“Did you see that bitch in the maroon coat? That was Cecile’s mother, and she’s such a holy terror even though she’s Catholic. Or maybe that’s why. One time, I heard her telling the kids that I was going to Hell, and they shouldn’t be around me because I was a pervert and was grooming them whenever I did something nice with them. Jacob said to her, ‘Grooming us? Grandma, he never even combs his own hair, let alone ours. And his whiskers never get shaved clean off. That’s what Dad says, so I hardly think he’s that into grooming, you know?’”
Mike put his hand on my hip, making little circles down my belly.
The part of me that was still Drunk Me was starting to cry. “They have always hated me. I know that. I knew that when I was twelve and was telling my friend Jackie, little Jackie whose drag name is now Tootsie Whoopsie. She works in Portland, and I was telling her, I mean him, about how hot the gym teacher was. Mike, what are you…stop that. No, don’t stop that.”
Mike was leaning over me by then, his hand, well, you know, and he was breathing into my face. I loved the warmth of it, and how his eyes glittered in the light that came in through his window, and the moon and the stars were, were, well, you know.
* * * *
A knock on the apartment door woke us up. Mike went to the door and cautiously opened it about two inches. A small hand reached in and gave him a note. I was sitting up by this time, yawning and scratching my tummy. It rumbled.
Mike came back to bed and tumbled in beside me, partly on me, our arms and legs just naturally twining together as if we were an old married couple who still liked each other. He opened the note.
“It’s from my landlady. It says, ‘Come on down, breakfast is ready, and get some before these little monkeys eat it all up. We know you TWO are up there!’’”
We shared a look of confusion, at least on my part, growing understanding, I think, and some horror. Mike got up and went to the window.
“My limo is there! All in one piece, too, as far as I can tell. How did it…the kids? Jacob! Bless him! I never gave it another thought. It’s my whole livelihood, but I was just too wrapped up in you!”
He blushed so hard, I could see it all the way across the room. It was very pretty and very enticing, but I smelled bacon.
We dressed and went down to his landlady’s apartment. We followed our noses to the kitchen where we saw an old woman at the stove, five children at a table full of food, and piles of bacon and pancakes and waffles. Cups of various liquids were scattered around. Three dogs of varying sizes and six cats were sitting around, some behaving, others not so much.
The cook turned around. I have never in my life seen such an old woman. She had a nose like a hawk, her eyes were like an eagle’s, and she had tattoos of airplanes on her bare arms. She waved a large spatula in our general direction and ordered us to sit down.
She said, in fact, “Sit down, shut up, and eat.”
So we did. Believe me, we did.
Five assorted kids, two of us, and an old woman with a cast iron skillet in her hands and a twinkle in her old blue eyes. We ate very quietly.
Except for our little pirate, who exclaimed, “Good grub, cookie! Especially the chocolate pancakes!”
Elden raised one eyebrow and adjusted his glasses. “Shouldn’t that little heathen be using a plastic sippy cup instead of this lovely bone china, G-Ma?”
“Oh, please,” said the princess, “Both of us have manners, you know. We don’t break things, not like that one does.” She pointed her knife at her older sister. “Lethbeans are so clumsy sometimes.” And since her sister was glaring at her, she added sweetly, “But you know, they can’t help it. They mean well.”
“What’s a lethbean?” asked Elden.
“It means she likes girls.”
The cook, A.K.A. G-Ma, laughed uproariously. “When I was in the Army Air Corps,” she started. “Oh, wait, that story isn’t appropriate for children.”
Elden was examining the china cup he had in front of him. “This is really lovely, but what if one of us breaks it? Will you make us pay for it?”
“Nope. Look behind you. See that china closet? There are dozens more. Don’t worry about it, child.”
But Elden continued, “You know, our family is like this cup, only it’s a cup with a huge crack in it, ready to break with one more strain. And if you have a crack or a break, all the good stuff inside leaks out. That’s how our family is, all the good stuff is leaking out.”
“I thought it was called lets-be-hens because girls like chicks,” one of the twins said.
