In the Cemetery Where Al
Jolson is Buried
by Amy Hempel
“Tell me things I won’t mind forgetting,” she said. “Make it useless
stuff or skip it.”
I began. I told her insects fly through rain, missing every drop,
never getting wet. I told her no one in America owned a tape
recorder before Bing Crosby did. I told her the shape of the moon is
like a banana—you see it looking full, you’re seeing it end-on.
The camera made me self-conscious and I stopped. It was trained
on us from a ceiling mount—the kind of camera banks use to
photograph robbers. It played us to the nurses down the hall in
Intensive Care.
“Go on, girl,” she said. “You get used to it.”
I had my audience. I went on. Did she know that Tammy Wynette
had changed her tune? Really. That now she sings “Stand by Your
Friends”? That Paul Anka did it too, I said. Does “You’re Having Our
Baby.” That he got sick of all that feminist bitching.
“What else?” she said. “Have you got something else?”
Oh, yes.
For her I would always have something else.
“Did you know that when they taught the first chimp to talk, it
lied? That when they asked her who did it on the desk, she signed
back the name of the janitor. And that when they pressed her, she
said she was sorry, that it was really the project director. But she
was a mother, so I guess she had her reasons.”
“Oh, that’s good,” she said. “A parable.”
“There’s more about the chimp,” I said. “But it will break your
heart.”
“No, thanks,” she says, and scratches at her mask.

….