Queen of the Road

by Doreen Orion

  I rushed back to the Jeep to tell him just that, with the caveat that if he ever repeated it, I’d disavow all knowledge of the statement and never say anything nice to him again. As this was only too easy for him to believe, he never did mention it, although I could often tell, as we shared similar moments of contentment in our travels, he was remembering nonetheless.

  The view from the summit was stunning, but it was cold up there. Real cold. No wonder its observatory clocked a world record wind gust—231 mph—in 1934. Tim suggested I put rocks in my pockets. But I just held on to him the entire time we were outside, especially after noticing one of the buildings had giant chains securing its roof to the ground.

  We traveled on to Vermont, where, near Montpelier, we encountered equally glorious leaf and local color, as we ran into a fellow busing couple. The wife was a sixty-year-old Jimmy Buffett fanatic and self-proclaimed Parrot Head whose dream had come true when she won a costume contest and got to dance onstage with her idol. I recognized a fellow Princess immediately (they were, indeed, from Long Island), in spite of her traveling incognito, masked by this seemingly strange fixation.

  “I have so much fun. I’m high on life. I don’t need drugs as long as I have Jimmy Buffett!” she proclaimed. I was dubious, but her boundless energy and optimism won me over. I immediately bought a Jimmy Buffett CD and even made “Margaritaville” one of my ringtones.

  It was not unusual for us to meet lots of people in the RV parks. Well, mainly Tim met them, of course. He was the one who walked Miles every morning, and sixty-pound standard poodles are great conversation starters.

  “What kind of dog is that?”

  “He’s a poodle.”

  “THAT’S a poodle?”

  In any event, when I ventured out, Tim would introduce me to anyone he’d already met. I noticed he was introducing me as Doreen Orion, to indicate my last name was different than his, Justice, and I realized he did it in deference to what he imagined were my feminist sensibilities.

  “Sweetie, do you know why I didn’t change my name when we got married?” I asked. He thought about it a moment, then answered, “No. I guess I don’t.”

  “It just seemed like a royal pain to have to change my name on my driver’s license, my Social Security card, and all my diplomas. It’s fine with me if people think I’m Doreen Justice.”

  “I should have known,” he laughed.

  Of course, there were times he regretted introducing me at all. For if we lingered to talk, the inevitable round of “What do you do for a living?” started. When people find out we’re psychiatrists, it always amazes me how many come up with the same lame question, all imagining we’ve never heard it before.

  “So, you’ve been analyzing me this whole time?” It’s at this point that Tim cringes and tries to slink away. He knows what’s coming.

  “Why?” I sweetly inquire. “If I were a proctologist, do you think I’d want to look up your butt?”

  It was while in New England we realized we were not the only ones on the bus who seemed changed by the journey thus far. Shula had acquired balls—specifically, Morty’s. Now she was the one who growled and spit when he got too close to her. She’d even taken a swipe or two at both of her brothers. While it was my belief that a life in motion was making her irritable (for Shula, was living on the bus akin to being perennially transported in a giant cat carrier to the vet?), Tim theorized she was simply emboldened by the newfound knowledge that if she could survive this, she could survive anything. Obviously, as two shrinks, we realized we were expressing our feelings about my bus phobia through her.

  And why not? Good-natured, ready-for-anything Miles took after his father. Cranky old-Jewish-man Morty was clearly my son. No wonder Shula always seemed left out. Maybe it was, indeed, feeling she finally had something in common with one parent—her mother—that was bringing her out of her shell. Too bad she picked the wrong parent.

  Rather than taking her on, Morty simply walked away from Shula’s outbursts. Perhaps he was mellowing, along with his father. As for Miles, he still believed the entire world existed to lavish praise and affection on him, a notion only reinforced by our travels.

  Chapter Six

  SOUTHBOUND IN THE FIRE LANE

  * * *

  Fire in the Hole

  21/2 parts Bacardi 151

  11/2 parts orange curacao

  squeeze lemon

  Hold lit match in one hand, shaker in other. Bring together until hair catches fire. Make note to use only 80 proof rum next time.