Spearing waffles into my mouth, I had to ask, “Is it because of me?”
“No,” Jacob answered, four pieces of bacon in one hand halfway to his mouth. He stared at it for a while. “Well, honest, maybe some. I mean, they bring you up as ammunition once they get going, but Mom and Dad just fight all the time. I have no idea what it starts out as, but they drag in Grandpa and Grandma and all of us kids, and you, and people I’ve never even met.”
Gwen said, “And don’t forget Dad’s little midlife crisis, you know, his sports car and his secretary.”
Mike was shifting uncomfortably. “Can I ask just how your grandfather died? We don’t even really know.”
“I made him walk the plank because he hurt Jasmine.”
Jasmine smiled at Victoria, but tears came to her eyes. “He did, he really did. I mean, he didn’t come in my room or anything like we talk about at school, but if I put my elbows on the table or something, he’d smack my hand hard and call me a pimple.”
Gwen blushed. “He was just not a very nice man at all. Dad had a younger sister, you know, who killed herself when she was about my age. They never knew why, or at least, nobody’s ever said why or talked about her.”
Elden said, “See? Secrets in the bottom of the cup where they are the last to spill out.” He went on, “Dad said he died of a broken heart because Grandma forgot who he was, but Grandma forgot who all of us are, too. It didn’t break my heart. That just happens to old people, sometimes.”
“Grandad said he was disappointed in you,” Victoria pronounced firmly. “But I think he was just disappointed in general. You could see when he looked at Dad that he wasn’t happy with him either. I think he just got old and lost.”
G-Ma had been listening closely. “My mother used to say, ‘It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.’ Maybe he just got weak.”
Speaking of weak and lost, that’s about where my head was by now. These kids…
Mike said, “Jacob, my man, you can drive, but let’s take you and the rest of these kids home before your mom or dad call the police. I think your uncle has a couple more errands to run, and then we’ll come back over to see what we can do to help. Okay with that?”
G-Ma gasped, “You’re letting that child drive your beautiful car again? Why, in the war, there was nobody I’d let fly my plane!”
Mike said quietly, so Jacob wouldn’t hear, “I have insurance up the ass, G-Ma.” Louder, he added, “Just once, I want to ride in the back of a limo, too!”
It wasn’t very nice of me, but I let Mike sit in the back with the four younger kids while I climbed into the front with Jacob. Maybe Mike knew I didn’t really need to talk to my nephew, but I did need the peace and quiet. And I wanted to know about my father. What had happened? Was it quick? Why wasn’t I called sooner so I could have seen him? We hadn’t parted on good terms—his choice, but still—I’d been willing to make it up, if there was anything I could do, ever since, and now that chance was gone.
It was funny. I’d come here for family and expected interaction with family, but now I’d found someone I cared deeply about. All this family crap was getting in the way of our relationship. It pissed me off. Was I just being selfish to want to spend time with him instead of hauling children around and probably interfering in my brother’s parenting of them? Did Dad leave a will? Did we have to see a lawyer? I assumed my brother was executor. I did need and wanted to see my mother, though, and I
knew Mike understood that.
I watched Jacob drive. He was very skillful at it, for his age. I wondered how he had become so good. I guess he was just as natural at driving as I was at diving. I felt tears in my eyes as I started to relax. Didn’t that always happen? It was like if you slowed down, your emotions could catch up with you.
“Upset?” Jacob asked, without taking his eyes off the road.
“Ninjas cutting onions,” I replied, trying to make light of it.
“It’s okay to cry about your father. Even when they mean well, they just don’t get it, or they don’t get it across, you know? Maybe we don’t give it back the right way either. I don’t know what my dad wants out of me. He’s so hard on me! I guess he wanted a mini-me, and he didn’t get it, at least, not until Victoria, Victor, that is, came along!” Jacob had a great laugh.
He continued, “And I’m the straight one! Sure, I love drama and music and art, and I’m a total klutz at all ball games, but that’s probably my vision. If I weren’t so vain and so scared of Dad, I’d go get glasses or something. I mean, I can see to drive all right, though.”
