Sunday, December 19
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Monday, December 20
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Tuesday, December 21
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Wednesday, December 22
Don and I attended a very strange birthday party for Jnani at
her apartment in The City this evening.
Jnani's birthday isn't
until tomorrow, but that's not what was strange about it.
I'm not on the best of terms with Jnani, so I was a bit on edge
psychologically. But Jnani is one of Don's dearest friends, despite
how she treated him when he was under the control of her alledged
medical power of attorney. For his sake, I was determined to
bury the hatchet and enjoy myself. Besides, I wanted to have a
good time this holiday season, and this was as good a place as
any to have it.
Except that it wasn't.
Jnani rents the downstairs
flat in a three-story house. The top two floors are occupied by
the landlady and her son.
We had arrived early, and after a small amount of greeting
and fussing, we were told the bulk of the festivities would be
upstairs, so that's where we went, where we were greeted by
the hostess and her son.
There was something odd about her. She seemed welcoming,
but overly bright-eyed, as if she were smiling through some great
strain. Her little boy, who was going by the name "Train" (short
for "Night Train," I was later told), was playing with his toys
on the livingroom floor. I thought it odd that so young a child
would be up so late - it was past eight o'clock and quite dark
out - but what do I know about raising children?
I walked around the house and spoke to the other guests.
Little by little, the spectre that was hanging over this
household made itself apparent.
In an upstairs room, I came across evidence
that there had been a recent death in the family. There were
memorial brochurs and condolence cards. From a guest, I
found out that it was the husband who had recently died.
I sought out our hostess and offered my condolances.
I felt a little out-of-place as I did so, as if I were introducing
something foreign and unwelcome.
She thanked me and told me that
Jnani had been taking care of her, her boy, and her husband.
In fact, Jnani had been with them since David was first diagnosed
with cancer.
I had an awful feeling about this.
"Jnani has been our main support," the woman was telling me.
"She'll be leaving town on Saturday, on vacation. She so
deserves it. But I don't
know what I'll do without her." Her face was halfway
between a grateful smile and tears.
I drifted away, but I continued talking to other guests.
How recently had she lost her husband? "Oh, it was just this
month," one guest confided to me. "In fact, the memorial was just
this past Sunday."
Strange timing for a party, I thought. "What did he
die of?" I asked.
"Oh, didn't you know them?" my source said. "He had a brain tumor.
Glioblastoma, I think."
I gulped and beat a hasty retreat to the balcony for some fresh air.
What in the world is Jnani thinking? I exclaimed to myself.
How does she think Don will take this? Not only is this poor
woman a widow, but her husband is barely in his grave, and he
died of the very thing Don has now! Is this deliberate? Is she
trying to tell him that this is what is going to happen to him,
too?
I did my best to calm down. There have to be limits, after all,
even to my paranoia. There was nothing uniquely menacing in this
set-up: just Jnani's usual thoughtlessness. I did wonder how
Don would take it, though, if he found out.
He let me know on the way home that night. "That was weird," he
said as we drove down 280.
"What?" I said. "The party?"
"The whole thing," he said. "Did you know her husband had died of
a brain tumor just the week before?"
"Yeah, someone told me. I sometimes wonder about Jnani, if she
has a special thing for dying people."
"It's what she does," he said.
"A thantopile."
"A what?"
"Thantophile. Death-lover. It's a word I just made up."
"Good one."
We got to talking about our friends and their strange ways and how
sometimes that's what makes them our friends. "But I never did get
what it was with Waz and you," I said.
"Neither did he, apparently," Don said. "Or, rather, neither did I."
"What do you mean?"
"I thought I was having a relationship, but it turned out I was the
only one in it." He thought for a while. "I wanted love, and I
thought I had found it in Waz. But when I asked him about it - confronted
him, really - he didn't know what I was talking about. 'I thought
you were just in it for the sex,' he said."
"Wow. That must have hurt."
