Bettyville (19 page)

We were young and I wish I could have been one of the ones who went to the barricades, but instead I went to work very early in the mornings and stayed late at night and tried to avoid all the sadness, to push it away, because it was so unfathomable. Other people screamed in rage. I got quieter and quieter, and when it came time, as it always did, to talk about those who were sick, I excused myself because I had to, and if someone's parents were mentioned, if there was some story of so-and-so's mother or father flying in, or not coming, or leaving with ashes, or maybe staying until the moment when it was over for their son, I went out the door and back to my room, that bed, that silence. I excused myself, as my mother would have, in the face of this. For me, AIDS, those years, was that room where I read books and felt scared. At Easter, that first year it all started, when the Italians came down the street with their crèche in its long glass case, I mistook the celebration of resurrection for a funeral for someone who had grown up in this neighborhood that was really so much like the village I might never return to.

. . .

When the AIDS tests came out, a friend and I went to take our place in line. Contemplating the signing of a living will, I moved slowly through the three-week wait time after they drew my blood, but registered negative when we got the results. My friend was negative too, but because the test's effectiveness was uncertain, he was not relieved. He had been with a lot of men and could not shake the belief that he had AIDS, whatever the test showed. For years, he dissolved with the discovery of every mark or pimple. It turned out that he had also written his parents a letter, and when he found out I had too, he gave me his to hold on to, just in case. It already had a stamp and I wondered why I had not thought of that. It was a city of letters waiting.

. . .

We are getting on a bus to go to the AIDS march in Washington. I remember the trip. Almost everyone I knew from New York was going. It seemed for many a necessity, a last chance to have all their friends gathered around them before they got really sick.

Thanks to Steven, I rode on a bus with the Gay Men's Chorus, which he and the doctor had joined. All the way they sang. When I looked at Steven and made a face, he looked offended, but I didn't care. It was too early in the morning for anything from
Sweeney Todd
.

From a friend, I had learned that Eric was back in D.C., working for a senator. From directory assistance I got his number and called him up. He agreed to see the AIDS quilt on the Mall with me on the afternoon before the march. I didn't know what to expect, but after I had settled in at the hotel I made my way to Dupont Circle, where Eric had an apartment. When he came to the door, he looked skinnier than I remembered and I thought he was about to tell me something terrible, but he said nothing about being ill and I assumed I was just paranoid. I thought everyone was sick. Of course, everyone was.

Things were a little awkward. When it came down to it, I did not know Eric well, despite the full and interesting life we had led together in my imagination. Unable to hide my curiosity, I asked if he still had girlfriends. He replied that he was a “full-time homosexual” now, as if it were a difficult job he has accepted somewhat reluctantly.

“Great timing, huh?” he said.

I thought he might come to me now. Afraid of dying, men suddenly wanted to be in relationships. He was friendly, but distant, melancholy, like everyone. What was missing was his enticing spark of mischief. It was harder to make him laugh and I tried too hard. Now and again he was gracious enough to smile.

Outside, as we walked to the Mall, we said little to each other. I wanted to fill the space between us, but could not and got more and more anxious. I had felt so good with him before, but not this time. This time it was harder.

At the quilt, there were names and names and names, patches that signified lost lives with trinkets and photos of faces sewn on. I watched a woman who looked to be from out of town gazing at the quilt, as if she could not tear herself away. She took off her scarf and pinned it on. She became my picture of our lives at this time. She became my mother.

I did not want to go to the Missouri section—I didn't want to see for sure who was there—but Eric navigated us toward the Massachusetts panels, where he cried, and on to D.C., where he cried again. I did not look but heard him, surprised that he was so emotional. I wanted to cry along with everyone, but could not, so I pretended until I realized that no one was thinking about me.

“If you had died, would your parents be here?” I asked Eric. He said nothing, but looked back at me, as if to pose the same question. I shook my head.

“It just isn't something they would know to do. They wouldn't have anyone around to tell them to come.”

Later, when my mother finally spoke of AIDS, she asked if I knew anyone who had it. I nodded, said nothing more. I didn't tell her about Steven's HIV status. It would have terrified her. My father never said anything about it. He was retired now. After the trip to New York, he purchased an aquarium, and though his fish were much smaller than the ones at Barneys, they were colorful and looked good under the light of the cylinder that shone over them as they darted through the water to ride in the waves of grass. He kept it all immaculately, and recently I found the tank neatly packed in the box it came in under his desk with a book on tropical fish inside it. He had circled the photos of the most glorious creatures. His fingerprints were still on the tank. When his health first worsened, he gave the fish to a neighbor boy whose parents were getting divorced.

. . .

As we left the quilt that day, a fat woman standing by the entrance with a lot of Christian literature had looked at Eric and said, “I will pray for you.” He said, “Pray for yourself.”

