Wouldn’t Change a Thing (14 page)

I want to be out amongst people again. If I have to take medicine to do it, then so be it.

Annalease lifts the jar of Royal Crown grease as a reminder to come back to her hair. “Didn't you tell me Toni was getting married? You decided what you wearing to the wedding?”

“Mavis told me it's been called off.”

“What for?”

“I'll let you know when I find out.”

I loop a few more rubber bands on the ends of her braids and rest my hands and arms. These old fingers aren't what they used to be. Neither am I. I've been in and out of this place twenty-three years. Imagine spending your sixty-second birthday at a mental hospital. Whipple got me a caramel cake and raspberry fruit bars from Ryal's Bakery. The other residents sang “Happy Birthday” to me and I looked in their faces for Paul, Toni, Willa, Mavis, Raymond, anyone I knew who'd say this was all a bad dream and I'd be going home soon.

I want to sit on my porch again. I want to scrape the catch of the day from the old pond at my fish cleaning table. I want to laugh and talk with girlfriends like I see the ladies on TV doing. I want to be trusted. I want people to extend their hands to me in fellowship, not jerk away in fear. I'll negotiate my wants with Zyprexa. That's how I'll do it.

I
slip my key in the lock of Russ and Clay's house and steady the box of canned items from Aunt Mavis. I smell and hear evidence of summer cleaning. Russ doesn't believe in spring cleaning. His motto is if you do a little often, you don't have to break your back when spring arrives. He is the Felix to Clay's Oscar, the one who keeps things in tiptop shape. He taught me everything I know about being orderly. When I grew up in this house, Clay dashed out to the corner bistro on Saturday mornings when we cleaned and always told Russ, “Come get me when it's over.” He made it sound like we were committing a crime.

“Hello, where is everybody?” I follow the sound of Tom Jones to the kitchen.

Clay's wheelchair sits in the middle of the living room floor, so he's either sleeping, or burying his hands in herbs from their garden. The afghan Mrs. Poole, our next-door neighbor, knitted for him is slung across the wheelchair along with a bag of honey-roasted peanuts. I look on the table and smile at the sight of a glass of Coca-Cola with a few nuts floating on top.

Russ is on his hands and knees, scrubbing the floor and singing “Lusty Lady.” He shakes his head when he sees me, as if he has to get out the next lyrics. He points to me and I add, “That's all the paper said.”

He gets up, shimmies, and steps in stride to the music as he takes the box from my arms. He continues to sing and puts the items on the table. He lowers the volume.

“They can keep blowing smoke up Robin Thicke's ass if they want to, but Tom Jones was the original blue-eyed soul man. Had the black women to prove it.”

I ignore his comment. I'm not having an entertainment debate today. Especially about their icons, whom I only know of because of Russ's connections.

“Where is Clay?”

“Taking a nap.”

“I'm going to check on him. Be back in a sec.”

“I'll hurry with the floor. We have to talk to you about something.”

Russ transformed our first-floor office to a bedroom after Clay got worse. Clay's time is divided between an assisted living facility and our house. He gets lonely, Russ comes off the road to his rescue. After Clay's illness progressed, it didn't make sense to go up and down the stairs for anything, so upstairs is virtually non-existent. I walk into the bedroom as Clay grapples with his oxygen mask. The tank is situated next to his bed, but he struggles to turn sideways.

“Let me help,” I say, rushing to his side.

“Damn Tom Jones. I can't get a decent wink of sleep when Russ plays that God-awful music. Give me Marvin Gaye, Little Beaver, even. But Tom Jones? Humph!” He coughs and reclines on fluffed pillows. “I'm getting tired of hearing ‘Lusty Lady,' all the time. If he wants to play the song, he should play Johnny Bristol's rendition.” Clay scans the room and lowers his voice; this is his way of complimenting a handsome man out of Russ's earshot. “Bristol was a cool drink of water, let me tell you. That voice!” He fans himself, knocking his oxygen mask askew.

I readjust the mask. “Clay, you played Johnny Bristol's ‘I Wouldn't

Change A Thing' over and over again when you got sad. I never asked you why.”

“You remember that?” His weak voice evens out a bit.

“Of course. I didn't know what to do. You looked so sad, so lost.”

“Damn, your memory is like an elephant's.” He rubs his hands. “Hell, you're grown now. No need in hiding the truth. It was the only song that soothed me regarding the way I left Lorene. She was a good woman, but I couldn't lie to her or myself anymore. I needed to be free. Free for me is being with Russ.”

“I see.”

“I didn't care about the labels, the things people said about me. If you remember nothing else I tell you, Toni, chew on this. You'll know you've made the right choices in life when you come out on the other side of a decision and realize you'd do it all over again.”

He is the weepiest man I know, so before he cries. I ask, “Do you need anything?”

“Bring my Coke and nuts, will you?”

I head back to the living room and he stops me with his faint voice. “Bring the wheelchair too.”

I go back to the living room to pick up the items. I lift the Coke from Clay's hand-painted coaster and eye a stack of paperwork. NAMI Georgia. I want to pry, but shuffle the papers aside, fold the afghan, place it on back of the wheelchair and put the Coke in the cup holder. I head back to Clay's bedroom and hum Tom Jones in rebellion.

