The Other Woman

The Other Woman

1. Jenny

My mother buys a BMW when I am in kindergarten. She picks a rust colored exterior, with a beige upholstered interior. You can see my mom’s head over the steering wheel when she drives, my grandmother’s entire face is visible above the dashboard.

On the way home from school, we stop at Sears so they can buy music. They are quick, they don’t want to keep me waiting long. Before we pull out of the lot, they unwrap the six cassette tapes the cassette tapes they purchased between them. The car comes with a cassette player, and they own only vinyl and 8-track. My grandmother points out with interest that the cassettes come with an insert containing the lyrics to each song. They make identical music purchases, two of each title, three cassettes for each of them, six in total. My mother carefully puts a tape into her new tape deck as if care would keep it from eating tapes right and left a few years later. Repetitive jobs make for disgruntled employees. No amount of care will change the end result.

My mother turns up the volume and says, “I love this song.”

I know she is smiling by the sound of her voice.

They already know all the lyrics, to songs I will never forget. It is fact that in the time it took Neil to stop brining flowers and Barbara to stop fighting the feeling that the feeling was gone, my mother would water all her houseplants. In my memory she wears Jordasche Jeans and an off-the-shoulder top. Her hair is curly like Sandy’s in Grease, after the beauty school drop-out made her into the vixen in shiny skintight black pants who brought Danny Zucco to his knees. My mother is always dressed up in my memories of this time. She squeezes water from a plastic bottle and through a plastic anteater’s snout that reached up into her massive heart-leaf philodendrons.

Vicki Carr sings a song about divorce, speaking in song to an estranged spouse, making references to a daughter named Jenny. Divorce is the new phenomenon. Divorce will win an Oscar.

I watch the road from the back, stretching my neck so I can see in between the seats. I am not in a car seat. It’s the seventies, and child safety still meant watching your kids, not strapping them in. I overhear adults talking about the new BMW and learn what it means. Whenever I sit in the front seat, I play a game inspired by Star Wars. The car is a fighter jet. I am the pilot. The task is to shoot other cars and work the force shields. Because I fly a BMW, I am guaranteed a victory over most other cars. When needed, my superior pilot skills get us out of close calls with Mercedes Benz’s, Volvos, and the dreaded Porsche. I do not use or consider the force when I play. I am all secular skill. I work the Autobahn, no speed limits, and German engineering into any conversation I can. I play my game until we move to Palm Springs and there no longer is a clear advantage in our favor. Relying on superior skills against like opponents means I have to work in losing into the equation, otherwise the game made no sense.

My grandmother removes a butterscotch candy from her mouth, wraps it in the orange cellophane wrapper and drops it in the space between her seat and the passenger door. My mother and I do not see her do this, but we will know the wrappers are hers.

Looking at me through the rearview mirror, my mom says to me, “Your grandpa always says I look like Vicki Carr.” I know she means her father, Oscar. My grandmother is now two husbands removed from Oscar but still holds a grudge. Even though it is my grandmother that left Oscar when he was bedridden with a congenital illness. He didn’t tell her he was sick, she didn’t have all the facts when she said “until death do us part.” The words “in sickness and in health” mean something else when your husband has failed to tell you that he is chronically ill. Her family shunned her as something malign and wrong after the divorce. How could she. That is why she holds a grudge. Lied to her heading to the alter and garnered all the sympathy as she walked out the door.

“He doesn’t know anything.” My grandmother’s voice is mocking and derisive. She swats the empty air between her and my mother with her left hand and clutches her blouse at the collar with the right, as if clutching a cross, even though there is never anything to clutch. Her blouses are much too colorful and garish to accessorize with necklaces. She wouldn’t be caught dead wearing pearls--too stuffy old white woman.

“You are prettier than Vicki Carr, Oscar doesn’t know what he is talking about.” It is less a compliment of my mother, than an indictment of Oscar. He will never get the last word, even when he is absent.

