13 June 1999: Second Day

Sunday dawned overcast. I lay in bed, on the pull-out couch BJWL alleges is so comfortable but which she has never slept upon, and which of course had no pillows because she is so hospitable, and read and dozed for hours, from before dawn until after my mother and her spouse had left for God.

I was in the den with the door closed (CLH joined me as the household roused to have a door to close) but I still got a few lungsful of BJWL's scent, Miasma. (From now on I am going to call any perfume worn in such excess that.) Certain of its tentacles must have crawled out the bathroom window and back in through den window and others breached under the door to assail me with such malodorousness.

I went for another walk, waiting for CLH or DEW to rise, and came back and when Granny did rise, talked to her for a spell until my sister emerged and blearily demanded coffee. I left the house with not only wallet and phone but swimsuit and towel, too, and my sister raised her eyebrows. I told her I lived in hope and off we went, with our grandmother's warning in our ears of the big bad drivers in Old Lyme. This I would love to suggest she take as a hint that maybe she has changed as a driver, not that the world has become overrun with maniacs. I did not.

CLH suggested "The Shack" (only in East Lyme, not Old Lyme, would such a place be) for breakfast and my stomach lurched but I acquiesced: she was, as ever, in charge. I have been there only once in my memory: on the way to bringing me to UConn for the first time. RSH was along, which is how there were funds to go to a restaurant, if this place can be so called. It's a trucker stop, which is why our father liked it. CLH said they brought her there on the way to BU for the first time, too. So there you have it. A Houlihan family tradition.

She thought of David John's instead, so we went there first. Our paternal grandmother brought us there and CLH waited tables there and however smoke-filled it would be, it wasn't a trucker stop off the highway called "the Shack" so I was pleased. Not only had its name changed, however, but there was a line, too; and another dive nearby stopped serving breakfast at 11:00; and there was a line at the Shack; and by this time CLH had got very surly indeed; five minutes later we were seated at a chain.

CLH stirred half a packet of sugar into her coffee. "If Brad were here he'd use the other half," she simpered as sappily as possible. I immediately tossed the remaining sugar into my palm, then stopped. We contemplated it. "I'm sorry, I can't. That's just too disgusting." "Well," she huffed, "at least I know Brad loves me." I couldn't stand for that: I knocked it back. We chortled over our pancakes.

There being nothing else to do on a brightly overcast June day on the New England coast than go to outlet stores, off we went. CLH did agree to bring me to the beach on the way back, anyway. I couldn't have arranged for my friends to come to the house; my relations would perceive that as rude. I couldn't count on the weather to make the beach a meeting place nor get there on my own--3SK's spare car that I used to use died this winter and my mother's bike is in a shambles and no, I wouldn't walk the five circuitous miles. So anyway I couldn't deliberately have fun on this weekend, but shopping was okay. Whatever.

The outlets are right off 95, but we got off an exit early and drove the fun way to our grandparents' house. It's still white but with a hideously bright blue trim; the owners have a big vegetable garden and a big-eared German Shepherd. One minus, two pluses. And when they bought the house, they connected it to city water, eschewing the fresh well water. A tie overall.

I began to play with CLH's hair as she squatted in front of an array of linen. She was immediately transfixed. Hobby-shopping: I'll make it as fun as I can. In another store she pointed out a dress and I gagged, indicating the waistline immediately under the bust and each breast scooped into a triangle of fabric that tied behind the neck like a guillotine. My sister looked at me over her sunglasses. "Look for that in a box sometime soon." (I still hadn't gotten her birthday package.) I gaped like a fish as we both cracked up.

And finally, the beach. Would we get in? School wasn't yet out, so stickers weren't always required, but it was a weekend after Memorial Day. The weather didn't call for limiting parking, though, so the post was empty and onward we sneaked, a car with Massachusetts plates on a beach where we don't allow even out-of-towners, let alone out-of-staters. I had changed in the car and as soon as it stopped, I dove out of it, dashed across the sand, jumped into the ebbing water, and waded wimpishly until past the jetty to dive in. I swear low tide didn't use to be that low, but the town has imported sand in the past several years, so that White Sands Beach is no longer white and I guess the Sound is filling in.

