[QUOTE=Sampiro]
Among other things I expressed my irritation and depression (not of the “rubbing lipstick on my eyebrows and shit in my hair” type QUOTE]
I have an acquaintance that was depressed and thought since she felt blue she should be blue and got one of those tablet that you put in the commode to make the water blue and colored herself with it. I did not see her at the time but the picture in my mind is of a big smurf.
Thank you, Sampiro. I’ve been thinking about my mother today, and you have put all this into words that help me make more sense of my mourning.
Sitting here crying as I read, and thank you for that.
Sampiro; just incredibly beautiful, complex, twisted, agonizing, and, then,again, beautiful breaking into the odd scattered light of understanding a glimpse of passing truth.
What I see in your writing, above so many others who make a popular living at it, now, is that you don’t just stop with the bizarre illustration of how your family’s strangeness made you what you are as a Modern American. You delve into the history of place, tell what made your folks the way they are, and weave that in and tie up the pecodillos with good grace, yet unflinching in truth of craziness. And, in that last post, with an amazing depth of Love. The Chang and Eng comparison had me in tears, so strong, out there, and fucking true.
For your Mama, an incredible tribute for Mother’s Day. For you, write that book. Do it for Eng, and the good gravy that will come of it.
I’m going to bump this to the front page so Sampiro doesn’t have any trouble finding it.
Um…lilacs don’t bloom in August or September, but carry on!
Bummer. Turns out they’re petunias (I asked my sister). Pity. I am essentially to flowers what U.S. Grant was to tunes (“I know two tunes. One is Dixie and the other isn’t.”) Turns out lilacs aren’t even an actual flower.
Well, at least I know the tune “Green Grow the Lilacs” (one of my father’s favorite songs, along with “Come to the Bower”) so I’m one up on Grant.
Meanwhile, my long weekend with my sister is coming to an end. Must tell shortly.
I heard the story of my great-great-grandmother, the red haired freckled face Irish lass Polly Shannon, from my mother, my grandmother, various aunts and cousins, and her name is still in the family today because of her spunk and prophecy. Polly’s family were potato Irish who wound up in Alabama in the 1840s, forged a horse and mule farm out of the wilderness of the central Alabama hills, and did well until the Civil War when they were plundered by the Confederacy requisitioning animals, thieves, and finally by the Union Army in Wilson’s raid in the final days of the war. The Union took their last mule and last horse and everything else that wasn’t nailed down, but most importantly to the story they took Firedancer (the name is consistent), an unbroken stallion that only Polly and her brother could ride. He’d thrown everybody else who tried to mount him.
A Union soldier made it his mission to get the skittish horse. Polly begged him to leave the horse, told him in her thick brogue “He can’t be rid! Ye’ll ne’er mount him I tell ya!” His response was to shove Polly down and whip the horse into submission, finally mounting him and galloping away as Polly stood in the road and yelled “Take 'im then! Take ‘im I tell ya! And I hope he’s breakin’ ye’re goddamned neck afore you e’er get to Selma ya bluecoated bastard!” (Irish brogue and bluecoated bastard and other things- all consistent).
The past couple of years I did a lot of genealogical research. I made quite a find in a lady who lives in Arizona and shares three bloodlines with me due to some crossover marriages on my mother’s side and one random line shared on my father’s side. She’s about a fifth & sixth (two ways) cousin to me, and she too had heard the story of Firedancer and the blue coat. While neither of us can say it didn’t happen, we now know for a fact at least one part’s wrong: Polly Shannon wasn’t Irish.
She was of Irish ancestry perhaps, no doubt, though her mother’s surname was decidedly Germanic, but she herself was born in Alabama as were her brothers and sisters and her parents were born in South Carolina, as was at least her paternal grandmother (who lived with her son in the late 19th century and her birthplace is recorded on the census). Also, when Wilson’s Raid came through Polly was not a lass but married and pregnant (with my great-grandfather in fact) by her husband who lived under his mother’s house.
