Mother, Can You Not? (12 page)

M
y mother was once tear-gassed and arrested while trying to break into the Pentagon during a Vietnam War demonstration (like all moms do). In the sports arena where the protesters were being jailed, she met and began dating an undercover FBI agent who was trying to infiltrate her activist group (like all moms are part of). He was disguised as a hippie, and I’m sure he started off with every intention of being a model government official. After a year of dating my mother, he grew his hair long, denounced the war, and joined a commune.

I share this anecdote, not to shame an elite member of the law-enforcement community, but rather to illustrate how persuasive my mom can be and to assure him that he shouldn’t feel bad. He really had no chance. My mother could convince a sorority girl to eat gluten. Mel Gibson to get circumcised. Bill Cosby to undergo
voluntary chemical castration! I’m actually thinking of starting a support group for everyone who has been persuaded to do something by my mother. You know, the kind they form for people trying to leave a cult? I’ll call it Kim’s Klub!

I would obviously qualify for Kim’s Klub membership, based on any number of the thousands of outlandish things my mother has convinced me to do over the years. Not the least of which includes the time I nearly got arrested for peeing beside her on a beach, instead of using the “dirty” public restroom ten feet from where we were squatting.

An interesting, relatively new addition to our little support group is a firefighter named Lenny, who qualified for Kim’s Klub in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

When the storm struck the Northeast, my mother worked herself into an apoplectic fit. She called me the morning after the hurricane passed and insisted I come home from New York immediately.

“Mom…Mom? Can you hear me? Please do not come get me! Everything is fine!”

“Oh really? You have food?”

“Two weeks’ worth.”

“And water?”

“Gallons.”

“The toilets aren’t working in your apartment. What’re you, walking down fourteen flights of stairs every time you have to use the bathroom?”

“Um, no, I’m uh…” I cleared my throat.

“You…you’re what?”

“I have…Hefty bags.” I sighed, and she was silent for a brief moment.

“My daughter will not be shitting in a trash bag, thank you very much. Your father’s on his way.”

My dad, ever the dutiful husband, followed orders to reunite the family, drove to New York, and chauffeured me all the way back to our home in Jersey. When we were about ten minutes away, I turned on the local radio station to hear storm coverage. The soothing, deep voice of a disc jockey crackled through the speakers.

“…we’re back live, giving you up-to-the-minute coverage of Hurricane Sandy. And now we’re going to
take a call from a local woman. Jeff, do we have her on the line?” There was a brief pause. “Hello, is anyone there?”

“Hello? Hi!”

“Hi there! What’s your name?”

“Hi, my name is Kim Friedman; I live in what is
APPARENTLY
an evacuation zone, and these state troopers are trying to sentence my five dogs, two cats, and three fish to death!”

“Holy shit, it’s Mom!” I cranked up the volume. She sounded like Liam Neeson in
Taken 4,
ready to take on whatever and whoever might be foolish enough to stand between her and her furry children.

“Okay, slow down, can you tell us what happened?” the radio host asked evenly.

“I went out to get more dog food and flashlights, and no one stopped me; now they won’t let me get back into my house! My dogs and cats are totally alone! They will die, and they won’t even let me go pick them up! Besides, the storm’s OVER! Why didn’t they stop me when I left!?” You would think the major police barricade, concrete dividers, and fleet of police cars with
flashing lights blocking the entrance to our neighborhood would have tipped her off, but no.

“Okay, where are you?” the announcer asked.

“I’m standing at the barricade. Please, anyone out there listening! Call the governor! Call the state police! Call me! These people are sentencing my precious babies to death! Call me at 609-555-7894! Please! Someone help us!” Yes, that was my mother, screaming her phone number on a live radio broadcast. And she might sound innocent and helpless, but don’t test her. If you mess with my mom’s pets, she will waterboard your ass with raw sewage.

I looked over at my dad, “Oh my God, she’s going to get arrested again.”

He sped up. “I know, I’m hurrying.”

I tried dialing her, anything to get her off the radio, but she sent me to voicemail and continued ranting. Of course, that’s how it always goes! The one time you
want
to talk to your mother is the moment she’s too busy verbally assaulting New Jersey state troopers to take your call. After seven attempts, she answered but was still shouting at the policemen.

“Oh look, guys! My daughter’s on the phone! DOES CHRIS CHRISTIE WANT TO KILL MY DAUGHTER, TOO?” Calling was clearly a mistake.

“Mom! Stop talking! We’re here. Come meet me and Dad at the Sea Shell! We can get that healthy Greek salad!” We actually could not have gotten that salad, as the restaurant was closed. It didn’t matter, though. She blew right past my health food distraction tactics. She sounded like she was about to start taking hostages.

“Get this! These troopers won’t let us back, because Governor Chris “Cat Killer” Christie has an evacuation order in place. And it might be
two weeks
until we can go back! I’d like to see Chris Christie survive for two days without food!” Yep, hostages were definitely going to be taken, and it seemed like torture might not be off the table.

“Mom, please, come meet us now! Breathe.”

In what is truly a small miracle, I convinced her to meet us in the Sea Shell’s parking lot. I worried she still might decide to turn around and crash through the barricade, so I kept her on the phone.

“MOM? Stay with me. Are you driving now?”

“YES, okay!? I’m coming. Oh, hold on…shoot gotta go, someone’s calling.”

She disconnected, and I was almost certain she had a change of heart and was in the process of hanging a U-turn back to the evacuation zone. My dad pulled into the parking lot where we were supposed to meet, and as each minute passed with no sign of her battered SUV, I worried she had been taken into custody. She was not answering my calls or responding to my increasingly panicked texts. After about thirty minutes, my phone rang.

“MOM! Oh my god! Where are you!?”

“Chris Christie wants to murder my animals? Not so fast, motherfucker!” She sounded satisfied with herself.

“Where have you been?! When are you coming?”

“I’m not. I’m lying in the back of Lenny’s fire truck!”

“Who the hell is Lenny?!” I could hear a muffled male voice in the background. “Kim, you’re going to have to be quiet. I can hear you all the way up here, and we’re getting close to the checkpoint.” My mother addressed him and disconnected our call: “I’m sorry, Len! Gotta go, Spawn. I’ll text you.”

Via text, my mom explained that a kindhearted man named Lenny called her after hearing the impassioned radio interview. As a local firefighter, he had access to the evacuation zone and “offered” to smuggle my mother past the barricade. Now, based on past experience with my mother, I sincerely doubt this man “offered” to put his career and pension on the line for an unbalanced-sounding stranger with five dogs, two cats, and three fish. In reality, he had only “offered” to bring the animals out of the evacuation zone to my mother, or to stop by our house and feed them. Lenny’s cooperation was less of an “offer” and more of a plea for mercy in the face of my mom’s overwhelming powers of persuasion.

My dad’s car suddenly felt like the situation room during Operation Geronimo. ObamaDad and HillaryMe were glued to the screen of my cellphone, waiting for updates from Seal Team Six. Ding! She texted me.

My mother would find time to flirt on my behalf during a murder trial if she saw a cute lawyer with no wedding band. Why would smuggling herself past a police barricade like a human heroin balloon stop her?

“This” being a violation of a state-mandated evacuation order. Also, I bet no one on Seal Team Six paused to text Obama a booty pic on the way into Pakistan.

No, no you wouldn’t think that, because industrial tarps are not velour blankets.