by Barb Nobel
My son comes with me. We have always lived far away from my family; the twice yearly visit not enough for him to forge a strong bond with his grandmother. Yet, in his early 20’s, he comes with me out of a sense that family is important.
My mother is propped up in bed, looking small and tired. A short, once sturdy woman, she laments what little weight she now carries has followed gravity’s demands and settled in her hips.
This is the woman who raised five daughters. This is the woman who cared for us through childhood illnesses, comforted us after the cruelties of best friends, and saved us from things that went bump in the night. When we heard unexplained noises around our old, isolated farmhouse, she would pick up the baseball bat and say, “Lock the door after me girls, and don’t open it again until you hear my voice.”
We would hear her circling around the house, calling to potential intruders in her strong, fearless voice, “Come out now, come on.” Then her voice would be at the back door. When we let her back in, she would say “There’s nothing to worry about girls. Go to bed now.” And we would return to bed, forever safe.
My mother is wearing a pink bed-jacket of some shiny material.
“Do you want this on, Ma?” I ask, and she shakes her head. We wrestle her out of it and into her old grey sweater. She immediately looks more comfortable.
I have asked my mother to help me learn French. French is her first language; English is the language she learned in her early 30’s. I failed French in grade 9, dropped out of it in grade 10. Now, in middle age, I am trying again, and have enrolled in a beginner’s course in conversational French.
I ask my mother to say simple phrases to me in French so that I can repeat and translate. Then I try to say simple phrases to her in French. We do this for a while, then, suddenly, we are out of words. Strangely, neither of us can recall any more common, everyday phrases. We sit and think.
My mother says something in French, but I am thinking too hard and don’t catch what she says. I look up at her. Her hand is over her mouth, and behind her hand she is smiling.
“What?” I say. “What did you say to me?”
She takes her hand away from her mouth.
“Fermer tu,” she says.
“Did you hear that?” I ask my son, “Your grandmother just told me to shut up.”
He shakes his head, bewildered, not knowing how to react.
My mother and I explode into laughter. Shoulders shaking, we lean forward and look gleefully into each other’s contorted faces.
Our hearts rise, meet, and touch once more.
The Drive
“GOODBYE JIMMIE” SAM SAYS TO himself as he files out of the chapel behind the first rows. He knows what Jimmie would say, if he could say anything now: “You won’t be far behind me, boy-o.” It had been almost a password between them. After Jimmie’s first grope, first big drunk, first anything, he would say to Sam, “You won’t be far behind me, boy-o,” and then he would laugh his big laugh. He was usually right.
Not this time, Jimmie. Not this time.
Sam smooths his hand over his grey hair, and pulls the front of his jacket across the mustard stain on his white shirt. He was sure this suit had fit him better last time he wore it.
He makes his way slowly to the car, shaking hands as he goes, and he thinks about the good times. He thinks of how he and Jimmie had laughed at each other’s army issue haircuts, and of their first visit to a whorehouse, both of them panicky, but neither of them admitting it; and of how they had both got drunk at their own and the other’s wedding. He thinks about how Jimmie moved to the country after Susan was born, and of how they still knew each other’s thoughts on the rare times they got together.
Sam pulls the Monte Carlo into the line-up for the procession to the cemetery. He knows they’re going to Ogden. It’s where Marjorie had been put to rest, next to her parents. It’s what Marjorie had wanted, and Jimmie had been fine with that, even though there had been a cemetery closer to their own community.
Sam doesn’t know where Ogden is. In the church, when the minister was giving directions to the graveyard, he was thinking again about Jimmie, about how they stood up for each other in the army.
He had just figured out why Jimmie looked so different. It wasn’t just that he was dead; it was because he didn’t have that big sloppy smile on his face.
When Sam surfaced, the minister was telling everyone to turn left on County Road 16, and that it was right ahead.
Sam figures he’ll just follow.
