Mamma Jean’s home is an apartment in the city. The apartment is in a high rise of rental condominiums overlooking the beach, two blocks from a retirement community. She bought it when her husband died, years ago, as a big fuck you to widowhood and college students on spring break. The furniture is sparse; a stationary bike fills the space where a couch would sit. The TV loops continuously with 1950s Olympic cycling.
It’s the place I go when I need to go some place else.
I spent summers there once I was old enough to clean up after myself. Between her morning cycling and her evening cycling, she’d load me into her PT Cruiser and play taxi. “Play” is the term I used. The term she used was “moonlight.” She’d park on the corner of the bus stop near the local college and wait for disappointed summer-school girls, away from home and unaccustomed to public transportation, left behind by the 36 to Ocean Terminal.
“Optimize” she’d say, pulling around to a girl whose bag had dropped to her ankles, her hands on her knees.
After a few successful fares, she’d turn homeward. “Am I using you?” she’d ask. “Are you playing a pawn to my success?”
“Ask for ice cream,” she’d say. “And make me think it’s my idea.”
The weird thing is, she was old even then. Now she’s a relic. Mamma Jean is of the age where she can no longer sit with her knees above her waist. She is a woman best known by orthopedic surgeons.
These surgeons advise against operation. “It’s six month’s recovery,” they explain. “And you’re fine without it.”
“Really,” they say. “Really fine.”
Mamma Jean is fine without ligaments because she is of the age where she probably shouldn’t be walking. How I know she is old is I tell someone to guess her age, and then add ten years to whatever number they give. No one is surprised by what I say. She could be as old as one hundred and five.
“Let’s cut a deal,” she tells the doctors. “I’ll stop the surgeries. You put in one that lasts this time.”
She is on her third ACL in the left knee alone; the latest installment is still in its wrapping. This wrapping is to be changed twice a month and by me. It takes two attempts and half an hour to get right.
Nonetheless, this week is training week, and she won’t have gauze coming loose and catching her gears. We are preparing for a race. Rather, she is preparing for a race. I am the pre-competition competition.
This is not my idea.
After a few times around the beach track, laden with bald heads of sandstone, entangled with roots, Mamma Jean decides it’s time for a real practice haul. It’s what we’ve been doing all morning, but different, she says, because there are stakes.
She props her foot onto the bike frame and stretches her knee. Running down the length of her calf is her gold medal in scar form, her better luck next time, her souvenir from Olympic qualifiers, some fifty odd years ago.
“The loser,” she says, “wraps it again.”
She says, “So, when do you start winning.”
By Warner James Wood ’14
