The Queen Gene

by Jennifer Coburn

  “Aunt Bernice,” I said after about a half-hour of this game, “you sound like you’re very curious. Do you want to go and see for yourself?”

  She gasped at the proposition. “Me? At a strippah club?! I am not curious about it, I simply want to know. So, do the goils tawk to you, or do you just watch them dancing around?”

  Jack came over with Adam and reapplied his sunscreen. “What are you two in conference about over here?”

  “Oh, you don’t want to know,” I said, saving him the embarrassment of having to know that my aunt knew about our night at Scarlett’s.

  “Sure I do,” he said, smiling innocently.

  “Trust me, honey, you don’t.”

  We packed our towels and headed inside. A sign on the door read, “Guests must be fully dressed when entering the lobby. That means shoes too!” We slipped on our flip-flops which slid against the marble floor of the foyer and rounded toward the elevators. Aunt Bernice turned to her left and gasped in horror. “Gavalt, it’s happening again.”

  “What’s happening, Bern?” Jack asked. “Do you feel okay?”

  “It seemed like such a good idear at the time, but now I regret what I did,” she said.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  Bernice continued. “If I’d known it would come back to hawnt me like this —”

  “What happened?” Jack asked.

  “Wha happen?” added a concerned Adam.

  “Look at them,” she said, pointing to young men leaving the condo maintenance room.

  “Those guys?” I asked. “What did they do?”

  “They’re the building maintenance men. Do you notice anything familyah about theyah clothing?” Bernice asked.

  “Um,” Jack began, “they’re not wearing uniforms?”

  Bernice sighed. “When I moved here last yeyah, I brought awl of Irv’s clothing and hung it in the closet even though he’d been dead for yeyahs.” This made sense coming from Bernice. She also told guests at her sister’s memorial service that she was going to pretend Rita was still alive so she could carry on daily conversations with her. “Then one day I said, ‘Bernice, enough is enough. Irv is gawn and he’s not coming back. He does not need his slacks any maw.’ Besides, I needed the closet space. So, I rang Javier downstayahs and told him to bring awl the maintenance men up to the apawtment and take whatevah they wanted. Well, Irv was a very dappah dressah, so an awah laytah, everything was gawn. His clothes, his shoes, his ties — awl gawn in an awah. I thought I was doing a mitzvah. They work so hard, why shouldn’t they enjoy some beautiful new clothes? Well, new to them anyway. But now every night at foive when they get awf duty, an army of young men dressed in Irv’s clothes come out of the maintenance room. It’s really very spooky to tell you the truth. I saw a guy last weekend at the bowling alley in Irv’s favorite short-sleeve.”

  “You still bowl?” Jack asked, amazed.

  “Not like I used to,” she shrugged.

  “Do you want to ask the guys to give the clothes back?” I suggested, already knowing it was an absurd idea.

  “I can’t do that,” she said. “Let’s go upstayahs and forget about it. Maybe I’ll have a cocktail.”

  “Aunt Bernice! You never drink,” I reminded her.

  “One won’t kill me, will it?” she dismissed.

  By seven-thirty, Aunt Bernice was completely drunk. She had one large glass of red wine and was laughing hysterically at everything Jack, Adam, or I said. She had another glass of wine with her dessert, then asked if she could speak with me in private.

  “Sure,” I said. “What’s up?”

  We stood in the bathroom with the photo of her as a two-year-old. She leaned in to whisper in my ear. “I want to go,” she said. I panicked. Last year Bernice announced that she wanted to jump off her balcony on her ninetieth birthday. She said she didn’t want to be like Rita and have death catch her off guard. Bernice asked me to fly down to Florida to help her climb over the rail and plunge into the Intracoastal when the time came. I thought she’d given up her suicidal thoughts. She seemed so happy until she saw the maintenance men. Come to think of it, though, she was quite chipper when discussing killing herself, so it was tough to tell when Bernice was actually troubled.

  “Aunt Bernice, is there someone you could talk to about this?”

  “I’m tawking to you about it,” she answered.

  “I mean, like a professional.”

  “So, you go to a strippah club and yaw some sort of liberated woman, but I want to go and I need a psychiatrist? I think yaw attitude is very ageist!”