He gets in line behind a green Stratus. A man is driving, and a woman with long blonde hair is in the passenger seat.
Nice looking woman Sam cackles. Not dead yet.
Someone from the funeral parlour wedges a white and blue funeral sign under the hood of the car in front, and then under Sam’s hood. He checks his mirror. Behind him is a white car with a man driving, no passengers. Behind the white car are maybe five other cars.
In about ten minutes, they turn onto the 401. The man in the green Stratus rides his brakes. It’s a lousy habit, but it makes him easy to follow. The procession picks up speed, and pretty soon they’re doing eighty. Sam sees something white fly out from between the cars. Then the funeral sign flies off the hood of the Stratus, does a flip over the roof, and disappears from sight. Another funeral sign goes flying past. His own sign stays put.
About three miles later, a car cuts in between him and the Stratus.
“Ignorant bastard,” Sam says out loud. “Should know better than to cut into a funeral procession.”
Three minutes later he’s straining to catch the brake lights of the Stratus. Finally, he spots it over in the middle lane and slides in behind. The white car and the rest of the procession follows. The woman with the long blonde hair is driving now, but she rides the brakes as bad as her husband.
Probably her husband taught her to drive.They should’ve asked me. I wouldn’t mind giving her a lesson or two. He chuckles to himself, thinking about what he would teach her.
Hold on, hold on. Sam shifts in his seat. You don’t change drivers when you’re doing eighty on the 401. Now a kid’s face pops up in the back window. There wasn’t any kid in that car before. This Sam knows for sure.
Christ! He’s following the wrong car, and everyone else is following him.
What the hell is he gonna do? Everyone else is following him, and he has no idea where he’s going.
Sam jumps on the accelerator. He keeps the old Monte Carlo in great shape, does most of the work himself, and he knows he can outrun these guys. Ahead of him, one of those 18-wheelers is barreling along. Sam flies up behind it, pulls over into the left lane, clears the truck, and pulls back into the middle lane. A family camper is in front of him now, and he blows his horn insistently. Eventually, the camper pulls over, and Sam zooms past, catching a glimpse of an upright finger. He pulls into the left lane and presses his foot to the floor. He passes a few more cars and another large rig, then pulls back into the middle lane and immediately into the right lane.
That should do it.
Nothing to do now but drive back to T.O. He doesn’t have the faintest idea where Ogden is. He’ll call it a day. He’ll miss the reception, but it can’t be helped. Too bad about the pies and cookies.
Sam glances into the rear view mirror. To his amazement he sees the white car with the funeral sign behind him. The driver is wiping his face. Behind the white car Sam can see a few other cars with funeral signs. Jesus, how did they keep up with that? And what is he going to do now? No way is he going to pull over and admit what he was doing.
An exit sign for Highway 2 comes, and Sam’s brain is clicking away. He knows there’s an old graveyard down this way. He remembers it from when he was visiting Jimmie. They went there for a beer. Marjorie didn’t allow smoking in her house, and you sure couldn’t have a beer without a smoke.
Now, if only his luck turns.
Sam pulls off the 401 onto Highway 2, a
nd drives more sedately. Violet Road, the cut off is called. Nothing wrong with his memory. There it is. The cemetery is about a mile down, he remembers. It’s an old dirt road. The Monte Carlo bumps over the ruts, and the dust billows up.
For a minute Sam contemplates making another get-away. He decides against it. He doesn’t want to rip the bottom out of the Monte Carlo. He tries to think about what he’s going to tell everyone when there’s no funeral at the bone yard. After a few minutes, he decides he’ll say they must have beat the rest of the procession. If he stays near the entrance maybe he can sneak out after a bit.
Five minutes later the grave yard comes into sight, and, jeeze, there’s something going on there. Sam grins with delight. All the cars are parked on the left, and Sam pulls over to the right and gets out. The white car pulls up behind him. At the gate, the driver of the white car gives Sam a solemn nod and murmurs something about being grateful that Sam knew where he was going. Sam puts his head down, swipes at his eyes, and blows his nose loudly. The other followers look away tactfully; they know he and Jimmie go way back. They all move toward the little band of mourners already there.
