Chronicles of a Radical Hag (with Recipes)

by Lorna Landvik

  “Haze,” says Lois, striding into the room like a mayor greeting constituents. “Haze, I don’t care if you’re dying, you’ve simply got to open your eyes. I just got the cutest haircut, and I need you to scold me for paying too much for it!”

  She sits on her friend’s bed, an act that deflates all her energy and swagger.

  “Aw, Haze,” she says, taking her friend’s hand and blinking back tears.

  When Mercedes comes into the room, Caroline goes to hug her.

  “Tina’s coming by after work,” she says. “She’s doing an emergency surgery on someone’s pet ferret.”

  “Dios mío,” says Mercedes, and their exchange causes everyone in the room to laugh.

  “Did you hear that, Haze?” says Lois. “A pet ferret! Who has a pet ferret?”

  Haze’s only response is a breath that’s loud and weak at the same time.

  “That’s how you know, isn’t it,” Lois says to Mercedes. “By the way she’s breathing?”

  Mercedes nods. “One of the ways.”

  Now her words are like a switch flicking off light, and a gloom shadows the room as everyone strains to hear Haze’s irregular breaths.

  Mercedes excuses herself to tend to another patient, and Susan takes something out of her purse. “Mitch and I worked on this today,” she says, unfolding a piece of paper. “It’s the obituary we’re thinking of running.”

  After she reads it aloud, there is a long silence.

  “Well?” Susan says finally.

  “It’s okay,” Sam says. “But it . . . well, it doesn’t really capture her.”

  Susan stares at the paper. She’s a little stung by the criticism (when doesn’t criticism sting a little?), but it’s a tiny scratch softened by the balm of her pride for Sam’s astute words.

  “You’re right. Any suggestions?”

  “Well, I think your lead sentence needs to be like . . . flashier,” says Sam, and the balm of pride heats up in Susan, as if Vicks VapoRub has been smeared on her chest. “I mean, ‘beloved columnist’ is good, but I think Haze deserves more.”

  “Right on the money, Sam,” says Lois, and after a moment adds, “how about ‘beloved columnist and all-around good egg?’”

  Typing the keyboard of her iPad, Caroline says, “‘Beloved columnist, all-around good egg,’ and—”

  Sam joins her as she says, “radical hag!”

  Laughter and occasional exclamations—“yes!” and “perfect!” and “beautiful!”—fill the room as they brainstorm on the obituary, Caroline furiously typing away.

  By the time she reads aloud the final version, Mercedes has returned to Haze’s room.

  Lois smooths her friend’s hair and says, “I hope you know it’s not everyone who gets to hear their own obituary. Anything else you’d care to add?”

  She wasn’t alone in wishing that the patient would, in a final dramatic moment, open her eyes and wink or offer a thumbs-up, but Haze only breathes in a rattly breath.

  The wall clock reads 8:34, but it feels much later, as if the weight of what’s happening has leaned on time, pressed it into the future.

  Sam has thought several times about telling his mother he should go—he’s got a big test in precalculus tomorrow—but precalculus and his grade seem pretty inconsequential in the scheme of things. Now calculus, he jokes to himself, that would have been something totally different.

  Lois is in a chair now; sitting on Haze’s bed was too uncomfortable for her, and what with all her shifting around, probably not that comfortable for Haze, not that she’d notice. She’s kept body contact, however, her hand first curled around Haze’s inert fingers and now resting on her friend’s forearm. Susan’s checking her vibrating phone, but seeing Mitch’s name and number, as opposed to Jack’s, she returns it to her purse. Caroline too is looking at her phone and the message Tina has sent: “FERRET WILL LIVE. SHOULD I COME TO HOSP?” and just as her fingers are about to type “Yes,” she lifts her head, hearing a great gasping breath from Haze.

  It’s a sound that makes everyone lean forward, as if they’ve heard a clue and are waiting to hear what exactly it’s a clue to.

  The boulder that has been pushing time forward rolls back a little, and seconds are longer than minutes, which are longer than hours.

