Personal Hits #9

Love Child

I was born at 7am on the day Nixon was elected, the only child of Milton and Ellen, both married before. Mom had three boys, Dad had one. Love Child by The Supremes topped the charts that day. I came home from St. Mary’s hospital with them, crying and filling diapers. Mom kept one lit cigarette in the ashtray while she smoked another, with the TV on. Day drinking was common and I was loved, no question. I was loved.

I’m 56 now on the party end of a daylong buzz, the last bit of of a cucumber/jalapeno resin Indica gummy camped out in a back molar, around the big table at El Patron restaurant with five meticulously vetted pals. My phone’s on ‘do not disturb’ next to my margarita.

This restaurant is a stable place, consistent and reassuring- filthy bathroom, exposed brick and a too-small parking lot. The plate is too hot. The chile relleño is soggy tonight but still tastes like home.

I’m touching shoulders with my boyfriend. Mary is across from me in tight red pants getting a little loud. The matron of the restaurant is at a table behind us set up as a desk keeping one eye on our table as she shuffles tickets.

The numbers are coming in and we know it. Everyone’s media-sick so we’re greedily tending our bubble. I didn’t expect make it to the later end of my 50’s so I’m savoring the moment with a mouth-sized space on the salt rim of my second margarita and a smile that’s beginning to hurt.

I toasted.

“Fuckin’ love you, my friends. We’ve got this, I feel it in my bones. The Blue Wave is surely upon us as we sit here.”

“Here Here,” they declare. Charlie and Erin lead Happy Birthday.

Then I slip away to the bathroom and take a peek at the phone I had slid into the pocket of my hoodie.

So began the cold truth. So began the last hours of my capstone day. I took nerve medication. I held my boyfriend. I read the news.

I melted down.

This was not the present I was hoping for.

I would have settled for a pretty pink box filled with real, fresh human shit, actually.

Pal Susan, communications professional, who crafts message for a living says to me days later over sparkling water, “One of the people we failed is guy sitting in the 12th row of the nation, thinking about getting home as soon as possible and what modifications to his Chipotle order he’s gonna make. He gives zero shits about policy and is driven by vibe, when he is driven at all.

We hectored this dude. Shook a college-educated finger in his face. He just needed a howdy or smile on his way outta the quick shop and for us to get his jokes or pretend to.

Now he runs policy. He voted against his sister who’s gonna have an ectopic pregnancy next year and maybe die in a parking lot of an emergency room in Birmingham.  He’s voted against his dad who needs a timely refill on his dementia medication and a ride to the hospital paid for. He voted against what he thinks are too-high gas prices.

He may not know it but he’s voted against himself and he will feel it deeply, very deeply.”

So it goes. So I go on with this year, right there with you. My ribs hurt from crying and too long naps. There’s a crick in my neck and the cats are sick of me being home all the time. Boyfriend is patient with me but he’s feeling it too. We’re going to band practices, eating out a little. I subscribed to Brit Box. He makes drinks for us and we watch British Baking Show reruns.

But I’m down for the work. Maybe that’s just waving at the human on the street crew who gets to hold the Slow/Stop sign or telling someone I like what they’ve done to with their nails as they’re ringing up my tub of hummus.

The kernel of the work is seeing our fellow citizens, our families- unsticking ourselves from what used to be neighborhoods of opinion and are now walled psychic suburbs, with guardhouses staffed by zealots or, worse, the criminally insane.

We now need each other’s addresses and a good reason to get to the other side of the wall, to sit on the patio and play fetch with your brother’s dog. Smoke a little with your dad drink a little blended scotch on the lawn and talk about how much he loved your mom. I think that’s how we do it, one way, at least.