GINNY BATES: THE BAKELITE PHONE

Here's another installment of my Great American Lesbian Novel (in progress), Ginny Bates. If you are new to reading GB, go to the section in the right-hand column labeled Ginny Bates to read background and find out how to catch up.

2018

Charlie was robust and peaceful, but he needed something in his hands to be truly content. For Hanukkah Carly had given Myra a trio of “desk toys”, a small flat glass case on a pivot with a miniature slow-breaking wave of blue liquid inside; a set of six silver balls suspended by black strings in a row, which when pulled back singly, in twos or threes would smack back and forth in matching sets, demonstrating transference of energy; and a Plexiglas case inset with hundreds of dull pins in which one could push the shape of a hand, a face, or any other object. This latter toy kept Charlie captivated. Myra would sit at her desk with him tied in a sling in her lap, able to focus on her writing without interruption from him.

The interruptions came from Leah, who was reluctant to give up her place in Myra's lap. Every so often during play downstairs with Ginny, Leah would trundle over to the stairs and yell up “Gramma? Gramma!”

Myra would walk over and reply, “I'm here.” Leah would say “I need to see you.” Myra sent the elevator down, with the button set to return because Leah was too short to reach any of the buttons. A minute later, Leah would arrive joyously and ask “Read me something?”

She'd be given one of Myra's thighs to perch on, coexisting graciously with Charlie, as Myra pulled out a poetry book and selected a poem. Like all of the children, Leah was especially fond of “The Highwayman”. Ginny had pointed out that when Myra read the part where Bess found the trigger of the musket with her bound hands and stopped struggling, sitting upright at attention -- “The trigger at least was hers” -- Leah would get a deathly serious expression on her face, her back stiff, her forefinger curled as if cradling the trigger. Ginny said Gillam had done exactly the same thing as a toddler when Myra read him that poem.


Myra's memoir, Hand to Hand, was published in mid February. Allie's book Erasure came out five days after Myra's. They persuaded their agents to collaborate on a joined book tour for seven of Myra's 12 readings, beginning in Seattle and traveling down to Portland, SF and LA, then flying together to Atlanta, DC, Boston, and New York. Ginny and Edwina joined them on the East Coast. Myra and Ginny continued on alone to Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Denver, and Vancouver before returning home to grandchildren suffering an outbreak of ringworm and early spring colds.

MOMA had made an exchange with Ginny for the rights to use "Hettie" on Myra's book cover. In return, they wanted to license the image for reproduction on Flashbags.

"Those wonderful bags Liza sells?" asked Myra.

"She's a retailer for them, but it's not her company, it's a big national business now" said Ginny. "We'll get a tiny percentage of what MOMA gets."

"I think you should do it" said Margie. "In fact, I think you should contract with Flashbags directly for some of your other paintings. You two have no idea how much impact you have out there, how much the public is hungry for pictures and information about our tight little family here."

"Just because they're hungry, doesn't mean we should give it to them" objected Myra. "I mean, the fawning adoration I get at my blog is plain weird. People act like I can do no wrong, that everything I think and say is brilliant. I'll agree I'm smarter than the average bear, but there's an intimacy and longing to their assumptions about me, it's creepy."

"Like men ogling you on the street" agreed Ginny.

"So keep giving them real information" said Margie. "And make some money from it. I think you should offer "Myra With Hands On Fire", and one of Mom's self-portraits -- "

"No naked ones" said Myra.

Margie snorted. "Okay for display in your own windows, but not to sell as art? Whatever. Plus the ones of me and Gillam as kids. You could use the money for the educational trusts of the next generation." She knew that would make them pause.

"I get requests all the time for something of Daddy's" mused Ginny. "I could let them use the skimmers drawing, and give that money to Nate and Noah for their kids."

"Anything with a gecko in it would go over big, too. And the new Skene book, that map you've drawn, Mom? Release it in advance of the book and it'll generate sales back and forth" said Margie, who knew her market.

In April, for Heroic Quest Day Myra taught the story of Harriet Tubman and got permission from Jane to use their pool as the Ohio River. The children escaped from plantations all over Myra's yard. At one point, Margie's gate rattled and swung open, with Moon and Gidge racing gladly toward the children. Mimi and David ran screaming to hide, while Leah, taking her turn as Harriet, stood her ground but clung to Myra's knee with her fist.

Margie, following the dogs, said “What on earth?”

“They think you're the paddyrollers, hunting them down to return them to bondage” explained Myra.

“Oh” said Margie. “Nay, sistren and brethren, I am Marjorie Morningstar, a Quaker conductor on the underground railroad, here to help you. My companions here, uh, Obadiah and Charity, mean to throw off the scent and cover your escape.” She played for a few minutes before going on her walk.

Eventually the band made their way through the Cumberland Gap (Jane and Gillam's gate) into the Mountains of Kentuck. Ginny had Charlie in a sling, and when they got to Ohio, she magically appeared on the other side as an abolitionist receiving them in the dead of night. Myra helped the older children into an inflatable raft, giving them each an oar and telling them the dangers they had to dodge in the treacherous river. She let them do their own paddling, as best they could, and surreptitiously used her oar to drag down their crossing. By the time they reached Ginny, all three children were flushed and sweaty.

When Myra clambered, none too gracefully, from the raft, she was on her knees. She bent over to kiss the ground and say “Free at last, free at last, great god almighty, free at last.” To her complete surprise, she burst into tears.

Leah leaned over her back and began crying also. Mimi dropped to her knees to kiss the ground beside Myra, and David said “Godamighty.” They rested a while before Harriet returned south of the Mason-Dixon to bring more people to freedom.

On the following Dance Day, Ginny created a new dance, a kind of conga line to the tune of “Harriet Tubman” where each new pilgrim grabbed the hand of whoever was at the end as they sang “Come on up, I got a lifeline, come on up to this train of mine.” The children brought it to the next singing potluck and the whole family snaked through the house, traveling together to liberation.

By this time, Jane was five months pregnant. Her due date was in August, which made Myra giddy with the prospect of a Leo grandchild. Gillam reported, with a furious expression, that one of Jane's brothers had asked them if they were trying to be a Quiverfull family.

Birthday season was about to commence. Myra and Ginny decided to add on another festivity, a celebration of their 32nd anniversary. On Saturday in late April, Ginny was halfway through a painting while Myra began calling people to issue invitations for their party.

One call was cut short. Myra looked at her beloved Bakelite phone, puzzled and upset. She called out to Ginny.

"Gin? Ginny!"

Ginny stepped into the doorway, a small frown on her face. She had on a T-shirt because it was an unusually chilly day.

"I just had the weirdest call with Patty. I invited her to our dinner, and she said 'I never want to lay eyes on Ginny Bates again.' I thought she was joking, but her voice was strange, and hostile. I asked what on earth she was talking about, and she said to ask you. She said she needed to call Carly, and she hung up on me. Did you two have a fight?"

Ginny froze, completely motionless, for a long minute. Myra saw all the color drain from her face.

"Ginny, are you okay?"

