thought, Oh. I
clicked reply and typed, Yes. That is to say, you have left an impression on me. I
clicked send.
The next day I went down early to my uncle’s house. It was a couple hours drive. I
spent most of the day there. We took the dog for a walk in the fields behind his
house. The dog ran fast and we watched her. It was a little bit cold but the air wasn’t
unpleasant.
We had dinner. One of the things we had for dinner was mashed sweet potatoes. We
drank some wine. After dinner, I drove home. When I got home, I turned on my
computer and checked my email. There were no messages. I went to bed.
In the morning I woke up and checked my email. There was a message from her. It
said, I see... and what am I supposed to do? ;-) I lived in Philadelphia for a year. That
was before you were born. My father was supposed to go on working at some
institute but my mom was 24, felt miserable, didn't speak English and wanted to go
back home. And so I'm not a Philly girl. But I could have been.
I read the message more than once and then I clicked reply. I typed, I have somewhat
of a love hate relationship with Philadelphia and I have mostly a hate relationship
with Philadelphian girls. I think you're much better off a Roman girl than a Philly
girl. I spent New Year's Eve in Rome a number of years ago. I had no idea what the
umbrellas were for, but I probably should have guessed. And, I don't know. Do
whatever it is you already were doing.
I clicked send. The next message I got from her was short. It said, Oh that's not as
easy as it sounds. I have no idea what I'm doing.
I clicked reply and then typed, That’s admirable. I sent it. She replied, I am
acquainted with the night. I wrote back, I can’t fall asleep without the television on.
That night we talked on instant messenger and I asked her questions like, What’s
your favorite pizza topping? Do you sleep with one pillow or two? Do you have a
boyfriend? Do you like to sweat?
The next day I bought a plane ticket and a week later we met. We had sex every day
for two weeks and then I went home. We had been very careful but I was still worried
she might become pregnant. I hadn’t heard from her in a while. I had a hard time
falling asleep at night. Instead of counting sheep, I would count all the reasons I
didn’t want a baby. There were only a few but I kept saying them over and over. Then
one morning there was a message from her in my inbox. I clicked on it and read it
and it said, I’m bleeding. I turned off my computer screen and went for a bike ride.
On the bike ride I thought about global warming and about overpopulation. I
thought about all the sperm laying in condoms in landfills and about all the people
that never existed. I wondered if any of them would have been good baseball players.
(c) 2008 by Matthew Savoca