By C.W. Bigelow
“I can’t stop it,” Leigh cried as she rushed through Gladys’ front door. She wasn’t visible but we heard her steps as she came down the entry hall.
“Well, you’re late, damn it!” Gladys yelled back from the corner chair, the throne we called it, as she lifted her vodka from the T.V. dinner tray she used as a cocktail table. She had inherited the seat when her husband died.
“Bob’s car isn’t here, so don’t give me any shit,” Leigh snapped as she held a clump of red Kleenex on her chin.
Gladys and Leigh had known each other since kindergarten and had been next door neighbors for sixty years in a three-story duplex that aged as poorly as they had. Cracks in the window moldings, doors that needed shoulders to force open, worn, and faded furnishings that wobbled on uneven hardwood floors and tiny prewar deeply scratched white kitchen appliances. Gladys’ furniture hadn’t changed since I visited while in seventh grade. Both had been widows for years. Leigh’s husband had died of cancer over twenty years before and Gladys’ husband dropped dead in front of her a decade ago.
“That’s the fucking problem with growing too damn old. Who’d of thought I’d have to worry about shaving chin hairs when I was a beauty back in the day.”
I took her white coat from her as she sat in a deep springless chair across from Gladys.
“Christ you were never a beauty!” Gladys barked.
“Look who’s talking? You peered into a mirror recently?”
My wife, Mary, rolled her eyes as she rushed to the bathroom, “Gladys, do you have any tissue?”
My aunt slammed her glass down on the tray. “Use toilet paper. Christ Leigh, you are a pain in my ass.”
Through the front window, I saw Bob’s car pulling up to the curb on the street.
Mary brought the whole roll, or the remainder of it, unrolling it into a temporary tourniquet to apply. Leigh’s original clump of tissue had turned completely red and was dripping blood over her hands. I took it from Mary, threw it in a wastebasket, while she stuck the toilet paper on Leigh’s chin. Her short greasy white hair reached out in cowlicks. Squinting at me from thick framed black glasses, she finally focused in on me, sighing, “If I can fuck it up, I will.”
“Never were truer words ever spoken,” Uncle Bob chuckled as he appeared in the entry hallway.
We couldn’t stop the bleeding, but we still piled into the car. It was Boyd’s ninetieth birthday party and stopping the bleeding or not, wasn’t going to keep these folks from attending.
Mary helped Leigh. I helped Gladys, while Bob wobbled behind. Bob ignored the rest as he climbed into the passenger seat. I helped Leigh scoot to the center of the backseat, then held Gladys’ shoulders, as she lifted her short legs and sat down with a loud sigh. Mary climbed into the opposite side.
“This is not stopping,” Mary sighed. “Should we go to the hospital?”
“Danny, you better well fucking keep going, no hesitation, no detours. Boyd is waiting for me. And Leigh can damn well wait. She doesn’t have to come. In fact, let her out now. Right there under that streetlamp.”
“Oh, fuck off Gladys!” Leigh growled.
Best of friends. Best enemies. They had a relationship that was explosive when dealing with each other, but if someone outside made a derogatory comment about either one of them, they would defend each other to the end.
The blood continued rushing profusely from her chin. Her white coat, which I had made the mistake of helping her put on before we left, was catching drops. The toilet paper roll was having no coagulating success.
“Next time, you idiot, don’t try and use a two-year-old razor to shave your chin. You may end up dying!” I caught the image of Gladys shaking her head and grimacing in the rearview mirror.
“How about a pair of tweezers?” my Uncle Bob suggested from the front seat as I navigated the streets of Apple Hill, trying to concentrate on the traffic and ignore the banter. His rotundness jiggled with laughter. I recalled his visits to my parent’s lake cottage when I was a kid. Even then, flabby and a target for our giggles when he bared his man boobs on the beach.
He had never hidden his disdain for his sister, who he considered a pathological liar that lived in a dreamworld. Leigh on the other hand had him as a dinner guest on a weekly basis. He knew how to prioritize his needs. He wore a tweed sport coats that I had given him upon my father’s death a few years before. It was one of four of my father’s jackets he gladly accepted though it was too small and strangled his girth. Reeking in Old Spice, his scent tangled with well splashed Channel No. 5 from the backseat. Mary’s perfume didn’t stand a chance.