I had never seen him angry before. As it turned out, I shared that feeling, but it took awhile to know. I never knew what was going on inside me or how it might surface. It took a long time for me to lose my habit of disappearing at important times. Eric was special to me because with him I was able to be present. It was mysterious; I never knew why he made me feel comfortable when no one else could. With him I could be there, not just watching for my own mistakes.

We did not come together that day, even though I wanted to. It was not that kind of day. I left him standing alone by a window in his apartment.

. . .

As it happened, I saw my parents again, rather soon after they came to New York. Not long after my trip to Washington, I found myself arriving at a hotel in Sarasota, Florida, to meet George and Betty for a long weekend. They had torn down the old lumberyard building in Madison and it had been a draining few months for the whole family. Betty had said that on Main Street it looked like someone had ripped out a big tooth. It was the building her dad had built after he came back from the war. My parents wanted to get away from businesses closing and stores shutting their doors. They were old now. The funerals where my father sang were for friends.

When I arrived at the hotel in Florida, my dad was standing alone on the curb in the golden sunlight, bending over to touch a colorful, exotic flower. He was waiting for me, my arrival, and when he saw me there, all there, unchanged, safe, he wiped his eyes with his sleeve and rushed toward me to take me into his big arms.

T
oday was supposed to be my day off. I was going to drive fifty miles to Columbia to see the movie
The Master
.

The plan was to go buy the Sunday
New York Times,
read it at Lakota Coffee Company, see the movie, and go to Taco Bell (secret, disgusting vice) for dinner. But when Betty finds out about this, she decides she has to go. I guess she has been longing for art house fare. She will not take no for an answer, is raring to take off. I sense looming disaster, but she is actually ready to leave by my scheduled departure time. She has put on her new blouse, a little snug, a little formfitting now.

“I look so buxom,” she says as she glances in the mirror on her way out, as she always does.

“Betty,” I say, “you're ninety years old. If you got it, flaunt it. Now would be the time.” She looks at me quizzically, pulls her shoulders back, and heads out the door.

My mother and I rarely go to movies together, a situation stemming from the fact that forty years ago I somehow manipulated my parents into taking me to see Jane Fonda in
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
—which was “Suggested for Mature Audiences”—one Easter Sunday. (The sacredness of the date was emphasized for decades as an essential part of the horror of it all, when the story was told.) Unfortunately, the movie, which dealt with a group of doomed participants in a 1930s dance marathon, turned out to be the most depressing film ever made.

My father, who seemed to be expecting something spicier, registered disappointment as we walked to the car afterward. Betty, significantly more aroused, was appalled by the fact that the movie was ever shown in America. Or anywhere. She couldn't believe I had lured her into such an experience. Jane Fonda, previously a “reprobate,” a “Communist reprobate,” or “an unmarried, topless reprobate,” became simply the woman “in
that
movie, that movie you dragged us to
on Easter Sunday.
” Some years later, when Gig Young, who won an Oscar for his role in the movie, committed suicide, my mother read it in the paper and flung the article across the table at me.

So,
The Master:
I know she doesn't even want to see the movie. She has another motive altogether. My mother, reluctantly and rebelliously, takes her prescription medications—morning, noon, and night. But she is kept alive—and this is an absolute fact—by regular Dairy Queen Blizzards, which she acquires at the Columbia DQ. Her entire interest in the trip is the Blizzard. My plan is to get the tickets to the film, go get her the Blizzard, and then come back to see the movie, where, I hope, she will doze.

But when I buy the tickets, I realize that the film goes on a half hour before I thought. The Blizzard has to be postponed. Not happy, but a good sport, Betty allows herself to be temporarily placated with popcorn. But the Ragtag Cinema in Columbia, too hip and healthy for its own good, does not have butter for popcorn. They have olive oil. Starting on the popcorn, Betty eyes it suspiciously after a few bites, then glances at me ferociously. “What is on this popcorn?” I answer, “Olive oil.” She is furious. “What right,” she inquires, “do they have to do that? Are they
Italian
?”

Finally, the movie begins. I know, in about four seconds—certainly by the time Joaquin Phoenix drinks his first glass of turpentine—that I am going to hate it. Worse, I know that she is going to really hate it. I sense a potential
They Shoot Horses
situation in the making. I pray for sleep to wrap its gentle arms around her. But no. She is wide awake, rustling and squirming, sighing dramatically about every ten minutes. At one point, there is a scene where all the women in the room are suddenly nude. My mother sits up. “Good night,” she says. (Both my parents talked louder in movie theaters than anyone I have ever encountered.) “This is
terrible
.” I whisper in her ear, “Stop talking or no Blizzard.” Immediate silence. This continues for a half hour.

Then, a loud exhalation and a comment that seems to be nearly shouted: “Why in the world would anyone make a movie like this?” Our neighbors in the theater turn to my mother, who begins to rummage loudly through what she calls her “pocketbook.” I lean toward her, whisper, “Blizzard.” She settles, but I no longer can pay any attention to the movie.

. . .

