by Cathy Lamb
Oh, how they laughed. He is darn funny.
“Let’s hope they use”—he paused and wiggled his eyebrows—“ pro-tec-tion.”
Those kids howled. I rolled my eyes, Ethan’s laugh booming in my ears.
“Now I’m in trouble with Boss Mom for saying that.” Then he lowered his voice and said in a low, deep monotone, “Sex education is part of a solid health education. And using protection is an important lesson for all youngsters to know.”
I tried to be mad at him, but oh, his classmates thought he was hilarious.
“But now I wanna talk to you all about my teammates here and our home boy, Coach Boynton. We’re friends, all of us here, that’s why we won. We went out there believing we would win, and we did. It was a good game, wasn’t it?”
Whoo whoo!
And then, Tate, kind Tate, generous Tate, said something special about all of his teammates. “Milt’s third quarter steal, man, did you see that? And Baron’s baskets. He has magic hands.... Anthony’s defense, he’s a python, wrapping around his opponent.. . . Kendrick, if you hadn’t pummeled that ball to me on the last shot we’d have had a different game. . . .”
“Tate makes everyone feel special,” Ethan said, his voice breaking. “Everyone. That’s his gift. An acknowledgment of everyone else.”
“The worst part, though”—Tate paused, and I thought he was going to say something serious about his injury, as I think everyone else did, too—“the worst part of the game was that I thought Coach Boynton was going to need a diaper, he was so excited that night. A diaper!” Tate pulled out a giant-sized adult diaper from a sack that I’d put on the stage for him, held it up, waved it around, then tossed it to Coach Boynton.
Sooo much laughter and hooting.
“Put it on, man. We don’t want any accidents in the gym,” Tate said. Coach Boynton did not want to put it on. “Okay, but if you have to head to the toilet, we get it, Coach.”
Ha ha ha.
“I’d say it was the coolest game ever until General Noggin was hit.” Tate pointed to his head. “And General Noggin shut down for a bit. That would not be classified as a smiley-face day. But see, I had a gift that day, and it wasn’t just a gift of winning the state championship, even though that was radical.”
He nodded when the drums rolled.
“But see, I died that day in the hospital.”
Ah. Now everyone was quiet.
“I died. I died on the table. The ol’ ticker stopped. I think most of you know that. A whole bunch of you, I hear, were up at the hospital when I crashed. Thanks for being there, by the way. Good of you to come and visit me when I was such a poor host.
“I want you fellow galaxy walkers to know what happened when I died. No one wants to think about dying, especially us, because we’re young and we’re gonna rock the world one day, but my mom always says, ‘We’re all going to die so we all have to love life each day we’re still here.’ ”
The mom who said that was a blubbery mess.
“When I died, all I felt was peace. I saw a friend of mine named Maggie Shoes, too, but I can’t talk about her right now. There was that white light that people talk about, too. It was soft. It was safe. It was happy. I felt the happy. I took a visit to heaven. A short one, and I came back.” He smiled at everyone, solemnity in a day of celebration. “Live free, galaxy walkers, but take the fear out of death for yourselves ’cause I already went, and dudes and dudettes, there ain’t nothin’ to fear.”
Now those teenagers clapped. They liked the idea of no fear.
“Go out and have fun and laugh, but remember to stick your hand out to help other people. Be a friend. Be kind. Include others so they don’t feel left out. Don’t be a dick, and don’t be scared.”
We all clapped.
“I shouldn’t have used the word”—he cupped the microphone—“ dick. Now Boss Mom is going to be upset with me. Okay, I’ll rephrase it. Rewind! Everyone”—he spread his arms out—“don’t be a penis!”
That brought the house down.
I covered my face with my hands in mock embarrassment. I wasn’t embarrassed, I was simply, utterly grateful that Tate was even standing up in his basketball uniform again.
“Don’t be a penis!” he said again.
The kids about fell over each other with laughter. They started stomping their feet on the bleachers.
“So I hear there’s a Winter Formal tonight. . . .”
Tate paused, more stomping, the drums rolled.
“It’s gonna be cool!”
The Winter Formal had been moved to accommodate Tate. It had been scheduled for the night after the game but no one wanted to go. The student body voted to move the date for Tate. That date was tonight, and we would be having a whole bunch of kids over to our house beforehand.
“I hope you all go to the dance. If you don’t have a date, come anyhow. Once we’re all there, no one will know who anybody’s date is anyhow, right?” They cheered.
Tate raised his arms up and grinned, that toothy grin stretching across his face. “This is our time, you know what I mean? We’re all”—and he paused—“we’re all damn sexy! Look at General Noggin with his Cleopatra. Who can resist him? Who?” He pointed at his head as those kids howled. “No, not you, Roderick.” He shook his head at a kid in the audience. “General Noggin is not interested in you, sorry, buddy.” Roderick laughed so hard he wriggled. “General Noggin is only interested in the ladies. The female sort, not you, Roderick. You’re a male species. Emphasis on the word species. Come to the dance. Let’s dance right here. Watch me dance, this is how you do it! Play something, band!”
The band played “Tequila.”
