Page 50 of A Winter of Discontent for Henry Milch
“They. They were together.”
“Right. So they were having—” I was about to say breakfast when I realized. They weretogether. Okay, I should have pickedup on that. It was a major gaydar malfunction. Not that my gaydar was particularly attuned to lesbians, but still, I should have—of course, theywerefriends of my Nana Cole, which meant queerness was not even a possibility. And they were old. What were they doing havingsex? With anybody? Oh god, don’t even think about it. I stopped cleaning the baby. Really, she didn’t seem to mind being sticky and this was kind of important.
As reasonably as possible, I said, “You know that has nothing to do with you, don’t you?”
“Of course it has to do with me. They told me. Why did they have to tell me?”
“You said you figured it out.”
“They could have lied. That’s what friends do for each other.”
“Nana, you matter to them. God knows why.” Her eyes flashed at me. I decided to plunge forward. “If you don’t know then you don’t really know them. Is that what you want?”
“People should be what they’re supposed to be.”
“Who decides what they’re supposed to be?”
“God.”
“And you know what God wants?”
“I go to church. I read my Bible.”
“And what if the minister’s wrong? What if you misunderstand the Bible? It’s certainly contradictory.”
B minus, Comparative Religion 34. Proud of that. I even went to most of the classes.
“I know what’s true in my heart,” Nana Cole said.
“Yeah, well, what if what’s in your heart is meanness and hatred? Is that what God wants?”
“They’re going to hell. You’re going to hell. Is that really whatyouwant? Would you really give up eternity for…acceptance?” She said acceptance like it was a dirty word.
“I’ve seen what Christians are like. If heaven’s full of them, then I don’t want to go.”
I mean, seriously, an eternity with people shaming each other over impure thoughts versus disco inferno 24/7? It seemed an easy decision to me.
With a grimace, Nana Cole stood up from the table. Her cane was right there at the ready. I watched as she hobbled down the hallway to the living room, cane in one hand, the other bracing her against the wall. She looked frail, easily broken. I realized we’d grown up in very different worlds.
She’d been welcomed into the world and given the prescribed roles of wife and mother; both seemed to have fit her well. I grew up in a world that did not welcome me. In fact, all too often it encouraged me not to exist at all. Somehow, my struggling to find a place, and now Bev and Barbara doing the same, somehow that threatened Nana Cole. It didn’t change her position in the world, but somehow she felt it did.
God, I needed a thirty milligram OxyContin. Two would be better. Unfortunately, I was going to have to settle for an Ativan. I finished cleaning up the baby, wiped down the high chair, and then took Emerald upstairs. I changed her diaper—it was overdue—and put her into the crib, hoping she’d take a long nap.
My grandmother hadn’t asked me anything about being arrested or how I got un-arrested. I guess that just showed how upset she was. Selfishly, I wondered what we were going to do without Bev and Barbara. Together, and separately, but mostly together, they’d been doing a lot of childcare. I watched my sister as she lay in the crib. Yeah, she was going to drift off soon. I tried to resist the temptation to make faces at her and failed completely. I could have spent the time making those notes Bernie wanted but… well, screw that.
When Jan arrived, I popped an Ativan, said hello, put on my winter gear, and left the house. I wanted to talk to Hal Buckwald, but I had no idea where he lived. My Nana Cole probably knew,but the atmosphere in that kitchen had turned arctic and I’d just wanted to get out of there.
Speaking of arctic, the moment I walked out the back door I was slapped in the face by the frigid air. It had to be well below ten degrees. That made up my mind. I took the Escalade. The plow had come through again and dumped almost of a foot of snow at the end of the driveway. For the SUV, driving through it wasn’t a problem. Like driving over a dead body.
Anyway, I figured the best way to find Hal would be to ask his cousin Buford. I’d pretty much figured out where the Campbell—compound? complex? nuclear test site?—was located, so I pointed myself in that direction and about fifteen minutes later I was at Buford’s door.
As I stood there waiting for him to come to the door, I noticed that the wind had blown away some snow and there was what looked like a green plaid blanket beneath the snow.What was that about?I wondered just as he opened the door.
“Hi. Me again.”
This time, he cracked it open a little wider. I took that to mean we were becoming friends. He wore stained long underwear and had a bad case of bedhead. I found myself saying, “I’m sorry I woke you.”
“I wasn’t asleep. I’ve been awake since 1993.”