"It did. And it wasn't true. It wasn't just sex. Not for me,
anyway."
A lightbulb went off in my head. "Now I finally know what you mean.
When you were still semi-comatose in Santa Rosa, every once in a while
you would rise to the surface and say, 'It's not just sex.' I thought
you were talking to me, but I didn't know why you'd be saying that.
Now I know." I reached over and squeezed his hand. "That
must have been a pretty deep wound, for you to remember it like that."
"It was."
I glanced over at him. He was staring out the windshield straight ahead.
I gave his hand another squeeze and he looked at me. "It's not just
sex," I told him.
"I know," he said, and we drove home in silence.
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Thursday, December 23
Having taken the day off, Don and I spent a relaxed morning together.
Don's brother, Jerry, arrived mid-morning, with his girldfriend,
Gena.
It took me a while to find out that Gena was in the car. When
Jerry arrived, he didn't mention her. It was only when I asked
that he said she was there. I thought it was odd she didn't want
to come out of the car and into the house. Jerry said she was
sleeping.
Jerry followed us to Hobee's, where we finally got a look at Gena.
She is a young-looking 28-year-old black woman who is almost as tall
as Jerry. As she got out of the car, I noticed that they also had
a cat in the car with them. The cat seemed quite calm and unconcerned
about traveling from Southern California. I was favorably impressed
with him, so much so that I thought briefly of having a cat for us.
Maybe Ceasar could be talked into relocating.
I was not so favorably impressed with Gena. She speaks with a voice
that seems to be a blend of Carol Channing, Marilyn Monroe, and
Babby Snookums. This is an affectation. When she wants to, she
can use a voice that sounds quite adult.
After a late lunch, we tried to find lodging for Jerry and Gena
that was under $65 a night. There was only one place on El Camino
Real that advertised $55 a night, and that's where they ended up.
We decided to see a movie that evening. After looking up the
selection of current releases on the Web, we agreed to see Stewart
Little, mostly on the strength of Gena's wish and my belief
that any adaptation of E. B. White has got to turn out reasonably
well. It did, and was the most pleasant part of the evening.
I got increasingly irritated with Gena, though, which made me
feel ungracious.
Twice during the day, she tried to manipulate me into giving
her permission to do something Jerry had told her not to do.
She asked me if it was okay if she drank a beer in my house.
I said yes. Then she told me that Jerry told her she couldn't
have any beer. This is, of couse, a different question, but
it was an attempt to get my authority to conflict with his.
After the movie, she said she'd like to go to Taco Bell or
someplace for something to eat, like maybe a pizza or something.
I said that was fine with me and I'd drive them there. Then
she said that Jerry had told her she couldn't have anything to
eat. This turned out, once again, to be an incomplete truth.
She had wanted to buy a small pizza in the lobby
while we were waiting to enter the theatre. Jerry had told her
no because the food on sale in the theatre lobby was much too
expensive. He hadn't said she couldn't have any food,
which is how she tried to portray it.
She is an observant and manipulative person. She is not the
IQ level she is playing.
After the movie, Gena again preferred staying in the car to
entering our house. By this time, I was quite content to have her stay
outside, despite the implicit insult to our hospitality.
As we were having tea in the kitchen, Jerry told about an incident they'd
gone through just a week or so ago. A police car had stopped them in
Riverside and the police had searched Jerry's car.
They frisked both Gena and him. They put Jerry in the squad car and
asked him, "When was the last time you used?"
"I told them, 'Used what?"' Jerry said. "They wanted me to admit to
using drugs. I don't do drugs. I don't even drink."
Don has told me that their life with their alcoholic mother has given
both of them a dim view of alcohol.
But Jerry was convinced this was an example of harrassment.
"They said they pulled me over because one of my taillights was out,"
he said. "But I checked afterwards. There wasn't any light out."
He said the police took his wallet. At that, my hackles rose. Something
was very unright about this story. The police do not handle wallets.