Gladys considered Boyd the love of her life. A widower who had been a successful lawyer, he was the third love of her life since her husband exited the powder room one afternoon, began an undistinguishable curse-laden tirade, arms shaking like tree limbs in a storm, blaming Gladys for something or other before his eyes rolled back into his skull and collapsed noisily onto the floor as she sipped her martini. After surviving two operations on a brain tumor, that never could be totally extracted, it finally decided to explode through his skull.
My Uncle Bob on the other hand had never married and lived in a one room apartment across town. He was a fervent Philadelphia sports fan and a conservative’s conservative who loyally frequented his local bar where he was well known for spreading scathing local gossip.
Mary and I had recently moved to the area and taken on the task of carting them around, entertaining them and making sure they stayed safe, which due to the amount of liquor they consumed was not always an easy undertaking.
“Boyd won’t be thrilled you bitch!” Gladys complained. “You could’ve stayed home. You know how precise and demanding he is.”
“I didn’t know it would bleed this long. I thought the razor would be quicker and more complete. Let’s hope it stops is all. There will be free booze and I didn’t want to miss that.”
The clump had transformed from white to a fully bright red on Leigh’s chin despite the pressure applied.
“I can use a cigarette,” Leigh complained, the toilet paper getting caught on her lip.
“How much longer do we have to go?” Mary asked as she scooted her body as far away as she could get while keeping her hand on Leigh’s chin. “This toilet paper isn’t gonna last much longer.”
“There it is,” Uncle Bob pointed to a brick building on the right.
I pulled the car up to the entrance of the White Horse Restaurant and let them all out in a symphony of cracks and groans. Mary awkwardly supported Leigh’s back with one hand while keeping tension on her chin with the other. Gladys led the group, her osteoporotic hump behind her hawkish nose peering from beneath her ever-present hat and Uncle Bob waddled behind like a pregnant duck. It was a comic spectacle as I pulled away, filled with guilt because of sticking Mary with Leigh. I was certain Gladys would rush directly to the bar followed by her brother.
As I headed to the parking lot, I passed Boyd’s son in a wheelchair being pushed by his wife. Afflicted with cerebral palsy but a talented lawyer in Boyd’s firm, his expression was filled with childlike excitement. I struggled to recall their names, having met them at Boyd’s house one afternoon in the summer. At that time, Peggy, that was her name, showed an obvious disdain for Gladys, who was oblivious to it, blinded by her schoolgirl crush on Boyd. A tall humorless woman, overwhelmed by the care of both Boyd and Nathanial, that was his name. I supposed reasons for the contempt was protection of her inheritance and the fact that Glady’s enabled Boyd’s desire for drink. It became evident when her smile during our introduction disappeared quickly after I identified Gladys as my aunt.
A desire for drink is what Boyd shared with Gladys. Since Uncle Bart dropped dead in front of her, her prowl for a man was a reason to get up in the morning, equal or second to her thirst for vodka. As I stated before, Boyd was at least the third man she was convinced was madly in love with her, or that was the story she told to anyone who would listen.
The first man was an old beau, Graham. She referred to him as Graham Cracker because his real name was Graham Crocker and had courted her before she married Uncle Bart more than a half century before. She had no trouble hopping in her car and driving four hundred miles to visit him in Maine after Bart’s death. He too, ended up dying, but his family neglected to tell her, and she was startled when a young woman answered the front door of his house after her last four-hundred-mile trip. “I thought he had a new girlfriend, which struck me right in the heart. A young girl too, which seemed odd because as lovely as he was, I found it difficult a young woman would be attracted to such an old man. But it turned out she had purchased the house from his family. She was the one who told me he’d died and where he was buried. I said goodbye to him at his grave. It was a lovely day and we talked for hours before I hopped back in my car and drove back home.” She didn’t find it odd, or obvious and never downgraded his family for not letting her know of his death. When telling stories of love lost, whether Bart or the Graham Cracker, she never showed emotion. Sadness was not in her tool kit. She just set her sights on the next conquest.