Ginny walked over to Myra's daybed and sat down on the edge of it, not looking at Myra. She lay her brush on the floor without any sort of protection, something Myra had never seen her do. Her hands were trembling.

"My god, Ginny, what is wrong?" Myra scooted her chair toward Ginny.

Ginny finally raised her eyes and looked at Myra. Myra didn't recognize her eyes. Ginny said in a hollow voice "I have to tell you something."

"You're scaring the shit out of me, Ginny."

"I love you, Myra. Please -- please don't forget that." Ginny put one hand up to her forehead, then laid it back in her lap. "I had a sexual encounter with Pat Prewitt."

Myra gave a single laugh, but cut it off. "You -- what, sex? You and Pat?" Her stomach dropped out from under her. After a few seconds she said "Before she got together with Patty? Why didn't you ever tell me about it?"

Ginny didn't appear to be breathing. She said "Not then......In 2004."

Myra stopped breathing, too. "No. No, that's not possible. We were a couple then."

Ginny just looked at Myra, not speaking.

"You cheated on me? With Pat?"

At that moment, the Bakelite right beside Myra's elbow rang loudly. She glanced at it involuntarily; the caller ID showed Gillam's name. She looked back at Ginny, letting the phone ring.

"Tell me this is not true. Please, Ginny. Please."

"It's true, Myra. I've...I guess Patty just found out. Myra, I didn't mean it, it had nothing to do with how I love you -- "

"You cheated on me? And you never told me, all this time, what, fourteen years it's been? You had an affair and lied all this time?"

"Not an affair. It was just one time."

Myra stood up. Ginny was suddenly afraid.

"Get out" said Myra. "Get out of my sight."

Ginny stood up and said "Myra, talk to me -- "

"I said Get out." Myra's voice was vicious.

Ginny moved into the entryway, but kept facing Myra. "Myra, oh my god, please don't shut -- "

The phone rang again. Myra wheeled and grabbed up the entire phone, jerking it savagely from the wall. She pivoted violently, raising her arm and throwing the phone as hard as she could. It sailed by Ginny's face, missing by only a few inches, and hit the glass wall over the stairwell with resounding force. The thick window shattered outward, huge jagged pieces of glass arcing out and down into the yard, following the phone's trajectory. Another spray of glass and smaller shards came inward from the edges, scattering across Ginny's daybed and the stairs.

"Get out, get out, get out!" screamed Myra, her face scarlet.

Ginny turned and walked toward the head of the stairs. She stepped on a shard of glass that tore into her instep, but she didn't notice. She walked slowly, numbly down the stairs, leaving a bloody right footprint on every other tread. She went to the back door and walked out barefoot into the side yard. Just as she reached the phone, lying on the grass near the fishpond, the side gate opened and Margie said "Hey, Mom, I heard something -- "

Margie looked upward, at the gaping hole where the glass wall panel used to be. She pushed Moon and Gidge back into her yard, closing the gate against them. Then she looked at Ginny and her expressionless face the color of raw canvas. "What happened?"

Ginny picked up the phone and began winding the cord around it mechanically. "Myra threw the phone at me. I just told her that I had a sexual encounter with Pat when you were fifteen."

"Mom..." said Margie. "Mama -- you did? Are you -- come on, Mama, let's get you in the house."

Margie began leading Ginny by the arm. At the back door, she saw the blood on the steps and stopped Ginny, had her lift her foot. She pulled the glass out of Ginny's sole and then led her inside to the dining table.

"Sit here. I'm getting the first aid kit."

She came back with the kit and a wet washcloth which she used to gently wash Ginny's foot. Ginny was motionless and silent. Margie cleaned out the wound with hydrogen peroxide and wasn't sure if Ginny should have stitches or not. Finally she put a thick gauze bandage over the hole and taped it down. She kissed Ginny's forehead, noting that her skin was icy cold. She pulled two aspirin out of the first aid kit and went into the kitchen for a glass of water.

As she was at the tap, Myra came down the front stairs. She paused when she saw Margie, then Ginny sitting beyond her at the table. Ginny looked at her and said "I told her."

"Well aren't you the picture of honesty, fourteen fucking years too late" said Myra. The tone of her voice shocked Margie mute. Margie took the water to Ginny, who set it on the table without drinking. Her gaze was fixed on Myra. Her expression was haunted.

Myra walked into the kitchen to the corner of the counter where her car keys and billfold lay. As she picked these up, Ginny got to her feet suddenly and limped to end of the kitchen, where Myra would have to brush past her to get out. "Where are you going?" said Ginny urgently.

"None of your fucking business" said Myra. "You have no connection to my life any more."

Margie didn't know what to do. A flicker of motion in the back yard drew her attention, and she turned to see Gillam walking toward the back door. She went to meet him. As she opened the door, he was staring down at the bloody footsteps on the entry.

"What's happened here?" he said. "Nobody picked up the phone -- "

Margie took his arm and leaned into him. "Something terrible. Mama -- Ginny had an affair with Pat Prewitt when we were teenagers, and Myra just found out about it. Myra broke the glass wall upstairs throwing something at Ginny. She's leaving her, Gillam. They're breaking up. We have to stop them."

He could barely take this in. As he stared at her, they heard Myra's shout from the kitchen "Get out of my fucking way, you cunt!" Shock rang through his system. Margie said "We have to do something."

"What? What do we do?" he said, watching Ginny stand immobile, an unbelievably desperate expression on her face.

"We have to not leave them alone with this" said Margie, turning toward the kitchen. Then she said "Do you have your cell? Call Allie. Tell her it's an emergency."


© 2008 Maggie Jochild.

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LOLCATS HAPPY CHRISTMAS

Here's a special holiday edition of what I've gleaned from I Can Has Cheezburger efforts. Have a love-filled day!

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CHRISTMAS SPIRITS

(House on Merritt Avenue, painting by Xavier Viramontes)

Daddy was accomplished at practical jokes, we all agreed, unless you were the on the receiving end. And even then, we usually appreciated the humor. He came from a long line of jokesters, who didn't mind spending hours hand-crafting an item necessary to the gag. He had a general rule against destroying property or causing physical harm to another person, which were good guidelines to have.

When we could get back to our grandparents' homes for Christmas, we all looked forward to Daddy making eggnog from scratch. He'd use two saucepans to gently cook the nog, one of which was laced with bourbon, a smaller pan for us kids. His parents were what they called Bible Baptists, who didn't hold with dancing or card playing of any kind, and who frowned on Christmas trees because they were idolatrous. (Another term for pagan.) They of course didn't drink, so Daddy would always lie about the alcohol content of his nog, swearing the strong taste was from all the spices he used. They were either naive enough to believe him or so avid to get drunk once a year, they readily tossed cups of his nog down the hatch.

Then, invariably, Grandmommy the non-stop quoter of scripture would suddenly begin telling dirty jokes -- so filthy that my raunchy mother would gasp and I often didn't understand the punchline. (Where was she hearing these, I wonder now?) My grandfather Renza would go out to the chicken coop and return with a bantam hen which he would hypnotize. After that, he do card tricks which revealed a sleight of hand the man should not have had. When I was a teenager, an older cousin let slip that Grandaddy had been a domino sharp during World War II. Ah, the revelations of eggnog time.



