by Joan Opyr
“Why ever not?”
“I hate dresses.”
“You need at least one.”
“Why?”
“What if someone dies? You don’t have a thing you could wear to a funeral.”
“Okay. If someone dies, I’ll wear that.”
I was allowed a brief sulk. Then, attired in the blue dress and my red-striped sweat socks, I stomped dutifully up and down the Hudson Belk’s Junior Miss aisle. Nana regarded me with dissatisfaction.
“It’s not hanging right,” she pronounced. “You need to stand up straight and practice your walking.”
“What’s the matter with the way I walk?”
“You’re galumphing,” she said. “You walk for all the world like John Wayne. Tuck your hips in and keep your knees together.”
“Like this?” I asked.
My mother, who’d taken no interest in the proceedings thus far, now leaned against a dress rack and laughed helplessly. “Now you’re walking like Jerry Lewis.”
“You need a book on your head,” Nana continued. “That’ll sort out your posture. And we’ll have to buy you a pair of heels.”
“No way!”
“You’ll need something to wear with that dress,” she said.
“I will never wear that dress.”
“You’re nearly thirteen years old. It’s high time you started acting like a lady.”
I cast a pleading glance at my mother. She was the original tomboy—I had pictures of her at my age wearing a baseball cap and a dirt mustache. She considered for a moment and said, “I think pumps would be more suitable with that hemline.” I cursed her for a traitor. She laughed again and then shrugged. “Well, it’s not up to me—I’m not buying it, and I don’t have to wear it. You two better work it out.”
After much wrangling, Nana and I reached a compromise. She bought me a new pair of jeans and two plaid shirts, and I agreed to let the dress hang in my closet until somebody died. Preferably me.
“I hate Southern women.”
“You do not,” Abby said. “You can’t leave them alone. Isn’t Crazy Cop from Alabama?”
I made a vain effort to stretch my left leg, jostling the laptop on the tray table of the man next to me. He grunted unhappily and went back to typing.
“I’ve got the shakes,” I said. “My legs are driving me crazy. It feels like spiders are crawling up and down my veins.”
“Hmm,” said Abby. “Spider veins. It’s probably withdrawal. You’re jonesing for a Percocet.”
“I wish I’d brought them with me.”
“I brought them with me, but you don’t need one. You’re not in any pain.”
“How do you know?”
“We’re not in North Carolina yet. When we get there, we’ll each take two.”
“I’m starving. I wish they still fed you on airplanes.”
Abby laughed. “How can you possibly miss airplane food? A stale bread roll. A miniature chicken breast on a bed of cold dry rice. Trying to slice things with no elbow room using those tiny knives and forks.”
“That’s what I miss—the tiny knives. I could use a couple to saw my legs off.”
“You should’ve sprung for first class. You’re too tall for coach.”
“Tell me about it,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Abby was jammed against the window. We’d raised the pointless armrest between us, but my left leg was sharing the edge of her seat. If the plane were to catch fire while sitting on the runway, they’d need a can opener to get us out. She said, “Did you at least rent a decent-sized car? Tell me you didn’t get a compact.”
“I got a Ford Explorer. It cost the earth.”
“You can afford it. I’ll drive.”
“That hardly seems fair . . .”
“You have stitches. You shouldn’t be driving for at least another month.”
“Then for God’s sake give me a Percocet. That was the only reason I was trying to remain sober.” I reached over the head of Mr. Laptop and rang for the stewardess.
“What are you doing?”
“No food, but there is a beverage service. I’m going to have a beer.”
Mr. Laptop put his computer away and got up to stretch his legs. He yawned for a moment or two and then ambled down the aisle towards the bathroom. I unfastened my seat belt and, through a laborious process designed to keep from pulling out my stitches or knocking Abby’s tomato juice into her lap, I reached under the seat and retrieved my jacket. I fished my wallet out of the inside pocket, picked out a credit card, and used it to release the telephone from the back of the headrest on the seat in front of me.
“You’re going to regret that,” Abby said, watching me dial.
“How much could it possibly cost?”
“About three bucks a minute, but I meant calling your mother after two drinks.”
