Phone Call To Mama (LSWC) (part one)

I called my mama today.
I call my mama every day. She's old. When I call her I like to have inane conversations, about stupid subjects. Like, several months ago, I told her " From now on, mama, when I call you, I think you should tell me some story about an animal, or about you and an animal, or facts about animals...People like animals " I said.
" Yes, they do," she said.
For me such type of senseless conversation somehow retains some of the pure sweetness of childhood like I was five years old asking some dumb question like " Is marmalade nice, Mama? " and she says " See for yourself if you like it - here, try this " and we're just sharing the marmalade.
So last night when I called her she said she was going to go into the city today to see the symphony.
So tonight I called her up and said " Guess what, mama? I woke up this afternoon and I was thinking about you and what you were doing and I remembered you were going to see the symphony and then I wondered what they had on the program and if it was something that I would like so then I got on line to the symphony website - And then mama on the website I saw click on this thing they had it set up for a camera, this live feed video cam webcam, real time, one showed the musicians and the other was sweeping the crowd, you could see everybody in the audience - most everybody in the audience -" ( mama's like " Ulp! Really? ", she's interested, taken aback a little, surprised, she doesn't like Google Earth showing her street from the air ) "- So then I started looking for you in the audience, and then I found you, at first I thought it wasn't you but then the camera swept back for another better look and I saw that it was you."
" Wow " she said.
" ...Yeah," I said."...You were wearing a red jacket."
"...No," she said.
" No, what, mama?"
" No," she said, " it wasn't me wearing a red jacket. I can be pretty sure about that because I don't own any red jackets. Maybe you must have mistaken me for someone else who looks like me....Or maybe you're just lying, and there was no video camera, showing people in the symphony audience, after all."
" Ohh, mama," I said " you're right, I'm just lying, I didn't go on no website or see no videocamera showing people at the symphony at all."
Mama said, " You know...I know, that you think, that you know better than this - But you might just want to consider the possibility - That when you die, you're going to come face to face, with God - And He might just say something to you like " I have created this universe that extends infinitely in all directions, without ever repeating itself, of such beauty and complexity that to accurately describe the workings of the small portion that you see in front of you would be the joyful labor of a hundred lifetimes - But instead of serving the glorious truth, I have noticed that you tend to prefer to clutter up your area with a whole bunch of useless stupid empty repetitive purposeless idle lies - Now, why is that?"."
" Yup, yup-yup" I said.
" God might just have something to say to you very much like that."
" You could be right mama " I said.
" So, how'd you get into the city to see the symphony? " I said. She's too old to drive or mass transit like that.
" That one young couple," she said. " The Dogfishes."
" Who? " I said.
" You know, the Dogfishes? That one nice young couple that I told you about, that I met a few months ago at church? They drove us in to the city.
I went to the symphony with them."
" Huh " I said " you can just drive right up to the symphony hall place and find a place to park there like that?"
" We parked the car at the restaurant," she said. " This nice restaurant nearby. We had a little snack. And then we walked over to the symphony."
" Yeah, " I said, " them Dogfishes, they've been doing all kinds of nice things and stuff for you lately, haven't they - Uh-huh - Taking you here and there..."
" Yes," she said, " the Dogfishes really have been very sweet and kind to me. "
" Recently " I said.
" They just seem to be a very nice young couple " she said.
" You don't think maybe they have just been trying to gain your confidence and so then once you are alone in the house with them they will give you some drug to make you confused in order to gain access to your bank accounts-"
" No, " she said, " I don't think so."
" I read this book one time about some Gypsies who were going around doing that to people. Do you think maybe these Dogfish people could be Gypsies?"
" No, " she said. " I don't think that they're Gypsies. I don't think that it's anything like that at all."
" Remember when you used your new cell phone for the first time at the airport and it turned out wound up with the phone company charging you trying to make you pay for all these mysterious international long distance calls to Russia ?"
" No, " she told me " I don't think that it's anything like that at all."
" Oh! Yeah! " I said " That just reminds me! Now I remember! - I think I told you about this at the time - This happened to my buddy's mom, she was dying of cancer, in Atlanta, the doctors had just basically sent her home to die - She was alone one afternoon, while the aunt was at work - Some unknown black man, unknown to the family, not from around there, just passing by, evidently, he gains access to her somehow, and evidently he doses her with a couple of pills of ecstacy - She turns up in the street, half-naked, beat-up, babbling, confused unable to give account of herself, ends up like on a seventy-two-hour mental hold...While he's driving away in her Monte Carlo he'd gotten her to sign away the title to...By the time they get it all straightened out and get her back home, she wound up dying like four or five days later."
" That's a very sad story, " my mama said. " ...Sad for your friend."
" Yeah, " I said, " it really was pretty much, too bad, you know?"
" No but mama " I said " I believe you, I'm a hundred per cent certain that you are correct, if you tell me that these Dogfish family people are nothing but nice friends to you, then I don't doubt that that is true."
" No, they are, " she said.


(CONTINUED IN PART TWO)