  * * *

  By mid-October, we were headed to New York City to my parents’ place in Queens. Since there was simply nowhere to park, we had to de-bus and ditch our rig at a storage facility in New Jersey. Then we gathered up the pets and a few belongings in the Jeep and settled into the Orions’ spare bedroom.

  Tim had a lot to learn when he married into a Jewish family, and his education began the day of our wedding. We included Jewish traditions in our ceremony and I don’t think he really understood what he was getting into when he signed the ketubah (wedding contract), written in Hebrew.

  “What’s it say?” he whispered to me.

  “Oh, you know…” I explained with all the nonchalance I could muster. “Just that we’ll be good to each other…that sort of thing. It’s an ancient document. All couples getting married have to have one.” I watched intently as he signed his name after mine. It was only a few weeks before he realized his mistake.

  “Oh, honey! Tim!” I sang out sweetly. Already suited up in steel-toed boots, Carhartt pants, and work shirt, he bounded down the stairs, thrust his hands on his hips, took a wide stance, and nodded his head.

  “Project Man at your service, ma’am.” (I suppose here I should fess up: We had always referred to his alter ego as “Project Man,” until the day he showed up in thick prescription safety goggles. It was at that point I christened him “Project Nerd.”) I gave him a sardonic look from the couch.

  “Oh, sorry,” I said, scanning the windows. “Hope I didn’t blow your cover.” Then, “Can you please move some furniture? I want to see what the armoire will look like over—”

  “I’ll do it later,” he assured me. “Right now I’m in the middle of—”

  “Oh, but sweetie,” I interrupted, batting my lashes, “it says in the ketubah you’re supposed to do what I ask, when I ask it.” To his astonished look, I just shrugged and pointed out, “You signed it.” (Years ago, I learned a much simpler tactic that any woman of any religion can use: If there was something I merely needed him to read, I just put it on our computer and labeled the file “My Hot Lesbian Fantasies.” Worked every time.)

  During our nearly fifteen years together, Tim got to be well versed in Jewish cultural issues, although one time in New York, he had a rather rude awakening when my father confided a secret to him.

  My dad is a retired college professor but had been a journeyman cabinetmaker earlier in life. During my childhood, he even made all the furniture in our house. Whenever we visited, Tim tried to get Henry to show him some tricks of the trade, but soon learned that my laissez-faire attitude to…well, life had to come from somewhere. For example, when Tim queried how to make a cabinet joint perfectly tight so it had no gaps, my father responded, with a wave of his hand, “Ach. Just use a little schmear.” Tim eventually understood this particular use of the Yiddish word for “spread” to be indicative of wood putty.

  My father’s attitude resonates through every fiber of his being, even down to his vocal cords. Born in Austria, he fled in 1939 during his teens, emigrated to Israel, and served in the British Army in World War II, so his accent is rather indescribable and, I’ve been told, rather unintelligible. The first time they met, Tim found Henry barely comprehensible, prompting him to pull me aside and say, “You didn’t tell me your father had an accent.” To which I asked, “What accent?” My mother, born in this country to two Jewish immigrants from a Russian shtetl (a small Jewish village formerly found througho
ut Eastern Europe), is a speech pathologist and also a retired college professor. She even wrote a best-selling textbook, Pronouncing American English. Her methods may be the gold standard, but they haven’t managed to crack my dad’s cords. She thinks he’s just being stubborn. As my father’s daughter, I assure her he’s not; stubborn is too much of an effort.

  A few years back, after my parents moved to New York City and my dad could no longer have a woodworking shop at home, he rented a space in a not-so-great neighborhood to pursue his hobby. One day, as he left the place, he was mugged at knifepoint and thrown to the ground. We happened to be visiting shortly afterwards and my father confided what happened to Tim, admonishing him, “Don’t tell my wife or daughter.” He was afraid we would make him give up his rental. The next time we visited, after my father had already relinquished the space, the subject of crime in the city came up. He chimed in, “I was mugged,” and proceeded to tell us the story. My mother demanded, “Why didn’t you tell me?” as she shot him a look Jewish wives have perfected ever since Zipporah reproached Moses, “What? All this wandering for only nine commandments?” (Obviously, her nagging was quite effective.) My dad just shrugged his shoulders, absolving himself of all responsibility.