“Shh,” I said. “She’s answering. Hello, Ma?”
“Poppy?” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re already here. I thought your flight didn’t get in until seven-fifteen.”
“I’m not there yet. I’m calling from our cruising altitude of thirty-thousand feet or whatever it is.”
“Oh. Can you see the Rockies yet?”
“I have no idea. At the moment, I’m enjoying a spectacular view of Abby’s right ear. She’s got the window seat. How is Hunter? Any change?”
“No change,” she said. “He looks just awful. It’s pure shocking how much he’s aged just in the last few days. You remember how great-grandma looked right at the end? Well, he looks just like her.”
“He’d hate that.”
“Wouldn’t he, though? I’m sorry to be bringing you home for all this, but I’m glad that you’re coming, and it’s certainly nice of Abby to come with you. I don’t know how to talk to these people, these doctors. They speak another language. I also don’t know how we’re going to pay for all this.”
“Medicare will pay, and what they don’t cover, the hospital can eat. You’re not responsible for his bills.”
“I’m his power of attorney,” she said.
“I know that,” I explained, “but that just means you administer his affairs. It doesn’t mean you’ve opened your wallet to the world.”
“I hope not. Last time he was in the hospital, they sent me a bill for forty-three thousand dollars. Did I tell you that?”
“You told me. And I told you to ignore it. You can ignore this one, too. We’ll sort everything out when I get there. How’s Nana?”
My mother’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Strange. Inappropriate. She comes with me to the hospital every day. Sometimes she acts like she’s about to be his widow, and other times she interrupts the doctors to ask stupid questions, like whether or not you can cure a bunion with duct tape.”
“Duct tape? Is that like using a potato to cure warts?”
“Oh, who knows? Maybe if you put the duct tape over your mouth, you can’t complain about your bunions.”
“Or ask doctors stupid questions. Look, Nana is probably not sure what her role in this should be. Do ex-wives become ex-widows?”
“I have no idea. I just know that she’s driving me crazy.” There was a pause and then a sigh. “When should we expect you? Do you want us to wait and have supper together? There’s a new restaurant you might like to try, a seafood place. Very inexpensive and they give you a pure platter. Nana and I usually split a meal—it’s more than any one person can eat.”
“I’ll call you,” I hedged, knowing my mother’s taste for deepfried, rubbery shrimp. “We have to pick up the rental car and check in at the hotel. It might be late by the time all that’s settled.”
I looked up to find Mr. Laptop hovering in the aisle, clearly annoyed.
“Sorry,” I said, in a failed attempt to appease him. “Look, Ma, I’ve got to go.”
“I’m sure this is costing you an absolute fortune.”
“It doesn’t matter. I can afford it.”
“Must be nice,” she said. “Bye
.”
“Good-bye,” I replied in some exasperation. I switched off the phone and snapped it back into the headrest. Mr. Laptop could now be damned. I took my time refolding my jacket, and when he grunted impatiently, I shot him a look that could have shriveled stone fruit.
“Here,” Abby said, taking my jacket. “I’ll put that under my seat. You hold my drink.”
I held my breath until Abby was settled again, then I eased my left leg back onto the edge of her seat, and returned my own seat to the fractionally reclining position.
“I hate when she does that,” I said.
“Does what?”
“Says things like ‘must be nice’when I tell her I can afford something. I make a reasonable amount of money. My income is right there in the middle between Nelson Rockefeller and skid row.” Mr. Laptop snorted. Taking advantage of the fact that I was both taller than he was and not entirely sober, I stretched out in my seat, forcing him to lean into the aisle. “My mother acts like she has to collect cans for a living.”
“You’ve gotten above your raising,” Abby replied. “It happens to the best of us. You ought to hear what Edna has to say on the subject of my fine-hairedness. I’m too good to drink instant iced tea. I’m too good to eat macaroni and cheese out of a box. It doesn’t matter that no one over the age of seven likes powdered orange cheese, and I have never liked iced tea, period.”
“And yet we both go home once a year, like clockwork. It’s ritual abuse. Speaking of which, have you called Edna yet to tell her you’re coming?”