"You should contact the State Police about that," I said. "Cops can't
handle wallets. It's too suspicious. Did you get all your money back?"
"I didn't count it, but it looked like it was all there," he said. "But
they took my driver's license."
"What?!"
"Well, they must have. I couldn't find it afterwards."
"They can't just take and keep your license without telling you why,"
I said. "You really should contact the State Police."
It suddenly struck me that Jerry had driven all the way up from
Southern California without a valid license.
Don had been silent through most of this exchange. I was beginning to see
the wisdom of this approach. Once you get involved in this kind of story,
it never ends. His one comment was about the Riverside police.
"It doesn't surprise me," he said. "They're basically a fascist enclave."
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Friday, December 24
I now see why Don keeps a healthy physical and psychological
distance from his family. After interacting with Jerry and his
girldfriend for two days, I'm exhausted.
I went to work as planned around 9:30 AM. Mark had called around
9:00 AM and left a message saying there was too much for him to do
at home, so he wasn't coming in to work after all. He did say I
should call him and we could conference over the phone. But when
I called him I told him Don's brother was visiting and I was
hoping to spend the day with them, he said it was fine with him if
we didn't start on the VCS interface design until Monday.
I really did want to spend the day with Don. It was Christmas
Eve, after all. I also didn't want Don riding with Jerry if Jerry
didn't have a valid license, regardless of the circumstances under
which he "lost" it. I like Jerry, but I am uncomfortable
entrusting Don to him. Besides, I enjoy being around Jerry,
though if found the amount of enegry he spend managing his
girlfriend annoying and ultimately exasperating.
In fact, we all ended up managing his girlfriend, though Don was
the best at keeping his distance.
We drove to The City to do some window shopping and to get Gena a
49er's souvenir. I thought they might like the Metreon, and that
Gena, who is black, might appreciate the Martin Luther King
memorial at Yerba Buena Gardens. It wasn't long after we got into
the Metreon before Gena was insisting the Jerry buy her a
children's book. He refused, saying they didn't have enough money
for it.
If this had been an interaction between adults, the words
"insist" and "refuse" would not have been used. But it was not.
It was an interaction between a child and a parent, and Gena's
reaction was correspondingly childish. She pouted, she kept her
eyes downcast, she wandered away from us and wouldn't come near
us as we left the Metreon. Although we walked through the King
memorial, I don't think she looked at it. At least, it never
seemed to register with her what it was.
We asked policemen and security guards around Union Square where
the souvenir store I remember being there was, and we eventually
found it. Gena got her souvenir: a $45 sweatshirt emblazoned
with the 49er's logo. She said she was never going to wear it,
but wrap it in plastic and display it.
We went around the corner from the store and cut through Union
Square on our way to Saks Fifth Avenue, where I wanted to see the
window displays. I also wanted to take Jerry and Gena past the
great tree in the center of the square. But a street vendor
caught Gena's eye with a poodle made of twisted balloons. She had
to have it. "It has eyes!" she exclaimed. Jerry reminded her
that he has just spend $45 for a sweatshirt and really couldn't
afford anything else. She sat down on a bench and refused to
move. It was another five minutes before he could persuade her to
join Don and me.
The windows at Saks were as disappointing as the ones at Macy's
had been earlier, but frankly, it wouldn't have mattered if they
were utterly fascinating. I was rapidly reaching the point where
I simply wanted to get the rest of the day over with. We made
half a circuit around Union Square and then headed for the Virgin
MegaStore.
Don had several CDs he wanted to look up and buy. I stayed with
him most of the time, but he eventually persuaded me to let him
shop on his own while I did some perusing elsewhere. I picked the
classical section and went looking for something by Hovhaness,
which is always a challenge. I didn't find it, but at least I
was away from Jerry and Gena.
After about an hour of shopping, we all gathered together. Don was
particularly proud to have found Fleetwood Mack's Rumors
album. He bought enough CDs to merit a free carrying case.
