It's all Relative
(A Study in Contradiction)
I snaked down the highway late that early morning like a slug on
slippery ice. I kept my eyes peeled for danger as they hung at half mast in a
dog-tired stupor. My mother, who was healthy as a horse, called (again) to say
she was cavorting on her deathbed. I was awake even though I’d been sound
asleep when she rang, so I threw on the flowered muumuu that Mother had bestowed
upon me some years ago.
In
a hurry, I jogged around the park several times in order to go directly to my
pukely green Studebaker that everyone either adores or abhors. It took me
several attempts before I realized I was trying to insert the trunk key into
the ignition. Correcting my error, I swiftly cranked the engine and slammed the
car in gear. In a billowing cloud of acrid, sweet oily smoke, I roared away
from the curb at a dangerous fifteen miles per hour. At the last moment, I thought
to scan the empty street for cruising cops on the prowl for unsuspecting speedsters
such as myself.
As
I stared into the headlights of the retreating eighteen wheelers, I wondered
what it would be this time. Mother has a way of over embellishing. I’m her only
son, though she calls me her daughter, and she takes morbid pleasure in getting
me agitated. Maybe that’s because she’s really my father and hasn’t figured it
out yet.
The last time she’d called in a panic had been when she nearly
decapitated her huge miniature poodle, Trixi, with the electric hedge clippers.
Well, at least that was her rendition of the not-quite catastrophic events that
she left on my answering machine.
As
always, I dropped everything, including the dozen eggs I was putting in the
fridge to race to her side at the vet’s office. I should have known better. Mother
had amputated Trixi’s tail, not her head. Messy, but not lethal.
At
the hospital, I drove around the lot five times before I found a place to sequester
the Studebaker in the empty parking garage. Leave it to Mother to pick the most
inconvenient time to stage one of her deathbed charades. Then the elevator
jammed on the sixteenth floor and I had to walk all the way to her room on the
first.
As
I approached Mother’s room, the expensive aroma of her cheap perfume wafted
down the hall toward me. I have no idea why she squanders her fortune for it at
the most expensive department stores in town. The scent sparked nostalgic, bittersweet
memories of brainless evenings spent at home with Mother. Needless to say, I
was plenty riled when I stormed quietly through her door.
“Mother, what is it now,” I demanded in a huff.
Dressed in a chartreuse and magenta negligee, she had her back
turned to me as I entered. Her radiant face slowly spun toward me to reveal a
cigarette flopping from her ruby red, pink lips. An emaciated ribbon of smoke
curled up through what should have been her eyelashes except she’d singed them
off with that blasted Zippo torch (lighter) of hers. “Checkers, I knew you’d
come,” she breathed in a roar.
“Checkers
was your dog, Mother. You know? The one you ran over with the car. I’m
Sebastian, your son. Or have you cured your brain with too much rancid
cranberry juice? You called and said you were dying. So what has your overgrown
pea brain concocted this time?”
“Jerusha,
is that you? Come closer dear, my eyes fail me.” She beamed like a radioactive
lighthouse on steroids.
“I’m
Sebastian, Mother.”
“Martha,
are you there?”
“Sebastian,
Mother. Get it right, or I’m leaving this very minute.” I couldn’t help but
notice that she’d also managed to burn off most of her eyebrows and black
bangs. I guess that was all right since she’s a blond. “Mother, they don’t
allow smoking in the hospital. Put out that cigarette immediately. Besides, I
thought I took your Zippo away the last time I saw you.”
“You
did, Gloria, but your father gave me a lifetime supply.” She flipped the top of
the lighter open and shut, open and shut with a calculated, bovine look on her
face.”
“You
are my father,” I snapped. “And for
the last time, my name is Sebastian.”
The
lighter went swish, pop, swish, pop nearly driving me to a violently mild act
of inhuman kindness. “Yes, I suppose you’re correct, Lyman. About your father
that is. So, I suppose I gave myself a gift, but I simply can’t remember for
sure.”
“Mother…”
“Oh,
what is it, Sebastian?” She gave me a shrewd gaze through her muzzy eyes. “You’re
becoming a grade ‘A’, No.1 pain in the butt these days. Why don’t you toddle
off home like a good girl, and I’ll call you again. Then, we can start this
conversation all over.”
That
blasted lighter went swish, pop, swish, pop without a moment’s pause. She knew
how the sound irritated me and was just trying to get a rise out of me. I bit
down hard on my right hand to keep from leaping wildly on her and burning off
the remainder of her hair. “Give me that thing, Mother. You’re driving me
insane!”
“Who’s
insane, dear? Surely, you’re not calling me insane.” Her eyes widened to barely
a slit, daring me to say more.
Suddenly,
she looked at me like I was a complete stranger, “Why, Althea, what are you
doing here? I have to tell you, the service is intolerable. And the food is
absolutely barbaric. I should have checked in at the Ritz Carlton.”
And
the lighter went, swish, pop, swish, pop. I serenely ran my fingers through the
hair on my bald head in frustration. Count to ten, I told myself. She is your mother, after all. Be patient
with her, she’s not in her right mind. Of course, she hasn’t been in her right
mind for the past twenty years. Not since the sex change operation.
“Lila,
can I light you a cigarette?” she asked with a morose little smirk and an impossible
flourish of the Zippo. This time it went swish, rrrr as she rolled the little
wheel against the flint and then…WHOOSH! Deliberately, she moved it closer to
the privacy curtain surrounding her bed.
“Put
that thing away before someone calls the fire department,” I screamed. “Mother,
will you please tell me why it was necessary for me to risk life and limb to
race down here just to watch you play with that flipping Zippo.”
“Now,
Ethel…”
“Sebastian.”
“Mildred,
I...”
“Sebastian.”
“Mabel…”
“That’s
it mother, I’m leaving.” With a swish of my pink and orange flowered muumuu, I
whirled smartly on my heel and ran smack dab into the door.
“Goodbye,
Sebastian. What a lovely chat we’ve had. See you tomorrow?”
THE END