Abby shook her head, then reached up and rang for the stewardess. I gave her a quizzical look.
“Just made a quick calculation,” she said. “One beer plus three more hours of plane ride means I’ll be sober enough to drive when we get there.”
“Make it two,” I agreed. “I’ll be the designated drunkard.”
Chapter Four
Nana was bad for my self-esteem. Hunter was a bad example.
There were so many ways in which my grandfather was great. At first, he was the anti-Eddie. We went places together, the whole family, to the beach or the mountains. We went to Carowinds and the Tweetsie Railroad—although there were so many flies at the latter that Hunter called it the Tsetse Railroad.
He liked to eat take-out. A couple of nights a week, he brought home fried chicken or pulled pork barbecue. He also liked to cook, a good thing since neither Nana nor my mother had much skill in the kitchen. My grandfather was domestic to a certain extent. He built things, he made repairs. In Michigan, we’d once had to flush our toilet with a bucket for three weeks until my father got around to fixing it.
Hunter wasn’t uncritical. He had a sarcastic streak and a temper that in many ways was far worse than my father’s. But he was also encouraging. He believed I could do anything I set my mind to. He cleared out a spot in his workshop and let me build things or tinker with little bits of machinery to my heart’s content. I could use his tools, as long as I remembered to clean them up afterwards and put them back where I’d found them, and when I was successful, when I fixed the toaster or changed the sprocket on my bicycle, he was genuinely proud.
For my thirteenth birthday, Hunter bought me a motorcycle. It was a fifty-dollar clunker he got from a friend at work. I spent two days disassembling the carburetor, cleaning the screens, and putting it back together. When I was finished, it ran. Not well and not smoothly—white smoke poured from the exhaust pipe—but it would go. Hunter stood on the back porch and grinned from ear to ear.
“Goddamn,” he said. “Would you look at that? Goddamn.”
My grandfather’s problem was that he drank. He was a binger. Every weekend, every holiday, every birthday, every funeral, and every wedding—nothing was sacred and no occasion was safe. Through trial and error and bitter experience, I learned when it was safe to bring people home and when I needed to stay away myself, but in those early days, the first few months after we’d moved to North Carolina, the drinking didn’t seem like a problem at all. It seemed like a boon.
August 10 rolled around and Lucky Eddie forgot my birthday. No card, no present, no phone call. My mother was incandescent with rage. I didn’t care. As far as I was concerned, being away from my father was present enough. Hunter got drunk that night. He sat at the kitchen table and poured himself beer after beer. At one o’clock that morning, the trashcan was full of empties and the ashtray in front of him was filled with cigarette butts. Nana sat in the living room in the rocking chair. The TV was on, but her eyes were shut and she was snoring loudly through her open mouth. My mother had long since gone to bed.
“It’s a goddamn disgrace,” Hunter said.
“What is?”
“Forgetting your goddamn birthday. He’s got one child.” He held up his index finger. “One. And he can’t remember her birthday. What kind of son of a bitch is that?”
“A sorry one?” I suggested.
“A sorry son of a bitch,” Hunter agreed. He shook his head sadly and brushed the hair out of his eyes. Hunter had a head full of thick white hair, which he wore brushed straight back from his forehead and held in place by Vitalis hair tonic. The first sign of incipient drunkenness was that he would start running his fingers through his hair. When it fell onto his forehead and into his eyes, he was usually close to passing out. “It didn’t have to be this way. He didn’t appreciate what he had. You and your mama, you’re goddamn jewels, you know that? Jewels. Pearls without price.”
This was a familiar line. It was also meaningless. One night, he told me I was the baby Jesus come back to earth because I found the bottle opener he’d accidentally thrown into the trashcan.
“Don’t tell me about it,” I said, yawning. “Tell him.”
“Goddamn it, I will! Give me the phone.”
This was a new one. I lifted the receiver off the wall and handed it to him, then I watched in dazed and tired amazement as he held the phone at arm’s length, trying to focus on the dial.
“What’s the number?” he said.
“313-555-4237.”
