The Bed Moved Read Online Free

against.
    “You need a water filter,” I told my mother.
    “You need a job,” she said. She ran unfiltered tap water over her hands, then shook them into the sink.
    “I thought you wanted me to work with people,” I said.
    “I’m not people. Dry this.”
    “I’m going to show you the latest filtration technology,” I said. “Carbon. Charcoal.”
    We dried for a while. She thought I could look into a career in environmental regulation. I thought I didn’t care about the environment, just her house. She was doing her part, reusing containers, repurposing her husband’s shirts. Plastic bags metastasized under the sink, and there was still a lawn to poison and mow, but she could replace my father’s car with a hybrid, or not replace it at all. She had her own car. She could be a one-car family.
    “Ma, what do you think about recycling Daddy’s computing magazines?”
    “He loved the computer,” she said.
    “
PC Today
from March 1997? He wouldn’t buy a PC from March 1997 if he were here today.”
    She paused drying. She liked to think about what he would do if he were here. I had convinced her to do a number of things by invoking his hypothetical opinion.
    “He’d want you to get a haircut. He’d think the ends were getting scraggly.”
    “He’d definitely replace the microwave if it was melting.”
    “He wouldn’t want me to have a job answering phones.”
    That last one was a lie. If he were here, I’d be answering phones somewhere, a receptionist without grief, assistant to a man who didn’t remind me of my father, because men that age wouldn’t.
    —
    THE WATER FILTER SEARCH was on. I seated my mother in her computer chair. I wanted to foster technological confidence. Do an internet search for your mother, and she’ll get a list of results. Teach your mother to search, and she’ll search for a lifetime.
    My mother stared at her computer screen like it was the control panel in the White House Situation Room, while I explained how to move a mouse.
    “Down, Ma! Not up! Scroll down.
    “The blinking cursor,” I said. “That’s you.
    “Type ‘w,’ ” I said.

Men Against Violence
    MY FRIEND is marrying a man against violence. He founded a club called “Men Against Violence” in college, when he was not yet sleeping with my friend.
    “It’s not that impressive to be against violence,” I said, “if you would never be violent anyway.”
    My friend was impressed. She promoted him to boyfriend and they moved to Washington, D.C., to lobby for the religion that celebrates the holidays of all other religions. I promised to take the train, the bus, but never settled on a mode of transportation. It’s hard to get to Washington when you don’t want to go there.
    Soon they were back—law school, divinity school, nothing violent. My friend carried the Bible with her everywhere. She used it to hold our table at lunch because nobody would steal the Bible. I got falafel on the Bible. She paid for lunch. My friend promised to keep me posted, to send more photographs of them getting engaged.
    —
    WHEN MY FRIEND’S FIANCÉ founded “Men Against Violence,” a lesbian at our college didn’t like it. A room full of men talking. What were they talking about? There was no way for us to know. I said they talked about porn. I said they were scared about violence in porn. This was college, when we were all more scared about violence in porn. But porn won.
    The lesbian attended the men’s meeting and screamed at them. She was the kind of lesbian who could shame a room full of men into disbanding their club according to the same principles upon which it was founded. Then the lesbian dated another friend of mine, a bisexual, and was violent toward her. It shed new light on the lesbian’s fury. After college, my bisexual friend dated men again, only men, men who wouldn’t hurt anyone, men who would have been against violence if they had gone to our college. Nobody was good-looking. Maybe being