I had just a quick swim, as CLH was already walking west toward Griswold Point. She said she'd never been all the way out to it, which surprised me, and now she's lost her chance since it's an island again. We walked out past the Griswolds' beach and around the dogleg to Lord's Cove. It was so foggy we couldn't see Fenwick Point, but we--or I--watched gulls and terns and herons. Home.

And so we returned to the house, there to receive BJWL's griping about our gallivanting off for the afternoon, although they had been at God for just as long in the morning and none of us had mentioned any plans for Sunday. The three of us went to the A&P, our mother for the last of the gathering noshables and us to spare ourselves any fried chicken.

In the parking lot BJWL pointed to a Saab 900 and asked if that was the Subaru we'd gotten. I think all U.S. cars look alike; clearly she thinks all non-U.S. cars look alike, even a Saab, whose silhouette rivals either version of Beetle as the most distinctive ever. I pointed out a Legacy and told her how the Impreza is different. She had stopped listening after I said--not patronizingly--the first car was a Saab, though.

I confronted my total lack of cooking know-how at this point. I craved a meal of home-made pasta with organic vegetables and freshly grated cheese. I would have settled for boxed pasta and regular veggies and stale cheese, but I knew if I used garlic in that house, whether powdered or the several cloves or entire head that is my wont, my mother would have a cow that the house would reek of dagos for the next day's gathering.

Actually she might not have used that term. Since she espoused this questionable creed I have confronted her about her racism (and ethnicism) and she said, "I'm not as bad as I used to be." I don't know if that's true, but I do know that for my mother to admit any fault and acknowledge her need for improvement is a seismic event.

So whatever. I got some deli food at the limited deli and dessert and CLH got a frozen dinner and dessert and BJWL whatever she was getting. I saw a bunch of other people I recognized--and Saabs, Subarus, Peugeots, and of course Volvos in the parking lot. Home.

Back at the house, CLH and I played Parcheesi. I played badly. I don't strategize well. She remembered how many spaces are between safe spots and didn't have to count at each roll. Besides, two people playing from opposite corners can pretty easily get to Home without encountering each other much. She won both games but we were both pretty bored by then. So then we played Stratego. I suggested CLH set up my pieces, just to save time. She didn't but won anyway, of course (I have won one game of Stratego against her ever in my life). I didn't put my flag in a corner, so my strategy has evolved that much in the 20 years I've been playing. Then we played Battleship, a game of spatial relationships, and I won.

I had brought For Whom the Bell Tolls and Coming Home home. Don't get all Freudian about the latter title--I wanted a long book requiring no concentration (the former was in case I did have an interlude of unstress to focus, like on the plane as opposed to in the house). I had the Pilcher in the kitchen (CLH, seeing it, remarked "That can't be yours") when DEW came in and was drawn to it like a magnet. (She certainly can't rely on BJWL for reading material.) I know I gave it to her when it first came out four years ago, but she doesn't remember it, and if I can give her 900 pages of reading that I know she'll enjoy (it being Rosamund Pilcher), then take the book, please.

Later that evening cards came out and BJWL, BDL, CLH, and I played setback around the dining table, television on but quiet. Stories were told. BJWL called me Jwaäs once and I snapped "Don't call me that!" I did snap, but damn it, no one may call me that but my sister, as our mother should know well. BDL called me "Lis" and I did not snap but asked politely that he not call me that as I keenly dislike it. I suspect he thought I was just nitpicking--am I paranoid for thinking this, or do they expect such constant antagonism from me that I never can rest easy around them (but instead wax more and more acrimonious?)

I played setback badly as well, having little interest in cards. My mother and sister have so much interest, contrariwise, that my blasŽ attitude annoyed them. As with Parcheesi, Stratego, Spite and Malice, and Ratfuck, I struggle to play a game where I must not only look out for me me ME but also plot to bring down my playmates. That I think of people as "playmates" rather than as "opponents" indicates my lack of whatever it is I lack. At this point my mother uttered her most offensive line yet: "You have to intelligently think when you play this game." I could feel the blood drain from my face as I met her eyes. Setback, the greatest intellectual challenge of all time. I bit out, as articulate and measured as ever, "Fuck you."

