Are You Sitting Down? (5 page)

Jake was my younger sister’s son.
He was two.
My si
s
ter just turned twenty-two, still quite the baby herself, and unwed.
Jake’s father was
a black
man named Andr
é
.
No one in the family had ever met him.
Clare had told me Andr
é
didn’t even know about Jake
, and she
preferred it that way.

Although Jake definitely brought attention to our fa
m
ily, it wasn’t the first time the White family had been the center of church pew gossip.
My mother took it very well, and tried very hard not to make Jake seem like, quite literally,
the black
sheep of the family.

“I’m sure Andr
é
is a very pleasant person, and I
see
nothing wrong with interracial relationships.
It’s not my choice, but I
do
know one thing.
A black man and a white lady sure do make a pretty baby,” Mom told me once.

My mom
is
not a racist.
I think she was more accepting of Jake than when she found out I was gay, but then again, Jake is her grandchild.
There’s a reason to be proud.
There’s a baby shower to throw and cute little outfits to
buy
.
There’s a nursery to paint and a name to pick out.

Although Clare would have no part in any of that, my mother was at least allowed to dream of it.
No mother throws a party when her son announces he
sleeps with
men.
They weep, maybe because they really wanted grandchildren.
And so there’s Jake.

“What time is dinner?” I ask
ed
.

“Sixish.
”

“Why so late?”

“It’s Christmas Eve. Why do you care? Got somewhere better to be?”

“Maybe
,
”
I said slyly, just trying to be funny.

“Go early this afternoon if you want,” she said
in a si
n
cere tone
.
She knew I was
talking about visiting Justin’s grave.

Mom always wanted to prolong everything around the ho
l
idays.
When we all lived at home, we never ate that late
any other day
.
She always tried to make Christmas different.
She
would want
to eat at six
or seven
,
and then
assume we’d all want to sit around and talk while we let our food digest.
She tried to make us wait until eight to open gifts.

“At least wait till it
gets
dark outside,” she’d say.

In reality, Sebastian would arrive around four, starving and ready to eat.
All the food would
have been long
prepared by then, but Mom would keep it tucked in the oven and
under the broiler
.
She’d stand at the stove and stir a pot of beans, guarding the stove and busying herself with nothing.
Ellen and Clare would offer to help, but she wouldn’t let th
em.
Anything to d
e
lay dinner while Sebastian and Martin watched a football game.

After an hour of Sebastian’s complaining, she’d empty the stove in ten minutes
, laying out a
buffet bar
of hot food
.
We’d all
grab a
paper
plate and get in line and then
sit down to eat and be done in thirty minutes, except for Mom.
She’d help the grandkids put food on their plates and make their drinks. She’d pass out napkins and
re
fill
our
glasses with ice
d tea
. She’d wait until everyone had a plate before fixing her own. Then
,
s
he’d purposely eat
slowly
.

“Does anyone want dessert?”
Mom would chime.

“No!”
We’d all say in unison.

“Let’s have dessert after we open gifts,”
one of my nieces or nephews
would suggest, trying to drop a hint.

By six, Mom would give in and the gifts w
ould be
passed out.
When we were all young and lived at home, Mom had the duty of sitting
o
n the floor and passing out the gifts to each of the five kids.
She’d attempt to make us take turns, le
t
t
ing Clare go first
because she was the youngest
, making everyone pay attention and watch. Martin and Sebastian were never patient, and usually had secretly peeled the paper off one of their own gifts before it was their turn.

With all manners aside and now five small grandchi
l
dren present, Mom preferred to take photos.
She let Ellen and Clare pass out gifts.
Sebastian
would
watch from the kitchen while nibbling on leftovers.
Martin and Marline would keep the kids from fighting over toys.
I’d entertain Jake and watch empty space grow underneath the Christmas tree.
Piles of cri
n
kled and torn paper and bows would fill the rest of the room.
 
The grownups would all grab a trash bag and help pick it up after each kid had a turn running and jumping into the red and green mess, and maybe after Sebastian took a turn too.