OTOH, the following we know IS true- we even found some records of it from 1919. Polly’s husband deserted the Confederate army (the 47th AL, part of Law’s Brigade) sometime in 1864 and lived under his mother’s porch. When he was spotted the Homeguard was sent to arrest him but decided not to- he was a battle seasoned (Gettysburg in fact) armed man who refused to return to the war and told them he would not be taken alive and he would kill as many of them as he could. They were old men and young boys, and none particularly wanted to die and they knew he could probably kill at least a couple of them. Besides this, he had many brothers, many cousins, he was related to half the county by marriage, and if they killed him they were all probably committing suicide if not that day then 10 or 20 years down the road when his relatives returned. And they all knew the war was lost. (The captain of the homeguard was A.C. Catton, a man exempt from military service because he was over 50 and had many dependent children, plus he served in other capacities including miner and courier.)
After Catton and his men/boys rode away my g.g. grandfather, Robert, no longer hid under his mother’s porch. He plowed her field in daylight (rifle and pistol with him), eventually married his fiancee Polly in her father’s house before the war ever ended, and long before the end of the war, when so many men were deserting and coming home that they soon outnumbered the homeguard, he didn’t even TRY to hide himself anymore and in fact came to live openly with his wife.
Thirty years later, Polly and Robert’s two oldest sons fell in love with an aunt and a niece, Rhoda and Cordelia Catton, the daughter and granddaughter respectively of the same A.C. Catton (both reared in his house). Catton was very old by this time and forbade their marriages because their father was a coward (never mind that Robert had served at Gettysburg and lost two brothers in the war while Catton had mined bat shit and not even had to send any of his many sons to the war [they were too young- he married in his mid 30s and had 14 kids, the youngest in his 60s]). So, his daughter and his granddaughter eloped with the sons of the deserter. Eventually A.C. came around and made his peace with Robert, due largely to the fact that though a deserter he had taken his gun and fought with Forrest’s men at the impossible to win battle of Selma, then come home again.
Robert is now buried in a Confederate cemetery. It made headlines when he died in 1919 and a lawsuit was filed by a man still furious that a deserter had such an honor bestowed, but he was placed there and remains there next to his wife who died the same year. And she wasn’t from Ireland.
So, she wasn’t Irish, didn’t say blue coat in a brogue, and the riderless horse story very possibly, in fact probably, never happened at all. BUT, in many ways the odd story of my g.g.grandfather’s hatred of each other over a COLD MT. style incident from 30 years before, and the fact that Polly’s father- born in SC- had the improbably given names of Antipater Balaam (the former a common Gk name most associated with the Herods, the latter a Biblical character famous for hearing God talking out of his ass) are in ways more interesting and atone for it.
So my sister is gone. This time Saturday I was ready to strangle her, but a few minutes ago I hugged and kissed her and we parted in peace and the Mamaleum looks better than it has in a year. In addition to the huge truckload of relics she took with her we hammered out a clear understanding of what can and cannot be sold and I can live with it. Had I known this was to transpire I wouldn’t have pitted her.
But, I’ll still tell the story as she was still annoying. And there’s a lot more to add on the gay issue.
We love you anyways…
but lilacs, although they are a decidous shrub, do indeed flower–and their flowers are called lilacs. Did you mean that lilacs aren’t flowers per se? Whichever–really doesn’t matter!
And now back to the Sister Saga…
Er? Lilacs aren’t an actual flower? Does this mean I was carrying some kind of gymnosperm at my wedding? :eek:
And your sister says the fake lilacs were petunias? What kind of monster mutant petunias y’all growing out there that could shade more than a handful of dirt? :dubious:
We now return to our rudely interrupted regular program!
Darn, all these years I thought they were flowers!
I’m afraid petunias would have a lot of trouble shading the walk since they only grow about a foot tall. Maybe if you describe the… never mind, carry on.
They didn’t turn the sidewalk into the Valley of the Shadow of Death, but even foot high flowers cast a shadow. (Sheez, in the future I’ll submit pics and get peer review before hitting submit. :dubious:)
But speaking of the Civil War AND the argument with my sister AND my ignorance of plants, a slightly related but largely unrelated story.
