Antiques Maul

by Barbara Allan

“Thank you.”

  “No, I mean . . . Brandy, you look tired. Is Vivian up to driving?”

  “She’d love to, except for the part where she doesn’t have a driver’s license anymore. You’d really rather entrust Jake to my mother than to me?”

  “I wasn’t looking for a fight. I’m just worried about you, that’s all.”

  Worried about Jake, he meant. Which wasn’t a bad thing. But I wished my ex weren’t viewing me like a recruiting officer preparing to ship his son off to war.

  “Roge, I’m not looking for a fight, either.”

  “I know.”

  “Really, I’m fine . . . just a . . . a long day.” I made a stab at conversation. “Mother and I got some great antiques for our booth . . . at the federal auction?”

  But Roger had quit listening, his eyes moving to Mother behind the car window. Until that moment, he had not acknowledged her presence, other than mentioning her to me as a potential preferred driver; now he gave his former mother-in-law a halfhearted wave, and Mother waved back, a little too animated.

  Roger wasn’t trying hard enough, and Mother was trying way too hard. There was no love lost between them. Here, in a nutshell, is the story of their relationship during our marriage: Mother thought Roger encased me in a shell, and Roger thought Mother was a nut.

  Which just goes to show how two opposing factions can both be right.

  I crawled in behind the wheel, then slowly drove out the exit ramp, Roger following in his BMW. After a few miles another exit appeared, and as my ex veered off to make his turnaround back to Chicago, I gave a sigh of relief. Having Roger back in my life for ten minutes had been much, much too long.

  While I drove, Mother returned to the Rex Stout CD, now and then exclaiming, “He did it!” or “She did it!” Oblivious (I almost said “cheerfully oblivious,” but scratch that), Jake played his lighted-up Game Boy with the music up not loud exactly, but maintaining a frantic, increasingly irritating presence. I could have asked him to use earphones, but I didn’t want to start nagging right out of the gate.

  As the sprinkles built to a downpour, I switched on the wipers, which screeched on the windshield like pterodactyls seeking prehistoric worms. Suddenly I was aware of a splitting headache, and realized that I’d stupidly left my migraine medication at home, even though this weekend had all the elements of a three-day marathon head-throbber: bad food, poor sleep, an exhausting day, and an emotional family reunion.

  I asked nicely, “Say, Jake, hon . . .”

  No response.

  “. . . would you mind turning that down a little?”

  No response.

  Mother said, “Darling . . . Grandma is trying to hear who the murderer is.”

  “Sure, Grandma.”

  The volume decreased.

  So that’s how it was going to be.

  About midnight, we finally reached Serenity, and I was fighting serious nausea. Both Mother and Jake were asleep, the Rex Stout story concluded, murderer nabbed, video game won.

  I wheeled into our drive, shut off the engine, threw open the car door, fell to my knees as if praying to Mecca, and retched instead. And retched some more. When I finished up with a flourish of a little choking sob, Mother and Jake were standing over me.

  “So she’s still doing that, huh?” Jake asked sleepily. He might have been asking if Sushi was still wetting on the carpet.

  Mother answered, “I’m afraid so, dear. Not as often as in the past, because the medication is better. But on a day like this? Well . . . I only hope you don’t inherit your mother’s migraines.... Now be a good boy and help Grandma in with our bags.”

  They did so, while it was all I could do to stumble inside, fumble down my meds, fall into bed, and hope sleep came before my stomach rejected the pill.

  Delirious, I dreamed about going into a shoe store where the UGGs were on sale 75 percent off, but I couldn’t find a single pair in my size. Not a single pair. Not a single pair!

  Talk about a nightmare!

  Finally, thankfully, something or someone shook me awake. A hand on my shoulder . . . that’s what it was . . . a hand....

  I opened my eyes and stared up into a wonderful mirage: the sweet if sullen oval of my son’s face, my son who didn’t live with me anymore . . .

  Then the mirage said, “Grandma’s making Yummy Eggs,” and the face disappeared.

  I closed my eyes again and imposed a new method I’d read about recently, designed to prevent constant nightmares. I mentally returned to the dream and changed the outcome: This time I found lots of boots in my size, and even cheaper.

