Queen Bee Goes Home Again

by Haywood Smith

  “Thanks,” I said. “Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  I always felt better after talking to Tricia, but nothing could make this day any easier.

  I, Linwood Breedlove Scott, was officially returning to the Mimosa Branch Hall of Shame.

  Two

  I looked ahead and saw the deliveryman load up his dolly, again, with flat boxes that let off cold fog in the heat, then he headed back to the front door of Terra Sol, one of three remaining upscale restaurants in town. Four other establishments had bitten the dust when the depression hit.

  If I had to wait in the heat much longer, I’d have to turn off the AC, and maybe the car, to keep the motor from conking in the hot sun.

  Frustrated, I distracted myself by looking at the stores on either side of Main Street. I hadn’t been back “downtown” in the three years since I’d moved to my much-mourned little brick ranch Fortress of Solitude house near Sunshine Springs. At least the few surviving restaurants here seemed to be doing well, evidenced by the traffic and resulting lack of parking spaces.

  But all the New Age artists’ studios were gone now, much to the relief of the churchgoing ladies of Mimosa Branch, Miss Mamie among them. FOR SALE or FOR RENT signs replaced the nude paintings and sculptures (even males!) that had so alarmed the locals when downtown was invaded by the coven of modern artists (or mod-run, as many of the churchwomen carefully pronounced it) more than a decade ago.

  My wonderful, free-spirited glass sculptor friend’s gallery had only lasted ten months in ultraconservative Mimosa Branch, and even the County Art Center had refused to exhibit her work. So she and her partner had moved to Asheville, a lesbian Mecca in the mountains.

  The recession, combined with the local evangelicals’ efforts to “save” those “weirdo” artists, had finally run the rest of the modrun artists back to California where they belonged. The few remaining local “boats and barns” artists and sculptors had retreated, rent-free, to the old mill warehouse, now vacant and for sale, where they rattled around like beer cans in the bed of an old pickup truck, hot in the summer and freezing in the winter.

  Miss Mamie had kept me up on all the gossip by phone, whether I wanted to hear it or not (mostly not).

  I knew better than to hope she’d lay off, now that we’d be seeing each other so much. Miss Mamie was Miss Mamie, and at ninety, I knew there was no chance that she’d quit gossiping, so it was up to me to ignore the irritations and focus on her good parts, which were many. (I had my church psychologist and 12-step enabler’s group to thank for that revelation.)

  Still, a wave of psychosomatic nausea brought me back to the present just as the delivery truck finally pulled away, only to have a car back out of the fifteen-minute parking in front of the drugstore.

  Chief Parker’s—so named through a succession of five owners—was now Mason’s Hometown Drugs, retaining its defiant mid-sixties appearance, if not its name. Old Doc Owens’s NEVER CLOSED TO THE SICK sign was missing from the plate-glass storefront, along with the pharmacist’s home phone number—a casualty, no doubt, of the twenty-four-hour pharmacy in the new Kroger over by the huge mall at the Interstate.

  Megamall or not, though, downtown Mimosa Branch was still Mimosa Branch, despite the suburban transplants who’d overrun it and the new sidewalks with brick inserts lit by replicas of antique Victorian streetlights.

  At last, the car ahead of me got going.

  Passing the drugstore’s plate-glass windows, I flashed on Grant Owens, and the nausea spiked. Can we say, Mr. Wrong?

  But it hadn’t been his fault. All the signs had been there that he was totally incapable of relationships, but I had deluded myself into thinking I could have a fling with him, no harm done, and he was worthy of my attentions.

  Not, on all counts.

  I’d repented at leisure and knew God had forgiven me, but that didn’t make it any less shameful, a fact that Mary Lou Perkins—the first and foremost of Mimosa Branch’s self-righteous pot-stirrers—continued to drag up in a “serves her right” tone whenever anything bad happened to me, like losing my home. Never mind that plenty of good, hardworking Christians had lost their houses, too.

  Mary Lou controlled the women’s programs at First Baptist and was dead set on preventing “pollution” in the church. Totally negative and judgmental, she was clueless that she’d been seduced by the dark side of the Force. Poor baby.