High on Blizzard, Betty is alert as we head toward home. I switch on the radio. It is Bartók night on KBIA. Betty, whose last favored tune was the love theme from
The Titanic,
flicks off the switch militantly. The miles pass. She leans over to check my speed about every fifteen minutes.

At some point, she fixes me in her gaze.

“Rachel Maddow,” she announces, “is a lesbian. I read it in an article. And I'll tell you something else. I think Ingrid Wilbur is a lesbian too.” Something in her tone suggests that I am the executor of a Watergate-style conspiracy designed solely to bar her from this revelation. Ingrid, the assistant to my mother's physician, stands five feet tall, wears cargo pants, and is topped by a head that bears a near-perfect shave.

“Ingrid Wilbur,” I say, “was there when they invented it.”

Although it is far from chilly, Betty turns on her heated seat, as usual. She encourages me to do the same. When I resist, she reaches over and flicks mine on. My ass soon feels like the site of a barbecue. “If you don't turn off my seat,” I tell her, “I am going to burst into flame.” She stares at me, but does not make a move to ease my pain. “These seats are the best thing about the car.

And then it happens: Whenever we go out at night, my mother, with her uncanny sense of speed and, despite her failing eyesight, sonarlike skills of detection, is always on the lookout for deer, the curse of drivers in these parts. She is always petrified we will hit one of the apparently suicidal animals and can repeat a list of people she knows who have had this experience over the last few years. We use Route T when we go back and forth to Columbia because a friend of ours, a judge, whom she respects as an authority on every topic, says he has never seen a deer on Route T.

But tonight, there is a deer on T. I barely see it as it leaps across the road, into my path. I am driving too fast, with my mind on other things. Its eyes glare at me as it stands, immobilized, just before the point of collision. Then I hear a huge thump and see the deer, at least part of it, flying through the air. I envision my lonely-dog-related karma hissing out of those antlers.

I get out. A large part of the deer, most of it in fact, including the head and antlers, is still in the highway. What is the proper etiquette in such a situation? Is one expected to move the deer off the road? Is there some authority to be called? A game warden? A wildlife emergency team? I don't want to move the deer. If I had a gun, I supposed I would have to shoot it to put it out of its misery. But I don't. Maybe I should choke it?

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Betty shouts from the car as I eye the deer, oozing dark blood, feeling horrible. Its head seems larger than is fitting for display in a studio apartment.

I consider trying to move it, but I tell myself that I could easily contract some sort of germ or infection that could kill me, and Betty, before basically destroying the universe. The thing will have to stay in the road. I am sorry, oh creature of the forest. I meant no harm and have no gun to send you heavenward. I hope you don't have children. I just wanted the Arts and Leisure section and a taco. I am a peaceful man.

No way I can move this thing. It will have to stay. Maybe a highway patrolman will come along. Or perhaps someone burly and hairy will arrive, someone adept at the removal of large carcasses on the way to an NRA confab. “I have to go to the bathroom,” Betty yells again.

I check out the car. There is the smell of burning antifreeze. The front is somewhat mangled, with the grille badly dented in. This, I realize, will not go over well with my passenger.

“I knew that was going to happen,” my mother says. “It was just a matter of time.”

Screw the deer; I wave good-bye as I peel out. “You never should have dragged me to that movie,” Betty says. “But the deer was not your fault. I was watching out and didn't notice it. I didn't notice it. It just came out of nowhere.”

“It was deranged. It hated its life,” I say. I am collateral damage.

Betty is animated but calm, ready to take on at least part of the responsibility. It was her watch. This is a woman who can treat the transmission of a common cold as a tragic twist of fate, but crash into a creature whom you fear is Bambi's papa and you will encounter a soldier prepared to storm the beaches of Normandy.

“How's the car?” she asks.

“Kinda banged up.” I imagine an estimate from our mechanic that will send her into cardiac arrest as he jabbers on about tanks or belts or vaporizers. Or whatever. My mother loves this car because, I suspect, she knows it will be the final automobile she will ever purchase, her last ride. It gets us back home, though something loose on the front scrapes the road all the way and the smell of smoke does not fade. I fear I may have snagged a smoldering piece of deer flesh. Maybe I should throw it in the Crock-Pot.

Inside, I fall into a state of near breakdown. I have spilled innocent blood and am contemplating the arrival of vengeful animal spirits.

The next morning, I find Betty staring out the garage door at the car. I call the insurance agent, deal with the paperwork. I do the kind of thing that I normally put off until crisis threatens. Miraculously, I pull it off. The insurance man is nice and helpful. The check will arrive without delay and the Infiniti is destined to fly once more, in search of other prey. My mother seems rather astonished by my crisp, businesslike efficiency, and I am too.

“I thought we were going to have to get a new car,” she says. I feel, suddenly, competent. I have braved antlers, paperwork, possible renal failure, and emerged triumphant. Maybe, if I can keep it together, I can save the ranch. Betty says, “The next time you see a movie, go by yourself. I have better things to do with my money.”