Tate performed a dance move. It was awkward, it was unbalanced, it was sweet. He knew it would make people laugh and it did. “There isn’t anyone out there who is a worse dancer than I am and I’m going to dance. So, you all coming?”
The kids flew out of their seats, yes, they were! Yes, they were! They were going to the Winter Formal!
“Excellent!” Tate shouted, raising one fist in the air. “Excellent.”
He then turned and grabbed Coach Boynton and slow danced with him, cheek to cheek, thigh to thigh. Coach Boynton’s head tipped back as he cracked up, as everyone laughed and whistled. Tate dipped Coach Boynton all the way back, that romantic sort of dip that the waltzers do, and kissed his cheek, and that brought the house down.
I have never, in my life, seen that many people celebrating with such free-flowing joy, with the exception of Coach Boynton, that Mafia bad-ass tough guy, who cried.
At the end of the song Melinda gave the signal, and orange and black balloons dropped from the ceiling along with confetti. The expected chaos ensued as the kids grabbed the balloons, stuck their tongues out to catch the confetti, danced to a modern song the band struck up, and cut loose as kids do.
Caden stuck both huge fists in the air and yelled, “That’s my boy! That’s my boy!” My mother sank to her chair and buried her happy head in her hands. The Life Saver, lollipop, and hot dog bee-bopped around the stage with their balloons. Damini said, “He’s such a pain in my keester,” then ran up and hugged Tate, and he hugged her, then started spinning her around, her short, ruffled pink skirt flying around her legs.
I hugged Ethan and took a moment in the chaos. A moment to be. A moment to rejoice, to be grateful, to be loved, to watch my son bring the gift of love and laughter to other people.
Tate was alive.
It was, without a doubt, the most magical moment of my entire life.
Thank you.
Tate’s speech was played on the news that night, along with his story. AP picked it up.
His blog site was listed.
42,000.
TATE’S AWESOME PIGSKIN BLOG
Here’s a photo of General Noggin and me.
You can see that I don’t have much hair on one side of General Noggin. You can see my ear, Bert, now. That’s where the ol’ doctors, my favorite doctor especially,
Dr. Ethan Robbins, shaved my head and cut it open. Good thing Dr. Robbins can wield a knife. It’s like being a carpenter, you know, in a way. Except you’re cutting and patching up a brain, not a birdhouse or shelves or a house or something.
Here’s a photo of Dr. Robbins and me.
My new name for him: Boss Dad.
Yep. My Boss Mom and Dr. Robbins, Boss Dad, are getting married.
Here’s a picture of Boss Mom, Boss Dad, and me. Yes, we are balancing bananas and apples on our heads. You can see that I am winning. It’s an unfair advantage with General Noggin, but too bad for them.
Yeah, that IS my mom. I know. She’s young and you think she’s a college girl, but she’s not and she’s strict and don’t mess with her, and especially don’t get Witch Mavis going. I love you, Boss Mom!
A lot of people have asked me about the guy who pushed me at the last second of the basketball game and smashed my head open. Here’s the thing: That guy hasn’t been nice to me. He knows it and so do I. But he came to my house when I came home from the hospital and he apologized, like, 700 times. He knows he shouldn’t have done what he did.
But balls and tarnation (that’s a saying in our family), I forgive him. He’s had a tough life because his dad is an abusive baboon and he and his mom and his mom’s husband are moving away from here to Colorado so he can start over. His dad has been diagnosed with some kind of stomach problem.
Here’s another picture of Boss Mom and Boss Dad. They’re making out in her greenhouse between the rows of herbs. They’re making out here, too, in our back field with the red poppies. Yep. And here, too, by the roses, and wait! More making out in the kitchen near the spice racks!
I hope they’re using PROTECTION! Actually, I hope they’re not. I think a brother or a sister or a whole bunch of brothers and sisters would be a universally sweet idea.
Here’s a photo of my cousins and my uncle Caden, pro wrestler turned florist, who can make a Doberman out of flowers. As you can see, the triplets are dressed like normal kids with their blue slacks and skirts and white shirts. That’s why they’re not smiling and their arms are crossed over their chests. My uncle Caden made them dress normal for one picture, and they were mad and refused to smile. Right after this picture was shot they ran and got in their leprechaun/daisy/scary monster Halloween outfits and my cousin Damini put on the dress she’s going to wear to Boss Mom and Boss Dad’s wedding. I am a pain in Damini’s keester.
Here’s a photo of my Nana Bird and me. Yep, she’s the evil Elsie Blackton from Foster’s Village and yes, we are in Dolly Parton wigs because The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is our favorite Broadway show.
I love you, family.
Here’s a picture of Boss Mom and me. We are balancing oranges on our heads.
She knows why.
Everybody, send me photos of people you love and I’ll put them on my blog.
Tate was deluged with photos. I had to help him get them all up. We’re still not done.
At the Emmy awards, my mother and I sat together in the audience at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, Tate next to her, shiny and sparkling pretty people all around.
I had been with my mother all day. We had massages and manicures and pedicures, the sun warm, the wind but a puff. My mother was dressed in a sleek, silver dress. “Get up, boobs!” she told them. “Stand at attention!” She had her smokey makeup done by her stylist, Lacey McAuffy, who did my makeup, too, and I could barely move my face.