We started to leave the store but were stopped on the sidewalk
outside by a security guard. The alarm had gone off as we exited.
It turned out to be Gena. She had an "unpurchased" book in her
shopping bag. It took about another half an hour before the
matter was cleared up. Because they had not caught her on their
surveillence cameras deliberately concealing the book, they
decided to treat it as an unintentional act. I had another
interpretation, but I kept my mouth shut.
Jerry was not allowed to accompany Gena into the security office.
While she was there, he voiced the suspicion that the security
guard, who is also black, was trying to pick Gena up. "He was
asking her, 'What are you doing with him?'" he told us, meaning
"What are you doing with a white man?" His reinterpretation of
what was happening - from a shoplifting incident to an abuse of
power with racial overtones - was very much like last night's
story about being pulled over in Riverside and having his license
"taken" by a racist cop. He was shifting the blame from the
person responsible for the act to the people in authority, turning
the perpetrator into a victim.
We then headed to San Francisco Center for the spectacle of the
semi-circular escalators and the seven story hanging Christmas
decorations in the central atrium. We made it to the cafe on
the lower floor without incident, where we placed orders for
sandwiches, salads, and drinks.
Gena worked her magic here, too. She got a Ceasar salad for free,
she said, and her sandwich had bacon in it even though she had not
asked for it. She presented these items as trophies as she sat
down. "I just asked the man, 'What are you going to do with the
lettuce after you're done?' 'cause I knew he was just going to
throw it away. And he gave it to me."
I've got to hand it to her. She is shrewd, and she has learned how
to survive.
She went off to surrounding stores twice during lunch, and Don and
I took the opportunity to talk to Jerry about her behavior. "It
isn't the things she wants," I said. "She wants to want things.
She wants you to give her stuff. The stuff is unimportant and
forgotten almost as soon as you get it. It's the act of her
wanting it and you getting it that really makes her happy. And so
she can never stay happy, because as soon as she's got the thing,
she needs to ask for another."
Jerry agreed that this was the pattern of their relationship. In a
later conversation, Don pointed out that he was like her father
and she like his child. Jerry said he had never looked on it that
way but that it was, in fact, what was going on.
There is a Buddhist saying: "Wisdom without compassion is slavery;
compassion without wisdom is slavery." Jerry is enslaved by his
compassion.
After Jerry and Gena left, Don and I settled down to a quiet
evening at home. A little before midnight, he and I opened the
presents my mother had sent: Steve Martin's Complete Drivel
for Don and a collection of gay and lesbian biographies for me.
Don left the living room after these were open. I had to call him
back to point out there was a third gift. I had bought it at the
Metreon that day: a Sony CD Clock Radio. You could preset the CD
player to any track and wake to the music you prefer. Don had
expressed interest in it when we passed the Sony store, and I had
been wanting one for some time. He liked the gift, and we set it
up in the bedroom to wake us in the morning.
At midnight, Don and I went out into the back yard and sang
"Silent Night." We tried to stay in the same key, but somewhere
around "Sleep in heavenly peace," we went our separate ways. I
broke up laughing at the end.
"Where did you go?" he cried in mock dismay. "I was looking for
you everywhere!"
"Charles Ives would've been proud," I said.
"Charles Ives or Burl Ives?"
"Burl Ives is probably spinning in his grave."
"Ooo. Scarey thought."
We hugged in the chill air and hurried inside.
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Saturday, December 25
Christmas
We woke to Fleetwood Mac singing "Don't stop thinking about
tomorrow." I thought it would be a good choice, since this is
the first day of Don's second round of chemotherapy. However,
at six o'clock in the morning, it came off as garishly cheerful.
Don downed the Zofran and reset his smaller alarm clock for
7:00 AM, when he would wake to take the Temodar.
We ate light and late, knowing that dinner would involve a fair
amount of very filling food. I made the raspberry strawberry
Bavarian while Don cut up onions, green pepper, carrots, and
broccoli for the bed of sauteed vegetables. I called my mother
and got her advice on how to cook the fish, and enormous six pound
half of salmon.