Paper plates and plastic cups overflowed the trash can.
An Elvis or Liberace Christmas CD was drowned out from the squeals of children and roar of mechanical toys.
Sebastian would be the first to leave.
Martin would fall asleep on the sofa while Ellen, Clare, and I helped Mom clean up the kitchen.
We’d all sit and chat over pecan pie and coffee.
After his nap,
Martin and Ellen would collect the kids and toys for their drive home to prepare for Santa’s arrival.
Clare would be the last to leave
u
n
less she was staying over
.
I always spent the night at Mom’s.

This was the White
F
amily Christmas.

No matter who else
attended with us each year, the rest of the holiday never changed.
It’d been that way for quite some time.
Predictable.
Long-established.
Traditional.

Although I was alone
now
, something told me this year would be different.
There was nothing
odd
about Mom to make me think this.
Her house and yard w
ere
the same, as if she’d given immaculate attention to making it look
exactly like
it did
every year before.
It had been a while since we all spent a
ny time
together
—
Mom and all five kids
—
but there was no re
a
son to think this year would be unlike
years passed
.

It still
felt unusual
, almost as if Mom was keeping something from me.
Like an anxious child guessing at a gift under the tree based on the shape of its colorfully wrapped box, I hoped I was right and no surprises were in store.

Mr. Black

Like some predator lurking in an alley
way, I stood just out of view of the front door to Greer’s Grocery
so Travis could not see me
once I
had
stepped inside.
He wasn’t even looking in my direction after I had finished talking to him, but I a
d
mired him with a bit of
desire
in my eyes as he got into his car and drove away.

As his car disappeared out of sight, I turned away and forgot about Travis.
I looked around the grocery having forgo
t
ten momentarily why I had even stopped by, a lapse in my senses thanks to old age.
The smell of meat in the stale air and the sight of cheap candy on the counter quickly reminded me.

I put a nickel and a penny in the metal bowl on the counter and then helped myself to only five pieces of black licorice.
Mr. Greer had always used the honesty system with the penny candy on the counter.
As a teenager, I had taken a
d
vantage of the old man by paying for only two or three pieces but usually taking four or five.
For
the last
ten years
or so
, I’d been
silently
paying him back by
regularly
leaving a penny or two more.

“Any gizzards today?”
I asked Mr. Greer
loudly because I knew he didn’t hear well
.

“Just took a batch out the fryer.
How many you want?
I’ll bring ‘em over to ya.”

“Six please.”

I walked over to the ice cooler and took a bottle
of
root beer.
I popped the
cap
with the bottle opener mounted on the side of the cooler.
The familiar clink of the bottle top falling into the
well
on the cooler was so relaxing.
My root beer bu
b
bled over and dripped onto my hand
and the floor
.

“Shit!”

I grabbed some napkins from the nearby table to wipe off the sticky bottle.
I licked my hand, and then guzzled the fizzy cola to appease my thirst.
The loud rap of the bottle smacking the table as I sat it down startled me.
I hadn’t meant to s
i
t it down so harshly.
I looked over at Mr. Greer to apol
o
gize, but he had not heard the noise.
Hank Williams was playing on the radio.

“Here you go, Manny.
Careful now. They still
hot,” Mr. Greer said walking over to the table.
He sat the small cardboard tray down in front of me and then stepped back and waited for my approval.

Four Points Grocery was the only place around where you could still get fried chicken gizzards.
I looked down at the cri
s
py brown pieces of meat sitting in the wax paper and licked my lips.

“Hot mustard?”
h
e asked.

“
Sure.
Why not?” I said.
I tucked a paper napkin into the front of my shirt and spread it out for a bib.

Mr. Greer returned with a small paper cup of hot mustard for dipping.
I thanked him, but he didn’t hear me as he walked away to tend to things behind the counter.
The gizzards were extremely hot, but the callused tips of my fingers were rather immune to the blistering sting as many times as I’d eaten the
se
by now. However, my tongue was not.
I guzzled the rest of the root beer,
and then
blew out as if I was whistling
, to cool my mouth. Flakes of crust spit out across the table and fell onto the napkin on my chest. I wiped the table with my sleeve and then retrieve
d
another root beer from the cooler.
A bell from outside announced that someone had pulled up to one of the
gas
pumps.