There were some trees growing on the property line of my mother’s back yard- saplings that were about 8 feet tall- and though they were obviously wild (probably deposited by a bird) I liked them because they grew along the fence and gave extra shade and privacy. I wasn’t sure what type of trees they were, but according to the city of Montgomery they’re of a variety called “Noxious Weeds” (not familiar with ‘em) and I was ordered to cut them down or pay a fine of $150. (Pisses me off, but I’m sure my neighbors didn’t rat me out as 1) they’re Arab and by their own admission don’t like making trouble due to prejudice against them 2) whatever the limit is on birds they’re over it by at least a dozen, plus their grass is up too high.)
So, I tried to cut them down with a machete but it was too dull. What I had that wasn’t dull was a cavalry sword that I keep sharp, so as I was outside hacking at my Noxious Weed trees the dogs went ballistic inside. (Daddy hacking stuff with a sword doesn’t get them worked up in the slightest- at least he’s not doing the Tevye dance at 3 a.m. instead of throwing the ball again- but somebody with the nerve to walk in their street- that’s UNCALLED FOR). So I walked through the house and into the front yard to find Larry the Cable Guy’s evil twin cutting off my water for non-payment.
But I paid it, says I, and perhaps a bit pissed. “You gotta take that up with the water board” says he, and he looks up and says “JESUS! GET BACK FROM ME WITH THAT THING!” which is when I remember I’m holding the sword. “Oh, it’s dull” I lie, I was hacking weeds. “With a sword?” he says and I tell him the machete was duller. He won’t not turn off the water though.
So, I have to go downtown to the waterboard. Montgomery’s water dept. is in one of the most beautiful antebellum mansions in the city, though it’s a mansion that has been sinfully gutted to add teller windows. I find out the problem: when I paid my last bill (they only come once every 3 months) I did not have the stub, so I just wrote the account number and inserted it in the envelope, and also again on the check. Now my checks are in my name and have an old address, but thereagain I had written the account number on the check. Still, somehow the check, which had been cashed, was not applied because they weren’t sure where to apply because somehow they lost the enclosed “This is for account xxx” thing and the account number on the check was evidently they felt just a really long coded message with a recipe for short ribs or something. They wanted $50 to turn it back on, though, to which I gave a respectful HELL NO.
Now another oddity about the water board: I used to work in a home for the violently mentally ill that was publicly funded, yet the only armed guard on duty was an obese elderly rent-a-cop who I doubt could have done much more than say “yup, he’s crazy” and pissed in his pants while hobbling back to his El Camino. At a halfway home I know of for released felons, many of them with drug problems and violent histories, staff are not allowed to arm themselves (though some carry mace and a blind eye is turned). But at the WATER WORKS in an antebellum mansion, there are always two police officers fully armed, and one was called as I stood there. (I didn’t say hell no that emphatically, I think.)
“Mr. Sampiro, there’s an odd note on your account- our worker said you attacked him with a sword. Do you mind telling us what happened?” and the policeman, who I know actually from when he used to work security at a hotel job I had many years ago, looks at me with “He’s always been kind of odd but I guess now he’s gone crazy” look but also curiosity. And I say the first think that comes into my head, which is “It wasn’t a sword, it was a cavalry saber”, but that doesn’t help my case much, so I quickly add “I didn’t attack him, I was using it to chop down weeds”.
“Why were you using a cavalry saber to chop down weeds?” asks the woman. I tell her “Because the cavalry pistol scuffs the concrete and the minie balls can ricochet.” Then I regret being a smartass and think “dear God, what am I going to tell the crack heads and wife beaters is the reason I’m in the cell with them?”, but as fate would have it the policeman just says “He’s tellin’ it right on that. Shooting pistols near a sidewalk can really mess you up.” And we actually all laugh and strangely for once I explain and they buy it and I also say “I was holding a saber- I didn’t attack him with it. I wasn’t even within 5 yards of him. And besides, if I’d attacked him with it, I think he’d’ve been bleeding and in the hospital swearing out arrest warrants, wouldn’t he?”
