Thanks to everybody for your expressions of concern and for your e-mails. I’m sorry I haven’t responded yet but I’ve literally had NO free time and only sporadic Internet access for the past few weeks. Twixt end-of-fiscal-year stuff at work and driving thousands of miles akll over the state and general dog/plant care I’ve been busier than a three dollar whore on lumberjack payday of late (and as I once remarked when I was twelve and watching John Travolta prance around in bikini briefs on my old b/w rabbit eared set, Thank God For LapTops- otherwise I’d have gotten NO work done).
My mother is temporarily living with my sister. We switched oncologists for a variety of reasons and the new one (who has the same Indian surname as the first but is no relation) is slightly more hopeful. She’s still a septugenarian with a long history of serious health problems and a type of cancer with a 10% 5 year survival rate for people much younger, but he is reasonably confident that with chemo it might be possible to fight it into remission for a while, so I have a very qualified optimism. She’s doing fairly well- in typical atypicalism (e.g. she ate fried meats and steaks every meal and would eat sidemeat in her Cheerios but has always had low cholesterol and blood pressure, she’s rarely responded to medication like most people do, etc.) she actually had none of the negative side effects usually associated with chemo (nausea, muscle pain, etc.), though she’s had major reactions to the “lesser” treatments (e.g. Vitamin K to thicken her blood in advance of chemo caused blood clots that she had to be hospitalized for, then the blood thinners to reverse it left her unable to walk, etc.) and my sister is driving her batty (which admittedly would be about $.55 by taxi).
The nice thing about being a librarian is that it’s very easy to find jobs in the field, so I’ve found one at a teensy-weensy Starbucks sized college in Montgomery and will be returning there/here in about three weeks. She’ll return when she has the strength to either travel or make a (justified) lunge at my sister (LOTS of stories there, but no time to impart at the moment- I’ll include one at the end). I have no great problem with leaving my current employer- the place I’m going has 1% of the prestige but 99% of the pay and the latter is what I care most about, though I do confess that the prospects of living with mommy again aren’t that appealing (LOTS of stories there too- let’s just say she’s glad I’m coming back to “where she can look after me”). Meanwhile I’m taking the first day off I’ve had in a month and it’s wonderful vegetating (I’ve gotten exhausted enough that I’ve actually had mild seizures and hallucinations over the past few weeks- Vigoda be praised for prescription amphetamines).
I am hoping that I can work out a last day/first day with current/new employers that will enable me to take about a week off for some sin and relaxation for a few days. D.C. or Atlanta would be wonderful- I rarely drink but I’d love to have a major blowout and perhaps some first ever bought sex, but I digress into the fields of TMI.
Anyway, major thanks for concern and encouragement and I’ll post more later. The following’s from an e-mail I sent to a friend and is the only long thing I’ve written in the past few weeks. It’s about one of the “understanding impairments” I’ve had with my sister. (Warning: though I’m back on my happy pills, a TLDR will very possibly end in blood, tears and showtunes 
.)
J
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IT STARTED WITH CHICKEN GIZZARDS
If you’ve never had two women, one of whom peppered your childhood home with .38 bullets during arguments with her husband and the other of whom literally has I WILL NOT TALK TO THIS WOMAN! written in big red letters by more than one doctor on more than one of my mother’s charts under “in case of emergency contact” info, tell you that “You’ve simply got to learn anger management!”, it’s a bizarre experience. It’s especially bizarre when it immediately follows your damned-near-fifty year old sister who just flung a suitcase at you run downstairs crying to tell your mother (a 71 year old woman with cancer) on you. Backing up to the gizzards:
My mother had a blood clot in her leg and was at home and didn’t want to go to the hospital, so we observed for a few hours to see if there was any change before taking her. I came in and my sister had what looked like an ugly napkin over my mother’s leg while Mama looked at me with a “God I need a cigarette” look as her daughter called on Jesus and God and the Archangel Bubba Ray to come down from heaven and heal her.
I asked her, very politely, “What the f*ck are you doing?”
“It’s an annointed prayer cloth.”
Me: “It’s a whut?”
Her: “An annointed prayer cloth!”
Me: What’s it annointed with? Olive oil, aloe vera, Ben Gay, what? Are you sure it’s safe?
Her: It’s annointed with the prayers of hundreds of people through…" (oh God, here it comes) “…Benny Hinn Ministries.”
