“You know,” I told Lenore as evenly as possible. “I think of myself as an activist.”
“Oh…now,” she said dismissively. “You know what I mean.”
I did know what she meant. She meant there were good homosexuals and bad homosexuals, and she would never think of me as a bad one. My parents, I remembered, had once categorized black folks in much the same way. They didn’t disapprove of all Negroes. Just the uppity ones. The ones who insisted on special rights.
Why do I even bother with this? I thought. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a meaningful exchange with these people—one that didn’t focus on scenery or television as a handy means of avoidance. The list of what we couldn’t talk about grew larger all the time. Phony Florida elections. Secret American torture camps. “Intelligent design.” A far-from-intelligent president who wanted to amend the Constitution to insure that wicked folks like Ben and me would never receive equal treatment under the law.
The truth was that I had long ago stopped caring what the biologicals thought about me, but I had never stopped accommodating their nonsense. It was a nasty old habit not easily broken—making them all feel as comfortable as possible. I gazed around the room, looking for an easy route back to the banal. I found it in a large kitschy print over the fireplace: a woodland chapel at night, its windows ablaze with a golden glow.
“That’s very nice,” I said. “Is that a new acquisition?”
Lenore beamed with pride. “It’s a Thomas Kinkade. You know, the Painter of Light? Irwin gave it to me for Christmas.”
Irwin puffed up like a partridge. “That one set me back big time,” he said. “Lemme tell you.”
That night, after dinner at the Outback, we returned to Inn Among the Flowers and decided to hit the sack early. The day had been draining for both of us. Ben was toweling off from a long shower when he tossed a low-grade thunderbolt my way:
“Why didn’t you tell me your brother was hot?”
I took that in for a moment, stretched out on the bed, then looked up from a pamphlet on Disney World and the Epcot Center. “Because he’s not,” I said evenly.
“C’mon. I know he’s your brother, but you must be able to—”
“What exactly is it that turns you on? The comb-over? The beer gut? The Banlon shirt?”
Ben laughed. “His gut’s no bigger than yours.”
“Well…technically maybe.”
“He’s just a big rugged guy, that’s all. Sort of a Suit Daddy. A countrified Suit Daddy. There are whole websites for those guys.”
“I’m sure,” I said. “Countrified Suit Daddy dot com.”
He flopped on the bed next to me, naked and spicy-smelling. “He looks like somebody you’d see at an interstate rest stop looking for a little Brokeback action.”
“Well, thank you for that,” I said, rolling my eyes at him. “Thank you for that truly revolting new spin on my brother.”
Ben waggled his eyebrows. “I’d like to have a truly revolting spin on your brother.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!”
He laughed and kissed my shoulder. “All other things being different.”
“Thank you,” I said grimly.
“But if I met him at a bar, say—”
“He doesn’t drink,” I shot back. “He doesn’t even cuss anymore. Lenore has dragged his sorry ass to Jesus.”
“Apparently,” said Ben.
“He used to be kinda fun, you know. I mean—an asshole sometimes—but fun. Now he reminds me of our father at his worst. Especially when he was talking to Sumter.”
Ben looked at me dreamily, rubbing my belly in silence for a moment.
“You think he’s one of us?”
“Who? Irwin?”
A chastising swat. “No…Sumter.”
I rolled on my side and grinned at him. “He is kind of a flamer, isn’t he?”
Ben grinned back. “Pretty much.”
“That would be a hoot, wouldn’t it?”
“Not for Sumter,” Ben observed. “Not in this family. Did you see the look on your brother’s face when the kid was showing me his puppets?”
“Oh, man, how could you not?”
“He’s obviously worried about it.”
“Well…fuck him.”
“Is that what you were like when you were nine?”
I feigned indignation. “No! Are you kidding? I ran a very butch puppet show.”
Ben laughed. “I’m sure.”
“Strictly cowboys and Indians. And the cowboys always won.”
Ben moved closer, entangling his legs with mine. “I’d love to see where you lived. The orange groves and all. Just to be able to picture it.”
