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being anything but toiletized after that.”
    â€œHow about you?”
    â€œI don’t know if what Frieda did to me stopped me from having kaka accidents or even was the last time she put it in my face. I do think it happened to me. For sure. Memory of it’s too vivid for it not to have happened, but I guess that doesn’t have to be the case.”
    â€œSo, are you going to see her?”
    â€œYes, I think so, you mind? I had Olivia two hours today, so I’ve at least done part of my daily share. When I come back I’ll take her to the park or something and you can get back to work.”
    He goes to his mother’s. Has the keys, lets himself in. “Hi, hi, it’s me,” he says, walking through the living room. They’re having coffee and cookies in the kitchen. Frieda sees his mother look up at him and smile and turns around. “Oh my, look who’s here,” she says. “What a nice thing to do,” and holds out her arms. He bends down and kisses her cheek while she hugs him around the waist. Still that strong scent of that German numbered cologne she always wore. He wondered on the subway if he should bring the shit incident up. If it did happen to him or has he been imagining it all this time? If he has been imagining it, that’d say something about something he didn’t know about himself before. But he’d never bring it up. It would embarrass her, his mother, ultimately him. Or immediately him, seconds after he asked it.
    â€œYou didn’t bring the little one,” Frieda says. “Or your wife. I never met them and was hoping.”
    â€œI’m sorry, I didn’t even think of it. Maybe no time to. When my mother called you were coming, I just ran right down.”
    His mother asks if he wants coffee. “Black, I remember, right?” Frieda says.
    â€œAlways black,” his mother says.
    Frieda talks about her life. He asked. “As I told Mrs. T., we’re still living in the same small house in Ridgewood and we’ll probably die there. That’s Ridgewood Brooklyn, you know, not Queens. There, just over the line, it’s always been very different. But our area’s been much improved. Young people are living in. Excuse me, moving. Many good whites, blacks, Spanish—hard-working people, with families, and honest. You’d like this: some artists, even. For years we couldn’t go out on the streets after six. Even during the days it was dangerous sometimes. We needed escorts—you had to pay for them; they simply didn’t volunteer—just to go shopping.” The same high reedy voice, trace of a German accent. Must be a more accurate way—a better way—to describe the distinctiveness of it, but it’ll do for now. “Martin is as well as can be expected for someone his age.” He asked. “He still does all the baking at home. Breads, rolls, pies, cakes—he does one from the first two and one from the second two every other day. I don’t understand how we stay so thin, and he still only uses real butter, a hundred percent. The baking company gave him a good pension, and with the Social Security we both get—Dr. T. helped set it up for me. I really wasn’t eligible to be paying for it at the time, but oh my God, could he finagle. For good reasons mostly, I’m saying, for he knew we’d need it later. So, we live all right and have no complaints other than those every old person has. But Mrs. T. looks wonderful, thank God,” and she knocks twice on the table. “Such a tough life, but she never changes, never ages. She’ll always be a beautiful bathing beauty and a showgirl, which she only stopped being, you know, a few years before I came to work for her. She’s amazing,” and squeezes his mother’s hand. “The parties you gave then—I still see them in my head.”
    â€œThat’s what I just told you about