  “You want to go to Scarlett’s?” I asked in amazement.

  “Just to see,” Bernice said.

  * * *

  As I helped my eighty-four-year-old aunt out of her midnight blue Lincoln Continental and ushered her into the club, the bouncer gave us a look as if to ask if we were aware of where we were. Bernice turned every head as she sat down. A perky platinum blond approached our table. “Hey girls, how ya doin’ tonight?” she asked. Bern ordered two glasses of red wine for us and sat back in her seat to watch the dancer on stage. Celluloid, she mouthed. “Theyah too full,” she whispered. I remembered seeing her get out of the shower that morning and thinking that she must roll up her breasts to get them into her brassiere. They were flat and hung down to her belly. It reminded me of the banners king’s horsemen carried to announce the royal arrival. They’d blow a horn, then drop a banner with the royal crest. Those were Auntie’s boobs.

  After a half-hour, she owned the place. It was still early, plus the dancers were enjoying the novelty of having an elderly female patron. Four dancers were huddled around her, telling her they wished they had a grandmother as cool as her. “My own mother won’t even speak to me,” said Candy.

  “Very smawl minded,” Bernice dismissed, sipping her wine through a straw. “It’s only people who believe sexuality and nudity aw bad who would have a problem with what you goils aw doing. I think it’s beautiful. Believe me, if I had a gorgeous body like yaws, I’d be dancing around awl ovah the place too.”

  “You are so sweet!” squealed Daphne.

  “I love her!” said Larice.

  Finally, Aunt Bernice got up the nerve to ask the question that had been on her mind all night. “Do you mind if I ask something a little personal, goils?”

  “Oh my God. She is so cute!” shouted Candy.

  “Whatever you want, Auntie Bernice,” said Larice.

  “I notice that some of you girls shave awf yaw pubic hayahs,” she began. They nodded. “I suppose it’s so the men can see yaw vaginers bettah?” They nodded again, wondering where this was going. “Do you find that it helps keep things coolah? It can get so muggy down theyah.”

  Chapter Seven

  I woke up the next morning to the sound of my aunt beckoning me in to the bathroom. “Lucy!” she whispered. “Lucy, get in heyah.” I figured she had a hangover and was crouched over the toilet. Perhaps she was rifling through her medicine cabinet to see what would help relieve her splitting headache. When I arrived in the bathroom, I was stunned at the sight before me. Fresh from the shower, Bernice lifted her stomach so I had a plain view of something no one should ever have to see — an eighty-four-year-old bald snatch.

  “It’s not cute like the goils had last night, is it?” she asked. I’m sure Miss Manners has never addressed the appropriate answer to this question. “Maw like a big knish.” She shrugged. “But it’s going to be a lot coolah, I know it.”

  Awkwardly avoiding the topic, I asked if she planned to get her shower faucet fixed. “Doesn’t the dripping drive you nuts?”

  “I don’t even notice it anymaw,” Bernice replied. “So, aw you going to shave yaws too?”

  I shifted uncomfortably. “You’re probably wasting a lot of water.”

  * * *

  The next few days were far less exciting. Our days were spent building sand castles along the Atlantic shoreline and watching Adam muster up the gumption to put his
face in the swimming pool water. Our only reminders of our first nights at Scarlett’s were when Aunt Bernice would point out men and ask, “Do you think he’s evah been?” I answered affirmatively to all of the condo staff and residents, the waiters, a gas attendant, and a shoe salesman. “What about him?” she asked at Friday night Shabbat services.

  “The rabbi?” I whispered.

  Then there was the Daily Snatch Report. Three days after she took the razor to the knish, she beckoned me in to the bathroom. Lifting up her belly again, she showed me her stubble. “It’s growing back!”

  “Auntie, it’s hair. It’ll do that,” I said.

  “It’s like Velcro!”

  “Wanna toss a tennis ball at it and see if it sticks?” I suggested.

  “Yaw a regulah comedienne,” she said.

  “Or you can squat down and pick up socks from the floor,” I said.

  “Lucy, what should I do?!” she asked, genuinely panicked.

  “Shave it again or let it grow out.”