“There’s not much to see anymore,” I said. “There’s no home there now. Just a Home Depot.”
He smiled. “But what did it look like?”
“Oh…dirt roads through the groves…white frame houses with lightning rods. Granddaddy was in walking distance.”
“Like a Disney movie.”
“More or less.” I gave him a dark little smile. “Before Disney got here.”
Ben smiled and sighed.
“There were these wooden stands out on the highway,” I told him. “This two-lane blacktop that ran along our grove. They sold orange-blossom perfume to the Yankee tourists. We hated those stands back then…Mama said they looked common…but I’d love to see one now…the way it was then, I mean. I’m sure I’d think it was wonderful.”
“You wanna go look for one,” Ben asked, “after we visit your mother?”
“After we visit my mother,” I replied, “I wanna find a gay bar and get shit-faced and stick my tongue down your throat.”
“That would work, too,” said Ben.
10
A Little Bit Blue
The Gospel Palms was located, not surprisingly, within spitting distance of a mall. The building was low and modern, the grounds modest but well tended. It might have passed for a small resort if not for the droning gray Muzak of the freeway and a Radio Shack visible through a tangle of palms and light poles. As Lenore turned the Little Witnesses Puppet Wagon into the parking lot, a pair of kids in Mickey Mouse ears were dodging the lawn sprinklers with lunatic glee. I had a terrible urge to join them.
“Listen,” said Lenore, turning off the engine. “Before we go in. Do y’all know about the blue bloater thing?”
“Nooo…” I said, frowning in Ben’s direction.
He shrugged. “Me neither.”
“Well…with emphysema patients, you know, they divide ’em up into pink puffers and blue bloaters.” She tilted her head and blinked her eyes in ladylike apology. “I know that sounds gross, but those are…you know…the actual terms they use.”
She seemed to be waiting for a response, so I said: “Okay.”
“Mama Tolliver’s been a pink puffer for a real long time. They call ’em that because they take these short little puffs when they breathe…and, you know, because of the color they get. Real…rosy in the face. The way she’s been until now, you know?”
I nodded. Until now?
“So,” sighed Lenore, drawing out the suspense, working me like one of her puppets. “Sometimes the people who have it are just pink, and sometimes they’re just blue, and sometimes…when it gets worse…they can change from one to the other.”
Perversely, I found myself thinking of a home pregnancy test. Or one of those sticks you pee on for the Atkins diet. “So,” I said, losing patience with my sister-in-law’s theatrics. “I take it she’s a blue…whatever…now?”
“Bloater,” she said. “Yes.”
“And what does that mean exactly?”
“It means that the arms and legs get all puffy and—”
“Bloated,” I said.
“Yes.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “And the skin gets sorta bluish.”
“Right.”
“Don’t worry,” Lenore said. “She keeps it covered up when she’s got company.”
&
nbsp; “With makeup, you mean?”
She nodded ominously. “I’m afraid so.” She widened her eyes as if to suggest, ever so nicely, that I should brace myself for a major cosmetic atrocity. Then she climbed out of the Puppet Wagon and fussed briefly with her hair in the rearview mirror. “Don’t forget your pretty flowers,” she said, meaning the hydrangea in the backseat.
Spotting that plant on a table at Kroger’s, I’d remembered how much Mama loved hydrangeas. There were half a dozen bushes blooming in our backyard every summer, some of them the size of pup tents. Mama would pull up a lawn chair when the sprinkler was on, just to smoke her Slims and watch those thirsty blue globes bobbing in the spray.
To a boy of seven—Sumter’s age, come to think of it—Mama seemed nothing less than a sorceress when it came to hydrangeas. I remember watching in amazement as she knelt in her cotton sundress to crucify the ground with rusty nails—a trick that she assured me would turn blue blossoms into pink ones before the year was out.
My love of gardening had come from this woman.
Her and Anna Madrigal.
