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Machine Dreams

Machine Dreams

Titel: Machine Dreams
Autoren: Jayne Anne Phillips
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stuffed with apples, head scarves, and lipstick. Pretty Peasants, they called themselves, and played it up all during the ceremonies. Another time they somehow got a bull into the chemistry lab. It must have been difficult to lead that animal up three flights of steps; it was nearly impossible to lead him down.
    Tom was different because he was mannish and independent, but not afraid to be attentive the way a woman would be. He never forgot anything I told him, and he was proud of me. Sometimes when we were at a dance or out with the crowd, he’d nod in my direction and say, “Look at her. Isn’t she the prettiest thing you ever saw?” Probably sounds silly to you, but it wasn’t really about being pretty. He wanted everyone to know he loved me.
    I’d gotten a job at the telephone office that spring. “Number please” a few hundred times a day, plugging and unplugging theconnections. The operators knew everything that went on in the town—if you weren’t rushed, you could listen in by leaving the key open. But you didn’t need to, there was plenty of information in who called whom and what they said to the operators. We could always count on Mr. Lee, who owned the dry goods store, to be tight drunk by noon and curse us out for answering too slowly or for getting him a busy signal. A lot of the girls knew which married men were seeing whom by the calls they made at odd hours. I never worried about all that and was glad to be getting a paycheck. I only minded our supervisor, a red-headed spinster named Lindstrom. She watched our work shifts to the minute and called us her chickens, as if the clicks and scratchings of the board were
our
sounds. She thought we were brainless, trying to take advantage. And I was so scrupulous, the perfect employee. Like a dumb kid, I was glad to work long shifts and have a lunch hour like a grown-up.
    Tom wasn’t working yet. He and Shinner Black had decided to paint houses for the summer and were looking to buy a cheap truck. But they were in no hurry, and it was around then that Tom started getting sick. He would walk me home every night from the telephone office, and we’d have to stop twice on the way up the hill for him to rest. He had chest pains and shortness of breath. After a few days he went to Doc Jonas at my insistence and was told he had gas on his stomach, to take some antacid pills and exercise. But he couldn’t; he had no stamina. He’d played sports all his life and suddenly he couldn’t run up the hill. I think he knew all along, though he may not have thought it actually possible—at seventeen. The last week, he stayed in bed most of the time. I would go by after work and make supper for him in Mrs. Black’s kitchen. One night he lay in bed sweating and would barely talk to me. I went home crying to Mother that he was going to lie over there and die if nothing was done. So she called Mrs. Black and told her to phone Tom’s brother Nate in Chapel Hill. Nate, who was a fifth-year med student, recognized the symptoms right away, and drove all night to get to Tom by morning. He examined him and hired an ambulance, made arrangements for surgery down south. Tom said he would only go if I went with him, and Nate agreed. Mother had my bag packed and they were to pick me up from work.… Tom got outof bed to comb his hair and dropped dead by the bathroom sink. That quickly. I put the call through from Black’s house, recognized Nate’s voice, and kept the key pressed down. He was calling Peggy, told her to come at once, that they were all too late, and why hadn’t she known Tom was so sick? Then he hung up and called the undertaker. I put that call through too, then left the board and went into the bathroom. I sat there dry-eyed and stared at the brooms and mops propped against the wall.
    Outside, the other girls were talking. One of them was sobbing and Lindstrom was saying there was no one to take over, I would have to finish the shift. I went back out. None of them looked at me and I finished: thirty-five minutes. I started walking home and Mother had someone meet me at the bottom of the hill, in a car. Who was it? Oh yes, Shinner. He’d been there when it happened and had seen Tom lying on the floor, then had gone to my mother in a panic. She sent him after me but he stopped the car at the hill and waited; he couldn’t be the one to tell me. We went home and sat on my bed and wept for hours. He said Tom lay there in his pants and no shirt or shoes, on
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