My other grandmother, Sook (nicknamed for how she called in the hogs as a girl), also did not drink but once she'd had her nog, she tended to get sleepy, not scatological. Daddy used other games with her, involving fake sticks of dynamite or pretend dog vomit. The best year was when she'd had the front sleeping porch walled in to create an extra bedroom, which meant it was now a comfortable place for us to hang out on December nights. The floor was still concrete, accommodating the do-no-damage part of Daddy's rule. As we sat around the gas heater, Sook dozed off in her rocker, her legs akimbo. She had severe "rheumatiz" and wrapped Sunbeam bread wrappers around her lower legs to keep down the swelling. She put her orange-colored stockings over these, so her legs bulged and crackled when she moved.

Daddy squirted a large pool of lighter fluid under Sook's chair, on the floor beneath her knees. He ran a fuse line of fluid from the pool back to the doorway, where we clustered together, watching with our hands clamped over our mouths to keep from laughing so loudly she'd wake up. As he struck a match to the end of the line, he called her name. She woke up to see flame shooting her direction and blowing up with a brief whoosh between her legs. She flipped over backwards in the rocker, yelling "Shit" as she went. Fortunately, she was not injured, and we had the delightful memory of having heard her swear -- the only time I heard so much as a "damn" pass through her lips.

My father laughed just as hard at the pranks we were able to pull on him. One time as he lay asleep, barefoot and snoring, on the couch, my mother painstakingly tied his big toe to the couch arm with kitchen twine. Then she yelled "Fire!" and he wound up on the tile floor, trussed like a calf, roaring with glee once we'd established his toe was not actually broken.

He was great at telling stories on long car trips as we moved from one back of the beyond to another. He knew doggerel, tall tales, and brain-stumping riddles. He's the one who taught me this verse whose words I had to go look up:

O the sexual life of the camel
Is stranger than anyone thinks
In a moment of passion untrammeled
He tried to bugger the Sphinx.
But the Sphinx's connubial orifice
Was clogged with the sands of the Nile
Which accounts for the hump on the camel
And the Sphinx's inscrutable smile.

When I was fifteen, that autumn a clueless science teacher decided to instruct our rural class in certain chemical processes by explaining how wine is fermented from grape juice, with a little hands-on demonstration. Immediately we all began brewing wine at home, deadly stuff that went as long as three weeks before we skimmed the scum off the top and drank it for a cheap high in that dry North Texas county. One Friday night I went out with the two boys who were my best friends, Dale and Virgil, hiding a half-gallon of Chateau d'Maggie under my coat as I left.

We drove around the dirt roads of that rural county, slugging back wine and listening to Steppenwolf as loud as it would go on the 8-track in Dale's Dodge Charger. Eventually we ran out of hooch but didn't think we were drunk enough, and we brainstormed as to which adult might let us beg a shot or two from them.

We settled on old Henry Overstreet, a septuagenarian who lived in a one-room fetid shack whose yard was decorated with empty pints. He could never afford to buy more than a pint at a time, but we scraped our money together, came up with two bucks, and decided he'd sell us a pint of his own if we sat and talked with him a while. Henry was very lonely, and it was the day before Christmas -- he'd want company.

Our plan worked, and even turned out to be fun because he had two soft little puppies to play with. The local funeral parlor was called Owens and Brumley, so he'd named the puppies Owens and Brumley. We passed them around with a bottle of extremely bad whiskey. By the time we left, I was virtually comatose.

At our trailer, Dale pushed me out the car door into the bitter December cold, hissing at me to clean up my act. His mother had grown up with my mother, her best friend all those years. Dale's grandfather Tobe had been lifelong friends with my grandfather Bill. In fact, Dale and I had an ancestor in common, and had come out to each other when we were both 13. He didn't want to get in bad with my parents by bringing me home drunk.

My bedroom was right inside the front door, so if I could make five or six words of conversation without slurring or falling down, I could escape to my room and sleep it off. When I came into our trailer, I looked toward my mother's chair, and realized I was in luck: She had already gone to bed. My father was waiting up for me but had, of course, gone to sleep on the couch in just his khakis -- no shirt or socks. All I had to do was say a brief hi and disappear into the safety of my own space.

But I was too gone to think things through. Daddy woke up and asked me groggily if I'd had fun. I walked very carefully toward him and stood between him and the coffee table, announcing we had gone to visit Henry Overstreet because it was Christmas and we were extending charity toward an old man. Daddy looked up at me doubtfully. I decided I had to cover my tracks better, and I began talking about the puppies. He laughed when I said their names, and I felt emboldened. I starting raving about how very, very cute they were, and I got so worked up about their cuteness, I began crying. Now he was staring at me in bewilderment. I gave a sob, and vomited the entire contents of my stomach onto his bare chest.

He was airborne instantly, swearing a blue streak and running headlong for the bathroom down the hall. I knew I'd blown it, then. I went into my bedroom, weeping, and collapsed in the "half bath" off my room, which was really only a toilet in a tiny cubicle. I hugged the commode as I alternated between puking and crying.

After ten minutes, Daddy returned, having showered and put on a shirt. He wet a washcloth and wiped my face, sitting down on the floor beside me. He asked me what I'd had to drink, and I told him. He said I was a fucking idiot. Then he told me stories about the crap he'd pulled as a teenager and young man in the Air Corps, wiping my face again after each vomiting jag.

As he tucked me into bed, he extracted a promise from me that I'd never again ride around drinking with my friends. "It's not the booze, it's the driving" he said. "You want something to drink, come here, I'll give it to you, you can hole up in your room and drink yourself stupid, but no driving around."

When I got up the next day, sick as a dog, he told my mother what I'd done. She went ballistic but he got her to laugh by describing in detail what it was like to see that vile stream of upchuck cascading down on his bare flesh. He told her we had a deal, me and him, and nodded at me to verify it. I swore my oath again. And I kept it. What's more, because I was sticking to my guns, Dale and Virgil were inhibited from drunk driving as well. In fact, a lot of the fun went out of getting high after that.

Merry Christmas, ya'll. If you drink, do it with old people and give 'em a good time, but don't drive yourself home afterward.


[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]

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GINNY BATES: INTO THE LIGHT

Here's another installment of my Great American Lesbian Novel (in progress), Ginny Bates. If you are new to reading GB, go to the section in the right-hand column labeled Ginny Bates to read background and find out how to catch up.

August to December 2017

When Charlie was five weeks old, right after Myra's birthday, Jane and Gillam took their brood on a road trip through Oregon and into Central California, to stay with Anton and Jemima a while. They were gone for ten days. Ginny used her free afternoons to get a head start on canning. Myra joined her to blanche and peel basket after basket of Early Girl tomatoes for marinara and ketchup. In the evenings after dinner, Margie began coming over to help Ginny experiment with pickle varieties as the big stockpot of tomato sauce cooked down to paste.