  “Tim knew,” he said. Now it was Tim’s turn to face both Orion women’s wrath.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” we demanded. His defense—“Henry told me not to tell anyone”—only deepened the hole my father had dug for him.

  Now, secure in the knowledge I could rely on my husband to be an information sieve, we settled in for a couple of weeks. Although Tim loves New York City, his alter ego loves my parents’ apartment in Queens even more. There’s just so much for a Project Nerd to do, as while my mother can come up with a multitude of chores, my father insists on taking his retirement literally. So whenever we visit, she makes a list for Tim, who inevitably finds ways to tweak it just a bit.

  On this particular visit, my mother wanted Tim to rearrange some furniture in the living room and repair broken grout in the master shower. Instead, Tim took her shopping for new furniture, including an entertainment center and TV, regrouted all the tile in the shower and tub, installed a new vanity, fixed a leaky toilet, and repaired a door that wouldn’t shut. Then he made a list for our next trip. Maybe it’s her Depression-era mentality, but while Gertrude likes the thought of having things look nicer, she has a hard time following through to get them that way. She needs someone to push her, and Tim is only too happy to do it. And with the whole bus thing, it was nice to see Tim was finally starting to push himself to get more from life, too.

  It was just as well that Tim helped my mom shop for furniture: To say our house where I grew up in Great Neck, Long Island, was the laughingstock of the neighborhood would be like saying Kiss’s costumes are only slightly over the top. Of course, one could argue that the band is only expressing its own style. So were my parents; a style I call Shtetl Gothic. It wasn’t just the orange Formica countertops in the kitchen (which were a perfect accompaniment to the orange Formica panels in the dark brown cabinets) or the massive black Formica dining table with its even more massive antiqued red wooden chairs. That’s antiqued, as opposed to antique. You know, the stuff that has black, skid mark–like streaks running through it to simulate class, without any actual danger of achieving it.

  My parents had so perfected their unique style with the furniture my father had constructed from scratch, they soon branched out, becoming equally adept at taking established, venerated old designs and making them their own. Perhaps that’s what they were thinking the day they added vertical strips of wood, antiqued red, to the black shutters of our formally elegant, white-columned colonial.

  The neighbors never (openly, anyway) complained about any of my parents’ “improvements”—that is, until the day a few of them came over to cajole Henry into mowing the lawn. Style (or lack of it) was one thing, but knee-high weeds in the suburbs were quite another. My father always maintained he liked the “natural” look. But when pressed, it became obvious he had simply started rehearsing for retirement decades early. Why bother mowing the lawn when you just have to keep doing it over and over again? No wonder that in my lazier moments, Tim calls me “Henrietta.” Then he ponders how in the world he ended up married to an old Jewish man.

  Of course, I’m no stranger myself to stylistic misfortunes, as I’d had long hair since I was in single digits. Shortly after we arrived in the city, in the spirit of the year of trying new things, I wrangled an appointment (did I mention I’m a Miss September?) with a stylist, Nick Arrojo, from my favorite reality TV makeover show, What Not to Wear. I knew he’d want to cut it all off, and he did, although he seemed rather surprised I didn’t protest. (I was rather surprised I didn’t cry.) Tim came, not only because he wanted to meet a celebrity, but to record the moment for posterity.

  Nick went along with good humor, even pointing to the growing pile on the floor, saying, “There, that’s the picture!” I must admit I was a bit taken aback when this former working-class Brit gave me a lesson in royal behavior: As he cut, rather than pin pieces of coif out of the way himself, he had a young woman employee hold my hair back for him. However he did it, I was thrilled with the result and couldn’t help wonder why it always seemed to take me so long to come around to good ideas—traveling around the country in a bus, notwithstanding.

  Having a couple of stationary weeks also gave me some time to reflect about how our bus trip seemed to have brought out my “inner Doug.”