  Thanks to a decade in my 12-step enabler’s group, I’d finally realized I couldn’t control what people said or thought about me. I could only control my responses.

  Which at the moment included the distinct possibility of hurling in my car.

  Finally exiting the business district, I eased my minivan and U-Haul past the old cotton mill, where a Mexican butcher’s and a supermercado were the sole remaining tenants, evidence of the continued influx of illegals who now did all our yard work and had taken all the entry-level jobs at the poultry plant.

  Leaving olde towne behind at last, I passed First Methodist, then the old brick Presbyterian church that was now the newest First Baptist. (The previous new, giant metal First Baptist across the highway had gone back to the bank after the real estate bust and ensuing depression had halted growth and decimated tithes.)

  Then came “silk stocking lane,” railroad tracks on the left, big houses on the right. Gone were the tall, sparsely leafed-out elm trunks that had lined the sidewalk in my youth, leaving the houses unshaded to bake in the setting sun. I’d long known that there was no hope for the elms since Dutch elm disease had swept across the country, but now that all evidence of them had been erased, I felt a tug of grief, as if those stubborn trees had stood for my own determination to survive.

  The new sidewalks, shiny metal benches, streetlights, and wispy, twelve-foot replacement trees looked very nice, but the houses were left exposed, stripped of their buffer.

  The first big house I passed was the handsome old brick First Methodist manse (sold off years ago to help pay for repairs to the historic church). Next, I passed the same gorgeous white house that was still a law office, one of the few left in town. Next came the hundred-year-old Greek revival replica of a plantation house I’d always loved.

  Beyond that, at a right angle facing town, sat the youngest of the Breedlove mansions, built in the 1920s, a brick Italianate whose pretentious exterior and life-sized cement lions had always looked out of place in Mimosa Branch.

  Lately, the house had been converted from a bed-and-breakfast to a “Christian Family Retreat” by an African-American televangelist who’d bought it and moved in with his family, stirring remnants of residual prejudice deep below the surface in the local white racists, but nothing in the open.

  The biggest change was in front of those old mansions. Taking advantage of the boom before the bust, the city had extended the sidewalks and streetlights all the way to the railroad crossing three blocks past Miss Mamie’s. Then they’d done away with the dogleg in front of the “Christian Family Retreat,” where Main Street had become Green Street, filling the resulting triangle with a new park that sported an open-air amphitheater that faced away from the tracks (for logical reasons).

  The city had rerouted all the traffic between the tracks and the back of the amphitheater’s wall, making the whole thing look backwards to me, so I’d immediately dubbed it Backwards Park. And sure enough, there it was, presenting its bare curved brick wall to me as I passed, all the trees and flowers on the other side, a disturbing metaphor for my life.

  Almost home.

  Four more restored houses/offices sported FOR SALE or FOR LEASE signs, even Mrs. Duckett’s fancifully redone Victorian. The bank had taken it over from the developer who’d done a green-stick restoration, updating the wiring, plumbing, and insulation. Poor guy. He’d spent so much restoring it, yet ended up with nada.

  Across the side street from Mrs. Duckett’s, our house loomed ahead, unchanged, at 1431 Green Street, one of the few remaining residences amid the commercially zoned houses t
hat faced our side of the tracks. The verandah still anchored the sides and front of our sturdy foursquare Victorian colonial revival.

  Miss Mamie’s porch, all eighty feet of it, was her claim to fame. That, and her shoulder-high hedge of pale pink gumpos that bloomed all summer, to the envy and bafflement of the entire garden club and the county extension agent.

  Miss Mamie’s claim to infamy still sat by the front door as it had for the past twenty years: a cast-iron bathtub painted deep purple on the outside, perched on gilded ball-and-claw feet, and brimming with dark pink dragon-wing begonias, our shiny brass house numbers glued to the side.

  It still reminded me of an ancient belle in her underwear, stretched out on a swooning couch for all to see, but I filed my opinions away in the Let go and let God drawer.

  Tommy and I had long since given up trying to get our parents to have somebody haul the bathtub away for scrap. Daddy had protested that it would end up costing too much money, but that was before metal salvage paid so much.

  Now that Daddy was in the Home, I think Miss Mamie held on to the tub out of misplaced loyalty for him, too guilty about having him committed to get rid of it.