They accept this and even, due largely to the unusually interesting case, waive the $50 reconnect fee (which is mighty sweet of them seeing it was their error) but instead of Larry the Cable Guy it ends up being Sweet Daddy Williams’ nicer twin who reconnects it that afternoon. Cost me a couple of hours of leave time, but whatever, at least it was back on.
Here’s a rant: there’s only one reason most people would ever have their water disconnected: they don’t have the money. It’s not expensive (for three months it was about $50) and it’s about the last utility you can do without. So what do they do, I now know, when someone doesn’t have water for themselves and their kids because they’re too broke? They charge them $50 THAT THEY ALREADY KNOW THE FAMILY DOESN’T HAVE AND CAN’T AFFORD to reconnect a utility THEY CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT. It’s basically a “fuck you” tax on violating the civil ordinance on being poor. Fuckers.
Anyway, this is only tangentially related to my sister and not connected at all. The relation is that my water was the first of three utilities I had disconnected and none of them for non-payment. The most recent, just restored to service today, was gas, which was disconnected due to a misunderstanding: I had called the gas company and told them my mother was dead and I wanted the gas disconnected in her name and reconnected in my name. They got the first part right: they disconnected the gas. When I called them to say “Uh, the other part was also important… I need it reconnected, but in my name” they told me they’d send somebody out on Friday to do that. I left the house for 30 minutes on Friday to get something to eat (because I can’t cook because I have no gas and I’d been waiting since morning and this was 1 and I was told when I called that the guy still had people in front of me on the list and they won’t give you even an approximate time other than between 7:30 am and 4:30 pm) and of course that’s when he came and he wouldn’t come back that day. I was told they’d re-send him today and while they wouldn’t guarantee morning I asked that they at least request it, and they did, so he left at 4:30 p.m. (meaning I had to take half a day off work to wait for him). Pissed me off but at least I can take hot showers again.
Now, the reason I had the gas reconnected in my name 9 months after my mother died was because the bills go to my sister, as executrix, who forwards them to me, and I pay them. I was able to get cable and electricity and water (for what good it did) sent directly to me but gas and telephone still went to my sister, and I had the gas turned off because I didn’t want the gas turned off. A couple of weeks ago, you see, when my sister and I were arguing about the Mamaleum Reliquary, in a very petty power move she paid my phone bill with estate funds, and then had it disconnected (it was in my mother’s name so she could do that).
Ever since she’s bitched at how “I can’t ever get a hold of you on your damned cell phone! I think you screen my calls and don’t answer when it’s me!” She’s accused me of that before but I really wasn’t guilty of it, I just don’t always have my cell phone on. Ever since she had my land line turned off, of course, I have refused to answer when it’s her. But we’re in a much happier place now.
But at the time we weren’t, and this is one of the reasons I’ve been mortally pissed with her of late, which brings me back to before this weekend when I was mortally pissed with her.
So, we had been arguing over the house and everything in it and how I could do nothing with either. Finally I put my foot down and insisted “When you come here, you are going to go through the house. I have these little multicolored adhesive dots. Choose a color. Put them on anything that you want. It will be lamb’s blood on the doorposts- I will pass over that item. But the other stuff is going to be moved or sold or shoved up a wild boar’s ass and chased into the redwood forests because I can’t move in this house.”
So here’s an extremely embarrassing but relevant personal confession. I am a terrible housekeeper. The vernacular is probably more accurate: I am a slob. I always have been. Clutter doesn’t bother me usually (so long as it’s mine). I don’t mop and I don’t dust 1/20th as frequently as I should. Recognizing this weakness in myself I’ve usually hired maid service about once a month, but I haven’t since I’ve been in exile, for several reasons, not least of which is that there’s not a lot that maids can do about stacks of boxes filling a room. They can’t vacuum around them, they’re understandably not going to take them and move them, clean under and around them, and then restack them for what I’m willing to pay. In addition I have dogs who have gone feral in the past few months in an odd backsliding. In addition yet again I had a friend (an ex-boyfriend in fact, which I mention because it’s relevant) who stayed with me for several months who makes me look like Felix Unger by comparison. In yet another addition, I essentially closed my mother’s bedroom door after storing a lot of my boxes in there, and I go in there to use her bathroom (because it’s the biggest in the house) and otherwise the room is not used, so it covered in dust and the floor is covered in boxes.