Rob Tufel, a friend of Don's and a volunteer coordinator at the
National Brain Tumor Foundation in Oakland, arrived around
2:00 PM, and the three of us clustered in the kitchen, doing
cooking chores and chatting. It was very amiable. Curtis and
Mike were due around 4:00 PM, so a little after 3:00, after I
had called Wisconsin and wished everyone there a Merry Christmas,
the three of us set off for a walk. It was a mild, sunny day,
and Rob and I marvelled at how different a Christmas this was from
the Decembers of our respective New York and Wisconsin childhoods.
As we walked down Villa towards Castro, I noticed a group of young
men gathered on the porch and front yard of a house across the
street. They were chattering in Spanish and I did not pay them
much attention. However, Rob understands Spanish, and he chuckled.
He said they were amazed to see two men holding hands. A moment
later, we heard someone from the group yell out, "Faggot!"
"No bonus points for that guess," I said. "And isn't the correct
term maricón?"
"Or, appropriately enough, mariposa," Rob said, pointing
to the sign on the street we were about to cross.
When we got back to the house, we found a paper bag on the back
porch. It contained supplies for the hot tub, plus a box of
English toffee. Apparently, Curtis and Mike had come by while we
were gone, dropping off the information Mike had said he wanted me
to have about the hot tub I had bought from him. I tried to call
them as soon as we got in, but their line was busy. Sure enough,
as soon as I hung up, the phone rang. I apologized for our being
out when they arrived, and they said they would make the trek
over to our house again.
Don creamed the boiled potatoes in the Cuisinart while Rob helped
me put together the sauteed veggies and I prepared the fish for
the oven. Curtis and Scott arrived shortly and we all had a fine
time chatting in the kitchen. The fish went in at 4:00 at 400
degrees, just as my mother had dictated.
Around 4:20, I thought the fish would be done and had people start
loading up their plates with the rest of the food. Unfortunately,
I was wrong, and when I went to carve the beast, I found nicely
done salmon on the outter half inch and sashimi on the inside. No
one seemed to be interested in this cross-culinary experience, so
I put the fish back in.
We started eating anyway, and Don told the story of how we made
the Candle of Thanksgiving and Hope that burned in the center of
the table.
I checked on the fish again when everyone had cleared his plate of
vegetables. It still was not done. About 5:20, much later than I
had expected, the fish was finally done and suitable for guests.
Everyone thought it was delicious, but I was embarrassed that my
timing had been so poor.
I made up for it with the Bavarian for dessert, which everyone
gobbled down despite the absence of "chocolate horns." "Next
time, use an entire chocolate goat," quipped Mike.
Curtis and Mike cleaned the kitchen up spotlessly, then joined the
rest of us in the livingroom, chatting. Later, my friend Brian
called from Washington, D.C. While I was on the phone, I noticed
that the conversations pretty much died away. Mike was nearly
asleep in one chair; Curtis and Rob were sitting in the others
with dreamy looks in their eyes; Don sat beside me on the couch,
looking vaguely in the direction of the floor. After I got off
the phone, people decided that they'd all pretty much had enough
of a good time and it was time to go home.
Don and I spent the remainder of the evening quietly. He worked
on the CancerWatch e-mails in the Den, though he complained that
most of the news services weren't posting anything today. I
watched Robert Shaw conduct an amazing amalgam of holiday music on
television. He passed away sometime this year. A whole
generation of American choral singers has felt his touch. Now, we
have only the music.
As Don and I fell asleep, I couldn't help but think of the young
men who live down the street who yelled "Faggot!" at us. If they
could be so mean-spirited on Christmas Day, what else might they
be capable of? Should I do something about this? What?
It seemed an odd thought to be thinking at the end of so pleasant
a day. I hope I am not as addicted to unhappiness as I seem to
think others are.
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