I recalled her second post Bart boyfriend as a nice guy who was also a widower Glady’s had known him all her life. Their relationship didn’t last because he drank non-alcoholic beer.
Able to park and still beat Nathanial and Peggy to the entrance, I jumped ahead of his wheelchair and opened the hulking glass door into the restaurant. “Nice to see you two.” I felt on sturdy ground since we’d had Boyd to our house for numerous bottles of scotch, when Gladys doubled as chauffer and drinking buddy, which wasn’t a safe combination.
She scowled, which gave away the fact she recognized me, and with a snarky remark, “Oh, you were invited to Boyd’s birthday party?”
I nodded with a forced wider than usual grin. “Yes. He insisted the last time he and Gladys were at our house. My wife Mary and I met you two at Boyd’s in July, I believe.”
He held out his crumpled hand. “Gladys’ nephew, right.” He didn’t remember my name either.
I grabbed his hand gently and gave it one quick shake before holding the door open as wide as possible. She lifted the front wheels onto the step and lifted the rear in a well-rehearsed, proficient flip and rolled right by me without another word.
Uncle Bob was anxious, pacing in front of the lady’s room. “They’re in there. Think they got an attendant to help with Leigh’s bloody chin.” He glanced around nervously. “Gladys was supposed to bring me a drink.”
One large room was filled with guests of all ages, but I couldn’t locate Boyd. Appetizers were presented on a long glass table and a bar was set up in the far corner.
“Go get your own drink, Bob. I’ll wait here.”
He gave no argument and lumbered across the room. Gladys stood hunched in front of a woman her own age. Her cackling laughter a regular refrain that everyone recognized. She held a drink.
The entry to the Lady’s Room was an open foyer and I called, “Mary. You okay in there?” I heard commotion.
They finally appeared. Mary had avoided any spillage, but the front of Leigh’s dress gleamed brightly with blood, and her chin held two Band-Aids crossed in an X, which seemed to have put a stop to it.
“Please get us a drink,” Mary requested as they rushed pass me on the hunt for seating accommodations.
As I got into line at the bar, I heard the crowd’s volume rise and turned to catch Boyd’s entrance accompanied by a younger woman on his arm. Younger meant in the 70 to 80 age range. I caught Gladys’ doubletake and the frown that swept over her face. Her beady eyes homed in on the woman, not Boyd.
Boyd gleamed at the adoration. Still an erect six foot with a full head of white hair and a well-trimmed moustache, it didn’t surprise me he had shown up with a different woman. His interest in Gladys never seemed equal to hers in him.
I took drinks to Mary and Leigh, who had found footstools on the wall next to the appetizer table. “Who’s the woman with Boyd?”
“Darlene Moss,” Leigh said after thirstily taking a gulp.
“And?”
“You don’t actually believe Gladys’ bullshit, do you?”
I shook my head as I followed his progress to a chair at the far end of room where he sat like a king and waited for a scotch to be delivered. His good looks were an extreme contrast to Gladys’ homeliness and much better matched to Darlene’s.
“Darlene is one of a stable of woman that nibble at his front door,” she explained, holding up her empty glass. “He has quite the rotation.”
“You ready for another?” I asked Mary, as I took the empty glass from Leigh.
I got back into line behind Uncle Bob who was there for his second, maybe third. “What did you do with the bottle of Dewar’s?” With Leigh’s bleeding issue I’d forgotten I’d handed Boyd’s gift to Bob when we got in the car.
“Put it on that gift table.” He pointed across the room.
“Do you know Darlene Moss?”
He nodded. “She’s his best friend’s widow. Handsome woman.”
“Just friends then?”
“One of many he has. At his age what else is there? He’ll be friends to whomever will drink with him.”
“Or cart him around?”
He lifted his glass and nodded in agreement.
I dropped off their drinks. “I’d better go wish him happy birthday.”
Mary nodded. “Doesn’t look like Gladys is very happy.”
“I suppose not.”
She took me around the corner. “Leigh told me Gladys hasn’t heard from Boyd for a couple of months, probably since they were at our house last time.”