“Frances is doing this in the restaurant, too, and at home in the mornings” said Margie. “I think the smell of tomato is embedded permanently in my pores.”


The fourth evening, Carly and Eric arrived with flats of kiwis and Meyer lemons. “Will you consult with us on how to make jam and curd from these?” asked Carly. He and Myra pored over cookbooks while Eric walked home to get bunnies for an evening forage in the damp garden, a sign on the gate warning Margie in case she came with the dogs.

“It's awfully quiet without them around” Carly said suddenly to Myra.

“I know. They're cyclones. I don't envy Gillam, driving for two and a half days with them all cooped up in the car” said Myra.

“And camping at night in that minuscule trailer” said Carly. “But I miss the racket. When our apartment window is open, I can hear them even when they're inside, a lot of the time.”

After Carly and Eric went home, late, Ginny began stretching a canvas. Myra heard the familiar sound and came to stand next to the worktable. After a minute, Ginny said “Do you not want me to begin a painting?”

“Oh, no, it's great. I was just thinking...This house has people over all the time, but it's really ours alone. It feels that way to me. We've not shared it with children, or fathers. Just me and you. And I really love that about it, Gin. I adore how we return to just me and you at the end of every day.”

Ginny put down her Exacto knife and slid into Myra's arms. “Me, too. Gillam followed our example, but Margie and Frances – do you see how contented they are, deep down? Margie so needed to be here with family, but she also needs Frances alone.”

“Carly and Eric, they look the same” said Myra. “Like Allie and Edwina. Mmm, you smell like dill.”

“Taste my fingers, they have a vinegar tang” said Ginny. After a minute, they moved back together a couple of steps and lay on Ginny's daybed.

“The lights are on” said Ginny.

“I don't care if you don't” said Myra.

After Gillam returned from their trip, he stopped by to return to Myra's car the child seats he had borrowed for the trip. He was noticeably irritable trying to transfer the seats, which were admittedly hard to get buckled in properly. Still, when he discovered Mimi had stuffed a combination of crayon and cream cheese under a cushion, he went off in front of Myra.

“I know my kids aren't brats, but honest to god, I got fucking sick of them. Jane had to sit in the back because she had to be next to Charlie, and all she could manage was keeping him fed, changed, and entertained. Which put the other three in the far back, and even with David in the middle, Mimi tormented Leah non-stop. Mostly Leah couldn't shut up, a running commentary on everything that streamed by the goddamned window, I can't believe how much she talks, and Mimi argued with everything she said. David goes into one solid whine if he has to sit for too long. By the time we stopped for the night, the last thing on earth they wanted to do was lie down and sleep, especially all crammed together in that stupid-ass trailer.”

Myra couldn't tell if he needed to pound on something or just let go and cry in frustration. She ventured “They aren't brats, Gillam. It was a lot for them to handle at that age, and you're a hero for taking it on.”

“Oh yeah, well pass it on to Jane, will ya? She won't get off my back about -- “
He stopped himself, swearing at a strap, which might be a ruse, Myra thought.

After half a minute, she said “About what?”

The seat was in. He stood up, glanced at her, and leaned back against the side of the car. “Once we got to Fresno, it wasn't any easier. Her family...None of the men except Anton ever lifted a hand to do real work of caring for a kid. They'd yell at them, or tease them, but never change a diaper or cut up food or -- “ He stopped himself again for a minute. “And her sisters, they kept talking about how amazing I was, drawing attention to it, you know, which didn't help the tension in the air. I began to feel like a trained monkey. I could see my kids start looking at me differently.” His fists were clenched, his knuckles white.

“Ah, hell, Gillam. They hit the real world of gender shit, right in their own family” commiserated Myra.

“And how. Plus – two of her brothers have hair that isn't exactly short, but it's that mullety or headbanger kind of look which apparently is another form of masculine – anyhow, they kept making remarks about David. About his hair.”

David's hair was long, fine, and still almost white. He liked it combed, glossy and often like a halo around his head.

“Fuck, Gillam. Did David hear it?”

“He was right there. He began looking at me for reassurance. Mimi, too, one morning as I was brushing her hair she asked me if her hair looked all right. They were confused, trying to make sense of the crap. I wasn't sure how much to verify what they were getting, because I was afraid of legitimizing it even as I explained it, you know?”

“I do know, Gillam. Where was Jane in all this?”

“Oh, usually busy with Charlie and Leah. Anyhow, we've been fighting about it ever since we left, though not openly in front of the little ones. I just – Mom, I know I don't have any slack about certain kinds of teasing. I know I didn't get trained to handle it, and Jane says our kids will have to deal with it, might as well learn from us, learn early, but...I think it's fine if they don't. I think I'm okay the way I am, limits and all.” His jaw was rigid.

“I agree with you, but of course I would. I'll keep an ear out for this coming up with the little ones, and pass it on to Ginny. We'll help them sidestep the misinformation. No matter the vast numbers of Leichtys, we've got 'em outnumbered, and your clan has day to day influence on your kids. They'll come out like you, honey boy.” Myra nudged his arm, and he grinned, though his eyes were still furious. She, too, was livid at the idea of David being hit with sissy ridicule at his tender age. But Gillam had to work this out with Jane, and she had said as much as she felt was respectful. She and Ginny could rant about it later.

On a sunny afternoon in mid September, Myra kicked off Science Day by putting Charlie in a sling and leading the other children outside. First they stood in the middle of the yard and Myra asked them to name everything they saw which was (a) purple, (b) mobile, and (c) digitate, with explanations of each term. The children ran back and forth, touching their discoveries and getting whispered help from Ginny, who was turning the compost.

To explore their next sense, Myra took them into the garden shed and asked them to close their eyes. After standing in silence for half a minute, she asked them to name what they could smell, with their eyes still closed.

“Somefing like poop” giggled David.

“That's fish emulsion, which we use as fertilizer” said Myra.

“Dirt” said Leah.

“Not dirt, dust” argued Mimi.

“You're both right. What else?”

“Rain?” said David.

“There is a moist pong in here, yes. I can tell there's mold, for sure, which comes from the rain” said Myra.

“Chocolate” said Leah.

“Bubbe has a couple of bags of cocoa shells she likes as mulch for some beds” said Myra. “Very good olfactory detection.”

“I smell something like Mama's chest where the blankets are” said Mimi.

“Excellent. That's cedar, which is another kind of mulch Bubbe uses” said Myra.

“Oyul” said David. “But not cooking oyul.”

“You all get blue ribbons for your keen sniffers” said Myra. “Charlie adds that he can smell the off-gassing of plastics. Okay, now to test our hearing.”

They sat on the back step and Myra tied bandannas around their eyes, even Charlie who was an exceedingly easy-going baby. “Good-time Charlie” she murmured.

“All right, don't peek. Tell me what you can hear.”

“Your breathing” said Leah immediately.

“Bubbe singing” said Mimi.

“Birds” said David.

“The waterfall” added Mimi.

“Cars” said Leah.

There was a click, and David said excitedly “It's the gate, is it Daddy?”