Sam backs quietly out of the grave yard. He moves faster than he has in many years. He gets into the Monte Carlo, closes the door quietly, and pulls out onto the dirt road. About a mile along he hangs a left at the crossroad, and soon finds himself back out on Highway 2.
Ten minutes later, Sam starts to think about who is being buried back there in the Violet graveyard. He wonders when his half of the mourners will discover that they are at the wrong grave site, and what their reaction will be.
Sam thinks of Jimmie again. He pulls the car into a driver’s rest stop, folds his arms over the steering wheel, and laughs till he wheezes. Jesus, Jimmie would have loved it.
He hears Jimmie’s big laugh for the last time.
Growth
I WAS DESPERATE, ABSOLUTELY DESPERATE. That’s why I did it.
My support group wouldn’t have understood it at all. For that matter, some of them thought I shouldn’t even be in the group. They made that clear on that last evening I was there. In the middle of me talking about how difficult it was that I couldn’t go dancing anymore, Melissa jumped out of her chair and started screaming at me.
“Your toes, your toes,” she screamed. “Look at me, I lost my freakin’ arm, and you’re whining about your toes.”
The group leader tried to restore calm, but soon everyone was standing up, screaming about how their loss was worse than the next person’s loss.
That’s when I got up and walked out.
The group leader called me the next day to encourage me to return. She said that I had as much right as anyone there to grieve my loss. I declined to return. In retrospect, I wish I had. They might have given me some good advice.
It’s true that losing a couple toes is nothing compared to losing a leg or an arm. But still, it affected me. I lurched slightly when I walked. I couldn’t go out dancing, as I mentioned earlier. I couldn’t wear my gorgeous Italian shoes. And I used to be so proud of my feet, my little feet with their high arches and pink toes, and no bunions.
I hadn’t thought anything about it when the pedicurist sneezed on my feet. Then I got what I thought was a minor infection in my toenail. It wasn’t until I got a diagnosis of necrotizing fasciitis, and decided to sue, that I found out the Pedicure Palace was closed and all the technicians had disappeared.
So I was desperate.
I saw the ad in one of those health magazines. You know, the ones that feature 95-year old grandmothers with thick silver hair climbing in the Andes, healthy cheesecake, and sex forevermore. It was right below the ad for beta carotene juice.
“Grow your limbs back,” it enticed. “Research lab is looking for 80 people to participate in an experiment to test a new drug. Gene research on centipedes and pollywogs indicate that it IS possible to grow back missing limbs.” In the picture was a white haired smiling man in a lab coat.
Well, I pondered, hem’d and haw’d, went back and forth, thought about asking my mother and my friends, and finally decided to just do it. So I went down to the address listed in the ad.
I really got the creeps when I walked into that room. It was full of limbless people, including two kids with their parents. There was an older guy without a nose. Is a nose even considered a limb? Eventually, a man in a white lab coat (not the man in the ad) came into the room and started to talk to us. He told us that there had been no trials on humans, and this drug was not approved by the Canadian Drug Association. It had been tried on some cats and other animals, and had been successful. He further explained to us that the animals hadn’t been injured in order to test the drug. The company was against animal testing, but the drug had been used to help animals who were already injured. Next, he told us about possible side effects; dry mouth, pain and/or itching in the missing limbs, sometimes depression. None of this bothered me. I already had phantom pain in the lost toes, I was already depressed, and what was a little more pain and a dry mouth compared to what I had lost?
After that, we were told we would have to sign a release guaranteeing that we wouldn’t sue the company, not that there would ever be any need to sue. At this point about 20 people, including the parents with their kids, left. I stayed.
We were told that we would have to take the medication with lots of water one hour before we ate in the morning. For the second time, the doctor explained about the possible side effects, and about signing the releases. A few more people left, and by now there were about 50 people still there.