“All right. It’s ringing. It’s ringing again. Pick up you sorry . . . Hello, there!” My grandfather’s voice grew friendly, expansive, and exaggeratedly Southern. It was as if Foghorn Leghorn had suddenly stepped into our kitchen. “Is this Edward T. Koslowski? It is? Well, this is Hunter C. Bartholomew. How the hell are you? You are? Why in the world would you be sleeping?”
The conversation played out in this fashion for several minutes, my father admonishing Hunter for calling him so late, my grandfather pretending not to understand. I could never figure out why Eddie didn’t hang up on him, but he never did—and my grandfather called him dozens of times over the next few years. Hunter was a great believer in the telephone. He’d get drunk and call the White House or the president of General Motors and some poor operator would be stuck saying, “Yes, sir,” and “No, I’m afraid I can’t, sir,” while Hunter said, “I tell you this is Hunter C. Bartholomew of Raleigh, N.C. Wake him up—Mr. Reagan will want to talk to me.”
“All right,” Hunter was saying, “all right. You can go back to bed now. I just wanted to tell you something. I’ve figured out what the T stands for in Edward T. Koslowski—no, it’s not that. The T is for turd. You’re a goddamn, turd-tapping, toe-sucking son of a bitch. Good night to you.”
The next day was Saturday. Hunter and I had a standing date to go out to my great-grandmother’s farm. We’d pack my motorcycle in the back of his van, and I would ride while he and Uncle Fred fished. I didn’t know if he’d be up for it or not, but in the morning, he was raring to go.
“I’ve got something for you,” he said. “You can use it on your father the next time you see the bastard.” He held out a gas-powered BB pistol.
My grandmother pitched a fit. My mother issued dire warnings about loss of sight. I kept quiet for fear that if I danced for joy they’d think I was too immature to be trusted with the gun. I should have gone ahead and danced. The accident proved my mother ri
ght and forever shattered my grandmother’s slim hope of turning me into a lady.
The pond behind my great-grandmother’s house was really just a glorified irrigation ditch. It was full of bug-eyed fish stocked by my grandfather, agricultural run-off, and old junk my Bartholomew kin were too lazy to take to the dump. During drought years, the back end of a ’63 Mercury rose from the depths like a rusty-finned Venus.
Though Hunter and Fred went through the motions, they weren’t really there to fish. They were there to drink. Nana was a strict Southern Baptist and, consequently, a teetotaler. Drinking at our house took place only after dark.
Hunter was also a Southern Baptist, but he lacked Nana’s unquestioning belief in God’s benevolent dictatorship. He didn’t doubt God’s existence, only his intentions. “God is a son of a bitch,” he used to say. “Goddamn him.” I never knew if it was my grandmother’s disapproval or a secret fear of divine retribution in the afterlife for each and every beer, but it was important for Hunter to maintain the fiction that he got drunk only by accident. He always had an alibi—the weather was hot and the beer was cold; someone slipped him a Coke that had bourbon in it; he only had one or two. For the alcoholic Baptist, drinking is like giving a whore a ride to church—if you focus on where you’re going, God might overlook what happened on the way.
I couldn’t blame Hunter or his drinking for the accident, though both had an effect on the aftermath. If he’d been sober, I’d still be called Frankie.
We arrived at the farm just before noon, and, as usual, we drove right past great-grandma’s house and straight to the pond. Miss Agnes was at home. I knew it because I’d seen the curtains in her bedroom twitch as we passed by. She lived in her bedroom during the summer months. It was the only air-conditioned room in the house.
Miss Agnes was a crotchety old woman, and although she was in her eighties, she lived alone. The Bartholomews were a large family, not a close one. My grandfather and his siblings—there were seven of them—paid a woman named Pearl Johnson to look after Miss Agnes. Pearl came in five days a week to do the cooking and housekeeping, and the kids trusted her to let them know if the old lady needed anything. At Nana’s insistence, I’d begun sticking my head in on the weekends to check on Miss Agnes. She never seemed particularly pleased to see me. She certainly never invited me into the bedroom to enjoy the air-conditioning.