“What happened with Grandpa? Do you know? Is it some big secret or something? Does Grandma know? I wonder if she’ll remember who I am.” I said this aloud, though I could have just thought it. It weighed on me so much and was next on my agenda, if I had one. Of course, it would be a gay agenda, right?
“You must be uptight dealing with my dad and your own dad, plus having a new boyfriend and everything. I hope us kids haven’t added to your problems.”
“You kids are a delight,” I lied.
“You’re a big hero. You name is in all the papers. I’m going to live off this for the rest of the school year. ‘Yes, he’s my uncle. You know, we’re very close!’”
“To be honest, and not an adult, you could do worse than move out to G-Ma’s and work for Mike,” I said bluntly. “You’re almost eighteen. It would be perfect if you could wait until then.”
“Thank you. I need to tell you something about Grandpa’s death. My dad thinks it’s my fault.”
We were at a red light, and I could hear music and hilarity coming from the back. I thought I’d rather be back there, but I wanted to know this, and I could clearly see Jacob needed to talk about it.
Without taking his eyes off the road, and with his knuckles turning white on the wheel, Jacob went on, “Grandpa wanted to get his hair cut. I wanted to go to a movie. It was already planned, but I knew Dad wouldn’t let me get out of taking Grandpa to his favorite barber. So I made up a story about having to help a sick friend so he could get back on the football field and take me with him. Lame, right? But Dad was so invested in his mini-me version of how a son of his should be, that he bought it. So Dad took Grandpa.”
I nodded. Didn’t seem like anything horrible to me.
We started down one of Seattle’s horrible hills, and I remembered the other day’s events with my becoming a hero actions. I had to close my eyes.
Jacob said, “So Dad took him. When he brought him back, Grandpa had gotten out of the car and was walking around the back. Dad started to drive off, not knowing that Grandpa was leaning on the back of the car, and Grandpa fell and knocked himself out. Or else he had a stroke and fell. Either way, if Dad hadn’t moved the car, or as he put it, if I’d driven Grandpa…But Grandpa said he was fine and wouldn’t go to the hospital or anything. The next morning his care-giver found him dead in his room. I guess you probably hate me now, don’t you? Just like Dad does.”
“I could never hate you. Jacob. That was not your fault. If it was Grandpa’s time to go, then it was time to go. Nothing you did or didn’t do could change that. In my opinion, your father feels so guilty that he has to blame someone else, anyone else, which is what a scoundrel like him would do. It wasn’t you.
“In fact,” I continued, surprising myself, “I don’t think anyone is at fault. If you had to be psychic to prevent something, then there is no guilt or fault involved. Causation? Yes, but it’s been my experience that there are always three or more things, or people, involved.”
“Here’s where that car went in,” Jacob pointed out, and I opened my eyes to find we’d reached the bottom of the steep hill. “What do you mean, causation, like it takes a village to raise a child?” Jacob asked.
“Last month, back home, a man was bitten by a shark. If he hadn’t gone out at that time of day; if it hadn’t rained the day before, which made the water murky; if he had taken the wave instead of waiting for a bigger one; not to mention if there hadn’t been a shark.”
Jacob quoted, “Something, something of dangers averted, fears vanquished, and enemies overcome. That’s all I remember from one summer’s worth of Bible Camp Mom made me go to. But that sort of ties in, backwards, but still.
“Plus, I can see how it all ties in to saving that baby yesterday, with Grandpa dying so you were here, and the timing, and crap. It’s complicated. But it’s nice that something good came out of it all.”
We had reached my brother’s place by then, and frankly, I was glad. The kid was too philosophical for me. I hoped he wouldn’t go into politics or the ministry. That probably just left crime. Weren’t the three careers all similar? We said our goodbyes, and Mike, after seeing the kids to the door, climbed into the driver’s seat.
“I missed you,” we both said.
I added, “Can we get these other awful things done and go home, go somewhere, where there’s just the two of us?”
Mike raised one eyebrow ever so slowly, and his lips formed a provocative smile, one full of promise.
