I knew he’d be all right. I prayed that he would be all right—but now I had a vision of my life without the people I loved. Losing Dad was agony enough. No one else could go. Other people’s friends could die but not mine. I needed them too much. I loved them too much. Would life be worth living without them? I knew I’d find out in the decades ahead. I felt as though I’d been hitched to Calamity’s traces and was now pulling heavy, unwelcome knowledge.
36
MOTHER DROPS A BOMBSHELL
WEDNESDAY … 29 APRIL
Regina called at seven-thirty A.M. to tell me the doctor confirmed that Jackson had suffered a mild heart attack. Somehow it was consoling to have the doctor say what we already knew. He’d be out of the hospital in a few days, after they ran tests on him.
I told her to come to the stables around five. We could ride and take her mind off her troubles. She said she might.
The Clarion chugged along, its last week at the southeastern corner. Charles stepped with a heavy tread. The enormity of what had transpired was seeping into his pores. As it was, nobody was smiling much.
Mother called. She expected to see me after work, ready to paint and ready to talk. My hand shook when I hung up the phone.
Michelle noticed. “You all right?”
“Mom’s working on my mood.”
“Juts doesn’t appear to be the kind of woman to mince words.”
“Yeah—I know.” I opened my drawer to see my penknife and my “good” paper clips, lined up. The order made me feel better. “I can’t fault her this time. I’ve been stupid. I sat up half of last night thinking about stupidity. You know, Michelle, history is not intrinsically cyclical. The cycles only mean we haven’t learned anything from the past. Therefore, one factor is not cyclical: human stupidity.”
“So much for history. What about you?”
“You’re getting cheeky, you know that? The bingo article was fine. Don’t let it go to your head.”
Michelle, when she first arrived, would have backed down with her tail between her legs. Not now.
“Who died and made you God?”
That phrase out of Michelle’s mouth stopped me cold. “You’ve been talking to my mother.”
“She took me out for breakfast last week, remember?”
I remembered. “What’d she do—tell you every sin I’ve committed since birth?”
“No, she advised me that your bark is worse than your bite.”
“My mother said that?” Now how was I going to scare Michelle into submission when she sprinkled adjectives with gay abandon throughout her work?
“She talked mostly about herself.”
“Her favorite subject.” I was a trifle unkind.
“It’s everybody’s favorite subject.”
“It doesn’t seem to be yours.”
She shrugged. “What can I say? I come from a family where my father wears a coat and tie for dinner and he calls Mother ‘darling’ when he wants to call her ‘bitch.’ I’d rather deal with your mother any day.”
“Sure, she’s not your mother. I could probably deal with yours better than you do.”
“If you can get the shot glass out of her mouth.” A flash of anger illuminated her face.
“I’m sorry.”
“I used to be. Now I’m disgusted. If Mom and Dad had any guts they would have gotten divorced years ago. However, their place in the social set is more important than anyone’s happiness, even their own. You’d be surprised at how many people live their lives like that.”
“I guess Diz and Liz do. I never thought about it much.”
“I didn’t either until I came here. My first few months on this paper I felt like I was in a foreign country.… I was. People say anything to one another. They curse and throw glue pots. Even the men cry.”
I heard Lolly thumping her tail under my desk. “Actually, people don’t say as much as you think. I guess we do show a fair amount of emotion, but don’t be deceived. There are emotions hidden as deeply here as the ones you’re talking about back home.”
“I suppose if someone was a murderer they’d hide it.”
“Who wouldn’t? No, I mean the resentments. The old pains. You and I see the surface angers but I’m not sure I know where they started. Like the bickering between Mom and Wheezie. I don’t think they know anymore.”
She was considering this when I observed Roger crossing the Square. He was coming from the Bon Ton building.
“You going to blackout bingo with Rog?”
“Yes, but I’m going to tell him it’s our last date. That deadline gives me time to work up my courage.”
“Don’t hold this against him.” I swept my hand in the room, indicating the paper itself. “He did the smart thing.”
“I know but I feel like I’m leading him on.” I understood and we shut up when Roger came through the door. He may have a felt a bit traitorous, because he was conspicuously silent too. Breaking up the old gang was hard but we had two more days together as a full staff, so we might as well enjoy them.
Gene canceled our riding date so I scooted directly over to Mother’s. Might as well get it over with.
I wasn’t going to enjoy painting Mother’s living room or enduring a scene over Jackson. I pulled the Chrysler up her manicured driveway. Lolly, Pewter, and I hopped out and let ourselves in the back door. The kitchen shimmered with the aroma of fried chicken, greens with fatback, and grits. Well, if she was going to lay me out to whaleshit, she was going to feed me well while she did it.
Mother was in the living room. She’d prepared everything for me. All I’d have to do would be to dip the roller in the oil-based paint. We never used acrylic paints. She’d assembled good brushes for the trim work too.
She let me get started. While I painted she rewired a lamp.
“So?”
“Mom, what can I say? I was having an affair with him. I broke it off. Last night we really were doing business—not what you think.”
