What We Talk About When We Talk About Zoom
My friend Mel McGinnis was talking. At least I was pretty sure he was talking, because his lips were moving, but I couldn’t hear a thing he was saying.
“Mel,” I said. “Mel, you’re muted.”
“He’s such a shithead,” Terri said. She was in a different room in the same house as Mel. They were on different computers. They were always on different computers, because otherwise they had to sit right next to each other on the couch to fit on the screen, and Mel was a big man and didn’t like other people in his space like that. “Mel!” Terri shouted. She was upstairs, I guess, sitting on her bed it looked like. Mel was downstairs. “Mel! You’re muted!”
Mel’s mouth said “What?” but no sound came out.
“Shithead,” Terri said again. She picked up the tall glass from her nightstand and took a long swallow.
“I swear to God,” Mel said, and now we could all hear him loud and clear. “I swear to God.”
Laura was sitting next to me on the couch. We’d only been together for a few years and so we were okay being in each other’s space like that, our thighs pressed together so that we were on the same screen.
“I swear to God I’m losing my mind,” Mel said. “I do telehealth all day long so you think I’d know how to work this thing by now.”
“Not all day,” Terri said. “Not even half the day.”
“It seems like all day,” Mel said. Mel was a cardiologist. “You ever thought you’d have to get an old guy to imitate his own heartbeat because you can’t use your stethoscope through the goddamn internet? Ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom, that’s all I hear all day long, people ba-boom, ba-booming. Sometimes it’s ba-boom… ba-boom… ba-boom. Sometimes it’s ba-boom-ba-boom-ba-boom. Yesterday I had one guy go baboombaboombaboombaboom and I told him to call 911.”
“How are you guys doing with all this?” Terri asked. “I feel like we haven’t talked to you in forever.”
“We’re doing good,” Laura said. “We’re having fun. We made a sourdough yesterday.”
“You’re still making bread?” Mel asked. “You guys kill me. Six months later and you’re still making bread. Couple of regular bakers.”
Laura patted my thigh and smiled. I could feel her smiling but I could also see her smile in the little box on the laptop that reflected us back at ourselves.
“Yep,” I said. “Yep. Still making bread.”
“The crazy thing is it doesn’t even sound like ba-boom,” Mel said. “A heart. Once I held a kid’s heart in my hand and you know what sound it made?”
“Mel…” Terri said.
“Kid’s had a massive coronary, barely holding on…”
“Mel,” Terri said. “Stop.”
“What sound did it make?” Laura wanted to know. Laura always thought she wanted to know something until after when it turned out she didn’t want to know.
“Ka-pow,” Mel said. “Ka-pow, ka-pow, ka-pow. Swear to god.” He made his fingers into little guns and shot them at all of us through the screen. “Ka-pow. Ka-pow.”
“Did you take your pill today?” Terri asked him.
“Sure,” Mel said. “Sure I did. I crushed it and sprinkled it all over my peppermint ice cream.”
“Sometimes we don’t even know what month it is,” Terri said. “Sometimes we go all day thinking it’s June and then somebody says something about Labor Day and we realize it’s September. Does that happen to you guys?”
“Sometimes I think it’s Tuesday when it’s really Wednesday,” Laura said.
“She’s a peach,” Mel said. “God, she’s a peach. How’d you find this one?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Sometimes I look at her and I don’t know who she is or how she got here.”
“What does that mean?” Laura asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
“I want to know what that means,” she said, turning to look at me so I could only see her in profile on the screen.
“I’m at 5 percent,” Terri said. “Mel, do you have the cord?”
“I don’t have the cord,” Mel said. “I don’t know anything about any cord.”
“We can hang on,” Laura said, “while you find it. We’re not going anywhere.” She laughed and patted my thigh. “We’re not going anywhere, are we?”
“No,” I said. “We’ll be right here.”