I can't believe I said that to my mother, but I can't believe she told me I don't think intelligently and unnecessarily split an infinitive to do so. She of all people. I am careless and foolish and forget my parka in airports and whatnot but I could wallop her at Balderdash, Taboo, Pictionary, Fictionary, or any of a number of similar games that exploit my sort of intelligence. I am a pacifist, in my actions and my deliberate planning if not in the gut reactions I try to quell, and I am not a capitalist who believes in kill or be killed. Then I breathed and told them the premise of Balderdash and about "corody," which HAO defined as Corduroy's evil twin brother. BJWL and CLH both understood that, I'll give them that, but BDL was in the dark. I told them the premise of Taboo and that I got my team to guess "flamingo" by saying "Alice's croquet mallet."

And I wonder why we don't get along, when she targets my deepest insecurities so effortlessly.

BJWL wanted to keep score and went to get paper. I remembered in "Smoke Signals" when an American Indian jokes about contracts on pieces of paper and began to relate that scene. I had said maybe "There's a funny scene in a movie where--" when BDL began to force laughter. I give him credit for being able to keep up with us. He does try.

One thing my mother and I both excel at is conflict avoidance and so we played on, with my--and, I presume, others'--enjoyment increasing with my understanding. BDL was also a novice but showed no sign of improvement, perhaps because he lacked the genes the rest of us are marked with. Instead he emulated Bart Simpson, so when his regular behavior didn't earn him recognition by his biggest fan (now concentrating on cards), he got up and ran around the table being an airplane yelling "Pay attention to me pay attention to me pay attention to me!" I exaggerate, but only slightly: when BJWL was so intent on the game that she didn't respond to him, he turned to me and made whatever face he was making and I told him point blank, "BDL, I'm not here to stroke your ego as incessantly as my mother does."

I stopped talking during play. Setback bored me enough that I'd've preferred some Jane Austen-esque card conversation, but then I'm the one who wants no one to waste time with anything but the game when involved in a vicious Pictionary match. So I shut up, and we talked and laughed and admonished each other that DEW was asleep upstairs, until about 9:30 when BDL had just about given up, I was finally channeling my genetic inheritance, and DEW arrived on the scene. She said we hadn't woken her up--she really must be quite deaf--and took BDL's place. BDL went into the living room and blasted the television, because his desire to watch tv was much more important than our game, as well as his being as going-deaf as my mother (which neither will admit).

Thus arrived a woman I have not seen for ten years. She wheeled. She dealed. She bid big and dangerously. She shuffled just the corners of the cards, it's true, but here was my grandmother as sharp and alert and vital and bloodthirsty as ever I have known her, back in the day. Once upon a time my parents, maternal grandparents, and a paternal aunt and uncle played setback into the wee hours and tempers flared until my father's brother screamed at my grandmother, "I'm goddamned glad I'm not your son-in-law," and my grandmother screamed back, "Well I'm goddamned good and well glad you're not." I don't remember this but CLH does; she says it was the foulest thing she ever heard from our grandmother's mouth (although all in a day's work for my uncle). That might have been the night I remember that RSH was paralytically drunk but my cowed mother still allowed him to drive him, herself, and their two children the fifteen miles home (no one drove his car but him--although she was pro'ly as wasted (which she would now deny) and to stay at the uncle's overnight would have been to acknowledge drunkenness). But there were many such nights, tra la, tra lee, so who knows what I remember. Also I sense the dislike or discontent in his marriage my father must have expressed elsewhen to my uncle.

And here was my grandmother, with setback like the fountain of youth in her mouth. At the end of a hand (trick?) I lay out my cards and pulled out the only ones worth anything from the array of fives and sevens. "What's she doing that for?" DEW asked, outraged. My mother said I hadn't learned all the finer points yet. DEW responded, "Well she can learn 'em now!" Zounds! You go, Granny!

We played for only an hour or so more--only an hour, say I, the setback-hater, but setback with Granny was heartening--and then I went outside, wondering if the fireflies had all gone to bed yet. Denver has no fireflies and I miss them. There were few in my mother's yard and so, as I have done for years, I skipped into the paddock across the road. There flew fireflies in abundance, twinkling and flitting and being pyrotechnics of the summer night. It was late enough that the mosquitoes were asleep, an added benefit. I twirled and watched the sky full of lights over my head. I declined to try to capture one, figuring it hurts the fly a lot more than it gratifies me, but in my own yard I saw one blink on a tree and stretched my hand to it. They're friendly little critters and this one crawled right onto my hand. I watched it in its own light pace my hand and measure my thumb before it flew away.

A gift. I lay a hand against the tree and thanked it, and, now calm, went to bed.