“It took two of you to make that mistake. What’s he got to say for himself?”
“The only thing he ever said to me was that he loves Regina but twenty-two years—is twenty-two years.”
She was carefully stripping off the covering of a wire. “Heard that one before.”
“Mom, why don’t we just fight and get it over with? You can call me any name in the book. I deserve it but I might lose my temper anyway.”
“You and Jackson were like two shits that passed in the night.” Her crooked smile twitched.
“Go on.” My cheeks were warming up.
“I’m not mad at you.”
“You’re not?” I bobbled the roller.
“Careful!”
I regained control of it. “Yes, ma’am.”
“It could have been worse. You could have acted like the Siamese twins of love, joined at the hip.”
“Thanks.” I was not enthusiastic.
“I don’t care about sexist acts between consenting adults.” She twisted the wires together. “I mean sexist.”
“Very funny. I think I’d feel better if you let me have it.”
“I can’t do that. I’m not saying it’s right what you did. It isn’t. And I hope to heaven my sister and her big-nosed sidekick Orrie never find out. But right or wrong, it makes sense to me. You’ve known each other since you were kids. You liked each other. You and Jackson used to play baseball and tennis together from sunup to sundown from kindergarten through college. I thought you’d catch fire then but no, he wanted the other one. Nice girl but I’ve always felt you and Jackson have more in common than Jack and Regina.”
“I don’t think men marry women, at least when they’re young, on the basis of commonality.”
“You know what Cora used to say, ‘Men fall in love with their eyes, and women with their ears.’ And, honey, Regina is a knock-out. You’re good-looking but she’s a magazine type.”
“Kept her looks too.”
“Too much makeup—but yes. I expect Jac
kson’s flopped in that hospital bed with deep thoughts. I don’t envy him.” She put down her wire clippers, next to the strippers. “Would you marry him if he got a divorce?”
“He never would.”
“That’s not the question. Would you?”
I’d never thought about it. Not once. Which says something about my ability to push back certain emotions.
“I guess I believe that Jack belongs to her no matter what I feel for him—so, no, I don’t think I would marry him.”
We didn’t say anything else until I finished the room. “Mom, can we eat? I’ll do the trim after supper.”
We ate. She told me that she’d been talking to Mr. Pierre about learning hairstyling. She’d like to make a little money. I’d heard this before. Right now, apart from social security, her small savings, and what I contributed, Mother’s income came from babysitting. She got a lot of business because she was great with kids.
“Now I’ve got something to tell you.”
“Yes?” I dug into my grits, my second helping.
“Ed Tutweiler Walters and I are going to live together.”
I paused, stared at my grits, and put down my spoon. “What are you saying?”
“You heard me.”
“My God. Mom, you barely know him!”
“That’s why we’re living together. We’ll be living in sin.” She beamed.
“He hardly talks.”
“That’s the way he is. He has a good sense of humor.”
“He’s going to need it,” I blurted out.
“You’re a fine one to talk. After what you’ve just gone and done.”
“Oh, I don’t care about the living in sin part—I think—maybe, well, I don’t know.”
“You don’t like him?”
“No, no, I do like him. I wish I knew him better.”
“You’ll have that opportunity.”
“What about Wheezie?”
Goodyear stirred on the floor.
“I don’t know. I have to think of some way to break it to her. I’ve talked to Mr. Pierre. We thought maybe we could ease her into it tomorrow at the Curl ’n Twirl. It’s harder for her to throw a major hissy if people are around.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
“If I bring her here she’ll destroy the house. If I go over to hers she’ll yank the phone cords out of the wall and pull the drapes down. You know how she gets.”
“Maybe if Orrie’s there it’ll help.”
“We thought of that.” She placed a crisp wing on my plate. “He can’t take your father’s place.”
“I know. I’m a little shocked, that’s all. I think when it has time to settle in I’ll be happy for you.” I took a bite. “Mom, does this mean I won’t see you so much?”
“Sometimes you act as though that would be a bonus.”
I didn’t respond.
After a few minutes she spoke. “Maybe you won’t see me quite as much because I’ll be going places with Ed.”
“Are you doing this because of social security?”
“Partly, and partly because when I was young people got married. You courted and you got married and that was that. I think the freedom people have today is better. You don’t really know someone until you live with him. I don’t care what anyone says, I’m living with him and I have no intention of going down the aisle. Maybe later, if it doesn’t mess up money, yes—but not now. No one’s telling me what to do or how to do it. It’s my life.”
I ate some more and thought about what she’d said. “Mom, good luck.”
“You too.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’ve lost your baby—the paper—and you’ve lost a romance even if it was ill-advised, and you’re going to feel blue for a while.”
After dinner and a dessert of white cake with vanilla and bitter chocolate icing, Mother’s special recipe, I started the woodwork. I should have waited until the walls were completely dry but I’m a careful painter and I wanted to get the job done. I’d get the other rooms another time but she did need her living room. Maybe Ed could paint the other rooms. He began to seem like a good idea.