  So there!

  I sat up slowly, searching for signs of the migraine, which seemed to be gone, or at least beaten back into a corner of the cave I call my mind.

  Mother knew very well that her trademark Yummy Eggs (so named, many moons ago, by a sick little Brandy) were the only thing I could stand to eat coming out of a bad headache.

  Yummy Eggs

  For a single serving follow these directions: Soft-boil one egg in simmering water. Toast one slice of bread. Scoop the egg out of its shell into a cereal bowl, then salt and pepper and dot with butter. Tear the toast into small pieces, add to the eggs, and mix.

  That’s the first and last page of Brandy Borne’s Coming Out of a Migraine Cookbook, not published by Duncan Hines.

  I sat by myself in the dining room, listening to the familiar sounds out in the parlor of Jake—who had already had his breakfast—playing with Sushi, who I was pretty sure my son had missed a hell of a lot more than his mother.

  Suddenly Soosh let out a yipe!

  I jumped up and ran into the adjoining room only to find Jake holding a black and silver gun, and Sushi on her side, her brown and white fur turned . . .

  . . . purple?

  “What have you done?” I yelled, rushing to the whimpering dog’s aid.

  My son looked genuinely distressed and was bending down himself by the fallen beast. “I . . . I didn’t mean to. . . .” Jake swallowed. “It just sort of, you know, happened. . . .”

  I pointed to the gun in Jake’s hand. “Just what the hell is that? You got a license for that thing?”

  “It’s just a stupid, you know, paint gun and stuff. . . .”

  The thing really did look like a real pistol, not a toy. It would come in handy if Jake ever wanted to rob a convenience store.

  And it was then that I said what every mother, even the divorced ones (maybe especially the divorced ones), inevitably say: “Wait till your father hears about this.”

  “Dad . . . Dad bought it for me.”

  “Figures,” I muttered, and continued to examine Soosh, who seemed to be recovering from the sting of the paint pellet. In fact, she was milking the attention shamelessly; next to Mother, Soosh was the biggest ham in the house.

  Jake scratched the dog’s neck affectionately. “Is she all right?”

  “I think so. . . .”

  Gently, I got Sushi up on her feet; she was a gooey mess, the purple paint transferring to my hands.

  “Give me that thing,” I said to Jake.

  “I won’t do that again. I won’t use it in the house, or shoot at any living thing and stuff.”

  Through my teeth, I said, “Give it here.”

  He swallowed and handed me the paint gun, but asked, “What about the paint grenade? Can I keep that?”

  My eyebrows shot up.

  “I promise to take it outside.”

  “Three guesses and the first two don’t count.”

  He sighed. “Oh-kaay . . . I’ll get it. . . .”

  When Jake came back from his bedroom, I stashed the realistic-looking grenade and the realistic-looking gun on the top shelf of the closet.

  “For your penance, Jake,” I said, hand on hips, “you’ll give Sushi a bath—I assume that paint washes off. . . .”

  “Yeah. Sure it does. You don’t need turpentine or anything.”

  “Good. Then I want you to help Grandma and me set up ou
r booth this morning.” Might as well get everything I could out of this little episode.

  “What booth?”

  “The booth, our stall, at the antiques mall. We have a U-Haul to unload and lots of things to arrange.”

  Jake groaned. “Come on, Mom. I’ll give Sushi a bath and stuff, but do I have to go down to that antique shop—”

  “‘Antiques shop,” I corrected. “It’s not an old shop . . . it’s a shop with old things in it.”

  He smirked. “Yeah, right. I bet it is too an old shop . . . an old shop with old boring things and dust in the air and stuff that’ll make me sneeze.”

  I glared at him.

  He glared at me.

  I tried softening my voice. “I’m not punishing you. I’m asking you for help.”

  “Well . . .”

  “We could really use your muscles. Grandma shouldn’t lift anything heavy, and I can’t do it by myself.”

  Jake shrugged with his eyes. “Well, okay . . . but it’ll cost ya.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean, when I do chores for Dad, he gives me something.”