Part is absolutely psychological: I’m living in the museum of my mother. It’s… awkward. I don’t feel at home. EVERYTHING is hers. Very little is mine. My stuff is in boxes here and 100 miles away for the most part and I haven’t been able to personalize my surroundings because I haven’t been able to get rid of the 9 tons of stuff my mother accumulated because my sister can’t take it where she lives because it reminds her of Mama and she can’t come to Montgomery to go through it because it reminds her of Mama and she wouldn’t allow me to get rid of it because it reminds her of Mama. So, while I say this not as exoneration but partial explanation- I’m a slob, the house is overpacked, the dogs have backslid and caused doggy odor, and the house has commenced depressing me (not in a suicidal way [which is also important] but in a low key “God I’m so sick of looking at those mugs/Santa Clauses/magnolia paintings/Mamarobilia of all kinds wY) the house had become a real mess. Nothing substantively wrong with the place, but just Oscar Madison mess (two Oscar Madisons really).
My sister is a neat freak. She also had not been to the house for quite some while. She freaked of course. “You’re considering selling this place! NOBODY’S GOING TO EVEN GIVE YOU $35 FOR THIS HOUSE IN THIS CONDITION! YOU CAN’T SELL A PLACE WHEN IT’S GOT DUST ON EVERYTHING AND CLOTHES ALL OVER THE FLOOR AND DISHES IN THE SINK!”
“I know that dear”, I tell her. “That’s one big reason I want to get rid of so much of this stuff. It’s impossible to clean or show a house when it’s got boxes and items belonging to two pack rats as well. If I cleaned until my fingernails bled it would still be too cramped to move in and that’s even with the stuff I’ve moved out.”
“Well you can’t sell this house like it is so stop bothering me to take stuff from it!” She makes 402 variations on this. I tell her “If you’ll take some stuff out then I can displace my own boxes, even unpack some of them. A yard sale will get rid of tons of the bric-a-brac that nobody wants…”
“What stuff are you saying nobody wants?”
“Those New Yorker cheese plates…”
“I want those! They’re pretty!”
“You hate The New Yorker and you don’t eat cheese! They meant nothing to Mama- they were a gift and she didn’t know what the hell [the relative who gave them to her] was thinking.”
“Well I have several houses, I can use them. And that cookware makes me think of Mama cooking, her serving dishes remind me of all the meals we had here when she was alive and this place looked like humans had built and occupied it once, that entertainment center would look good in my living room…”
“Then take it! I have an entertainment center I can replace it with. Take the New Yorker plates. Take the damned light bulbs and the toilet brushes if you want them, but please take them away because this place is driving me nuts!”
“Why do I need to take them? You can’t sell this place or have company while you’ve got clothes on the floor and dust on everything…”
Alright, touché, there’s a bit of a point there, but I try convincing her that I can’t do a whole lot even if I do go into Felix Unger mode while the place has double microwaves, double toaster ovens, enough towels to sop up Lake Huron, three perfectly good TV sets in closets, etc… Finally she consents to name what she wants.
“Okay, that corner cabinet, and that table, and the sewing machine and it’s cabinet…. These plates… those plates… okay, what’s [our brother] taking?”
“I don’t know about the small stuff but I know he wants her bed and this piece of furniture and that piece of furniture and I’m giving him the family Bible since he’s the one who’s reproduced. He’s welcome to anything else he wants.”
“I know he wants the olive wood Nativity set.”
“Except that. It’s mine.”
“I told him he could have it.”
“I’ll disabuse him of the notion.”
“Why shouldn’t he have it?”
“It’s MINE! It was a gift to me from Mama, it just happens to be here. She brought it to me from Israel.”
“Well are you going to be like this on everything?”
