“Tell me!” Norma yells.
“Remember in the movie Superman when Christopher Reeve flies backward around the earth so quickly that he forces the rotation of the planet to move in the opposite direction, backward in time?”
“I remember,” Norma says, then thinks, Isn’t Christopher Reeve dead?
“That might work,” the operator tells her.
“I’m scared,” Norma says. “I never realized she’d have a mind of her own. She scares me,” Norma says.
“Hmm.”
“What? What hmm? What do you mean by hmm?”
“Well, it’s just … Well, that’s funny is all because, well, she said the same thing about you.”
Just then the ladies’ room door swings open. Norma quickly hangs up the phone. She flushes the empty toilet and opens the stall door.
It’s Norma.
“Hello.”
“Hi.”
“I thought I’d save you the trip out Larre Road.”
“But I like Larre Road. I like the quiet.”
“It’s just such a hassle, isn’t it?”
“No.”
“Boy, I thought you’d be grateful. I went through all this trouble to save you time.”
“Umm, thanks. I guess.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So what’s going to happen now? The story is just going to get smaller and smaller until all that’s left is a U or a C and even that starts to get cut up into nonsense, into tiny little unrecognizable bits?”
“It’s more convenient that way. Efficient, you know.”
“That’s too bad. I really used to love walking out Larre Road. How I could stand where it changed from meadow to pine forest, where the air turned damp and the sidewalk got darker with that moss that grows in from the sides. Or how the sky would get blocked out by the pine boughs so none of my best thoughts could ever escape up into the atmosphere. Something like that.”
“I have the stenographer’s pad right here.”
“Don’t you want to just stop for a moment? Be slow?”
“No.” Dirty Norma shakes her head.
Norma’s cell phone starts to ring. She digs down into the bottom of her purse to pull the phone out. It’s Ted. “One second,” she tells Dirty Norma, answering her phone.
“Norma,” Ted says. “Norma, we have to talk.”
“I’m kind of busy.”
“Norma, you have to help me. Norma, I, I don’t have th—AHHG! I mean, I don’t have words to, oh, Norma. I made a mistake. Norma, you’re my wife. You are a part o—AHHG!—me.”
“Ted. You’re not making any sense.”
“Oh, Norma!”
“Ted, is Linda there?”
“Linda?”
“Yes, Linda.”
“Yes.”
“Can I talk to her?”
“Oh, Norma,” he says, and exhales loudly. “I wish I could tell you. You were th—AHHG!—bes—AHHG!” Like he’s being electrocuted or something. He gives up. He passes the phone to Linda.
“What do you want?” comes a voice Norma hasn’t heard since tenth grade.
There’s got to be a way to stop it. It’s complicated, but Norma can handle complicated. “Meet me after school. By the jungle gym. Don’t be late.” Norma is trembling. She has never spoken to an upperclassman like that before. She hangs up the phone, and as she is returning it to her purse she feels a sharp stab. Something sharp in her purse. “Ow!” Norma says.
“What?” Dirty Norma asks.
“Nothing.” But Norma knows exactly what pricked her. It’s the bowie knife that she uses for puncturing tires. She slips her hand back into her purse and grabs hold of its handle.
“Here,” Norma says, shoving the notebook in front of Norma. They sit down on a lowered toilet seat together. Both Normas start to read from the stenographer’s pad.
In a coffee shop off Dead Elm Street Norma realizes once again that she is not pregnant. She hangs her head in her hands for a bit, crying alone in the stall. “Next month,” she tells herself. “Maybe next month.”
She turns left onto Larre Road. Pronounced “Larry.” Larre Road reminds her of how she used to feel upon returning to class in junior high after lunch to find that the afternoon activity included a filmstrip viewing. Back when slow still existed.
“Psst. Come on! This way!” And into the tunnel she goes.
She returns to her homeroom. Her stomach is full of lunch. She is trembling. She has never spoken to an upperclassman like that before. After school she is supposed to meet Linda Kanakas. There is going to be a fight. Norma trembles. Norma touches the knife in her purse.
Norma’s teacher, Miss Novak, says, “Take a seat, children. This afternoon we are going to watch a filmstrip.”
Miss Leonard, the librarian, enters the classroom pushing a film projector on a wheeled cart that rattles across the linoleum floor. Miss Leonard tells Miss Novak, “Please be kind. Please rewind.”
“All right, children. Let’s have a seat.” Miss Novak smiles, and as Norma sits down, Miss Novak shuts out the lights and pulls the blinds. The room is dark. Miss Novak presses play on the tape recorder. The first DING signals her to advance the filmstrip. “The Wonderful World of Mammals.”
“See the gorillas at play,” says the tape-recorded voice. Norma already feels drowsy. She settles into her daydreams, visions of the world to come, a future bright and gleaming she’s read so much about, a marriage, someday children. “Gorillas, just like humans, have hair.” DING. “Gorillas nurse their young just like humans.”
The room is warm and dark. Norma’s so drowsy. Time can move so slowly when packaged into the squares of an afternoon filmstrip. Time can even go backward in a filmstrip. The radiator hisses with its steam heat. Norma is so sleepy.
DING. “When challenged, gorillas will defend their territory. Gorillas will attack.” Through closing lids Norma sees two gorillas fighting. One gorilla runs up a banana tree to escape. The other gorilla rips the banana tree from its roots, kills the other gorilla, kills the banana tree.
DING. “The strongest gorilla becomes the leader of the pack and gets to choose his mates. He chooses the most attractive mates.” DING.
The filmstrip shows two gorillas named Ted and Linda mating.
Norma’s head falls off to one side. DING.
“Don’t let her get away!” Linda yells to her posse of sub-bullies. They are dressed just like Linda, a gang of lawyers in navy-blue suits, brown leather shoes. Norma gives chase. She leads the gang away from the jungle gym, out of the school, and down Dead Elm Street. Or at least it looks like Dead Elm Street. Towns can look so similar these days.
Norma takes a right onto Larre Road. The swarm of bullies follows, frothing like a pack of wild dogs. No time to go slowly. They are a mob, an anonymous mob. Norma barely recognizes them. Norma is beginning to sweat. Norma surges ahead.
“Get her!” Linda yells.
They pass through the place on Larre Road where the forest grows thick. Norma is running so fast that the grove of trees appears as only a blur. She takes a right up the driveway of the home for troubled people.