“Don't look, see if we can tell who it is by the sound of their walking” urged Myra.

After a couple of seconds, Mimi said “It's the other gate” and Leah overlapped with “Dogs, I hear dogs.”

“Hey” came Margie's voice. “Are you facing a firing squad, or what?”

Myra felt Moon lick her face. “We're exploring our senses. Did you kids know that dogs can smell 30 times more than we can, and their hearing -- “

“Ice cream!” shouted Mimi, ripping the bandanna off her head, “I hear the ice cream truck!”

Leah and David sprang to their feet as well and dropped bandannas on the ground. Myra grinned at Margie. “You got any cash on you? My pockets are empty.”

David and Mimi were racing to the front gate. Myra pulled off Charlie's blindfold and he blinked in the light.

“We'll go with you” said Margie. Myra called out to Ginny, “Amor, quieres un helado?”

“Um...Si, fresa. O mango.”

Mimi was tugging violently at the gate, unwilling to accept it would not open until her thumbprint was entered into the family security system – which would not be until she was 21, Gillam vowed. They caught the ice cream truck at the corner, and small hands were allowed to carry their confections but not rip into them yet, not until they were back in the yard and seated on a bench. “Otherwise they drop them and, oh the humanity” said Myra.

“They don't have strawberry, or any plain fruit that I can see” said Margie.

“Get her a nutty buddy” said Myra knowledgeably.

“Really? Okay. And a tutti-frutti bombe for me” ordered Margie.

Back by the pond, Myra helped Leah negotiate her push-up and fended away Charlie's uncoordinated grabs at her own Klondike bar. Ginny joined them and scarfed her nutty buddy. After they were done, and hands rinsed with the hose, Ginny led the older children off to explore their sense of touch in the veggie rows. Myra asked Margie, “Listen, this Sunday is Heroic Quest day, can we invade your yard if need be?”

“Sure. What's on the agenda?”

“Jason and the Argonauts. Ginny took a sheepskin and spray-painted it gold. I figure the pond here can be the Black Sea, and there's so many adventures, we may not get to the point of reaching Colchis, otherwise known as your yard. But when we do, I'll hide the fleece in advance in that tree by your garage.”

Margie was laughing. “Who gets to be Jason?”

“Well, it's Mimi's turn, and she'll do a great job. But among the Argonauts was Hercules, and Orpheus, and Atalanta. Not to mention the Boreads, who could fly. I don't think anyone will feel slighted as to a role. And since I expect this quest to last several sessions, others will get a turn at Jason. I myself plan to assume the part of Medea, eventually.”

Margie looked at her speculatively. “I would not have expected that.”

“Oh, I love Medea” said Myra with an enigmatic smile. “I think Charlie's due for a diaper change.”

“Well, we were on our way for a walk” said Margie, standing with her. “Just dropped in to say hi.”

At Halloween, Charlie had his turn at being the Little Potato, while his siblings raided the dress-up box and Ginny's skills to create unique costumes for themselves. By Margie's birthday at the end of November, Myra had finished her third and probably final edit on the first volume of her memoir. Ginny had offered to paint a new portrait of Myra for the cover, but Myra had asked if they could possibly use “Hettie” and Ginny was negotiating with MOMA for the rights.

Cathy came to Seattle for Hanukkah, the first night of which coincided with Santa Lucia this year. Cathy was charmed by the light procession and the entire tradition. A couple of nights later, at shabbos, after lighting two sets of candles, Cathy brought up how many cultures had a tradition of light festivals to offset the darkness of winter, the ancient fear of seasons which might not cycle back around. From there, the conversation slid into a reinterpretation of Demeter and Persephone, with Chris adding Native variations which also touched on mother-daughter themes.

Cathy said “Well, I was going to save this for the last night of Hanukkah, but -- “ She went to her room and came back with a wrapped flat box. “I finished going through all the boxes in storage, and I can just barely stand to give these up.” She handed it to Ginny.

Myra came to stand behind Ginny as she lifted the lid. Under the tissue paper, bold colors leaped out, looking like a cross between one of Mimi's fingerpaintings and Ginny's current work. Ginny's expression was stunned. She lifted the piece of construction paper, brittle with age, and turned it over to look for a signature. Myra noticed another drawing was underneath.

Cathy said “I'm sorry, I didn't label them at the time and, well, the best I can tell you is you made them in kindergarten and first grade. I don't know what their titles were, if you titled them all.”

Ginny had now seen the second drawing, and lifted it out as well. Eventually five were revealed, spread out on the table. Ginny pointed to one and said “I think I remember this. I think it's from something I saw on Captain Kangaroo.”

Primordial Ginny Bates thought Myra. “I've seen a couple of things David saved, but nothing this early” said Myra. Margie was crowding her for a look at the drawings. Gillam was holding Mimi back, saying she could look but not touch, while Leah was asking repeatedly “Who's Captain Kangaroo?”

Ginny finally looked at Cathy, and her eyes filled with tears. “I can't believe you saved these. I don't have anything from – when I was little. Not big pieces like this.”

Cathy was silent for a minute, her lips pressed together. She said quietly “You brought home something every day. And Daddy wouldn't be home yet, so you'd give them to Mother. She'd asked what they were supposed to be, look at them briefly, and hand them back to you. There was no question of pinning something up in our house, not even on the refrigerator – not her spotless refrigerator. So you'd take them to your room, and the next day she'd throw them away when she picked up after you left for school. I rescued these because I liked them, and because – well, I was only 13 or 14, but I already knew enough about kids to know...” Cathy's voice trailed off.

Ginny's voice was very low. “She hated it when I did art. She really, really hated it. I don't know if it was because it was something I shared with Daddy, or just her hatred of color and originality in general.”

Myra saw Cathy pause again. Finally she said “She saved my work, Ginny. Some of it. She had – an axe to grind with you.” They were staring into each other's eyes. “I don't know why. You did everything you could to be well-behaved and quiet.”

“At this point, Cath, I think maybe she'd planned to divorce Daddy and be with Barney” said Ginny. Barney was the man with whom Helen had had a decades-long affair. “I bet she'd talked him into leaving his wife – he was enough older than her, his children had reached college age and he could start over. But then she got pregnant with me, and there was no question of her facing the scandal if she left a newborn behind. I was the anchor that stopped her from being happy.”

“No, you were not” said Cathy emphatically.

“I mean, in her opinion” said Ginny. But Myra could tell it went deeper in Ginny than that.

Allie had picked up one of the drawings and was pointing out technique to Edwina. Sima asked “When did you give up? On bringing work home to her?”

“I don't remember” said Ginny. “I know by the time we began going to the Gulf Coast each summer, when I was five or six, I'd learned to not try to paint in front of her.”

“You were so crazed, that first summer” recalled Cathy. “You spent ten hours that first day doing watercolor after watercolor. Bubbe had to drag you away for meals.”

