This is a seriously crazy, mind-fuck memory that I hope I do justice to.
It starts with me picking up the phone a week before Christmas in 1989. I was 23. I was calling my dad and step mom, Debbie. Debbie’s mom who was in her late 70’s, answered. I could immediately tell something was wrong. Her voice was trembling and she seemed on the verge of hysteria. Over and over I asked her what was wrong.
“Oh, …. it’s terrible……… terrible.”
“Yetta, tell me what’s wrong.”
“Oh, it’s terrible.”
“WHAT?! What is it?”
“I don’t know what hospital.”
“Who is in the hospital? What are you talking about?”
“Your Dad’s mother is in the hospital.”
“Is she alright? What happened?”
She finally managed to tell me that my grandmother had a heart attack and was in the hospital. She didn’t know which though. This was before cell phones, so I needed to figure out where I was going before I got into the car. With the help of a very compassionate phone operator, we called every hospital in Los Angeles until we eventually we found the one she was in.
I raced to the hospital at 11pm that night and arrived to find out she was in a coma. My whole family was already there. Seeing my dad crying was very unsettling. I had only seen him cry a handful of times. He was the foundation of stability in my life and to see him in such pain rattled me unbelievably. Not that I wasn’t already crying myself. I loved my grandmother a great deal.
Everyone was going into the room, one at a time, to see her and coming out in tears.
As my Dad exited the room, I told him “I am not sure I want to go in and see her. I didn’t want that image in my head, as possibly the last one.”
“That is probably a good idea. She is full of tubes and wires.”
To this day, I am thankful for that decision.
I learned over the next few days what had happened.
After visiting my dad, my grandparents went back to their motel. In the evening, she complained to my grandpa that she was having chest pains. He called 911 and when the paramedics arrived, they could not find anything wrong with her and left. Less than an hour later she had a heart attack. I believe she was in a coma by the time they got to the hospital. Whenever I think back on this, I always wish I had gone to visit her that day at my dad’s house. I missed my chance for a last visit, that could have been a good image in my mind. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of great memories of her. I just wish I had that one.
Surprisingly, this is where the story actually begins. It was Christmas eve and my grandma had been in a coma for a week. My mother, who was an alcoholic and drug addict, wanted me to spend it with her and her live-in girlfriend Lyne. I did not want to go. Spending time with my mom was exhausting, as you will soon see. She kept asking and attempted to guilt me into it. I usually had the strength to resist my mother’s attempts to pressure me into visits I didn’t want. But I was exhausted and I gave in this time.
I arrived at my mom’s one bedroom apartment in Van Nuys, CA around 5pm. Very quickly, I learned that we were actually going to Lyne’s uncle’s house for Christmas Eve dinner. I protested strongly. The last thing I wanted to do was spend Christmas Eve with a group of people I didn’t know while my grandma, whom I loved dearly was laying in a hospital bed in a coma, and might die at any moment. I really do not know why I didn’t just drive home at that moment.
You have to understand something about my mother. She was an alcoholic and addict all my life. There are not many pleasant or tranquil memories I have involving her. So spending time with her was at best difficult. To compound matters, at this time, she was beginning to take Lithium for her manic depression (Bipolar). Because she had just started the medication and the doctor was still adjusting the dosage, she was going through intense mood swings. Of course, alcohol made it worse. One minute she was laughing and by the end of the sentence she was crying. Back and forth, up and down.
I am going to switch to telling this story in the present tense because when I go back there in my mind, it is just too crazy and intense to put any distance to it.
Lyne’s uncle lives pretty far away, in Simi Valley. In these days, Simi Valley is a whole lot of nothing surrounded by pockets of brand new housing tracks. We arrive and it is one of those eerie nights when the warm winds are howling like crazy and there is just a creepy vibe to the night. We enter the house through the garage. The door into the house opens up. A woman. She’s in her late 60’s. She has a bleached blonde helmet of hair that held together by hair spray and years of diner grease. Thick layers of make-up vainly trying to cover her old skin. She looks like some old Vegas showgirl or waitress. That is until she spoke. A thick German accent.
As I enter into a narrow hallway with a washer and dryer closely lining the wall, I step past the German Vegas showgirl and turn left. There is a small window above the washer letting in wild shadows. The wild moon-cast shadows of the wind whipped trees dance on the opposite wall. I look up and the first thing I am confronted with is the gay uncle shoving a video camera with a bright light glaring in my face. He walks backwards as he is filming me. I am extremely uncomfortable, asking myself “why I am here?” I see another man behind him in the kitchen. He is a mute as I later discover. As we all awkwardly move past the washer and dryer, I hear a yapping small dog. Now we’re all standing in the kitchen. As I am introduced to everyone, I realize that my mom has told them all about my Grandmother, because I hear them saying things to each other like “His grandmother is in the hospital. She may die.” They are putting their arms around me trying to console me. This pisses me off for several reasons.