  When I looked closer, I saw that my childhood home was showing its age, and I couldn’t help wondering what it cost Miss Mamie to keep it up. Had to be a small fortune.

  The neglect was a disturbing clue that my mother might be hard up financially. But she’d never allowed us to discuss her finances, and at ninety, I doubted she would surrender that final bastion of control without a fight.

  Miss Mamie wouldn’t even tell us what it cost to keep Daddy in the Alzheimer’s wing at the Home. Had to be at least three thousand a month, a major financial hemorrhage.

  Not your business, the voice of my 12-step enabler’s group chided. You’ve got enough problems of your own to deal with.

  Not my business. For the moment, anyway.

  Still, as I passed the historical marker that declared the accomplishments of our Breedlove ancestors, I felt a sudden spike of panic, and my arms refused to turn in at either entrance of our crushed-gravel circular drive.

  I just couldn’t do it.

  So I deflected the inevitable by going to see Daddy at the Home, something I’d put off for months.

  You’ve got to know it’s bad when you’d rather go to a nursing home to see your crazy father than officially announce another failure by moving back in with your mother. Again.

  Three

  I took the crossing gently, hearing a few ominous clinks from my cargo and clanks from the U-Haul as I did.

  Shoot. Shoot, shoot, shoot. Did I break anything?

  I pulled past the taqueria and the Exxon station to the light, then turned left on the highway for half a block before entering the sizzling parking lot of the Home.

  Of course, the only place I could park with the trailer was half a block from the door, and thanks to the heat inversion, the air was hazy with pollution. I locked my car, then hiked inside to be met by the odor of urine, stale sweat, overcooked food, and despair.

  As usual, they kept the thermostat at eighty-five. I breathed through my mouth and tried not to think what germs Daddy and Uncle Bedford were exposed to daily from the overbooked, underpaid nursing assistants.

  The Home had remained perpetually understaffed through four owners, and it didn’t take a genius to know why. With only a few exceptions, they’d never paid the aides enough to keep anybody decent, so turnover was brisk, and most of the ones they hired came from the dregs of the work pool.

  And as usual, there was nobody at the nurses’ station when I passed it on the way to Daddy and Uncle Bedford’s room in the Alzheimer’s wing. At the security door to the wing, I punched in the daily access code written on a Post-it note stuck to the wall above the keypad, then went inside.

  Halfway down the hall, I found Daddy’s door slightly ajar, so I knocked softly as I opened it. “Hey. It’s Lin.”

  What I found inside took me aback. Clothes and bed linens had been hurled every which way. Uncle Bedford’s bare mattress was on the floor (the bed frame wasn’t even in the room), and he and Daddy were lying on their exposed plastic mattresses, butt naked except for the sheets that covered them!

  Daddy looked awful, but Uncle Bedford was a waxy yellow and didn’t even seem to be breathing. Alarmed, I went over and shook him, hard. “Uncle Bedford,” I shouted. “Wake up!”

  He didn’t budge. “Uncle Bedford!” I yelled into his ear.

  Of course, he was stone deaf without his hearing aids, as was Daddy. The two of them carried on totally separate demented conversations at the top of their lungs all the time, but Uncle Bedford now gave off an unfamiliar sour smell and still didn’t respond to my vigorous shaking.

  As pitiful as their lives had become, I panicked at the thought that either of them might be dead. I’d prayed for God to take them both from their misery, but that didn’t mean I was ready for it to happen that day.

  To my relief, Daddy let out a rasping gasp, his jaw dropping, then started sawing logs, which at least told me he was still alive.

  I grabbed the call button from his bed and punched it again and again, but nobody answered.

  Frantic, I hurried out into the hall, where I spotted one of the few longtime nursing assistants emerging at a snail’s pace from the Alzheimer’s dining area at the far end of the corridor. “Shalayne!” I called to her. “Hurry! Something’s wrong with Uncle Bedford.”

  “Hold yer horses,” she said, clearly unimpressed. Her progress didn’t speed up one whit. “I’m a-comin’. These blessed bunions is killin’ me. Just hang on. It’s all good.”

  Frustrated beyond endurance, I went back into Daddy’s room and tried to rouse Uncle Bedford again, with no success.