I recently learned that she has sent them thousands of dollars over the past few years. Anyway, I told her that while prayer’s wonderful and prayer cloths can be nice to have when you’ve just eaten something greasy, somehow think blood thinners will work better.
Her: Well I agree but she doesn’t want to go to the hospital yet so I’m doing what I can. What are you doing for it?
I made a very polite and sincere offer. “How about I wrap up some chicken feet with a picture of Mama and wrap it all up in a defrocked nun’s habit and bury it under a mulberry bush in a cemetery at midnight during a rainstorm? Can’t hurt and should be just as effective as Benny’s praykerchief”. She wasn’t amused.
So a couple of hours later my mother finally agreed to go to the hospital if the blood clot didn’t reduce, but she wanted to give it just a little time longer. Since we never seem to be getting any closer to actually taking her to the ER I went upstairs to check my email and shower, this being the first day in hundreds that I’d actually worked outside so I really needed one. Sissy Dearest comes upstairs and asks “Are you ready to take Mama yet or you just gone talk on e-mail all day?” I told her “I need to take a shower first if there’s time. If she’s ready to go now why don’t you and [your husband] take her and I’ll catch up in my car in a few minutes.”
Her: WELL YOU JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND A DAMN THANG! DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAN’ THAT MAMA HAS A BLOOD CLOT IN HER LEG THAT COULD GIT LOOSE AND HIT HER BRAIN OR HER LUNG AND KILL HER DEAD INSTANTLY! I SWEAR YOU JUST DON’T CARE ENOUGH TO STOP LOOKING AT YOUR DAMNED EMAIL!"
I recognized that she was stressed and to some extent displacing, so I very politely and understandingly slammed the keyboard drawer so hard it broke and very sweetly asked her to please “STOP F*CKING TALKING TO ME LIKE I’M A RETARDED NINE YEAR OLD! OF COURSE I KNOW IT’S SERIOUS! BUT THERE’S ENOUGH CARS HERE TO MAKE A FUCKING DUKES OF HAZZARD MOVIE AND YOU CAN TAKE HER WHILE I SHOWER! IT’LL TAKE ME TEN FUCKING MINUTES AND SHE’LL STILL BE IN THE WAITING ROOM BY THE TIME I FUCKING GET THERE!”
To which she politely responded by picking up my (mostly empty) suitcase and throwing it at me and yelling “You’re not the only member of this family with a temper you little son of a bitch shitass” and I politely countered with "I know I’m not! I’m just the only one to ever do shit about it! And that’s you’re only fucking free throw- don’t throw anything else!
She turns around and starts pulling clothes out of the closet like she was looking for the entrance to an attic full of Jews and mumbling “I’m gonna get my Mama something to wear to the hospital cause I care if you don’t… YOU’RE JUST TOO FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT OF SATAN RIGHT NOW TO EVEN TRY TALKING TO! Make me wish I had some holy water…”
Me: Maybe Benny’d airmail you some if you signed over your Jaguar.
Her: YOU NEED TO GET ON YOUR KNEES AND ASK JEEEEEEEEEEEEEZUS TO COME INTO YOUR HEART…
Me: “Do… not… mention… religion …to me! The only way you’re like Jesus is the mullet! So called Christians like you have turned more people away from the church than any Muslim who ever lived!” And I stormed out. (Have I mentioned that this occurred days after I’d been the ONLY ONE OF MY MOTHER’S CHILDREN taking care of her for several straight days and my sister found some excuse not to return to Montgomery for several days in a row, returning Thursday when she was supposed to be back on Sunday?)
Anyway, the eunuchs brought my huff up and I left in it. Now I will admit that I was snappier than I might otherwise have been because I was out of my happy pills and didn’t have any refills and couldn’t get my doctor on the phone. And my sister evidently took the remarks I made as an insult rather than constructive criticism. But back downstairs I sat next to my mother, pretended to watch whatever was on The Gameshow Channel with her (“that Brett Somers’ a card, Mama!”) and I was hot and sweaty and my mother asked “What the hell was all that banging around and yelling upstairs?” I answered “K and I were talking about religion”. “Oh.”
So this is when K comes down looking spookily like a blonde version of Gilda Radner’s spastic character mixed with Eunice. My mother asks “What’s wrong doll baby?” and my sister replies “Nothing”.
Mama: Oh honey, somethin’s wrong, what is it?