The lobby of the Gospel Palms was tiny but efficient, presided over by a sweet-spirited portrait of a blue-eyed Christ delivering the Sermon on the Mount. There was an alcove for visitors and a mini–florist’s cooler—more like a vending machine, really—that dispensed carnation corsages in several unnatural colors. Behind the reception desk sat a balding Middle Eastern man who nodded at Lenore as we passed, though she didn’t even bother to slow down. I noticed the bumper stickers on his file cabinet—PROUD AMERICAN and SUPPORT OUR TROOPS—strategically positioned for the benefit of anxious visitors. Poor bastard, I thought. Guantánamo Bay must seem awfully close.
Outside Mama’s room we held a brief powwow, where Ben, bless his heart, offered to take Lenore over to Starbucks so I could have some time with Mama before introductions were made. She was sitting up in a chair when I entered. Her face was made alien by a bulbous nebulizer mask, and her hair was a meticulous helmet of lavender blue, obviously done that morning. She’d been waiting for me, I realized.
Seeing me in the doorway, she yanked off the mask in embarrassment. “Mikey,” she said, her voice more gravelly than I’d ever heard it. “Lenore was spose to warn me.”
“It’s all right,” I said, smiling at her. “I’ve worn one o’ those myself.” I was relieved to see that her makeup, while a little on the goopy side, was not nearly as gruesome as Lenore had suggested. It seemed to cover the blue, at any rate.
I set the hydrangea on the bedside table and knelt to hug her, entering the faint mist of her nebulizer. She was wearing an old polyester pantsuit, and her legs did seem to be swollen. She pulled my cheek against hers, then released me with a brisk pat.
“When did you get to be so gray?” she asked.
I smiled at her. “About the time you got to be heliotrope.”
This was only meant to be affectionate, but a cloud passed over her face. “Did Lenore tell y’all…?” She stopped to suck air through pursed lips as if—God forbid—she were toking on a joint. “Did Lenore…ssss…tell y’all I was turning colors?”
I was mortified. “Oh, no, Mama! I just meant your hair color.”
“Oh.” She patted the side of her Easter-egg do, almost girlishly proud of it. When nothing else can be done, I thought, you can always do your hair.
“I like it,” I told her. “It’s very becoming.”
“Patreese did it. My new hairdresser…ssss…Black as the ace of spades…ssss…but very talented.”
In the old days, I would have taken issue with her phraseology—and she would have accused me of overreacting—but it was way too late for all that now.
Mama shot a nervous glance toward the door. “She didn’t…ssss…come with you, did she?”
I was confused. “Your hairdresser?”
“No…ssss…Lenore.”
“She’s over at the mall,” I said. “I wanted this to be just us.”
“I hope she didn’t…ssss…bring those puppets!”
I chuckled. “No…well, they’re in the van, but…I think we’re safe.”
“She like to bored us silly last week…ssss…Set up the stage in the dining room without so much as…ssss…a pretty-please to anyone…ssss…Then she went and…ssss…told the whole blessed world I’d turned blue.”
“Well, that’s not very discreet.” I could have been a lot more supportive, but I hadn’t been expecting an open invitation to lay into Lenore.
A sly light came into Mama’s eyes. “I never had so many…ssss…visitors in my life…ssss…all of ’em lookin’ for the Famous Blue Lady…ssss…I think the young’ns…ssss…were expectin’ a Smurf.”
When I laughed hard at that, she looked rather pleased with herself. Mama had gotten sassier in these last two decades without Papa. I’d always assumed she was trying to channel him a little, thereby taking up the slack in the pissing-and-moaning department.
She shook her head slowly. “I’ve never understood it.”
“What, Mama?”
“What Irwin sees in that…ssss…Jesusy woman!”
“Well,” I said, dragging up a chair and sitting down, “it’s a damn good thing we’re not married to her, isn’t it?” I reached for her hand and held it for a while. It was small and unnaturally plump and—yes—a little bit blue.
“Some of us don’t need puppet shows,” Mama declared with a righteous scowl. “Some of us would like to…ssss…worship the Lord in silence.”
I gazed down at her nebulizer mask, that ugly Muppet nose, lying abandoned in her lap. “Shouldn’t you be wearing that thing?”