Oscar is the best friend of by grandmother’s brother. A best friend marries a little sister--a match made in Mexico, if not exactly heaven. One evening Oscar and four of my grandmother’s brother’s sit drinking. Each brothers makes a toast in honor of his wife, in honor of being lucky, and to give thanks that God gave him a wife willing to put up with him. When it is his turn, Oscar takes a swig of beer, pauses, and says, “God, I married a bitch.” The men laugh and they drink to Oscar, to their younger and gorgeous sister, and to the undeniable truth that Oscar, did in fact, marry a bitch.

The drive home continues as Vicki Carr sings about a phone, a prayer, and the fact that it is never, ever him.

My mother sings along, wearing red sunglasses shaped like hearts.

Part 2: Ostensible Diagnosis

“I was calling to see if you had the results to my MRI.”

“Name?”

“Compere.”

“Oh, yeah, they came in.” The nurse offers nothing else.

“Well, can you tell me what they are?”

“Sure, please hold a moment and I’ll go get them.”

She is nervous and draws an eyeball on the back of an envelope. She always draws eyes.
Her late brother had a thing for lips and noses. Nora had it for the eyes. She has time to shade in the iris, pupil and give texture to the brow while she waits.

“Oh, the doctor says she’ll call you as soon as she’s done with her patient.”

Shit. The doctor has to tell me. She ‘s scribbles over the eyeball rapidly with her pen. Doctors never go out of their way to give out the good news. They are too busy, can’t be bothered. At any rate, they have people. It’s the bad news they care about; it’s the bad news that makes them seem like god; he never bothers with the good news either. Loaded, maybe. Good, never. She lets the phone go to the third ring before answering. She smiles into the receiver as she says hello. “It’s a wonderful day at Macy’s. How can I provide you with outstanding service?” Some consultant in a bob wearing in horn rimmed glasses--most likely in some off putting color like magenta--put those words into her mouth and every other mouth that answers a phone at Macy’s. Today, exaggeration is not welcome. You must be matter of fact with physicians if you want them to hear you. Same is true of Germans. And the Chinese, though for different reasons. They Chinese will take you at your word. An infomercial for the Hoover Damn got them to damn the Yangste River for chrissake. And she hadn’t even been to the hoover damn. Was it even on the list of things to do should you have no time left? Not hers. But for someone, somewhere it was. Probably someone from China. So today she simply said, hello.” Her tone is not flat, but not also not expectant. Her tone is what you’d expect Hal to sound like when he was getting ready for bad news from a doctor. And he did get bad news from a doctor. Dished it out too. Atta boy. So she sounds like a robot on the verge of a psychotic break when she says hello, the broken down end of a cyborg manifesto on the skids. She greets the potential news, whatever it is, like a boy you know is calling to ask you out to prom. It’s a tone fit for small talk. A tone you maintain while at a ladies lunch--one with no wine and women you don’t like. A tone you take at a funeral when you talk to relatives you haven’t seen since you caught them stealing your son’s toys that time they came to visit for Easter. Jesus gets nailed to a cross for our sins and your nephew tries to steal away with not just the portable Pacman, but the half dozen feather chick birds (in the assorted three colors of Easter) your sensitive son thinks are the bees knees.

“Well, we have your test results.”

Well. So. If you must. Pray tell. Or just pray. Either way, it’s all about the stalling.

“And?”

“Good news first.”

She thought it was her choice, her decision whether the good news came first or not. Not that anything but the bad news mattered whenever news was categorized into the good and the bad.

“You don’t have a pinched nerve.”

The entire purpose of the MRI was to diagnose the bilateral pain she had been experiencing in her arms for the past six months. The good news was that they still didn’t know what was causing the pain.

No news, was the good news, the soft touch of a grasp at straws. She braced for the blow.

“You have what look like tumors growing on your thyroid.”

Diagnosis by smoke and mirrors. You have a simulacra of tumorous growths. You have tumors. Are the tumors ostensible or real? There is a difference.

“Look like tumors? Is it cancer?”

“I don’t know yet, let’s wait until the biopsy.”

“Does it look like cancer? You can tell me that at least.”