  Awfully early for him to be playing the Dad card....

  “Sure,” I said. “You can have a kiss on the cheek or a pat on the head. Your choice.”

  “I was thinking more . . . a Game Boy game.”

  “Whoa . . . don’t those cost thirty bucks?”

  “One I want is forty.”

  “I’m not made of money like your father.”

  He shrugged. “Okay. I do know one I want that’s only thirty.”

  Damn that husband of mine. Ex-husband.

  I said, “There’s a pawnshop with a ton of games just up the street from the antiques mall. Current games and older ones, too.”

  He was interested. “Old-school stuff? I like old-school stuff.”

  “That’s where that vintage Super Nintendo I bought you for Christmas came from.”

  His eyes lighted up. “Really? That was a cool gift, Mom.”

  “You can have a fifteen-dollar game at the pawnshop,” I said, and extended my hand.

  “Done,” he said, and shook it.

  “The dog shampoo is under the kitchen sink,” I said. “And don’t make the water too hot.”

  While Jake took Sushi into the kitchen—holding her out at arm’s length to keep from getting paint on himself—I went off to find Mother, finally locating her outside in the old garage.

  The stand-alone structure hadn’t been destroyed with the original house, and was mostly used for storing unused items, which included Mother’s ancient pea-green Audi. Mother had lost her driver’s license for what she referred to as a “silly infraction,” which was driving the car through a cornfield on the way to a play one night, hitting a combine, but sparing the cows.

  This was, as you may have guessed, shortly before her doctor “readjusted” her medication.

  At the moment, Mother was struggling with a tarp at the back of the garage.

  “What are you up to?” I asked, startling her and inducing a take worthy of W.C. Fields.

  Mother recovered, then said, “I’m retrieving this wonderful antique. . . .”

  And she lifted the cover.

  I stared at a five-foot- tall statue of an Indian chief in full regalia—feathered headdress, decorative vest, loincloth, and moccasins—with one hand raised in the air in a manner that was usually accompanied, in ancient cowboy movies and on F Troop, with “How?”

  “What are you going to do with that?” I asked, hoping the cigar store Indian wasn’t taking up permanent residence on the front lawn as an unusual piece of yard art.

  Speaking of which, is there a direct correlation between the age of home owners and the amount of tacky yard art (miniature windmills, fake deer, country geese, gnomes, etc.) found on their lawns?

  “Why, dear girl,” Mother responded, “I’m going to sell the statue, of course . . . in our booth. Don’t you know a valuable artifact when you see one?”

  Big sigh of relief. “I never saw that before. Where on earth did you get it?”

  Mother shrugged. “From a former friend.”

  “Former friend . . . you don’t mean Bernice?”

  “I do indeed mean She Who Must Not Be Named. When She Who Must Not Be Named first moved here, She Who Must Not Be Named brought the Indian with her. . . .”

  “Look, She Who Must Be Maimed, call her Bernice or I will stick that Indian somewhere and I don’t mean in our booth!”

  “No need for dramatics, dear. My former friend, her condo was too small to properly display it—a precious item like that needs just the right place, to show it off, you know—and, well, a while back when I commented on the exquisite craftsmanship, my former friend . . . who was my current friend at the time . . . said I could have it.”

  Why do I ask? Why do I even ask?

  Mother added quickly, “That was back when we were speaking, of course.”

  I got a sudden snapshot mental picture of Mother and Bernice standing on either side of the Indian, grinning at the camera, with the caption below reading IN HAPPIER TIMES.

  “What did Bernice charge you?” I asked.

  Mother looked surprised. “Why, not a wooden nickel, dear.... In the Midwest, when we say you can have something, that means, take it away! At no cost!”

  “That would explain a lot.” The garage was crammed with “you can have its,” as Mother is incapable of turning down anything free.

  I asked, “Shouldn’t you offer the statue back to Bernice first, before we sell it? Might be a nice gesture. Smoke the peace pipe kinda deal?”

  “I did offer it to her,” Mother said testily. “I made the magnanimous gesture this morning of calling her.”

  “Good. Very grown-up of you, Mother. And?”

