Free The Book of Goodbyes by Jillian Weise

THE UGLY LAW

    Any person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or
    can I continue reading this? Will it affect my psyche

    so that the next time Big Logos comes over
    I will not be there in the room? Instead I will be

    wandering a Chicago street in my dress with my
    parasol as a cane, on the verge of arrest, where arrest

    could mean “stopping” or “to keep the mind fixed
    on a subject,” where the subject is the diseased,

    maimed, mutilated self of 19 th c. Chicago, the self
    in any way deformed so as to be unsightly

    and will I tell him to stop looking, tell him I’m tired
    and I’m about to be arrested for walking in public

    and I can’t possibly climax when I am
an improper
    person
who is not
allowed in or on the streets,

    highways, thoroughfares or
will he say we’re alone,
    no one is watching, there is your bedside table

    and there your mirror and who am I kidding?
    I won’t tell him anything. There is no room

    in bed for this. It does no good to bring things up
    from the 19 th c. or from last week when the things

    have to do with—how do I say it—what is the word
    I usually use? Last week I said it like this:

    â€œBig Logos, a moth came out from hiding
    as soon as I had taken my leg off and the moth

    said, ‘Ha little cripple. Now you can’t get me
    with the broom.’” Then I laughed so he would

    know it’s okay to laugh. I do it like a joke.
    I do it like it’s nothing. Why the cover-up?

    Why are the laws stacked with it and I never
    in high school heard of it?
The maimed shall not

    therein or thereon expose himself or herself
    to public view under penalty of
staring,

    pointing, whispers, aphorisms such as “We are all disabled”
    or “What a pretty face you have” or “God gives

    and God takes away” or
one dollar for each offense
.
    One dollar in 1881 is like $20 today. I wanted to compare it

    to something like dinner at Ruby Tuesday or a bra
    on sale at Victoria’s Secret, as if by comparing

    the amount to something I have bought, I would buy
    the penalty out. Then the penalty and all its horror

    would be gone instead of arrested, kept in mind,
    dwelled on when Big Logos comes over or forget him

    when I am in the supermarket or forget the supermarket
    when I am in front of twenty-four legs in a classroom

    or forget the classroom when I am on the couch
    watching TV: how will I not think of the woman

    in Chicago trying to hide her limp, her thoughts
    on her limp, trying not to bring it up, draw attention to it,

    or what will happen if she is caught by the constable?
    On the conviction of any person for a violation

    of this section, if it shall seem proper and just,
    the fine provided for may be suspended for
130 years

    until a person enters “cripple” in the search engine
    on Project Muse because a person has no cripple friends

    and has started to think cripples don’t exist
    and never did and finds the law. Why have I posted

    the ordinance on the mirror and why have I traded
    the lube in the bedside table for a twenty dollar bill?

    What’s that supposed to do? Help the history slide in?
    Help me remember?
Such a person will be detained

    at the police station, where he shall be well
    in the company of criminals, concrete and moths

    and a small window to the forbidden street
cared for,
    until he can be committed to the county poor house.

    I am not poor. I am not even unsightly. What a pretty face
    I have I’ve been told. Big Logos, will you attest

    to my sightliness? Is this all in the past? Why are you
    sleeping with me, anyway? Aren’t you afraid?

DECENT RECIPE FOR TILAPIA

    Tell your back home friends it means nothing
    and you will drop him as soon as you have
    friends in the city. If you had more friends,

    you would not sleep with him. If not him,
    who would share your Tilapia? No beloved meal
    begins, “Alone before a plate of fish . . .”

    Find your