“It’s too soon to tell.”

“You just told me it looks like I have tumors. You can at least tell me if it looks like I have cancer, can’t you?”

“I’d rather not say.”

She just did. Doctors, perennial bearers of bad news, are never very good at navigating around negative pregnant.

“Never a lawyer around when you need one,” she mumbled.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing, don’t worry. I mean I wasn’t talking about lawyers in the I-am-going-to-sue-you-way, just in the they-have-a-way-with-words-way.”

“I don’t follow?”

“No, doctors always think they can lead, don’t they? So, I have what look like tumors, but what you would rather not say that they look like cancer.”

“No, I didn’t say I was avoiding saying they looked like cancer.”

“You had to be saying that, unless you are telling me that you wouldn’t say, ‘it doesn’t look like cancer,’ if you could. That would be absurd.”

“I...”

“Can’t say that, it’s ok.”

“Well your pituitary is clear.”

Which is another way of saying, it is good news that the old tumors have not returned. Bring on the new. At least those tumors were benign. At least. Benign. Crushing headaches, breasts spewing milk years after menopause, blurred vision, and, of course, brain surgery. Something easily dealt with, handled without suffering, or detriment. Benign may not equal cancer, but it sure is a drag.

“Ok. So these are new apparent tumors, not an apparent return of an old one.”

“Yes. The results also show signs of brain atrophy.”

Fighting words. A skirmish in a war no one with brain shrinkage will remember.

“Dementia?”

“Oh, no.”

Sigh.

“Does it look like Alzheimer's?”

“No, no. It’s normal shrinkage for a woman your age,” oblivious to the patronization.

For a woman in her sixties. For low bone density, you take a pill once a month. After you take it, you have to sit up for forty five minutes. She doesn’t know what for, although she had been told by other people, with no actual idea either, that it was so it could take affect, seep into the bones, presumably. Ostensibly? Who cares. Word choice is diminishing returns when dealing with a doctor.

“Do crossword puzzles.”

“What?”

“We tell people your age to do crossword puzzles. It helps.”

“With the tumors?”

“No, with the atrophy.”

“Word choice matters.”

“What?”

“Nothing, I’m old and senile, shrinking brain with ostensible tumors.”

“No, it’s..”

“A normal level of senility for a woman my age. Do I have to sit up when I do them?”

“What?”

“The puzzles, do I sit up while doing them?”

“I don’t understand, no, you don’t have to sit up.”

“Unless, I’ve just taken my Boniva.”

“Oh, you are a clever one.”

“Ostensibly?”

“Actually.”

Flattery, had done her in, her entire life.

“You also have a mucous ball in your left sinus that has congealed, but we’ll worry about that later.”

“But, we'll talk about it now.”

“I know you must be anxious.”

“Maybe, I’m just a fucking bitch, ostensibly?”

“Actually.” The doctor smiles to herself as she turns away, taking her stethoscope off in a grand, familiar gesture.

No one likes a doctor who just swallowed a canary, but this she will keep to herself. It will drive her crazy when she can't remember what she was keeping, though that is an improvement over her mother, who would have forgotten where she was keeping it--only the latter lends itself to accusing people of stealing.

No, if given a choice, she would stick to forgetting.

Call Off The Birds

Having taken their time to diagnose the lymphoma, the doctors wasted no time making the terminal prognosis.

“You have six months to live.”

The news did not cause Steve to take stock or adjust his priorities. The news didn’t springboard him into acceptance or contemplative enlightenment. He wasn’t brave or afraid or angry. He did not spend time cherishing what little time he had left.

Instead, Steve reacted with a good old fashion, pre-psych lingo, nervous breakdown.

The breakdown brought with it total paranoia, but not of people. No conspiracies. No people out to get him. No people whispering behind his back.