  They wait and wait and wait, but there is no more breath from Haze. Still they wait, until Mercedes finally lays her hand on the old woman’s throat and says what they all know.

  “She’s gone.”

  October 29, 2016

  It is with great sadness we at the Granite Creek Gazette announce that the Radical Hag has left the building. Yes, Haze Evans, beloved columnist and all-around good egg, died last night at the Granite Creek Hospital after having suffered a massive stroke this past summer. Her full obituary as well as funeral details will be published tomorrow.

  As readers of this paper know, we have been reprinting past columns of Haze’s, with the hopes that she would recover to write new ones. Our hopes have been dashed.

  Some of Haze’s columns were folksy, some were funny, some were sad, some were controversial. My grandfather William McGrath hired Haze and gave her a free rein when it came to her columns, as I have tried to do. There were times when I thought, Oh my gosh, can I publish this? but I did so because I felt her readers, even if they vehemently disagreed with her, could handle whatever Haze put forth.

  Some of the columns we’ve reprinted have gotten nearly as much response as they did when they were originally published, and it’s been heartening to hear from all of you.

  Haze always said, “It’s an honor to be heard,” and because we’re days away from a historic election, we’re reprinting two columns on the presidential candidates, the first one written last year, and the second one just three and a half months ago.

  We’ve printed the recipes she included with each column, because we all could use a little sweetness right now.

  Susan McGrath, Publisher

  April 13, 2015

  If I were a contestant on Dancing with the Stars, I don’t think I’d be voted off first; in fact with the right partner, I’ll bet I could cha-cha, rhumba, quickstep, and waltz into midseason. (Semifinals might be wishful thinking.) But I tell you, if there were an award given for Most Joyful Expression, I would have taken it—picture me dancing a hula, mixed with a cheerleader rallying the masses, topped off with an ape beating its chest.

  Hillary Clinton is running for president! I get another chance to vote for her!

  I cried hard back in 2008 when she conceded her primary loss to Barack Obama, but my sadness was tempered by the fact that history still was being made by the first man of color to run for (and then eventually win) the presidency. I’ve written many laudatory columns about the job President Obama has done, despite crazy—and shameful—conspiracy theories (“He’s not an American citizen!”), racism (of course there’s racism, when will we admit it?), and the obdurate unwillingness of Republican leaders to put American interests over party ones, but still . . . I was writing about a man.

  I would like you men reading this column (c’mon, I know my male readership is vast) to imagine this: the country that you live in, the greatest democracy of all time, has always, in its two-hundred-forty-year history, been governed by women. All of its forty-four presidents and vice presidents, all of its members of Congress, all of its Supreme Court judges have been women. Oh sure, as we evolved, we came to the enlightened opinion that maybe some men were capable human beings and elected a few senators, a few more representatives, and even a male justice or two to help us run this country, whose very pledge acknowledges ours as a nation that honors liberty and justice for all. All being the extremely operative word, because really, fellas, how would you feel to have been considered such second-class citizens that you didn’t even earn the right to vote until well into the twentieth century?

  How’d you feel, fellas, if as kids, in minus-ten-degrees weather you wore trousers to keep your legs warm on your walk to schoo
l but once inside had to take them off because dress code demanded you wear impractical dresses? How’d you feel if as a single man, you couldn’t get a credit card, but if you were married, you could, that is, with your wife’s signature? How’d you feel if you were fired because you were expecting a child? How’d you feel if your career options were limited because society told you, “men aren’t doctors/lawyers/scientists/mathematicians/music conductors/CEOs” ad infinitum?

