Bumba Meu Boi

I awoke this morning with a hypnic jerk, the rapid firing of Bumba Meu Boi! nailing me to my mattress. As soon as I caught an instant of release, I grabbed my phone to text my boss, Mr. Turturro: “I won’t be in today.” Keep it unadorned. Don’t point out the significant progress made over the past two months. In my second week of work, Juggernaut left me hamstrung. I had been managing just fine until that editorial meeting when I released Juggernaut into a room of co-workers unworthy of the word’s elegance: “Juggernaut, Juggernaut, Juggernaut.” Everyone around that table stared, Mr. Turturro at the helm. I fled to a stall in the men’s restroom, trying to squelch Juggernaut with the sheer force of a good, red-blooded “Goddamnit,” which any male colleague might have appreciated. But no one had followed me. No one was knocking on the stall door asking if everything was okay. Alone in the restroom, I let it rip, Juggernaut echoing against the tiled walls, each consonant a punch, punch, punch.

I used up all my personal days on Juggernaut and have not yet earned vacation time, but these early stages are the worst, the word coming loud and fast: Bumba Meu Boi! First squeaky, then scratched low and rumbling against my vocal cords, wobbling through an up-and-down register. I’m in the throes, the thick of consonants, the pinches and spurts of absolution, the joys of an intermittent release. I lean against the refrigerator, Meu creaking once, twice, thrice, before I belt out the full thing at a pitch high and tight enough to sustain all burdens. The purest sort of joy. Bumba Meu Boi, Bumba Meu Boi, Bumba Meu Boi.

The landline rings, the lady-machine-voice interrupting with “Call from Marvin Turturro. Call from Marvin Turturro,” her pace never prioritizing one syllable over another, never veering from its even, equitable rhythm. If only the rest of the world were so measured and just. “Call from Marvin Turturro.”

“Turturro,” I repeat, joining her, giving each syllable its fair due. “Tuturro,” we now say, together, grafting in the sound of his name, which overtakes Bumba, as she reveals a deeper, more abiding pleasure. “Turturro,” I bray, pacing myself to her rhythm, tuned to her insistence, so even after the line goes dead, I stab those syllables into the world as though she never stopped speaking them with me: Turturro, Turturro, Turturro.

– By Martha Witt