  My Aunt Glory would never forgive me if I simply stood there and did nothing. She felt guilty enough as it was, for finally throwing in the towel and committing him.

  The General hadn’t been in the Home for two weeks before Aunt Glory gave in to Uncle B’s constant agitated demands that we find his brother. So she’d had her husband of fifty-seven years declared incompetent (duh!), then committed him to the Home on the condition that Uncle B and Daddy could be roommates, bless her heart.

  Free at last, she’d fled Mimosa Branch in Uncle Bedford’s red Corvette, to live with my cousin Susan in Alpharetta, where she had central air-conditioning, her own bathroom, peace and quiet, and mahjong groups aplenty.

  My cousins Susan and Laura took turns coming up to check on Uncle Bedford, but only once a week.

  Not that I could throw stones. I’d been avoiding the Home for months, since Daddy had stopped recognizing me.

  I looked down at my uncle, who lay there like a corpse.

  Should I do CPR? Mouth-to-mouth?

  Would that even work, without his teeth?

  Oh, yuk!

  Should I just stand there and let him go?

  Sensible though that was, I couldn’t, so I started chest compressions.

  Why didn’t that woman hurry?

  Shalayne finally shuffled in. “Now, Miz Scott, you can quit that CPR. They’s no cause to go gittin’ so upset. Last night yer daddy and yer uncle took off all they clothes and was packin’ to leave. All night, hollerin’ away at each other the whole time, as usual.” She cracked a broken-toothed grin. “They was havin’ such a good time, we just left ’em to it. They didn’t git to sleep till an hour ago, so I’m not surprised you cain’t rouse ’em.” She smiled again. “We just covered them as they lay, for modesty, don’t you know.”

  Uncle Bedford finally let out a strangled snore.

  I wanted to be stern with Shalayne, but the picture she conjured made me laugh instead, washing away my fear.

  I was grateful that the staff had let Daddy and Uncle Bedford keep doing what they’d been doing as long as they were having a good time.

  When I collected myself, I asked her, “What happened to Uncle Bedford’s hospital bed?”

  Shalayne shook
her head, exhaling. “He kept climbin’ out of it and fallin’, so we just put the mattress on the floor. Safer, and a lot less trouble than restraints.”

  She pursed her lips with a knowing nod. “We tried restrainin’ him once, and he like to tore the whole bed apart. I’s afraid he’d break his wrists, fightin’ like he was.” She leaned closer. “They’s strong as a WWE rassler with ’roid rage when they have them psychotic spells, don’t you know.”

  She looked back down at my uncle. “So far, puttin’ Mr. B’s mattress on the floor seems to work just fine.”

  Uncle Bedford took a long, blessed breath, then blasted out a barely intelligible hunk of vitriol on the exhale, still asleep.

  His prejudices had come back to haunt him in the form of an armless little black man who bit him on the knees (unless you sprayed him away with Windex), phantom Japanese soldiers who sat on the furniture unless he covered it with sheets, and his wife Aunt Glory, who had turned into “that gay guy” who’d kept “stealing” his shoes (probably to put them where they belonged).

  That gay guy. Please. My father and all three of his brothers had grown up so homophobic, they were probably repressed gays themselves.

  As usual when confronted by the bizarre Southern gothic elements of my family, I tried to laugh it off.

  Lying there, Daddy and Uncle B looked so frail and harmless.

  As if she’d read my mind, Shalayne frowned. “Mr. Bedford’s dangerous, don’t you know? Coldcocked that new boy we hired last week. Thought he was gay, when all the boy was doin’ was trying to git Mr. B’s unmentionables clean in the shower.”

  Shalayne went on in her monotone with, “We had to give Mr. B a hypo of Haldol ta git him settled down, and that new boy quit right there on the spot. But that’s all past, now we went back to lettin’ the women bathe ’em both.”

  Nothing like a woman with a warm, soapy rag in the shower, regardless of what she looked like.

  Men. I mean, really.

  Shalayne pulled the sheet over Daddy’s feet. “They seem to like that.” She crossed her thin arms at her waist in satisfaction. “I tell ya, these old men is still randy, even when they cain’t hardly breathe.”