  “Let it grow out?! Do you have any idear how much coolah my vaginer is without awl that pubic hayah nonsense?”

  “You make it sound better than central air conditioning,” I said, nearly tempted to grab her Lady Bic and mow my own lawn right there and then.

  The phone rang. It was my mother calling to tell us that she was scheduling a rebirthing for Paz the following day. “Darling, I think I might know what’s wrong with Paz,” she began. “It’s very likely that he experienced a trauma at birth, but the good news is that Kimmy knows someone who does dog rebirthing.”

  Anjoli is a strong proponent of rebirthing. We once had a rebirther stay at our house for months. Finding my way to my bedroom was like walking through a mine field of human bodies on the floor. I once accidentally stepped on a guy’s pinky finger and the whole group was disrupted by his wail.

  “Sounds like you’ve got a plan,” I said to my mother.

  “Not only are we going to rebirth Paz, my numerologist says he needs a new name. Once he’s rebirthed and renamed, he’ll release all of the toxic anxiety causing him to chew off his fur. Isn’t that wonderful, darling?”

  “Splendid!” I said.

  “We’re having a good time, by the way,” I told her. “There’s a woman in the building whose grandson is about Adam’s age, and the two of them have been inseparable at the pool. They even look alike so everyone keeps mistaking them for brothers.”

  “Oh, that reminds me. For the rebirthing I’m adopting four puppies to simulate the litter of pups little Paz was born to.”

  “You’re adopting four more puppies?” I asked, incredulous.

  “Not permanently, darling,” she said. “Just for the rebirthing.”

  “You’re renting puppies?”

  “Not renting them per se,” Anjoli explained. “I’ll adopt them in the morning and return them later.”

  “Return them?!” I was shocked. “To whom will you return them?”

  “To the pound, of course, darling.”

  “Mother, that’s horrible! You can’t lead these dogs to believe they’ve been adopted and then return them to the ASPCA. Don’t you have any compassion for these animals?”

  “They were there to begin with!” Anjoli justified. “It’s not as if I’m taking them from good homes and bringing them to the pound. That’s where they live. I’m taking them for an outing. Why can’t you look at it as a positive thing, like a field trip?”

  “I’d hope you would have a bit more sympathy for these dogs. After all, Paz was once a pound puppy. Where’s your heart, Mother?”

  “Paz was never a pound puppy,” Anjoli exclaimed. That is the charge she defended.

  “Mother, when you adopted Paz, you said he was a pound puppy,” I reminded her.

  “I meant he weighed a pound, darling. I got Paz from a breeder. Do you honestly think I could ever find a little gem like Paz at the pound?”

  I refrained from chewing the flesh from my wrists. “So you’re just going to bring these puppies back to the ASPCA at the end of the day?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what do you intend to say to them when you walk in with four puppies that you adopted just that morning?”

  “I’ll say, ‘Here,’” Anjoli said.

  “Here?! You’re going to say, ‘Here’?”

  “I don’t need a receipt, darling,” Anjoli informed me.

  “You’re one of a kind, Mother.”

  “Thank you.” Anjoli moved on. “I wonder what Paz’s new name will be. Now, Lucy, it will be very important for you to call Paz by his new name after the rebirthing. Any reminder of his old life could trigger a relapse.”

  “Mother, I go through that every time we talk,” I said. “Maybe I should get a new name. From now on, please call me Jennifer.”

  “Blah!” she said.

  “Mother, I need to go,” I said. “Aunt Bernice is taking us to the broadwalk tonight, and it’s getting dark.”

  Jack, Bernice, Adam, and I made it to the ocean in time to watch brushstrokes of periwinkle settle into night. The broadwalk offered a Latin jazz band reminiscent of Tito Puente. How my aunt had the energy to dance every number while carrying Adam in her arms was beyond me. “Care to dance, miss?” Jack asked me.

  “Uh, I don’t know,” I said shyly, pretending we just met. “I’m not sure it would be a good idea.”

  “It’s a very bad one, I assure you,” Jack said, winking. “Dance with me until we’re old enough to live down here.”

  “Then what?” I asked, batting my eyes coquettishly.

  Jack grabbed my hand and yanked me on to the dance floor. “Have I mentioned how beautiful you look on this trip?”