If you aren't going to be paranoid about people, then paranoia will settle on the next best thing, birds. Ubiquitous, lizard-like, chattery, birds. Steve thought they were watching him, following him, dancing on the telephone wires in open mockery as he walked. And unlike secret agents, busy-body neighbors, employers, most voyeurs, and government, birds have balls. They have the audacity to go about their spying out in the open. Birds bring the madness of open espionage, the confirmation that you aren't being paranoid. “No, you aren’t crazy. Four crows, three pigeons, a hummingbird and a blue jay, actually have been following you for the last mile. Worse yet, they are enjoying themselves.”

As any citizen might, Steve took his problem to the cops. And He took it to them as Sandy, dressed in full drag. She white shirt dress with a thick black belt, hooker red nails and heels. He hair was long and black like Cher. Sandy's nails were always real, and, until the chemo took her hair, she never wore wigs. To a tranny, being able to grow your own nails and wear your own hair is the only justice you get.

“I know what you are doing, you tell those birds to stop following me,” Sandy said wagging a finger at the cops in vague judgment, red lacquered nail polish catching the light.

Call off the birds. Simple enough.

Unfortunately, the birds kept following. “Call off the birds,” along with such perennial favorites as “please stop my husband from beating the crap out of me,” or “catch that gay basher,” tops a shortlist of things cops actually can’t do for you.

And eventually, the complete meltdown.

Steve was driving east on the 134, when he just couldn't go any further. He hit the breaks and stopped his yellow VW bug in the fast lane. Not registering the traffic danger or the horns, Steve clutched his wheel white knuckled and stared up out his windshield at a dozen circling birds.

It was the early seventies and so it happened that a nice couple actually stopped to help Steve. Steve, the tranny spending his last six months on earth running from birds. Steve the Mexican teenager who was once called a nigger by a whit kid on the play ground in first grade by a white boy. He had watched mortified as his mother, after making Steve identify the brat, marched across the playground in her skin tight lemon yellow pants, cork wedges, white blouse, and Jackie O sunglasses. When she reached the kid, she yanked him off the swing by his collar and in front of the other parents and teachers. She shook him as she yelled in her accented voice, “Don’t ever call anyone that name ever again. Do you understand? If you do, I’ll come find you.” She had dropped him like a bag of trash and walked off rubbing her hands together like they were covered in dirt. Then she yelled at Steve for not punching the brat in the face in the first place.

The couple pulled their car over to the side of the freeway, and played a real time game of frogger across four lanes of traffic. All to bring a stranger and his car out of danger. Then, as risking life and limb for a stranger wasn't enough, they then drove him forty-five minutes to UCLA, where he was involuntarily committed to the mental ward and given medicine to make him stop thinking about the birds.

During his stay, he avoided the arboretum and all windows near trees or telephone poles.

A few days later, Steve decided he would rather be at home. So he walked out. As he left he somehow found a black wig (his hair had been shaved), some make up, and some mismatched heels, one black and one blue, and both different lengths; proving once and for all that “when a bitch has got to go, a bitch has got to go.”

He rode the number 2 bus down Sunset Blvd. that morning wearing a backless hospital gown, matching patient ID bracelets, lipstick, eye shadow, black wig, and mismatched heels. He arrived without incident.

However, there were multiple unconfirmed reports that morning to the Hollywood police department, of a bus on Sunset that morning that was being chased by hundreds of birds.

Jellybeans

Hugo did not eat Jellybeans because he liked them. He ate jellybeans because they bought notoriety, an eccentric quirk of character; it was the decision to be known as a jellybean eater. Ever since, Hugo received jellybeans for birthdays, anniversaries, christenings, Easter, Christmas, and Halloween. He would later be buried with a jellybean tin; one housing the expensive ones that tasted like hot fudge sundaes, root beer floats, piña coladas, and Pepsi.

Moles

Marco had moles. His skin looked like a real time photograph of space, the infinite lights blending together in undifferentiated dullness and punctuated scattershot by celestial happenings, predicates on the make. Nova. Class D Star. Black hole. Collision of quarks. He used to wonder if he was meant to be darker, to be a person of color. All the moles were a single mocha hue. It was as if his coloration had been stopped, the recessive whiteness given a boost, a childhood vaccination—his color the victim of a big bang. Alone, nine years old and asleep within the water heated bowels of Westminster Academy, Marco had wept over the miniscule remnants of his blackness. As an adult he spent his summers oiled, prone and pleading.

