The Convalescent by Jessica Anthony

grabs one of his hands. She takes his thumb in her mouth and bites it.
    This is how they fight. Like children.
    Where is the child in these pretty environs? He goes to the same place he always goes when they start fighting. He leaves the farmhouse and runs to the mailbox at the end of the driveway. He takes out the newspaper and reads “Today in History, by Eldridge Cooner.” And today in history, on March 18, many big and important events took place: In 1766, Britain repealed the Stamp Act. In 1850, the American Express company was created, and in 1932, John Updike was created. On March 18, 1965, Russian cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov left his Voskhod 2 capsule and hovered in space for twenty minutes. Four years later, on March 18, 1969, President Nixon’s “Operation Breakfast” began, as the payload from B-52 bombers lightly fell from the sky onto supposed communist base camps in Cambodia. These events have all been forever recorded down in history by Eldridge Cooner. But it’s true, the boy observes; Grandfather Ákos was right. Eldridge Cooner does not keeprecord of the small events; he does not record what happens in the rubble of Mexican earthquakes. He makes no record of the discoveries of faraway nebulas, the fear of the agoraphobe. He most certainly does not record the Pfliegmans. He does not write that on March 18, 1983, a ten-year-old boy living in a farmhouse that leans both east and west wished his parents would die. He does not keep record of us, but these, Dr. Monica, these are our records.

IX
PROPERTY OF SUBDIVISIONS LLC
     
    This morning I wake up, pull on my sweatshirt, slice off a fat piece of tomato for Mrs. Kipner, go out to the tree, spend a few unpleasant moments trying to contribute something to the green bucket that does not want to be contributed, and then unroll the awning, lean the chalkboard against the side of the bus, plunk down in my lawnchair, and sell my meat.
    The chalkboard is for writing down everyone’s orders, so people know how much meat is left, et cetera. For the most part it’s a reliable system, but occasionally someone will come around who hasn’t been to the bus before, who doesn’t know that I don’t talk, and who gets in a huff because I’m not answering their important business-related question, because I’m just sitting there in my pink sweatshirt, staring at them from behind my beard as though I’m merely an extension of the bus itself. But before things get out of hand someone usually clues the new person in, and then they get an altogether different look on their face.
    “He doesn’t
speak
?”
    Then it’s like I’m deaf and I can’t hear what they’re saying.
    “Why doesn’t he speak?”
    “He’s a mute.”
    “But everybody speaks.”
    “He’s a midget
and
a mute.”
    Today we have a wrangler.
    “Look here, boy, how come you don’t speak?”
    A tall, square man with a buzzcut orders four sirloin strips, and when I don’t respond, just make a few quick marks on my chalkboard, the man decides that he’s insulted. He marches over to me, grabs a fistful of sweatshirt, and hoists me five inches above ground with one arm. “Listen here,” he barks. “I’m a retired general. Now speak!”
    I don’t say anything. I just hang there, like a coat.
    “Speak!” he shouts. He shakes me a little.
    Then a fat man comes running up from the back of the line of meat customers. “Hey!” he shouts. “Hey you! Knock it off!”
    He’s wearing a baseball cap with an M on it, and I recognize him immediately. He’s the one who said I should wear hats when I sell my meat. He’s the one with the swollen stomach, the head like a vise. He’s got a walkie-talkie clipped to one side of his belt. From the other side, a long black billy club hangs like a second, misplaced penis.
    “Just drop him,” he says. “Leave him be.”
    The general scowls. “I’m not doing anything. I just don’t believe the boy can’t speak, that’s all.”
    The fat man places a