  How, fellas, do you like those indignities? Indignities is a good word too, because even though we’ve gotten rid of some of them, many of these stupid rules, regulations, and customs remain, their only purpose to strip you of your dignity, your personhood—your personhood, which in importance is secondary to your sex. And speaking of sex, how would you feel if yours always made you a target? That if you were out at night and robbed or raped, it’d be your fault, because what are you doing out at night anyway? That if you went to a party and some woman took you into a bedroom and forced herself upon you, it’d be your fault, because you were, after all, dressed in a tight T-shirt, and oh my, those pectoral muscles of yours were such an invitation! How would you feel if at your workplace your bosses constantly made remarks about those pectorals that made you feel uncomfortable, or worse, if they shoved themselves against you in the copy room and threatened you with firing if you weren’t “nice to me”?

  So I am thrilled that Hillary Clinton has officially announced that she’s running for a position she’s as qualified for as any who might run against her in the primary, and (because I’m feeling so confident that it’s our time, it’s the world’s time) for the presidency.

  Please, fellas, throughout the upcoming campaign season, consider this candidate the way you would a male one. What are her policies? Are they more important than what she’s wearing/how she looks/her tone of voice? Does she back up her ideas with facts and figures, or does she make grandiose, empty promises? Is she a fighter, albeit a fair fighter? Does she listen? What ideas does she have that will make not just your life work better but our country as a whole? And most importantly, would you like to have a beer with her? . . . Ha ha, remember when that was actually considered a serious enough question in 2000? (And look where that got us.)

  Having written all my life, I have several times entertained the idea of writing a novel, but my ideas never took me further than the first couple pages or, in some cases, the first couple paragraphs. I couldn’t seem to summon up the same energy for made-up people and plots as for real people and real life. This coming year is going to be such an exciting one, and I’m so glad to be a witness to it, to be able to write about it, to actually think that in a less than a year and a half, I might get to write about the first woman elected president and it won’t be fiction.

  IT’S TIME! TOFFEE BARS

  1 cup butter

  1 cup brown sugar

  1 egg yolk

  2 cups flour

  In a bowl, knead all ingredients together. Pat in greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for fifteen minutes. Remove from oven, and immediately pour one package of chocolate chips over uncut bars and wait 1–2 minutes. With a knife, evenly spread melted chocolate, and sprinkle chopped walnuts or pecans on top. Cut into small pieces so you can eat more.

  July 6, 2016

  When I was eight, I had my tonsils out, and I was told later that coming out of anesthesia, I remarked to the nurse looming in front of me, “But you’re not fluffy like a real bunny rabbit.”

  That’s a story lodged in the Evans family lore, one that always got a good laugh in the retelling, and one I, for a change, don’t remember. Through the years, I’ve heard other people’s post-op stories, the funny things said, the discombobulation felt.

  To me, it feels as if we Americans have been in a communal surgery lately. The political arena is our operating room, and in it, politicians and a complicit media are trying to excise our common sense/dignity/commitment to facts. And as I struggle to get out of this anesthesia, I direct my befuddled comments not to a nurse but to Donald Trump: “But you’re not presidential like a real presidential candidate.”

  As usual, the chamber of commerce put on a swell Fourth of July fireworks display over Kingleigh Lake, with a twenty-five-minute show that lit up the sky with pinwheels and comets and multicolored bursts of glittering confetti. A big crowd on blankets and lawn chairs had situated itself on the south hill, and Lois and I enjoyed cheese and crackers and wine with some of our book club members. It was a balmy, beautiful, festive evening, and I smiled as I eavesdropped on teenagers to my left as they oohed and aahed over the fireworks and each other, and I frowned as I overheard two old gentlemen to my right talking (loudly) about how thrilled they are that it looks like Donald Trump will be the Republican presidential candidate.

  When he announced he was running last year and floated down that escalator like he was on his way to a shoe sale at Nordstrom, I wondered if I was watching an episode of Punk’d. I’ll admit to getting a kick out of watching that shallow blowhard in the Republican debates. Because I didn’t care much for his fellow debaters or their policies, his rude, pugnacious insults (Little Marco! Lyin’ Ted! Low-Energy Jeb!) were a source of childish entertainment. I was certain that is how he would ultimately be regarded, as childish entertainment (what’s he going to call someone next—Poopie Face?) meant for easy yuks (but certainly not for children).