Baby

I went to a cemetery on Easter Sunday.

The place was not pedestrian friendly and had no sidewalks. It was crowded. Everyone but a single jogger, and me, arrived in a car.

I walked up a series of empty hills to my uncle. The graves were old, the dead never knowing the second world war. If anyone remembers them, they don’t visit. Some stones only have a single date, mid-century, marking vacant graves, waiting and abandoned, all unneeded, secret or forgotten. Beloved husband, wife, son, daughter, the monikers bleed together. Only “baby” stands out. And it is only used to describe the very old, seventy plus. No one describes a dead infant as “Baby”.

A casanova in mismatched heels

Steve had a lump. He had been wiping his underarm with a washcloth when he felt it, presenting underneath a terry champagne shroud. He said nothing to anyone for a month. Several times a day, three conjoined verified his discovery. He always used three fingers, disinterested by design and never a single, probing inquisitive one.

Sometimes Steve thought the lump was bigger, at others, smaller—wishes conflating into thoughts, certainties stumbling on hope; forgetting at each instant whether this lump, this piece of his flesh, aberrant and invasive, was supposed to grow and ripen, or whether it was to his advantage that this thing inside him should shrivel and recede back into itself, which was inseparable from him. One morning, precisely which morning he never committed to memory, Steve knew that the lump had grown. Rising, pivoting, bending, lifting, and moving, Steve inspected his pit in the bathroom mirror, one arm raised over his head, stubble protruding from his underarm scattershot, it’s concave surface paler than the rest, pigment reaped by countless a dual razors’s manicuring plastic cradled edge. He held his arm up without effort, but also without strength, his arm hooked and still, in tangent with the top of his head; waves of raven black hair, sprung luminous and cascading underneath his arm, eventually tapering into a dozen thick wet tips that sat propped and solid on the smooth light brown skin of his thin back.

He held his breath, once, twice and again, until he touched the varicose lump; this, his unaccompanied index finger’s maiden voyage; he moved the finger with conviction, but faltered, losing all courage at his pit’s never-ending give and refused to push the lymphatic cork too fat back into him. This Steve felt but didn’t see. He looked not at the lump but at his whole reflection, an amnesiac and a stranger; his face distorted by fear, an unrecognizable, trembling hummingbird quiver.

The doctor suggested that Steve wasn’t cleaning properly and prescribed hygiene, imposed a good healthy scrub. Within time, wasted, futile and ordained, the euphemistic lump belied it’s fast moving character, a system in revolt, a loom spinning misdiagnosed dirt into cancer, metastasized and pervasive.

Steven was given six months to live but half a year to be added to eighteen; Sagittarius to die mercurial, too swiftly and too young, morphing Mercury into endgame, dual capricious midwives giving birth to the dead.

Jenny

My mom bought a BMW when I was kindergarten, rust colored with ecru cloth seats, lightly textured maize by the weave fabric. We had driven straight from my school to the Sears in Glendale. My mother and grandmother sat in the front and for once their heads could be seen over the dashboard. German engineering and ingenuity accommodating even women of Mexican stature. From the back I stared as they excitedly unwrapped the cassette tapes they had just purchased.

As usual my mother and grandmother had made identical music purchases, two of each cassette, three each in total, and my mother excitedly put one into the tape deck of the new car. She turned up the volume and stated with an upward pitch that she “loved this song.” I watched the road from my view in the back, crooking my neck to look in-between the two front seats. My grandmother removed a butterscotch candy from her mouth, wrapped it in plastic and dropped it in the space between her seat and the passenger door.

My mom said to me, “Your grandpa always said I looked like her.”

“No, you are prettier,” my grandmother retorted, never giving Oscar the last word—even when he was absent.

My mother, wearing red sunglasses shaped like hearts sang along.