ma’s elmo phone
by JD Clapp
After she lost the second iPhone, dropped the Jitter Bug three button flip phone in the toilet, and refused the old school hardline push-button job I found at the Goodwill, I said fuck it and bought my mom an Elmo phone and cemented it to the counter in her room.
At first my mom hated Elmo’s voice, saying it grated on her nerves like my old man’s did before he ghosted her because he got sick of her nagging and losing everything. By the time I left that visit, Mom forgot about that shit, and she and Elmo were chit chatting like old friends. Before long, they became besties. They spent their days gabbing about shit like the lemon custard at the old folk’s home, her roommate Betty’s saggy boobs, and how Phyllis from down the hall was a showboat in her new purple electric wheelchair. One day, they spent two hours mocking her neighbor Earl Miller’s disgusting ear and nose hair. Mom said Elmo told her she could be a real bitch sometimes, but he was cool with it because the hand up his ass, that strangers’ voice coming from his felt yap, never let him speak truth to power, never let him cut loose or fly his freak flag.
“I’m his only friend,” mom told me.
*****
Eventually, mom didn’t know where she ended, and Elmo began. She went to the beauty salon down on the first floor of the home and had her gray locks died bright red and cut short and shaggy. She told people to call her Elma. Her voice changed, became high pitched and squeaky.
Finally, the social worker at the home called me, made me come take away her Elmo phone. That day was awful.
“You were a good son, but Elmo says you’re a furry-phobic. I raised you better than that,” she said, tears in her eyes.
“Ma, Elmo isn’t real. He’s a puppet.”
She just closed her eyes and stopped talking to me. As I was leaving, she asked if she could at least write Elmo, so I got her some craft paper and colored pencils from the craft room down the hall. As I left, she was scribbling away.
*****
The next time I came to visit, she looked at me confused, then smiled.
“Elmo?” she asked.
“No ma, it’s me, your son, Dylan,” I said.
She just shook her head. Her face puckered and her eyes went narrow and mean.
“Oh. It’s you. You bastard. You know…Elmo was your real father. He was my true love. A way better screw than the son of a bitch you called dad.”
I was laughing too hard to cry, which just pissed mom off more.
*****
I decided to tell the social worker we needed to give her the Elmo phone back. She agreed but on the condition we move mom to the locked ward. Given how daffy she’d become, I agreed.
When I gave her back her Elmo phone, she smiled brightly and took my hand.
“You’re a good boy, Elmo. Next time you visit, I’ll introduce you to my son,” she said.
I didn’t bother trying to correct her.
“Ok, ma. Give Elmo a call. I’ll come visit again soon.”
As I walked away, I heard the dulcet tones of her boney finger pressing the plastic buttons on the toy phone. And just as I got to the locked doors, I heard her say in a loud squeaky voice, “Elmo! That bastard gave me my phone back!”
That was six months ago, and I just don’t have it in me to go back. But hell, at least she has Elmo now.
Photo by JD Clapp
BIO: JD Clapp is a writer based in San Diego, CA. His creative work has appeared in over 50 different literary journals and magazines including Cowboy Jamboree, The Dead Mule, trampset, and Revolution John. His work has been nominated for several awards including the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions. He is the author of two story collections—Poachers and Pills, and A Goodman Goes South.