  But wrong I was; despite his verifiable cheating, lying, and false boasts, despite his denial of science and his debunked conspiracy theories, despite his rants against immigrants/women/anyone who disputes him, he’s not only popular, he’s beloved and revered, by an extreme(ly) passionate base, like the old men I heard swooning over him.

  I don’t know these two men personally, but I could see by their age and the World War II Veteran hats they wore that they were part of what’s been called the Greatest Generation, a title I don’t believe they, or anyone, have earned. Don’t get me wrong. Of course I honor the bravery, industry, and we’re-all-in-this-together unity of those (like my brother, Tom) who grew up in the Depression and fought in the war, but the superlative determines that the contest’s over, that no following/preceding generation can be/was as great. How does that help us? Wouldn’t it inspire us to know that the Greatest Generation is still in the making?

  I’m old, and I don’t have any children of my own, but I still look to the future, still get excited for all children: What’s ahead for them? What’ll they discover? How’ll they make the huge differences our country, our world so desperately needs?

  I’m scared but ultimately excited for those teenagers watching fireworks and their peers and the ways they’ll help our upcoming President Hillary Clinton figure out how to make this world a better place for all, because, remember, the Greatest Generation . . . is yet to be.

  THESE BROWNIES DESERVE BRAGGING

  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

  3 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate

  ½ cup butter

  1 cup sugar

  2 eggs

  ⅓ to ½ cup flour (depending on how cakey you want brownies)

  pinch of salt

  ½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans

  1 teaspoon vanilla

  In saucepan, melt chocolate and butter over low flame. When completely melted, turn off burner, and stir in sugar. Set aside for 10 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Stir in flour, salt, nuts, and vanilla. Pour into a greased 8-inch-square pan, and bake for 40 minutes. When cool, cut into squares, and try not to eat all of them.

  28

  The genial and informal minister whom parishioners call Pastor Greg looks out at the mourners packed into the pews of St. John’s by the Lake. He smiles, knowing they will wait for whatever it is he has to say, and he is grateful for their patience, which gives him enough time to swallow the lump in his throat.

  “One of my,” says Pastor Greg, but his voice is rusty, and he stops to clear his throat. He begins again. “One of my enduring memories of Haze Evans was
seeing her in the back pew—that was her favorite seat—during one Christmas Eve candlelit service, laughing. It’s not that I don’t try to use a little wit in my sermons, but her laughter was more than I thought my sermon inspired. After the service was over and we gathered in the fellowship hall, I asked Haze what she had found so funny.

  “‘Check the program,’ she said. ‘See what the celestial beings are up to.’”

  “I have a very efficient secretary, but everyone makes mistakes now and then, and when I finally got back to the parsonage that night, I went over the program and saw the typo that had caused Haze such mirth. Among the carols the congregation had been directed to sing was this one: ‘Angels We Have Heard Get High.’”

  Laughing with the rest of the congregation, Sam thinks hold. Listening to the choir sing “Morning Has Broken,” he tears up, blinks hard, and thinks discard, and when his mother reads the eulogy and a wave of sadness, like a syrupy liquid, glugs through his body, he can’t help but think fold.

  Lame, he thinks next, wondering what he’d be thinking if he’d watched Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead the night before instead of some two-hour-long poker marathon.

  But he can’t help feeling that in the church packed with people, everyone is being dealt emotions from a big deck by a fast and tricky dealer. Throughout Haze’s service, people laugh, cry, laugh again, sigh, cry again.

  NOW SITTING WITH A GROUP OF FRIENDS (his entire English class showed up), after eating the luncheon put on by the church ladies, Sam can’t say for sure what he’s feeling . . . maybe grateful?

  “Why are you smiling?” asks Elise, who sits next to him.

  Sam looks down at his plate, and his grin widens.

  “Are you thinking about how you want another one of those toffee bars?” says Elise, taking his plate as she rises. “Because I do—they’re the bomb.”