My mother had not written a speech. “What the hell. I won’t win. I think I’ll sneak in a margarita in my purse. . . .”
Helena Schivalli, another long-ranging soap opera star who had had more husbands than my mother on her show and about two more face-lifts, stood in front of the microphone on that glittery stage in a shimmery red thing. She made a speech about the Emmy award for outstanding actress, clips were shown of the five women nominated with people clapping loudest for my mother.
During all that, my mother whispered, without moving her lips hardly at all, her smile tight and unmoving for the cameras, “I do hope the winner’s vagina falls out.”
I smothered a chuckle and whispered, “I hope the winner’s boobs jiggle inappropriately and leap from her dress.”
She blew a laugh right through her nose. “I think the camera will catch the fact that the winner has three buttocks. Three.”
I coughed to cover my noise. “I’ve heard that one of the women is hiding a fourth buttock.”
My mother clenched her teeth together at the vision of that one, but her shoulders were shaking with her giggles.
Funny, oh we thought we were funny!
Finally, Helena in the shimmery red thing came to the point. “And the winner for outstanding lead actress in a drama series is . . .” She started to open the envelope.
My mother rolled her eyes. We found out later that the camera caught the eye roll, then it caught her turning to me and mouthing, “Let’s get drunk.”
And I mouthed back, “Mai tais on me.”
She smiled a fake white smile, knowing the camera was on her now to build the suspense.
“Oh hooray!” Helena called out. “Hooray! It’s Rowan Bruxelle! Rowan, it’s you, honey!”
My mother froze in her seat, a marble statue wearing couture, and said, “Holy shiiiiit!”
The camera caught that, too.
She said, “Holy shit” again and clapped her hands to her bobbed hair. “I won! Balls and tarnation, I can’t believe it! I won!”
Then she turned to Tate, who was standing and cheering, and hugged him. I hugged them both, crying. “Mom! Oh Mom! Congratulations!”
“I get to go on stage!” She laughed. “But I don’t have a speech!” She kissed Tate then scooted into the aisle, threw her hands up in the air, and yelled, “Yay me! Yay me!”
Her friends from the industry hugged her down the aisle.
She skipped up the steps and Helena wrapped her in a huge hug.
My mom held the statue above her, then yelled, “Finally! Oh, finally! What was wrong with you people? I should have had this years ago! Elsie and I thank you!”
Her standing ovation lasted for several minutes.
“Holy shit!” she said again into the microphone. Those words were zapped out of the night’s broadcast but you could read her lips.
“This is for my family!” she said when people finally settled down. “My family, my heart. I love you!”
Tate stood up, arms spread way out and yelled, right into that cavernous theater, “I love you, too, Nana Bird! You rock!”
The cameras caught that, too.
My mom put the trophy high into the air, head back, her smile, her relief, her delight, a stunning picture.
She had won.
I cried.
“Yeah, Nana Bird!” Tate shouted, “You woooonnnnn!!!!”
TATE’S AWESOME PIGSKIN BLOG
Guess what? My Nana, you know I told you she’s Elsie Blackton on the soap opera Foster’s Village? She won an Emmy award.
Yeah, Nana Bird. You blew it away. You’re a house on fire. I sang her a song right before the Emmy’s. It’s from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, our favorite Broadway show. I even put on a pink bra stuffed with socks and my Dolly Parton wig. It’s about being a woman, surviving, and moving on up!
Nana Bird lost for a lot of years, and yet she kept going. Kept acting. Kept being awesome. So, what I learned from my Nana Bird is to keep trying, keep going, and then when a camera is pointed right at your face you can say, “Holy shit,” and, “Let’s get drunk,” and it’ll get bleeped out but everybody knows you said it.
Here’s a photo with Boss Mom, Nana Bird, and me at the Emmy’s.
Here’s a photo of the inside of a brain.
Here’s a photo of two lizards mating.
And here’s a photo of three doughnuts at one time stuffed in my mouth. Chocolate, strawberry, and sprinkled.
Peace, dudes and dudettes, fellow galaxy walkers.
; Peace.
On a sunny, warm Saturday afternoon, Grandma Violet’s lavender, irises, cosmos, peonies, red poppies, and rows of roses blooming all over the property, Tate exploded his experiment room.
We heard an enormous, thundering bang. My mother and I dropped our teacups, filled with cinnamon apple tea, and flew up the stairs, my boots pounding. It was hard for her to move fast in her red high heels, but she braved on.
Smoke billowed out from Tate’s experiment room and a few flames danced on his worktable. We both scrambled in, grabbed Tate, pulled him out of the room, and clomped down the stairs and out the front door, coughing. I grabbed my cell phone and called the fire department.
The fire department was there pretty quick, they put out the fire, which was actually small, then examined the wall that the explosion had knocked down.
The wall, according to the lieutenant, was actually thin and flimsy . . . and soooo old. Behind that wall was another room. Yes, the secret room that had been rumored to exist since Faith and Jack built the house for a summer retreat and a hideaway.