She shrugged. “I can…ssss…take it or leave it.”
“Well, take it, then.”
She resisted.
“C’mon, lady. Humor me.”
She looked at me wearily for a moment, as if on the verge of saying something, then picked up the mask. “It’s just medicine…ssss…it doesn’t do anything.”
“Be that as it may…let me do the talking for a while.”
So Mama stayed on the nebulizer while I rattled on about the gardening business and the nice weather in Orlando and the landscaping at the Gospel Palms. My eyes, meanwhile, roamed the room for evidence of anything more substantive. I found it on a shelf by the window: the framed snapshot of Ben and me at Big Sur that I’d mailed to Irwin for Mama’s last birthday. I’d apparently shamed him into giving it to her.
She caught me looking at the photo and pulled off the mask. “So where did you hide…ssss…the young feller?”
Normally, she wouldn’t pronounce the word that way; she was being cute. She was doing her best Granny Clam-pett, to let me know she wasn’t nearly the rube I took her for. It was a sweet gesture but unconvincing; somewhere beneath all that white makeup and blue skin, the same old red-state heart was beating. Mama was a proud member of the Greatest Generation—or at least its ladies’ auxiliary—and those folks don’t have to approve of you to love you. They can forgive you until the cows come home.
I gazed back at her calmly for a bit. “What bothers you more?” I asked. “The young part or the feller part?”
“Well,” said Mama, “we’ll just…ssss…have to see, won’t we?”
Ben returned from Starbucks minus Lenore. She had some shopping to do, he said, but she’d be back in an hour to pick us up. I figured she knew the limits of Mama’s energy and thought it best to give us a deadline. That was fine with me; I wasn’t even sure how well I could fill up the time. Ben made a valiant effort by dumping a handful of cellophane-wrapped cookies on the bedside table as soon as I’d introduced him to Mama. “I thought we should try these,” he said. “They’re madeleines. Ever had one?”
“Not from Starbucks,” I said, giving him a jaundiced look as I took one.
Ben mugged at me and turned back to my mother, who seemed to be studying his face for some killer final exam. “How ’bout you, Alice?”
Jesus fuck! He called her Alice.
>
Mama blinked at him for a moment, then reached primly for a madeleine. “Don’t mind if I do,” she said.
“Madeleines seemed appropriate,” Ben said, looking hopefully from mother to prodigal son as we nibbled away. “They’re for remembering, right?”
“Only if you’ve had one before,” I replied. “Only if you’re Proust.” I shared a private grin with him. “My madeleine would be a Moon Pie.”
Ben laughed.
“That’s a big fib…and you know it.” Mama was eating and talking at the same time, which was something of a stretch. Madeleine crumbs had assembled unlawfully in the corners of her mouth. “I never…ssss…fed you boys Moon Pies in my life.”
I chuckled. “I didn’t say you fed us. I said I ate them.”
“I’ll tell you another thing…ssss…I know who Proust is…ssss…so don’t you get snooty with me.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Where’d you get ’em?”
“What?”
“The Moon Pies.”
“The Esso station down on the highway. Mr. Grady with the drool rag. Same place I got the key ring with the wiggly naked lady inside.”
Mama was fierce. “I don’t remember any…ssss…key ring.”
“I don’t know why not,” I said. “You confiscated it. You said you never wanted to see me with a naked lady again as long as you lived.”
Her mouth went slack. “I never said…ssss…any such thing!”
“Well,” I said darkly, “it’s how I heard it.”
“Michael.” Ben was using the careful intonation of a kindergarten teacher. “Stop with the Norman Bates, please.”
“She knows I’m kidding,” I said, slipping my arm around Mama’s shoulders.
Sulking, Mama smoothed the front of her blouse. “Don’t think you can…ssss…blame me for your”—she searched for the right word—“good times.”
“My good times,” I echoed to Ben. “Blame her for my good times.”
“Give it a break,” he said. “Who’s Mr. Grady with the drool rag?”
“He worked at the gas station,” I said.
“He had a condition, “Mama added.