“Stuff that’s mine that I want, yes. And I’m taking Woodrow (a teak wood statue of a head hunter about half actual size) as he’s also mine.”
“What are you leaving for our brother?”
“I told you what he wants.”
“Well he needs to be allowed to pick some stuff out too.”
“Granted. He’s welcome. In 9 months he hasn’t had the inclination to though.”
“Because this place is a wreck.”
“Which he wouldn’t know because in 9 months he hasn’t been here.”
“Fine… okay, I’m going to look through this.”
And after an inventory she tells me what she wants.
“I’ll take the stuff I’ve mentioned, and let [our brother] take what he wants and you take what you want. Then after you’ve done that… I’ll take everything else.”
Thank you. That helps so frigging much. WHEN will you take it?
“When you clean the house up.”
“Please excuse me while I go find a neighbor’s cat and crucify it onto a SEE ROCK CITY mailbox out of unmitigated frustration” I say.
“I think you’re off your medicine” says she.
And then we go to my interview.
So synopsizing a good bit in interest of not rekindling anger:
-She had decided we were too hasty in giving away all the clothes and there were a couple of outfits she wanted back for sentimental reasons. I reminded her she had a closet full of my mother’s clothes, but those she said weren’t the ones she wanted. What thrift store did I give them too? I told her the truth: several, and I have no idea which ones went to which stores because they were in bags. Well could I find out? No, I will not. FINE!
-We went to my job interview in separate cars. I wasn’t jumping up and down at her going with me to begin with, but she generally behaved while there (and she didn’t, obviously, partake of the actual interview). We shared a large hotel room because I’m reimbursed for it and she has a religious aversion to spending money she doesn’t have to (drives me nuts because she’s LOADED but gets no pleasure out of her money other than not working).
Let me here add- I realize it isn’t greed or even being obnoxious that had her devoting such sacredness to our mother’s belongings. She’s having a hard time dealing with the loss, the reliquary means that Mama’s things are still intact and thus Mama’s a bit less dead. That’s fine, I understand that, but I’m also dealing with the same loss and it’s driving me nuts being surrounded by her things in her house. She has trucks, she has several houses, she has nothing but free time- it’s been 9 months, she’s as dead as she’s ever going to be, I can no longer subsidize the pretense she’s coming back.
During the job interview trip we talk about the “gay issue” sort of, first time since Christmas, and that’s pretty damned awkward. She does not accept that I meant it online when I mentioned being gay and I did nothing to take that self delusion from her other than refusing to outright deny it. (Were it not for the power she has as executrix I wouldn’t have a problem with her knowing and would come right out and tell her; I haven’t told her until now as a personal favor to my mother and I certainly haven’t needed the drama in the past year, but if she can’t accept it then- fine. I actually hate having lied to her about it in the past and being so dodgy now- I actually, for all the drama it would cause, WANT her to know- she’s the only important person in my life who doesn’t, but… I don’t really want to discuss it until the estate’s settled if you receive my meaning. At the same point I’m not denying it, and it’s driving her batty, but one ordeal at a time, I’ll go into this one later.)
So the rest of the trip is actually fine, pleasant even. I actually, believe it or not, enjoy my sister’s company when she’s not being absolutely unreasonable and she wasn’t during the trip itself. That’s saved for the house.
I drove home a day earlier than she did. She was coming by my house a week ago yesterday and said she’d be there in the late afternoon. I made lunch plans with friends. As I was getting ready to go to my late lunch, about 1:30, she called.
“I’m twenty minutes outside of town.”
“I thought you were coming late this afternoon.”
“We’re early.”
“I’m going to lunch with some friends.”
“Well cancel.”
“No. I’ll see you when I get back.”
“You ad ……
Her cell phone lost coverage. It really did. I did not hang up on her. I tried calling her back, got the voicemail. I went to lunch.
Service was slow, I did not get back from lunch for about 90 minutes. When I got back to the house she had left. I called her and asked where she was.
“I’M AT THE GRAVE SINCE YOU CARE SO DAMNED MUCH MORE ABOUT YOUR DAMNED FRIENDS THAN ME!”