Firstly, I’m a shy person and I don’t like all of the attention on me. I am miserable and want to be left alone. The last thing I want is a bunch of strangers telling me how sorry they are. Secondly, privacy is something I value beyond most things. I mean when I tell someone something personal, I expect it to remain private. In this case I loved my grandmother dearly. She was precious and I wanted to keep her with me, not tossed about in a house full of freaks that I didn’t even know. The last thing I am comfortable with, especially in such a sad and trying time, is for strangers to know my business and ask me about it.
So we’re in the kitchen and the gay uncle is trying to get all of us together for a group shot. I stand there reluctantly posing. I can’t muster a smile. Then he wants me to stand in front of the Christmas tree and tell the video camera what Christmas means to me. Everyone is behind him watching. My mom is crying. The showgirl is comforting her. I start looking around. It looks as though time stopped somewhere in the late 50’s, and I don’t mean in any cool kitschy retro kinda way. There are way too many things on the walls. Almost every inch is covered by a framed photo, a painting or some object covered in gold.
Let me take this moment to explain Lyne, my mom’s girlfriend. She was butch, but not a full on bull-dyke. She was older than my mom by maybe 5-1 0 years. She had a short fuse. It wouldn’t take much to set her off. She wasn’t violent, but she definitely did have an anger streak. She also had Tourette’s Syndrome and had a very prominent “tick.” She would twitch her neck while her arm would fly up in the air and her leg would lift. Usually all in one motion she’d be hopping on one leg while slapping the thigh of the other and yelping at the same time.
At some point we sit for dinner. There are about ten of us sitting at the long, dining room table. Sitting across from me is the mute. He keeps writing messages on a scratch pad and waving them up in the air for somebody to pay attention to him. Everyone ignores him so he hands them to me. Diagonally across from me is my mom. She is now crying uncontrollably. This in turn is making Lyne upset so she starts yelping and twitching. Under the table is the yappy dog, furiously humping my leg. At first I try to shake him off, thinking someone will notice and call it away. No. Eventually I forcefully kick it off my leg until it yelps in pain as he smashes into the table leg. He comes back and again and I catapult under the table, this time into the mute’s legs. He smiles at me. He must think I am playing footsie with him.
I look up and the old Vegas showgirl, Lyne’s mom is bringing out the…..THE PIG? I swear it is looks like a fucking pig on a rotisserie. I guess it’s just one hell of a big turkey. I ask, “Is that a pig?” They all look at me silently, except for Lyne and the dog who are both yapping away.
Fuck! Why am I here at this circus of freaks? When are the bearded lady and the Siamese twins coming out?
I am not hungry, but of course they insist I eat. I look over at Lyne’s mom. What is her story? The wrinkles, the leathery skin, the helmet of bleached hair and the German accent all paint one weird picture. On one wall, high up over the kitchen door is what looks like a menorah. It is huge. This strikes me a little strange. What with the Christmas tree and the showgirls’ thick German accent, I assumed nobody here is Jewish. But who knows. I don’t really give a shit at this point.
But I can’t help myself. “Is that a menorah up there?” I ask.
Once again everyone looks at me silently. These people are so fucking weird. Please just take me away from this insane night. I turn to stare out the glass door to the backyard in hopes of drifting off into some distant place that is perhaps not crazy. But no! As I look out the sliding glass doors, there’s a horse standing just outside! A fucking horse! Why is there a horse in their backyard? Oh man. I get up to go to the bathroom, really just to escape. A little privacy and sanctuary, so I think. Being alone in the bathroom, the whole night, all of the fucking crap hits me. I start crying. My grandma is in a coma. I don’t want her to die. I am stuck in this house with a bunch of strangers that are freaking me out. It is just too much. I can’t take it anymore.
After 10 minutes I am able to drag myself back to some form of being, to face the circus again. I mope out of the bathroom. As I’m dead man walking down the hall, the gay uncle is approaching me. It is a narrow hallway but I look down and away trying to avoid his eyes. On the wall are hundreds of framed photos. He stops next to me and puts his arm around me. He gently pushes me toward the wall of framed photos. They are all photos of him with celebrities. I see one with him standing next to Cher. Another with Andy Warhol. Who is this guy and why does he have his arm around me in front of his wall of ego? I hear a faint low hum. His voice fades. My mind is back at the hospital watching my Dad cry. I see my grandma laying in the hospital bed in a coma. Pain. I hear someone talking off in the distance. Someone is asking me question. I snap back and the gay uncle is staring at me, waiting for an answer to the question he has just asked. I realize we are in his bedroom. Huh? Oh my god whats going on? I turn quickly and silently walk out.
Everyone has left the dining room table and is sitting there in the living room. I sit on the couch. How long was I gone? Oh thank god the night is almost over. My eyes are wondering around, and they go back to the wall above the kitchen door. ….. The menorah is gone! Now I am freaked out. I don’t want to ask. I just want to leave.
The next day I as I awoke back in my own bed, in my own home, I found out my grandmother had died the night before.
