And that light led me home to the early winter darkness of Michigan to give Mama what she could never give me: a sliver of forgiveness. A molecule of understanding. One damn moment of peace.
Unconditional love.
Maybe I did it because she didn’t have anyone or any money. A lifetime of living isolated in rural America and outliving her friends meant she had no one. You sure weren’t coming back now that Daddy was gone. Sure, Mama had Medicaid, but that didn’t mean the only hospital within a hundred miles accepted it. And how could she even get there on her own for her treatments, scans and doctor visits?
Maybe I came home because I wasn’t allowed at Daddy’s funeral. No one wanted a scene, but let me clear the air: I wasn’t planning on causing one. I was simply planning to take a piss on the old man’s grave in front of the whole town just as he’d done to me my whole life.
Or—let’s be completely honest here, okay?—maybe I came home again to prove to Trudy, Mama and Daddy that I was a better person than any of them. Maybe I took care of her to prove to myself I was a good person, like the one John saw. Or maybe I did it to show her I was the same person I’d always been.
Or maybe I did it because I knew that, for the first time in her life, Mama just needed a friend.
Then I called the funeral home to pick up Mama and make the arrangements, and I told them to call my sister and tell her our mama had died happy, after watching her last episode ofThe Golden Girls. I couldn’t afford a funeral, I didn’t want to stick around long enough for one, but, mostly, I did it to piss off Daddy: My God, he loved a funeral. He loved forcing the entire town to come out and pay tribute to a monster they saw as a hero. As I said, I think God has a sense of humor.
By the time the funeral home called Trudy, I had written a letter to her telling her everything I felt, put the flag up on Mama’s mailbox for the last time, turned around and took the letter back out, and was already back on the road headed west.
The only thing I took from my mama’s house was the beautiful Bakelite bracelet of orange and gold that Dizzy gave her, the one I used to sneak out of her jewelry box. It was the one I was wearing and waving in the air when I dressed up in Mama’s finest the first time. I was pretending to be Cher, and Trudy caught me. She called for Daddy to beat the devil out of me.
Inside Dizzy’s bracelet was a stamp that readVintage Jewelry of Palm Springs.
This was the reason I had gone to the desert in the first place so many moons ago.
I didn’t stop driving until I arrived home to a sunset over the mountains that was as orange and gold as the bracelet I had slipped around my wrist.
Dizzy was right. This bracelet was magical.
I never heard from Trudy again.
Even after my friends reached out to let her know John had died.
Unlike my bracelet, family and guilt would never be ligatures that strangled Trudy.
A Rose Kennedy is already waiting for me at Streetbar.
“Why didn’t you change, Teddy?” Ron asks.
“Nobody fucks with an old lesbian in a gay bar.”
He laughs. I survey the crowd.
The bar is packed to the gills inside and out, not an inch to move. A line snakes down Arenas.
“How’s your drink?” the bartender asks me as soon as I take my first sip. He knows the regulars.
“All vodka,” I say to him. “Just the way I like it. Just the way you like it so you’ll get a big tip at the end of the night.”
Mario winks. He has been hermetically sealed into a tank top, and his biceps could form their own government.
“I would never let Dorothy go thirsty.”
“Thank you, baby. You want a real tip, Mario?” I ask. “Don’t sleep with Barry. Ever.”
“Too late,” Barry says, leaning down the bar to salute me with his martini.
“Whatever happened to the art of conversation?” Ron asks us, shaking his head.
“Exactly!” Sid concurs. “Getting to know one another is still the hottest part of dating.”
“Says a man who hasn’t been on one sinceMacGyverwas on TV,” Barry yells.