God, this is a huge thing with my sister and it was with my mother. I have no idea why they can’t accept that I have friends I like but that doesn’t mean I don’t love them, but whatever.
“Are you coming back by?”
“I DOUBT IT! I KNOW WHERE I’M NOT WANTED!”
Didn’t stop you from going with me to a job interview is what I think of pointing out, but I don’t. “Whatever, you’re welcome to come back, you’re welcome to not come back, I’m not dealing with drama at the moment because I’m saving up for a huge domestic problem with my much younger concubine in a few years so I’ll see you if you come back by and if you don’t I love you and I’ll see you later. Bye.”
She came by of course. It didn’t go well.
Sampiro, I love you.
I wonder how many times I’ll have to hit “refresh” before the next installment… .
For a musical something completely different, here’s an excellent **THOUGH NOT WORK OR KID-S SAFE ** bluegrass song that is a wonderful synopsis of Southern Protestant Theology.
Didn’t I send that to you?
BWAAAHAAAHAAHAAHAAAHAAAHAAAHAAAHAAAHAAAHAAA!!!
Funniest. Damn. Thing. I. Have. Heard. In. For. Ever.
I think a few internal organs have been damaged from laughter.:eek:
Possibly. I got it from two or three people in as many days (have listened to it 799 times though).
So I came home, called her as above, and walked my dogs. While walking a dog in an adjoining park her monstrous truck pulled up, she hopped out (her husband was driving) and for some reason I remember her looking a lot like Oprah Winfrey from the “You Told Harpo to Beat Me!?” scene of The Color Purple, which is very odd you see for my sister is blonde, white, and only Oprah Winfrey by appointment.
“I wanted to let you know that I took a few things from that filthy horrible house and I didn’t want you going off claiming I stole them?”
Me: Damn! I wish you’d told me that before I called the cops. Please tell me you didn’t take Dixie Bathroom Cup Dispenser Number 4, please tell me that! Cause Mama gave that to me on her deathbed and I don’t mind telling you… it wasn’t willingly…
“Mock me all you want…”
“I don’t have time.”
“…but I know how you are. Now I’m gonna show you what I got…”
“You wanna walk with me back to the house and show me?”
In the house where she wasn’t going to she showed me some things she wanted and from where she’d taken things (none of them noticeable in their absence). It was tiny things like beach scenes and sea shells and some coffee mugs. I told her again “You can take all you want… I’ll help you safeguard and load that cabinet if you want…”
“No, I’m not ready for that cabinet! But let me tell you right now I do not want you giving all my Mama’s stuff to your precious friends!”
“[Sister], why didn’t you tell me that earlier? They’re on their way now with their shopping carts…”
“And most particularly I do not want to hear that you let that witch Luna” (our Carol Kane like 60ish hippie cousin who gave the slaughtered kitten eulogy for my mother) “riding down here on her broomstick and taking all of Mama’s stuff back to her @*#$@#*ing dungeon…”
“But I *already told her *she could have it all and she’s going to be heartbroken. She was planning to use it to capture Mama’s spirit and…”
“I’M NOT KIDDING! IF THAT WITCH COMES IN THIS HOUSE AND TAKES SO MUCH AS A PIECE OF TOILET PAPER I’M HAVING HER ARRESTED! THIS IS ONE-THIRD MY HOUSE AND I AM EXECUTRIX!”
I made a mark on a piece of paper and handed it to her. She snatched it, unwrapped it, and asked “What the hell is this black spot thing?”
“My opinion of you as executrix. It’s not equivalent with Lord High Executioner or with Heir Apparent. I’ll take the field against you if I have to and I’m already occupying the palace!”
“What the hell are you talking about? Never mind I don’t care but if you let that witch or that fag” (my friend who stayed with me for a while) “or the idiot friends you love so much better than me you couldn’t wait around for me take stuff out of here I’m going to raise hell like you haven’t seen like Mama couldn’t have raised!”