K: Nothin’… I’m just… worried tha…and tryin’ to… MAMA-I-DON’T-WANT-YOU-TO-DIE-EVEN-IF-NOBODY-ELSE-SEEMS-TO-GIVE-A-DAMN-AND-THAT-LITTLE-SONOFABITCH-JUST-SAID-TO-ME-HE-SAID-I’M-THE-WORST-CHRISTIAN-THERE-EVER-WAS-AND-JESUS-CHRIST-WASN’T-THE-SON-OF-GOD-CAUSE-ANY-MUSLIM-WHO-EVER-LIVED-WAS-BETTER-THAN-HIM!"
Me: I never said any such a damned thing! And you left out the mullet part. If you’re gonna tell Mama on me at least quote me right!
And then, ooh, then… this here’s wonderful, my mama turns to me and says “Jon, you need to apologize to her. You’ve got an anger management problem.” This is from a woman who peppered a house with bullet holes, tore up every Bible she ever owned when she got mad at God for anything from being behind in car payments to constipation, threatened to kill herself and every member of her family including her her children, her brother, in-laws and various dogs and neighbors over the years (“I just had to blow off some steam once in a while” she once responded- why a four year old hiding under his bed because his mother has just told his father she’s going to kill him and his siblings and then herself can’t understand that is beyond me) and I’M the one with the anger management problem because I just told my sister Miss Condoscenda Rice to shut the fuck up which if I say so myself she’d been BEGGING for much worse for days?
“Well you even snapped at me yesterday and I have cancer!”
“Mama, I didn’t snap at you. I said you were wrong when you said I’d abandoned you in the hospital!”
“You did abandon me! I didn’t know where in the hell you were!”
“Was the fact that I said ‘Alright, but I’ll be back by 5:00 a.m.’ when you said ‘Honey, I insist you go home and get some sleep’ at 1:00 a.m. not a clue that I was going home? And K has not slept in your hospital room ONE SINGLE TIME since this started!”
“She doesn’t sleep well in a hospital!”
“Neither do I! Mama, I’m narcoleptic, it’s a diagnosed condition, my sleep cycles…”
“Oh everybody has there excuses. Funny nobody else in the family is narcoleptic…”
“You said yourself Meemaw once fell asleep while walking to the store!”
“So now you’re blaming me for narcolepsy genes! Fine! I’m just responsible for everything wrong…” and she and my sister both cry and console each other over having such a total bastard in their immediate family and I think that Tennessee Williams and Rod Serlings must be barebacking to beat the band to come up with this plotline and just walk out. (My brother-in-law, meanwhile, had come in from outside, walked into the living room, heard the argument and turned around and calmly made exeunt, one of the most intelligent things I’ve ever seen him do.)
I came back in a few minutes later, by which time K had left the house to “run an errand” so as not to be baptized into the Chorus Satanica by her brother the warlock while I sit with the woman whose leg clots were such a serious matter that I couldn’t take a 10 minute shower more than an hour ago (?!) and my able bodied sister and her 6’4 husband couldn’t take her to the ER without backup. She launches another offensive into my evils, coming up with something I said that just really really offended her during Thanksgiving dinner…
in 1987…
–yes, really–
and I respond with “I didn’t take well to being called a ‘cocksucking child molester that you wished were dead’ when you learned from reading my private correspondence that I’m ga…” and she responded with “There is no profit to bringing up the past to every little thing… I just can’t take your temper and anger and cruelty right now… I’m having to deal with a fatal disease if you haven’t noticed…” and I just finally wondered "Maybe I really am the lunatic… they are the gauge of sanity… but being a lunatic I don’t see it… but wait a minute… I’m not the one with the I WILL NOT TALK TO THIS WOMAN by her name or who used to shoot at people and I’m the one that they get to talk to tradespeople because ‘you’re the diplomatic member of the family’ and I did manage to… no, they’re fucked up. I might be too, but we’re talking apples and those little bitty crabapples.
So a MATCHGAME MARATHON later my sister still hasn’t returned. Her errand was to buy several hundred pounds of soil and fertilizer, several yards of grass, go ALL THE WAY ACROSS TOWN to buy gas because it was .07 per gallon cheaper, and return… about two and a half hours for a blood clot that couldn’t last for my shower. And we took her in and she did have a blood clot and was in the hospital several days and that was fun and now she’s down there and she’s in the hospital for something else.
So that was part one of seventeen of my week. How was yours?