She showed me Peepbean’s work on her coffee table. It did look like marble. I was amazed that Peepbean was that accomplished a craftsman.
At eleven I decided to bag it. I was tired and I started to make mistakes. I cleaned the brushes, cleared up my mess.
I kissed Mom at the door on the way out. “Thanks for supper.”
“I’ll call you when we’re all at the shop.”
“Okay. I’ll come over.” I waited a second. “Mom, thank you for being understanding. I thought you’d rip me up one side and down the other.”
“I’m not giving you a good-conduct medal, Nickel, but these things happen. You’re in the prime of life. I don’t expect you to live like a nun.”
“None of this and none of that.”
She smiled. “You know right from wrong but, well, you made a mistake.”
“I thought you’d blow up because of my natural mother. I mean, didn’t she fool around with a married man and get caught?”
Mother stiffened slightly. “You aren’t at all like her, and times are different now.”
“I hope so. But when I see some of the shit that comes over the AP wire, I wonder.”
“Thank you for being understanding about Ed.”
“It’s a surprise, but you shouldn’t be alone. I always thought there’d be another man in your life but it took a long, long time. Think it will take me that long?”
“Don’t be thinking about time. When it’s right, it’s right.”
I kissed her again and left. Maybe Mother was growing up too. Maybe you never stop. If this had happened to me ten years ago I think she would have killed me. Or maybe I was off base. I could misjudge Mother but I think we do that to the people closest to us. We expect more from them and we’re harder on them when they disappoint us. It isn’t fair, but that’s the way it is. I was grateful she didn’t disappoint me tonight and I hoped I hadn’t disappointed her too much by my escapade with Jackson.
I did know right from wrong, dammit, but those Ten Commandments are sure easier to read off the page than to practice. Back then when people got married their life span was about twenty-five years. Until death us do part came swiftly. Now we live into our eighties and nineties and often in good health. I meet more people in one year than my grandmother met in her lifetime. Some of those people are sexually attractive. I’m not saying that the Ten Commandments are out of date but I do think it was easier to keep them for those Hebrews out there in the desert in the backward dark abyss of Time. Then I wondered about the difference between Christians and Jews. What is a Christian but a Jew with a life insurance policy.
37
I DROP A BOMBSHELL MYSELF
THURSDAY … 30 APRIL
My editorial on the private life of public figures jolted the town. I came out strongly for full disclosure of all aspects of a candidate’s life including his or her sexual life, but my reasoning was not exactly what most people’s reasoning was, even if they came to the same decision. I said that politicians today were little more than another form of entertainer. Hell, they had face lifts, hair jobs, dye jobs, and makeup jobs, and of course blow jobs. They studied with media consultants, wardrobe consultants, and probably even psychic consultants. They were just another group of suntanned bullshitters, less concerned with serving their constituency than with landing a bit part on Dynasty. If politicians wanted to act like movie stars, then we, the public, had a right to treat them like movie stars. Their private lives were now fodder for the public they so desperately sought to dazzle. The presidential race evolved into a pretty-boy contest. I myself would rather see George Shultz as a candidate than one of the glamour boys. As for liberals, Alan Cranston was still in there fighting but he, too, was not another pretty face.
The phones jangled off the hook. Some Runnys laughed; some were furious; some agreed with me; others wa
nted to know why Charles would allow sexual innuendo in the paper. Innuendo. How polite of them. I laid it on the line.
Wasn’t it boiling down to sex anyway? Sex is used to sell cars, underarm deodorants, breakfast cereal, and now, politicians. And sex was destroying Gary Hart. We sat around the AP wire machine like kids under a Christmas tree. The lady’s name, Donna Rice, was revealed. No one even pretended that she was part of the campaign team. When Hart issued a statement saying he was wronged by the press, he sang in every key but the right one. If the man had had any guts he would have looked America squarely in the eye and said, “Yes, I slept with her and it was great.” If he had guts and was a gentleman he could have said, “I love her. I know this will cause distress for my family but I love her nonetheless.” Even wispy Edward VIII had courage at his Waterloo. But maybe Gary Hart was a cold, calculating man. Maybe he didn’t love her. Maybe he figured, as many people do, that he could eat his cake and have it too. He’d been married very young. I can’t imagine being married as many years as Senator Hart, but putting that difference aside, it’s better to come clean. Maybe the American public wouldn’t vote into office a man who admitted he loved a woman who was not his wife but I think they might respect him for admitting it.
My own feeling was that there probably wasn’t a representative or senator who has remained faithful to his wife unless someone’s been feeding him saltpeter. There’s something askew about a nation that expects its public servants to have better morals than the rest of us. Maybe the public doesn’t expect its elected officials to have better morals but merely to be more clever in the deception. Curious.
While the Gary Hart scandal bubbled over, the PTL mess sank to name-calling. By the time Jim Bakker’s enemies were finished with him, it sounded as though the guy went on one big fuckathon. I couldn’t tell if the other TV preachers were jealous or genuinely concerned about the state of his soul. It wouldn’t be his soul that I’d be concerned about.
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