Already in an English history mode I recalled the words of Robert the Bruce regarding Edward I when he taunted Edward the II with a masculine form of “Woman I fear our dead mother’s bones more than your living frame… THAT’S WHY I’M HELPING LUNA DIG 'EM UP NEXT WEEK!”
“You’re talking crazy!”
“It’s contagiousss…” and about this time her husband walks into the house. “[Brother-in-law]! Come upstairs with us so you can bear witness that i gave your wife permission to take this stuff and you can tell those black helicopters and winged monkeys and Interpol to shove it!”
My brother-in-law: “I’ve got a better idea. How 'bout I take a piss and watch animal planet and let you two outshout and go crazy on each other without me for a while.”
My sister: Know what we did when his mother died? We turned the lock in teh door and the house is still exactly like it was the day she died! No bitch fits over cleaning it out either!
Me: “In the first place I think that’s sick- no offense [brother-in-law]- and in the second place he’s an only child and nobody has to live in that… place.” (I stopped myself from saying “Liberace whorehouse nightmare” {if it stood still it got gilded, covered with doilies, and placed near flocked wallpaper and a repro Victorian chaperone sofa- the woman grew up dirt poor in the 1920s/1930s and when she made a fortune created an overcompensatory lair that is what a dirt poor kid from the 1920s/30s would think rich people lived like.)
She mentions that “I know you’ve talked to Luna, I saw where she’d called you 5 times in the last two days on your phone”. I explain that it was really only one call, but one or the other of us kept losing signals before it hit me
'WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU LOOKING AT MY CALL HISTORY! Is that some type of executrix duty? You going to invoke PATRIOT next like your hero? What?"
Well, you get the jist, but it ends with lots of namecalling, an odd moment when she decided to take my pistols because I’m obviously suicidal (?!) but I won’t tell her where they are so she gets over it (she does take a .22 Beretta she found which I assured her “wouldn’t do any more than piss someone off if they shot themself with it and it’s mine!”) and she ends up burning rubber. As a peace offering of sorts I hand her a 55 year old photo of our father, inscribed to our mother “Love and warm wishes- regards, Garland Sampiro Jr.” (he was always a romantic) while they were dating. She starts to throw it back but pockets it instead. I ask her how much longer before that one day per year when we can move the curtain in her closet aside, speak the holy name BLANCHE IRVINOVNA because I need to find a flawless Pekingese for the sacrifice and they’re really rare. She says something that’s equally not polite and they head back to the coast.
Things I seem to be omitting include her request that I leave her my car (formerly our mother’s) in my will and her offense that my life insurance beneficiary is a non relative. (
There are numerous bickering emails sent back and forth, she calls me at work a couple of times because I don’t have much choice about answering a call there, and it lessens a bit and a more personalized version of the I CHANG email above is sent and she responds with a long “Yeah she was the bitch what I am. And I love and miss her too” response (much longer of course) and that’s where it stood as of Saturday, when I was ready to strangle her everytime I looked at the boxes and boxes of relics.
Then somewhere twixt pulling out of my driveway last Sunday and into my driveway (unannounced, no warning) Saturday night she’d taken a detour on the road to Damascus (the I-285 around Damascus actually, but it has more Stuckeys and the Jesus sightings are less touristy, but the drag queens are talentless potheads. And as said, had this happened Friday instead of Saturday I’d never have opened this as we’re quite copacetic now.
Except for the part about how I’m dead to her if she ever finds out I’m queer, but about that more later.
Call me sick, but now I have that damn Josie Cotton song in my head.
A suggestion about the cleaning from a former cleaning lady - ask around to your people at work for the name of their cleaner. Right there you’ve got someone you can trust; call and ask them if they’ll clean alongside you, explain that it’s an estate that’s being settled. (They don’t want/need to know how long you’ve been there; I assure you they won’t care.) Ask ‘for them to help (you) for a couple of hours’, how much would they charge? Tell them upfront what you expect and I bet it would turn out to be more than affordable if you really can screw up the courage to wade in and move/condense boxes of Mamarobilia.
I did several of those clean outs in my 6 year tenure, and all I cared about was getting paid; and it doesn’t pay to make someone embarassed.