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173 40 I hadn’t the heart to tell my mother Jimmy was dead or even that I was leav ing. The last time I’d vis ited, she’d made us Rus sian tea and snick er doo dles. Com fort food. All wrapped up in paper and bows, sit ting on her lit tle entry table, where she’d al ways put my sack lunch when I was a lit tle kid. “Mom, he can’t keep this stuff down. He’ll throw them across the room just like last time.” She looked slighted. But she’d never even met Jimmy; she wasn’t “ready,” she’d told me. And not be cause of the ac ro nym, she as sured me. No. It was about him being my queer lover. White lie. “And when will you be ready?” “Oh honey, think of your father.” And she’d reached to un cork a bot tle of Char don nay. “What about him? Was he homo phobic too?” “No one’s homo phobic,” she’d snapped. And she wasn’t. I knew that. Thing was, Jimmy was “short.” And she’d done short. She wasn’t doing short again. That was the rea son; I knew that was the real rea son. But she couldn’t say it. When Jimmy had been hos pi tal ized with pneu mo nia—he’d said plenty and how he’d moaned. “This sucks. I don’t want to do this hos pi tal thing.” Horses are sup posed to be shot, after all. Jimmy was right to be mad at me; horses shouldn’t have to shoot them selves. 174 “Sea mus,” he mut tered, “I wanna go home; take me home.” “No can do, Jimmy. Not just yet. Soon, Jimmy, soon.” And he’d al ready fal len asleep by the time I’d fin ished speak ing. And there I was in an ugly white, anti sep tic room with its plas tic and its steel and its utter emp ti ness and un-hominess—like some pub lic bath room or a BART sta tion. That’s when it first hit me that I felt aban doned by my mother. My mother didn’t do sor row—not this kind; not again. She just put on a face, smoth ered by a sor row that didn’t even have its teeth any more. All bot tled up—pun in tended— signed, sealed, de livered. Soldier’s wife. I could have used a friend then, but she’d have none of it. I was for ever a kid to her. That was final too. And kids don’t have adult prob lems. It oc curred to me that if my mother called while I was in that hos pi tal, her mes sage might have been some thing like: All done, honey? Like Jimmy was my steak and po ta toes or some thing. Yeah, I’m done al right. And I’d cried then in ear nest, and that at tracted a nurse, and God bless her—the name tag said “Jill”—she did what was needed. And she took me down for a cup of cof fee and we didn’t say much—just small, sad smiles. Blanche Du bois can say what she will about strang ers, but it’s the kind ness of nurses and po lit i cal ac ti vists and small chil dren that I counted on. “Where are you going?” Jill asked. “I’m gonna go home.” “Is some one there?” “Oh yeah, lots of peo ple.” And I faked a smile, be cause it was a white lie. There were only our spirit chil dren at home: Lit tle Jo seph, Elmer, Gene vieve, and Vic toria. And the aca cia tree, of course, the buck led side walk, the golden light at the cor ner liq uor store, the screech of the lit tle twins, the rat tle of the win dow when the bus passed, the emp ti ness of the fire es cape in the big bay win dow, and Chief Jo seph spark ling in Christ mas lights. ...
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