  “And she said it just so happens she did want the Indian back, that by all rights it was hers and I had no business even considering selling it—not at all magnanimous on her part. So I informed her that she could pick it up at our booth.”

  “Why not have her just pick it up here?”

  “Because, dear, I informed her that the Indian would be available to her . . . for sale, in our booth!”

  “Ah. And she took this, how?”

  The cigar store Indian eyed me as if I might be making fun of him.

  “Not at all graciously! She called me . . . I won’t tell you what she called me.”

  I sighed. “An Indian giver?”

  “Yes! Yes, can you imagine? What a terrible, horrible, repulsive thing to say.”

  I had to agree; the phrase was offensive.

  “After all,” Mother huffed, “it was she who gave it to me, so that would make her the Indian giver, wouldn’t it?”

  My migraine was crawling out of its corner, a bear ready to trade hibernation for the nearest victim....

  I rubbed my temples and said, “I’m against putting that distasteful thing in our booth.”

  Mother looked puzzled. “Why ever not?”

  “Why ever not? The unofficial historian of the Mascoutin Indians has to even ask me that? Because it’s racist, that’s why!”

  Mother frowned, considering as she studied the Indian, who was keeping his opinion to himself. “Dear, may I ask you a question?”

  “Why not? This can’t get worse, can it?”

  “Did cigar stores exist in the olden days?”

  “Yeaaaah,” I said slowly.

  “And were there Indians?”

  “Yeaaaaah.”

  “Well?” Her eyes were huge behind the glasses.

  “I, uh, don’t get your point.”

  Mother gawked at my sheer stupidity. “Must the unofficial historian give her daughter a history lesson?”

  “Apparently.”

  She sighed in exasperation. “The reason the American Indian became associated with tobacco stores was because it was they who first introduced smoking the noxious weed to the early settlers. Consequently, a wooden Indian statue was p
laced outside a frontier establishment to inform a mostly illiterate public that tobacco was sold inside . . . much the way a red-and-white-striped pole denoted a barber shop.”

  I ventured, “There’s a difference between using a striped pole and a Native American as an advertisement.”

  Her eyes flared behind the magnifying lenses. “Brandy! Yesterday can not be changed just to suit today. This statue is a wonderful, valuable example of American folk art and should be—”

  But before I admitted she had a point, I interrupted, “How much is valuable?”

  Mother appraised the statue. “Well, taking into consideration that it has been repainted, and the cigar that should be in the hand is missing . . . I’d estimate, oh, four to five hundred dollars.”

  New tires for the car.

  My political correctness vanished in a puff of smoke signal. “Okay, then. I’ll load ol’ Chief Big Wampum up. . . .”

  Under Mother’s watchful eye, I hauled the unprotesting Indian to my car and leaned him into the backseat so that there would be room for Jake.

  Then Mother and I returned to the house where Jake was finishing up with Sushi’s bath, gently drying her with a towel, her fur restored to its natural white and brown.

  Soosh gave Jake a lick on his face, and he kissed her back. Dogs are forgiving (unlike cats, who will pretend to forgive you, then later spray your favorite Jimmy Choos with urine).

  We were all gathered in the entryway, getting ready to leave for the antiques mall, when Sushi started in with a hissy fit.

  “Mom,” Jake said, “she wants to go along.”

  “Well, she can’t. We’ll be busy, and she’ll be in the way. Not to mention being blind in unfamiliar territory.”

  “Mom,” Jake said again, but with conviction, “Sushi thinks she deserves to come with us after what happened. . . .”

  I looked down at the yapping, jumping dog whose just-washed hair had tripled in volume, making her look like a bouncing beach ball. Had my son just managed to make me feel guilty for what he had done to her? Is every son the hood in motherhood?

  “I’ll wear Sushi,” Mother announced, as if Soosh were a scarf or a hat. “I’m mostly supervising, after all.”

  Caving in, I retrieved the baby harness from the front closet and, after letting the straps out as far as they’d go, secured it across Mother’s ample bosom. Then I put in Sushi, whose tiny smile seemed to say, “I knew I’d win.”