“And then, after you got married and moved out...” Myra heard the desolation in Ginny's voice. Cathy did, too. She put her hand over Ginny's. “I bought a sketchbook and kept things in there. But I camouflaged it. I copied sketches of living rooms, designs from one of old women's magazines on the first few pages, except I never transferred pattern or color, I kept it bland and stark. I told her I was interested in interior design, which was apparently acceptable. For my real work, I began at the back and worked forward, drawing or painting only when she couldn't come up behind me and catch me at it.”

Ginny turned to Margie and said “I'm so sorry I didn't hold you kids while I was painting, like I do with the grandchildren now. I should have gotten over it faster, I froze you out.”

“It's all right, Mama” said Margie kindly. Mimi was silent in Gillam's arms, looking intently at Ginny, her concerned expression identical to Gillam's.

“Where are those sketchbooks now?” asked Sima.

Ginny swallowed. “When I came out to college, I stupidly left them in my closet. Then, when I didn't come home for the holidays – she cleaned my room out. Threw away anything personal.”

“Number one bitch” said Chris matter of factly. Leah said “Bitch, bitch, pitch, rich, what's a bitch?”

Myra put her arms around Ginny from behind. Ginny leaned back against her and said to Cathy, “Did I ever tell you how Myra reacted, the first time I showed her one of my paintings?”

Cathy grinned. “She burst into tears because she said it was almost too beautiful to bear. You've told me more times than I can count.”

David beamed at Myra approvingly. “Bubbe is byootiful.”

“She certainly is, Dah-veed” said Myra.

Ginny whispered to her “Most of my life was a lie, until I got out of there. I lived a lie.”

“No mas” said Myra. “We're out of the woods, we're out of the dark, we're into the light.”

“I know that song!” yelled Mimi. She began singing it, and David joined her. Within a minute, so had everyone else. Gillam and Carly linked arms with David between them and led a procession of the younger folk along an imaginary Yellow Brick Road. Myra stayed linked with Ginny, next to Cathy, and heard Ginny murmur “Poppies.”



© 2008 Maggie Jochild.

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LOLCATS WEEKLY ROUND-UP, 23 DECEMBER 2008

Here's the weekly best of what I've gleaned from I Can Has Cheezburger efforts: An extra large batch this holiday week. As usual, those from little gator lead the pack.

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HOME IS WHERE, WHEN YOU HAVE TO GO THERE...

(Maggie's mother, older brother, and father, circa 1949, Bowie, Texas bus station)

I've been missing my father, wishing I could talk with him. He's been dead two years, and it's only in the last couple of months that I've begun missing him. Especially on Thanksgiving, and I expect it will hit me again on Christmas.

He wasn't always home for Thanksgiving with us. I'm not sure how many Christmases he missed, beyond the last one my mother was alive. Mostly he was not there for birthdays. Mama made them holidays without him. I never missed a Thanksgiving or Christmas with Mama, despite moving out to California, and I never missed them with my little brother Bill, either, until -- well, that's the story I mean to tell, here. Somehow.


Bill and I were three years apart in age. He was an accidental pregnancy, and honestly, it showed in how my parents treated him. Not overtly, but the difficulty his needs brought to our already strained family was evident to even him. Kids who grow up with that knowledge have a hard time, you can't convince me otherwise. I believe it played a (small) role in his early death. My wanting him was not enough: What he needed was to have been welcomed, in a way he was not, by my parents.

We're not supposed to admit these kinds of things about our families. Especially in working class families, where any admission of being fucked up is going to be used against us, proof that we deserve our poverty and hard life. They are all dead now, except for me, so I'm not betraying them. At least, not directly.

When Daddy washed out of the Army Air Corps right before the end of World War II, he drifted around for a while, then got a job doodlebugging. His boss told him it was not a fit occupation for a married man, because it paid little and meant moving every six weeks to three months. Daddy assured the guy he had no intention of getting married or having a family. Six weeks later he met Mama, and five weeks after that, they got married. Daddy didn't tell her about the reality of his chosen occupation. She figured it out slowly, on her own, by the time my oldest brother Glenn was born two years later.

But it was 1948, and folks didn't get divorced. And Daddy kept saying he'd get promoted, moved up into an office job, where we'd stay in one place. Join the middle class, or at least the illusion of middle class that office workers have. In the early 1980s, shortly before she died, Mama told me she'd figured out all the ways Daddy had kept himself stuck in the field work which was what he really loved. He wasn't comfortable around men in white shirts with soft hands. He didn't feel good enough to do labor that didn't involve getting sweaty and making loud jokes with other men. He was thrilled to have escaped the farm, and grunt seismology felt respectable enough for him.

So we lived rootless, in trailers or crappy rent houses, except for the two times Daddy convinced Mama to let him take an overseas hitch, where the pay was good and Daddy got to push around brown people. Mama handled all the work of keeping us a family, not perfectly (not even close to that) but using every last bit of juice she had. I worshipped her, as did Bill. And she worshipped me back, flagrantly preferring me to my brothers.

My older brother Glenn was the only child for almost eight years before I was born. He was furious at my arrival, furious at my father's absence, furious at our inability to be anything more than working class in a good year. When I was four, he began coming after me. By the time I was nine, it was sexual as well as all the other ways he could think of to hurt me. He was 17 then, the local high school quarterback, massive and dangerous. Mama was too tired to see what was going on.

At least, that's the story.

I'm not going to tell you any details except this: I did what I could to keep him from going after Bill. I did whatever I had to. Because of this, Glenn said I wanted what he did to me. And Bill, as a toddler until the age of 8 when Glenn finally moved out of the house, was eaten up with guilt at my sacrifice for him -- even as he let me do make it for him. It was the only way we knew to stay alive.

(Bill and Maggie, summer of 1964, Houma, Louisiana, with chihuahua Chico)

I planned for me and Bill to have all our adult lives together, to grow old as brother and sister.

Mama had four heart attacks before she finally died of the fifth one, when I was 28 and she was 56. Once I got to college on scholarships, she and I collaborated and wrote a resume for Daddy (I checked out a book on how to do it from the university library). We got him a suit and I typed letters for him on my Olivetti portable seeking job interviews as a consultant in the seismology field. He was sullen and self-sabotaging, but eventually, in spite of his crap, he got hired on making four times more than he ever had. I was able to leave Texas knowing Mama was financially secure. The last six months of her life, they even bought a house.

The day we buried Mama, Daddy said to the three of us "I know you kids would rather it have been me that died than her." None of us said anything. I feel terrible about that now.

I was the only one in the family, I think, who was able to mourn Mama without conflict. She and I had talked over everything before she died. In 1980, she flat out asked me if Glenn had molested me -- a truth I had thought I'd never be able to tell her because of her precarious heart condition. I answered honestly, and she and I worked out the mess between us. She also asked me if I thought Glenn's three kids were at risk, and I said absolutely, of course they were -- the oldest already showed profound signs of damage. She decided she wasn't up to confronting Glenn, so she sent Daddy to do it instead. Five years after she died, I found out that Daddy had fucked it up in his predictable way. He asked Glenn about it, Glenn said I'd made up the whole thing because I'm a man-hating lesbian you know, and they had a beer together. Daddy came back and told Mama that Glenn had agreed to go into counseling, it would all be okay.