  My beloved cousin Doug, whom I am closer to than any other human being save my husband, has always been terrified of flying. So terrified, in fact, he once took a Greyhound bus from New York to Mexico City, just to avoid a flight.

  Years back, we both had to be at a family function across the country. Since I refused to travel by bus (ah, the good old days) he reluctantly, and only after the promise of prodigious drug samples, acquiesced to accompanying me via airplane. It was a delightful four-hour trip—for me—as I tormented him by periodically clutching the armrests, exclaiming, “Did you hear that?” and shooting him dramatic, panicked looks.

  If only Doug could see me now, on the bus. Terrified on the bus. And although we’ve laughed many times over the years about that flight, when I saw him in New York City, I apologized profusely. His graceful commiseration about my current mode of travel meant a lot to me. It also taught me that while cruelty can be fun for a few moments, compassion has a much longer shelf life. (Not that Doug is immune from the taunting gene, mind you—he is my first cousin, after all. In fact, when Colorado was having a particularly horrendous winter, he couldn’t resist e-mailing me: “I see that you just had another blizzard. Did Tim tell you about it?”)

  And there is something to be said for gentle ribbing. I’m the only one in our entire family, including his parents and siblings, who has ever been allowed to see Doug’s apartment. It’s a mess, even by my slothful standards. Tim and I always tease him that gay men are supposed to naturally migrate toward interior design and cleanliness. On this trip, we were even able to hold up a specific example: The gay couple who rented our house moved in on a Wednesday and had a dinner party on Friday. Not only was there not a single box in sight, but the place was immaculate and looked much better than it had—ever.

  Doug moved into his apartment in 1997 and still threatens to clean the bathroom. To his credit, though, he said he was postponing replacing the carpet until his sick cat passed away. Well, Shayna has been RIP for the last four years, but her copious vomit stains remain, an immemorial memorial testament to Doug’s disdain for cleanliness.

  From New York, we gave my mother a ride to her favorite weekend getaway, Atlantic City, New Jersey. I was reluctant to acquiesce to this, Tim’s latest harebrained scheme, because my mother is not the calmest person in the world. I figured if I was afraid to ride in the bus, I’d probably end up having to medicate her, and since treating family members is strictly forbidden by the AMA, would lose my medical lic
ense, to boot.

  Yet, sitting next to me in the buddy seat, she turned and said, with the widest smile I’d ever seen on her face, “I don’t know why this makes you so nervous. It’s terrific!” I was put to shame. If this woman can ride in the bus unafraid, so can I. I vowed when the year ended, I would investigate a potential cure for millions of phobics: hanging out with an even worse phobic.

  While in Atlantic City, I introduced my mother to the concept of fruity martinis. She became as smitten as I. We quickly discovered a restaurant with an impressive menu of the tasty treats, parked ourselves at the bar, and endeavored to become fast friends with Ted, the resident mixologist.

  Ted had been a bartender in town for twenty-six years. While he was very helpful pointing out some favorites on the menu, I think he was mostly relieved assuming a middle-aged woman and her mother, chaperoned by their bus driver, were unlikely to raise much of a ruckus. And indeed, after we’d had a few, he seemed to loosen up even more than we had and started lamenting about “kids these days.” He told us he’d carded a girl who had just turned eighteen. She strode up to the bar and informed him she wanted a “Sex on a Pool Table.” He asked if she knew what was in it. She did not. Neither did he. As he related his tale, Ted shook his head in disgust.

  “I told her I could make a Sex on the Beach, but Sex on a Pool Table?” He sighed and shook his head again, repeating, “Kids these days.” Then Tim, who was making his way through Ted’s formidable list of microbrewed beers, discovered the bar bet, vis-à-vis my mother. He wagered Ted that he couldn’t guess Gertrude’s age within ten years. Ted was off by nearly twenty. Tim got a free beer and started perusing the joint for his next patsy. My mother, initially taken aback at being treated as an object of gambling, in the end wound up quite pleased with the grudging compliments all around.