After that, each of us had individual interviews with a nurse, during which the information was repeated for the third time. I signed the release. I asked how long before we would see results. The nurse didn’t know. She advised me that if I had any doubts I should leave now. I have no idea how many people left at the end of the individual interviews.
I took the medication home and got up an hour earlier each morning to take it. I figured it was worth every minute. I wanted my toes back.
I examined my feet every night, but three months passed without any results.
One morning though, I had a hell of a shock. I was doing my breast self-examination in the shower, and I discovered a lump.
I couldn’t believe it. First I lose my toes, now I’m probably going to lose my right breast. Well, you can bet I made an appointment with my doctor right away, and he confirmed it; there was a growth. He advised me not to panic. He booked a mammogram . I went for that, and the results were completely unsatisfactory, not to mention painful. It only confirmed was that there was a lump.
Then I went for another test, where they used a little rolling ball to bring up a picture of the lump on a TV screen. Then, back to the doctor. Well, there was nothing conclusive, so we discussed the options: lumpectomy, mastectomy, radiation, chemotherapy. What a list. We finally decided on a lumpectomy; that way, if it was benign, that would be it. On the other hand, if it was malignant, the surgeon would take out whatever was necessary right then and there. The lump was growing at a frightening rate. Surgery was quickly booked. I wavered between being convinced that it was just a cyst, and the dreadful thought that it was cancer, and that I would wake up without my right breast. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, couldn’t settle down to anything. My doctor supplied me with a note about stress, and I got some time off work.
By this time, I wasn’t even thinking of my missing toes. Taking the drug had become automatic, like taking my vitamins.
Time somehow became strange, and the day of the surgery was both too fast and too slow in arriving.
You can bet I was petrified. My mom and my sister, Lisa, came with me. Lisa and I have never been close, but I was sure glad she was there that day. She took charge, held my hand, and plumped up my pillows, and kept my mom calm—a major accomplishment.
I remember being wheeled into surgery, and the next thing I remembered was waking up in the recovery room. I h
ad always heard that’s how it goes. Beneath the bandages I could feel that I still had a breast. I was so relieved when the nurses reassured me that the lump was benign, and I had only a little ‘dip’ in the underside of my breast where it had been. If I had been capable of leaping out of bed and dancing around the room, I would have.
The worst was over, I thought.
There was no way I could have predicted what happened next.
No way.
The doctor visited me a few days later, took a look at the incision in my breast, and announced that it was healing well. I was feeling pretty good by that time, congratulating myself that I had come through something serious in the best possible way.
Then he said it, as he was going out the door. I’ll never forget his exact words.
“You’re a lucky girl,” he said. “That lump was benign, so no worries. We’ll just keep an eye on the breast, the other one too. Make sure you keep doing your BSE. It was pretty strange looking thing though, that thing we removed. It looked like a couple of toes, complete with toe nails. Not malignant though, that’s the main thing.”
Now I’m home, bed rest prescribed for a while, and Lisa is coming in after work to make me something to eat each day.
I tried to call the company that gave me that medication.
“The number you have called is not in service,” a mechanical voice said.
And now I’ve got this freaking lump growing out of my hip.
It doesn’t take a doctor to tell me what that is.
Fearless
I’M HALFWAY TO THE DOOR when I realize I’ve forgotten my overnight bag. I go back. There’s a woman coming toward me, an elderly white lady. I glance at her, then look away immediately. I know how I look to old ladies, particularly old white ladies, and here we are in the underground parking, where women need to be cautious anyway.
Normally, I wear a suit. Then I’m still a large black man, but obviously a professional, therefore safe. Today I’m dressed casual, shorts and a muscle shirt, with a few tattoos on display. I’m a weight lifter from way back, and usually these muscles are covered up. But this evening Mariella and I are having a casual evening, a few beers on the balcony, a little television.