Less than a year after Mama died, Daddy married a woman fifteen years his junior, a divorcee with three kids who was trying to get her master's degree in dance theory. Glenn went into a rage, saying Daddy was dishonoring Mama's memory, and cut off all contact with Daddy. I thought it was very clear the two newlyweds were playing a game of mutual exploitation, but my Aunt Sarah, Mama's sister, gave me a stern talking to and said I had no right to judge my father's pursuit of happiness if it had no impact on me. I could see she was right. I made friends with my stepmother and talked Bill into doing the same. No skin off my back.

She of course left him as soon as the bust hit Texas and he fell behind on house payments. She'd gotten her Ph.D. by then, and married an insurance salesman six months later. Daddy couldn't believe she gave up on him. Some lessons come late. He sold away his pension and most of Mama's belongings before he finally lost the house, too. At 65, he had only Social Security and a broken down red van to his name.

He moved into a shitty apartment complex a few blocks away from Bill and got a job as a security guard, mostly because it gave him a chance to carry a gun. He had few people skills, had never built community or made friends. It was just me and Bill in his life. Bill was on his second marriage and, for the time being, clean and sober. My own partnership of six years fell apart brutally. I began driving up to Irving regularly to sleep on Daddy's couch and listen to him talk over his life.

We became friends. I don't have an excuse for the choices he made, but I really do understand them. Male conditioning, living as a child in the Depression on a 40-acre Oklahoma cotton farm, coming from Fundamentalists, and never breaking out of the bottom working class all left their mark on him. I had a 36 hour limit on the time I could stand to spend with him, but that meant a weekend where he wasn't alone, that was good enough for him.

The first Thanksgiving we had both been dumped, I told him I'd drive up after work on Wednesday and cook for us. Bill was going to spend the holiday with his wife's family, so it would be just me and Daddy. Traffic was a bear, so I didn't stop along the way and buy groceries as I had meant to. Still, there was a Whole Foods not too far from his house, I'd check in with him and then brave the crowds.

When I arrived, however, I discovered he had already done the shopping. He had a canned ham (not the good kind), a box of stuffing mix, canned peas, canned corn, canned cranberries, a loaf of white bread, and a store-bought apple pie with a crust like MDF. He was extremely proud of himself, thrilled at providing for us and please that I was going to "cook it all up" for him. I didn't have the heart to go buy real food. I searched through his pantry for things I could use to make it more palatable, finding zilch. Parkay, no spices except salt and pepper, no frozen fruit or veggies, no flour, not even canned soup except for one of chicken noodle.

So, I made what I could, pulled out the good plates and silverware instead of the paper stuff he used, cleared the table of six months of clutter, and we had a sit-down meal that was one of the worst I've ever put in my mouth, nutritionally speaking. But memorable in the glow on his face. We talked for hours, watched Lawrence Welk, and he went to bed happy.

I cleaned the kitchen, then, and scrubbed down the toilet. Daddy had never bothered to lift a lid or even bother to aim. When I was a teenager, I had seethed at this daily dose of male urine, and sometimes I deliberately left bloody kotex or tampons on the floor beside the toilet to make my point. But he left it to my mother to clean up. And now me, if I was going to use the same bathroom for the weekend.

He began looking for another wife fairly quickly, and went through the rude awakening of discovering that now he was truly broke, he had no chance at all with women younger than him. He began going to bingo night at senior centers, and eventually found a woman five years older who owned a house, had a small savings, and thought he was funny. They got married without him finding out she was a serious alcoholic. Violet was an amiable drunk, but she started on vodka first thing in the morning and kept at it all day. Her short-term memory was nonexistent. Still, she cooked and cleaned, they had a little house to watch TV in all day, and he promised he would never, under any circumstances, let her get put into a nursing home.

I made friends with Violet as well, and continued to come up for weekends. I was bothered, however, by that fact that conversations with my father vanished. For one thing, he hadn't told Violet I was a dyke and insisted I not tell her, as she was hardshell Baptist and barely knew homosexuality existed. For another, while he didn't drink with her, he spent all day talking on her level and his ability to construct even a simple sentence deteriorated. He acted like having to think about complex issues or delve into memory was an imposition. I let it go. I'd had a father only briefly, and only kinda sorta. I still got to see Bill when I visited, and at least my father wasn't about to be hungry.

Bill and I talked a lot about our childhoods. To be honest, I was usually the one who brought it up; he would rather have watched ESPN in peace. But he did share his memories and his interpretation of them. The memories matched, the interpretation didn't, and I found relief in both.

One memory Bill told over and over again concerned the Thanksgiving when he was 10 and, for some reason, Glenn had gone with us to eat with our grandparents in Oklahoma. Glenn was about to be married, to a woman from an upper middle class family bristling with doctors and lawyers, and after that he seldom had much to do with us. Which was fine with me, though it always pained my mother to have been abandoned for reasons of class. Anyhow, the day after Thanksgiving, Bill went into the kitchen and cut himself a slice of leftover pumpkin pie. Glenn had trailed after him, looking for somebody to torment. Bill put the plastic wrap neatly back over the pie and returned it to the refrigerator, an imperative in my grandmother's kitchen. When he turned back around, his piece of pie had vanished except for a small wedge of crust. Glenn was sitting in a nearby kitchen chair, smirking and chewing. Glenn had stolen food from us all our lives, a favorite putdown.

Bill set aside anything he might want to say, pulled out the pie and cut himself another slice. Same thing happened, of course: When he turned back around, his piece was gone and Glenn was almost choking, trying to swallow it down and laugh at the same time. But Bill snapped. He doubled his little boy fist and socked Glenn in the face as hard as he could. Glenn's chair went over backward onto the kitchen floor.

The retaliation was severe, of course. Glenn dragged him, his mouth covered, out the garage and beat the shit out of him in places where the bruises wouldn't show. But that was the last time Glenn stole food from him. Bill's eyes would glint when he told that story.

When I was 26, Bill went to Glenn and told him if he ever came near me again, for any reason, Bill would kill him. By that time, Bill was an inch taller than Glenn and wider in the shoulders. Like all bullies, Glenn only picked on those weaker than himself. He stayed away from me. But long before that, I'd made it clear I'd kill him, too, if he bothered me. Still, I was deeply moved by Bill finally being able to defend me, returning the favor.

On holidays when I drove up, I usually did the cooking, sometimes with Bill's able assistance for the meats. I'm a good cook and I enjoyed it, and it was also a way to make sure the food was healthy. Plus, staying in the kitchen usually kept me away from trying to make conversation with Violet, who was in the habit of repeating the same remark every seven minutes or so all day long. I have a hard time with dementia, I'll admit it.

The second Thanksgiving after Daddy married Violet, I slept over at Bill's house that he and his wife had managed to buy with an FHA loan. The excuse was that I could get up early to start Christmas dinner. Instead, we sat up late playing Risk and watching a Princess Di special on TV.

