CHAPTER ONE
My Nana Cole claimed she couldn’t remember a blessed thing about the night she had the stroke. I found that incredibly annoying since it meant, eventually, I’d have to come out to her all over again. Okay, I want to be fair. I didn’tjusttell her I was gay. I sort of blamed her for all the violence in the world done against queer people and called her stupid. It might have been a little much.
So you can see why I might not want to go through that again. I mean, it was traumatic even before I called 911. If I told her I was gay a second time she might spontaneously combust. Or worse, go all Carrie on me and attack me with telekinetic flying knives.
No, thank you.
Of course, she could be lying. She probablywaslying. Lying runs in our family like a bad overbite. Or, she mightnotbe lying. Certainly if she did remember that night, it was hard to believe she wouldn’t blame the entire near-death experience on me.
Her strokewasn’tmy fault. But it was easy to imagine her deciding my being gay was such a horrible bit of news it had given her the stroke. I mean, there was my whole people-like-you are the scourge of the earth—
Well, enough about that. She recovered. Or mostly recovered. She was in Midland Hospital for nearly three weeks before being transferred to Brookhaven Fields Rehabilitation Center, where she was asked to do all sorts of demanding things—like putting together the kind of fifty-piece puzzle you’d ask a five-year-old to complete or, and this was equally challenging, putting round and square pegs into the appropriate holes.
The first week or so, she had trouble speaking. She slurred and drooled and chewed on her words as though they were Chiclets. I really had no idea what she was saying most of the time. But then her speech became clearer, and a month later it was very nearly what it had been. She did still occasionally pause—as though she were trying hard not to stutter—and then skip forward quickly. Kind of like when a CD skips.
She was released from the rehab on the first Wednesday in June. The sun was out in full force that day, and there were few clouds in the sky. The temperature hovered just below seventy. It was the kind of day we had often in Los Angeles, though rarely in Northern Lower Michigan, and it made me feel homesick. To be honest, most things made me feel homesick.
Nana Cole had to sign a few forms and then an orderly, who was in his mid-thirties and Black—something which made him stand out like an over-bright neon sign in Wyandot County—pushed her in a wheelchair out to her Escalade which I’d left parked in front of the entrance. Gently, he helped her climb into the passenger’s seat and told us to have a blessed day as he closed her door.
Walking around the SUV—only limping a little on the ankle I’d badly sprained six weeks before—I climbed into the driver’s seat.
When I was all the way in, Nana Cole said, “He was… nice.” There was a heavy dose of surprise in her voice.
“You mean even though he’s Black?”
“I didn’t say that.” She waited a moment then added, “But, yes. Even though he’s Black. When you see them on TV they’re so angry.”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you see on TV.”
“I meant… the news. The news is real.”
Having seen the news she watched, I didn’t entirely agree. I decided to leave that alone, though. I thought we should get all the way home before we had yet another argument.
As I pulled away, I turned on the local NPR station, which mainly played classical music. It was the only station I could stand since the top forty stations were basically an episode ofAmerican Idoland there were zero stations playing club music. A piece ended and the news came on. The big story of the day was that Martha Stewart had been indicted on nine counts of insider trading or some such.
Nana Cole grumbled and I thought for a moment she might have another stroke. She loved Martha Stewart. She had a subscription toMartha Stewart Livingand faithfully watched her TV show. As the story ended, I resisted the temptation to say, ‘And that’s a good thing.’
The next story was about scientists genetically altering chickens to give them teeth.
“That’s horrible,” Nana Cole said.
“The chickens?” I asked, since she could have just been late reacting—
“Chickens are awful creatures. Teeth… would make them worse.”
“How would you know?”
“I used to raise chickens. When your mother was a girl.” She was silent a moment before she added, “The eggs were nice.”
Having had enough of the news, I reached over and pressed the tuning button until I found a country station.
“Oh, that’s George Strait,” she said, with a half-smile. It could have been George Bush for all I knew. I tried not to pay attention. I’d only put it on to be nice.
I suppose the drive from Bellflower to Masons Bay is scenic. I mean, if you like trees and water and sky. I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about all that. Everything had looked extremely dead when I’d arrived in February—which had matched my mood—and it continued to look dead right up until about Mother’s Day when the trees began aggressively sprouting leaves.
We had trees in Los Angeles, where I’d spent most of my life, but they never seemed to lose their leaves. They never looked dead. Or I didn’t remember them ever looking dead. One or the other.
I should probably explain myself. I went to a party at the beginning of February. A great party. Full of A-list gays. Or at least B-list. You know, industry types. I wanted to have a good time, so before I went I took a Vicodin I’d gotten from a girl at work when she wasn’t looking.