“Bring that chair as close to me as you can,” Clay says.

This is when our game begins. As his body weakened, we'd recite a tune or rhyme to lessen the agony of getting him out of bed. He inches to the edge of the bed, takes in oxygen, and waits for me to lift him. His emaciated, splotchy face looks to me for a rhyme. He starts the show.

“This is the church.”

I turn the chair sideways. “And this is the steeple.” I sit his frail body upright and smooth my hand over tufts of his thin hair.

He leans forward so I can lift him. “Open the door.” His watery eyes say it's okay to do a final lift.

“And see—”

“All the damn hypocrites who'll let me sing in the choir, put on their makeup, but send fire and brimstone down on me the minute I turn my back!” He interrupts me with a tongue-lashing as I place him in the wheelchair. He breathes into the mask and between puffs asks, “Was that a good one or what?”

“Next time, we'll do Mary Mack.”

“I can make magic with Mary, too. No doubt.”

I whirl the chair around at his request and push him into the living room. Russ is waiting for us with a tray of teacakes and fresh squeezed lemonade. Fear fills me. Aunt Mavis had said they wanted to speak to me, but wouldn't tell me why. Looking at Clay's appearance, I hope this isn't a goodbye visit. He's too young and feisty to die.

“What did Mavis tell you?” Russ asks.

“She said the two of you wanted to talk to me about something,” I say, shifting my attention to Clay only.

Sensing my fear, he looks me square on and says, “Baby, I have a team of Alaskan Huskies pulling me in the Iditarod Race of Life. I ain't going nowhere soon.” He makes his famous bang sign with an invisible gun and sips Coke through a straw.

“The reason we called you here is because…” Russ hesitates. “We're moving to Florida and we're closing the house. I'm not ready to sell it yet, because it holds so many great memories for us, but I'm sure you want to do something with your dolls and childhood items.”

I sigh.

“That's why Russ pulled me out of the assisted living facility. He's finally retiring from his music. The air down there will be better for my emphysema. I can sit near the beach and make him cook those good meals to fatten me back up.” Clay looks at Russ and they smile at each other.

“Of course. I can move my things into my unit. I have plenty of room.”

They look at each other and Clay tests the waters with a nod in my direction.

Russ winks and turns to me. “The other reason we called you here is because Mavis tells us you've been added to Greta's visitation list.”

“I have.”

“She also says you're thinking of bringing her home.”

The temperature dips and goose bumps fill my arms. “I am.”

Russ gathers the papers I saw earlier and hands them to me. “After the treatment team meeting and before you bring her home, reach out to NAMI.”

“NAMI?”

“It's the National Alliance on Mental Illness. There is a Family-to-Family support group in Milledgeville. You'll need a support system to help you care for your mother.”

I fling the papers on the table. “I don't need anyone to help me take care of my mother. I feel badly enough for being separated from her so long.”

“That was for good reason,” Clay adds.

“And the reason would be?”

He sucks on the oxygen mask and encourages Russ to continue the conversation with a hand swish.

“What we're trying to say, Toni, is after the honeymoon phase of being reunited with your mother wears off, you'll have to deal with day-to-day issues of caring for her.”

“Aunt Mavis told me the team participants will help me with those things.”

“The team may not be there when your mother stops taking her medication. Or when she decides
you
are poisoning her as she accused Willa of doing.”

“My mother loves me. She would never accuse me of those things.”

Clay coughs. He uses the handles of his chair to sit erect. “Toni, this is complex. Take the paperwork and at least read it.”

I've trusted them for years, but no one knows my mother better than I do. If I can get her back to the house, to her old environment, she'll come around and be herself again. I pick up the papers from the table and clutch them.

“I'm going upstairs to check out my old bedroom.”

I climb the stairs slowly, incensed at Russ and Clay's tag-team. My room is the same. Dolls line the bed. Michael Jackson, The Temptations, Prince, and the Time are a few of the artists whose posters are still affixed to the wall. I scan the room and remember the good and bad times I spent here. Early drawings are still rolled up and stacked neatly on my desk. This room birthed my desire to create buildings and monuments. Instead, I settled for interior design as a career choice. I pick up my Dream Skater doll, the one that made the journey from Sparta with me all those years ago. Mama went back and forth until she finally chose this doll. She picked this one out at Hatcher Square for my birthday the day she was taken away. I bet she'll be happy to see Dream Skater again.

A
fter dropping Whiplash off at Barkerfeller's, Aunt Mavis insists I drive to the treatment team meeting. “You need to know where you're going since you'll be visiting Greta,” she says from the backseat.

I'm driving her and Uncle Raymond as they both sit in the back. Neither wanted to join me for a shotgun ride-along. I turn onto the grounds, and for a moment, I'm feeling lost.

“Are we going the right way?”

“You're doing well,” Aunt Mavis says.

“It'll become second nature once you make the trip a few times,” he says.

I take instructions from them and vaguely remember landmarks I pass. Uncle Raymond tells me the Hatcher Square Mall is now Milledgeville Mall. So many things have changed in the city since we visited here years ago. We make a sharp turn and I see a sign leading to GMH. As we approach the location, I'm stunned. The grounds look like a college campus. White stately buildings and a few dwellings that look like regular homes line the path I'm driving.

“Who lives in the homes?”