The next morning, Daddy and Violet showed up around 10 a.m., which was late in the day for Daddy, who liked to rise at dawn. Violet was lit to the gills, and Daddy, for once, had decided to join her in her morning vodka and orange juice. He was tiddly, is how I would describe it. Bill was watching golf in the back room, and his wife was on her computer. Daddy and Violet pulled stools up to the kitchen bar and decided to hang out with me while I cooked.

I had planned an elaborate, 12-dish meal which all needed to come together at the same time, and I was already overheated and stressed. I'm not the sort to chat while I'm multitasking. But the drinkers, of course, were very chatty. The problem was that Violet was in repetition mode. Every seven minutes, the same conversational gambits were replayed. Her focus that day was on how I was making the green beans. I had bought fresh haricot vertes, leaving them whole except for snapping off the ends, and lightly braised them in butter, shoyu, and Chinese hot sauce, with a sprinkle of sesame seeds. Violet had clearly never seen anything like them before, and she kept asking (every seven minutes) why they looked the way they did, sitting in their bowl on the counter nearby.

Four times I explained the recipe to her. The fifth time, I snarled over my shoulder "The recipe is exactly the same as I told you the last goddamned time."

There was a wounded silence behind me. I glanced around. Violet was in profound shock, and Daddy looked belligerent. I said "Excuse me, I have to cool off" and I strode to the front door. It was about 15 degrees outside, but I didn't bother with a coat. I sat down on the front step and tried to slow my thudding heart.

After half a minute, I heard the door open and felt Bill ease himself down onto the step beside me. He lit a cigarette, took a big drag, tried to blow the smoke away from me, then lay his massive arm over my shoulders and said calmly "Well you fucked that one up."

We laughed our asses off. When I began shivering from the cold, I said "I don't know how to go back in there and face them."

Bill said "Ah, shit, she won't remember it by now. Daddy's the only one who's going to remember to be offended, and fuck him."

He was right. Violet had refilled her go cup and asked me brightly how come the green beans looked so different. I explained it to her patiently as I resumed mashing yams, and Bill, chuckling, returned to his golf tournament.

The next year, Bill's second wife had left him. He arrived at Daddy's house on Christmas morning with a bottle of Goldschlager, which he slammed down on the coffee table and said grimly "After every gift, we each take a shot." I declined, but they went after it and it was actually a hilarious day.

Two years after that, Violet died one October morning as they were getting up. Daddy had managed to keep his promise to her, allowing her to live at home until she passed. Daddy inherited the house and her savings. At Christmas, he mailed a check for $8000 to Glenn, asking to make up. Glenn's second marriage was failing, he'd been fired one too many times to find work easily, and he decided Daddy's offer was just what he needed. He called Daddy from the road in California, asking to come live with him. If he drove straight through, he could be there by late Christmas Day. Daddy was ecstatic.

He came into the guest room where I was sleeping and woke me up to tell me that Glenn would be there in a day, to celebrate Christmas with all of us. He said we were to all be nice to each other, for his sake, and in particular I was to not bring up in any way all the abuse Bill and I had suffered at Glenn's hands. We were to act as if nothing had ever gone wrong.

I stared at him in disbelief. I said "I can't possibly agree to that. I won't make a scene, but I'm not going to lie about what he did."

"Then you'll be the one making trouble. The rest of us want to be a complete family again" Daddy said.

I called Bill and we talked it over. In the end, Bill said he couldn't give up on Daddy, no matter what the conditions were. He was still trying to get the love and approval he'd never had as a boy. He said he didn't blame me if I couldn't hack it, we'd still see and talk with each other. I told Daddy I wasn't going to pretend, and he said I should go, then. I packed my bags and left at 8:00 on Christmas morning. Bill came over to see me off.

Glenn moved in permanently to Daddy's house. When I lost my mobility and my job, Bill came to visit me, including in the rehab hospital after my knee was replaced. Daddy never did. I called him every week, where I'd have to listen to how great Glenn was and the latest jokes he'd told Daddy, which I invariably had to interrupt because they were obscenely racist.

Bill's anger built slowly but perceptibly. He blew up increasingly easily when on the phone with me. He kept saying "I don't know how to do this without you here". I felt bad, and kept taking it to counseling, but kept coming up with the same answer: I'd give visiting a try as long as I could be honest. But Daddy kept saying that was out of the question.

A year later, Bill lost his job, I think because of anger issues. He had trouble finding a new one, and when he did, he failed his screening drug test. I didn't know that at the time; he told me he just didn't like the fuckers. It took him a month to land another interview. He managed to pass their drug test, I'm not sure how, because his friends and ex-wife later told me he was using cocaine regularly. By then, he was in default on his truck payment and had lost his insurance.

He had a heart attack, it now seems clear, while he was mowing his lawn. He went in to lie down and eventually called Daddy, saying his chest hurt. Daddy convinced him it was probably just from pulling the mower cord. When I talked with Daddy a day later and heard about it, I immediately called Bill and told him to go the ER. He said he didn't have insurance, and I said they had to treat him anyhow, if it was cardiac (and given our family history, it probably was) they could treat it and he could blow off the bills. He said the pain was getting better, he thought it really was a pulled muscle. I said I'd call him the next day to check on him. I then called his third wife at her job and told her to get him to the doctor.

He didn't get help. Instead, he went to Glenn and confessed his drug usage, saying he was scared it would show up in any medical test and he'd lose his new job. Glenn tore into him, calling him a loser for taking drugs, and said he didn't want to hear any more about it.

The next morning, Bill called in sick to work and told his wife he was exhausted, he just wanted to sleep all day. He lay down on the couch, a golf game on TV, as she left for her job. When she came home at 2:00 that afternoon, he was stiff and cold. The coroner said it was complete cardiac tamponade. The heart attack, whose pain had undoubtedly not only continued but increased, eventually tore open the pericardial lining around his heart and he bled out into his chest. I hope he was asleep when it happened, because my own doctor told me it was an agonizing way to die.

I went to Bill's funeral, driven by a friend. I did not speak to Glenn there. Daddy went home with Glenn, and the rest of the family had a wake at Bill's house. Bill's friends refused to speak to Glenn or shake his hand. It was the last time I saw Daddy.

A few months later, Glenn told Daddy about his last conversation with Bill and begged forgiveness. Daddy called me, suddenly realizing what he was living with. I stayed in touch with him, calling him and listening to him as best I could. He died one morning sitting in his recliner in front of the TV. Glenn found him. Four months later, Glenn died alone in the same house.

I'm not sorry for how I hung in there, and I'm not sorry for when I drew the line. I'm especially not sorry I made a choice different than Bill's. I'm alive, and he's not, and I believe the reason is that divergent choice we made.

I miss Bill every day. But it's odd to now, finally, be missing my father. I'm not sure what it means, except that we are all human and, given enough time, humanity is all we remember.


[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]

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HAPPY SOLSTICE

(A Dolphin's Skull, Winter Solstice, photo taken at Morro Bay, California by Scott H. McCreery)

I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December
A magical thing
And sweet to remember.
"We are nearer to Spring
Than we were in September,"
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.

~by Oliver Herford~

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