  Mentioned how beautiful I look on this trip? Or on this trip has he mentioned how beautiful I am — always?

  Upon our return to Bernice’s apartment, there were two messages. Each was from Paz. I’m sure because I could hear my mother chattering away in the background.

  Early the next morning, Paz hit redial yet again. He must have known of his pending fate. I picked up the phone.

  “Bernice’s house,” I answered. Pause. “Hello?” Silence. “Hello?”

  Yap yap yap.

  “Paz, is that you?”

  I heard my mother and Alfie in the background. They were talking about the price of real estate in Greenwich Village while also discussing “what a shame” something was.

  “Mother!” I shouted. “Hang up the phone!” No response. “It’s Lucy. Your dog is calling me again. Please hang up!!!”

  “Darling, it’s not like she was a young woman,” Anjoli said in the distance.

  “Hello! Hang up the phone!” I shouted.

  I heard Alfie’s voice return, “Well call me the bleeding-heart queen, but I hate to see anyone kick the bucket.”

  Oh my God, who died?!

  “Hello! Pick up the phone, please. Who died?!” I shouted louder than before.

  Aunt Bernice rushed into the room. “Lucy, stop tawking like that. You’ll frighten the whole building. It’s bad luck to tawk about dying in the condo.”

  It is?

  I heard Anjoli again. “She bought the place before I did, so I know she’s not carrying a mortgage. Four apartments. If I could buy it below market, it would be an incredible investment, darling. And think about how easy the property management would be with me right across the street! Maybe I could convert it to a co-op!”

  Alfie interrupted my mother’s real estate fantasy. “And why, pray tell, do you think her kids would sell you the place below market?” Pause. “Oh Jesus, they’re taking the body.”

  “Why would they put her into an ambulance like that, darling?” Anjoli asked.

  “Like what?” Alfie inquired.

  “Like dead, darling.”

  “I’m going to miss Mrs. MacIntosh,” Alfie said. “She was like an institution on your block.”

  “Me, too” was Anjoli’s empty return.

  So, Mrs. MacIntosh from across t
he street had died. When Anjoli bought her place, Mrs. MacIntosh was the first one to come by and give us an old-fashioned welcome to the neighborhood. She was the only one on the block who consistently provided chocolate for trick-or-treaters. She was the one I’d go to for the spare key when Anjoli accidentally locked me out.

  My mother was appraising the property before her dead body had been removed from her home. “Four apartments,” my mother said dreamily. I heard Alfie ask a question. “That, my darling Alfie, is why I think I’ll get the place below market,” Anjoli replied.

  What was why? What was why?! I hated only being able to hear. Who had just entered stage left?

  “Lord have mercy, look at those bangs!” Alfie said.

  Whose bangs? They couldn’t mean Mrs. MacIntosh, could they? Were they really saying a dead woman was having a bad hair day?

  Alfie continued. “Oh God, I hate it when they cry like that. Honey, get a grip. Throwing yourself on the body is not going to bring mumsy back to life.”

  They’re making fun of a woman who just lost her mother?

  “Those bangs really are atrocious,” Anjoli added.

  I cannot believe what I’m hearing!

  “Tell me about it, she looks like Xena the Warrior Princess got married and moved to the suburbs,” Alfie added.

  “Xena is a lesbian,” Anjoli corrected.

  I stood in Aunt Bernice’s guest bedroom, unable to speak. Paz was silent too, presumably as appalled as I was.

  “Oh, sorry, love,” Alfie snapped. “How ludicrous of me to suggest that Xena might get married and move to the suburbs. Not like the other oh-so-realistic elements of that show. Bangs on a warrior, puh-lease! She’d have to get the damned things trimmed every six weeks. Have you ever seen a salon on the show?”

  “Hello!” I shouted. They continued.

  “So why do you think Xanax the Suburban Warrior is going to sell you the place below market?” Alfie asked.

  “Anyone with hair like that won’t have a clue what the place is worth, darling,” my mother said with satisfaction. “She’s the type of dullard who thinks experimental theater is Cathy Rigby crossing gender lines to play Peter Pan. Do you think it would be in poor taste to go over there now?”