“Huh. I wondered why we hadn’t had them over. They were a bit pissy with one another as I loaded them into the car that night. How long is this soiree supposed to last?” I asked checking my watch.
She shrugged.
“Well drink to your fill. Try to make up for all the scotch we fed him,” I winked.
I got into his receiving line and looked across to Gladys, who had moved onto another person, this time a younger man. Though she was speaking to him, her gaze was stuck on me. It wasn’t a happy one.
I’d gotten a kick out of Boyd, though he was a narcissist and enjoyed listening to his own success tales a bit too much, but since I’d not heard them as often as everyone else, they shed an interesting light on old Philadelphia. That’s what all these friends and Gladys, Leigh and Uncle Bob had in common; a love of talking about themselves or gossiping about their friends and how life existed back in the day. As they aged, they set their sights on the past, an era in which they felt more comfortable and caused them less angst than the present and inevitable future. Listening to them kept me from having to talk which was fine by me.
Boyd was soaking in the attention and the scotch. His white moustache spread over his smile as I knelt in front of him to lavish praise on the king. Hell, it was his ninetieth.
He took a sip of scotch – always Dewar’s.
“Happy 90th! We brought you another bottle.” I nodded at a pile of Dewar’s gift boxes on the table next to us. He always started and finished the same bottle during our evenings together. Then he would climb next to Gladys and we would watch nervously as she backed out of our long driveway, holding our breath as she inched past the mailbox then slowly, and slowly is an exaggeration because she never made it to half speed limit, which was a major hazard for other drivers as she loped along, her hat barely visible as she watched the road through the steering wheel. They trekked back to his house where she dropped him off then traveled another twenty minutes to get the two miles to her own place.
“Thank you, Dan, and thank Mary for me.”
“Looks like you have a good supply.”
He frowned, blue eyes glassy already, then smiled again. “Just found out I have stage four cancer in my gut, so probably won’t be able to finish all of it. But I’ll give it my damnedest.”
I was surprised, but not really. He, like the rest of them, seemed invincible. Partying was their main activity. The surprise was the location of the cancer. Would have thought liver, but you can never tell. “That’s terrible, Boyd.”
“Happy to have made it to ninety,” he smiled then took another sip.
“Chemo?”
“Too far gone for any treatment.”
I felt the pressure of the group in line behind me, so I stood up and shook his hand. “It’s been good knowing you. I enjoyed your visits to our house with Gladys.”
He nodded but said nothing and peered past me to his next guest. He would be dead in a month.
True to plan, we stayed until they closed the bar.
Gladys finally joined us because we were all that remained. “What did he say?”
“That he was sick.”
“Sick of Gladys,” Leigh snickered.
Boyd and his family had already exited. He only spoke to those who came up to him. Since I was the only one of our group to approach him, he never acknowledged them.
Uncle Bob helped Gladys into the car, and I helped Leigh scoot into the center. I kissed Mary before she got in. “At least no more bleeding.”
She snickered and rolled her eyes.
After Bob got in, I said, “Seat belts everybody.” Mary was the only one to comply. Gladys always told me “I’ve lived long enough without one. Too restraining.”
“Hey. What sickness does he have?” Gladys asked.
“Stomach cancer.”
“I thought he looked bad.” She glanced at Leigh. “Leigh, you stopped bleeding.”
“Couple of hours ago.”
“That’s good. I was worried.”
“Oh bullshit! You didn’t even come in with me to the Lady’s room.”
“I needed a drink.”
“Well so did I.”
“Fuck you, Leigh!”
It ended as it had begun.
Like her Maine beau, Boyd’s family didn’t let Gladys know of his death, but she spotted his obituary in the local paper. Gladys claimed to us that she never went to funerals. Too chaotic. “If I want to visit the dead I’ll wait and visit their grave later where we can have a friendly conversation.”
A one-sided conversation.
___
C.W. Bigelow lives around Charlotte, North Carolina. His recent fiction and poetry have appeared in Blood & Bourbon, Good Works Review, Backchannels, The Saturday Evening Post, Flash Fiction Magazine, Remington Review, Drunk Monkeys, Hare’s Paw, The Write Launch, Hole in the Head Review, Blue Mountain Review and Midway Journal.