* * * *
“Rats, I meant to ask the kids about the funeral!” I said.
Mike smiled. We were driving to the ferry dock to cross over to Bainbridge Island where my mother lived in a nursing home. It was still uncomfortably close to where we had become heroes.
Mike parked in the lot and said, “Well, I’ll tell you what I heard while I was in the back. Those kids, damn.” He shuddered. “My mother wanted grandchildren, but my sister didn’t want any kids. She and her husband moved as far away as they could. I should probably adopt one. No, wait! I’ll take some of your brother’s kids over to see her and say they’re mine.”
I loved this man. “Maybe someday, they will be yours, at least, your step-nieces and nephews.” I leaned over and kissed him, then just stayed there in the middle of the seat.
We necked for a few minutes, heard a car pull up next to us, and then just held hands. After a while, the lot filled up, the ferry came in, massive and white, and we drove onto the deck.
“I want lunch.”
“Are you kidding? We just had a huge breakfast.”
“I’m a man of insatiable appetites,” Mike said. “Let’s go upstairs and get some food. Besides, I need to take a whiz.”
Soon we were sitting at a table by the small cafeteria, eating more food, drinking more soda.
“Now,” Mike began, “the kids. Well, the funeral went straight downhill after the excitement, so they said.”
Yeah, I’d been the excitement.
“Yes,” Mike said, reading my mind. “As funeral entertainment goes, that was awesome. You were a star.
“Elden tried to tell the story straight, but everyone kept interrupting. The short form is this: your mother came up to the casket, touched your father’s face, and spit on him. Then she called him some names in Italian or Russian. Elden was so frustrated that he didn’t know what they meant that he jotted them down to look up on the Internet later. I like that kid. Then your sister-in-law went to the bathroom but came rushing back out in a hurry, all furious and shit. Apparently,”
“Don’t tell me. Gwen and company?”
Mike nodded, grinning. “But sister-in-law stayed long enough to hear Gwen say she’s pregnant. Her friend said, ‘But, Gwen you’re gay. How can you be pregnant?’ Gwen said, ‘Duh, how do you think I found out I wasn’t straight?’ That part was per Victoria, who had been hiding in one of the stalls, spyin
g on the older girls. Victoria chimed in with, ‘Eww, boys are gross!’ Hopefully, she didn’t understand the older girls’ context!
“Elden said some old guy he’d once met at your father’s said, ‘As long as we leave before the collection,’ to the other old guy next to him and then farted. Jasmine chimed in with her dad had allergies, and, ‘There were too many fucking flowers, that’s what Dad said, I’m only saying what he said, not swearing, so that’s why he was sneezing all the time and swearing.’
“And get this: Elden said some old woman came in and went right up to the coffin and started screaming and crying that she’d never get over him and he had said he’d leave her his house in the will, but nobody even called her and something about how she didn’t know he was even married or whatever. Elden did his best to get all the words right, but I don’t think he understood most of them. So, Elden finished, ‘Apparently, Granddad died in some place called flagrante delicto, but I don’t think that’s local.’”
By then, we were hunched over the table, trying not to choke on our food while laughing hysterically and trying not to snort or attract attention. It wasn’t working.
“Too bad I didn’t see my mother at the funeral,” I said. “She must have put on a show.”
“Second only to yours,” Mike replied.
We tossed our cups and plates in the trash and returned to the car. Driving off the ferry, we followed a long line of other vehicles for several miles, then made a left turn toward the nursing home.
“She probably won’t know me anyhow, but I have to say hello and I’m sorry for your loss and all that.”
“What was she like when you were growing up?”
I bit back several answers and finally just said, “Bossy.”
I was frightened, even now, of her moods and her version of the Mexican chancla, or slipper. She had punished with a wooden spoon, several hard whacks on the bare butt or wherever they landed, as long as the marks didn’t show when you went to school. I knew she wasn’t going to do this to me ever again, but that hadn’t been the only way she hurt. Her words and single raised eyebrow also cut like a knife. I didn’t want to go there, either in memory, or now.
A Broken Cup Page 4