“Pump two is on,” Mr. Greer yelled into a microphone.
His garbled voice echoed from the speaker on the
out
side of the buil
d
ing outside.

“Thank you,”
a polite voice
yelled back.

These were
the
extremely proverbial sounds of my daily trek to the grocery for midday snacks of gizzards or tater logs.
My bulging belly pushed up against the table was proof enough of my loyalty.
I had always made the occasional stop for a
weekend
snack for me and Helen
and
a tank of gas
.
It wasn’t until Justin passed away that stop
ping
here became more fr
e
quent.
At first, coming here was just an escape from Helen’s monotonous cr
y
ing.
Long after the crying stopped
,
Helen spent her time either sleeping most of the day or bitching at me when I was around. Coming here cured the
latter.

Seeing Travis outside
was like a hard smack across the face, like that old gag in black and white movies where som
e
one steps on a loose board o
n the floor and it flies up and pops them in the nose.
Looking at me, he winced like someone does when they see someone in pain in a hospital.
I had not seen that look of sorrow since Justin’s funeral.
I don’t blame him.
I wrinkle
d
my nose at the sight of myself in a mirror.
There are no mirrors in our old house that I even fit into.
Luckily, I had no hair to comb.
I held my teeth in my hand to brush them.
The facial hair gene had skipped me growing up
so I didn’t have to shave
.
I
t’d been years since I’d seen my own face, about two years to be exact.
The look in Travis
’s
eyes told me I hadn’t missed out on anything.

Travis still looked as charming and supple as the day Justin had first introduced him to us.
Helen had never cared much for the boy, shunning him for taking Justin away from her.
She selfishly knew Justin deserved a better life than here with us, but she had preferred Travis been a female.
Instead, h
e was a constant reminder
of yet another disappointment in Helen’s life that she cursed God for.

“Why me, Lord
!
” were three words I should have carved on her gravestone as an epitaph if she goes before me.
She had screamed them practically every day for
since
we’d been ma
r
ried
:
for every job I’d lost, every argument we’d had, and every bill we had to ask her father to cover.
Having her only child a
n
nounce that he was gay, and on the same day he told us he was moving out to be with his boyfriend in the city, topped the list.
It became just another frustration she
would have
swep
t
under the rug when company came over
.
But co
m
pany never came so the things that caused her stress lay out in the open like yeste
r
day’s newspaper or the pile of junk mail gathering on the dining room table which neither of us ever threw out
.

She was a tough old gal.
She married me right before
Vie
t
nam
purely out of necessity for the both of us.
I could draw a bigger check.
She’d have good benefits and not have to work.
It got her Bible-thumping parents off her back.
Stupid me had a vasectomy long before the war, and even before I’d met Helen.
I never told her.
A
reversal was
imaginary back then
.
Ever
y
thing was fine until her thirtieth birthday when she told me she wanted a baby.

I bought the ejaculate of some kid in a trashy
public to
i
let
.
I’d started going there
several
years
after we married
, not a
t
tracted to Helen and unsatisfied by our almost non-existent love making.
Back then, instead of hot pickles and beef jerky at Mr. Greer’s grocery, I bought boy favors from street hustlers in the park.
I rushed home and
pushed the sticky substance b
e
tween her legs with my fingers that night and prayed.
Helen was accustomed to me crying when I orgasmed, so tears shed that night were no different.
I cried again a month later when she told me our prayers had been answered.

“What about AIDS?”
Helen screamed the night Justin sat us down and said he had something he needed to tell us.

AIDS.
Something that had never crossed my mind all those nights I’d made trips to the park, slumped between the legs of some punk kid in the back seat of my car.
If I had contracted some disease by going there, it would remain a secret like ev
e
rything else had in my life.

“Why me, Lord?”
Helen bawled.

For the first time, Justin looked at me for an answer.
Like always, I didn’t have one.