16. To Grandmother's House We Go

“We’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.” Thad said, flipping the car headlights on as he drove us in his car.

“Thanks.” I grunted.

Those were the first words we had said to each other in ten minutes, he driving us up to Ma’am’s for a Christmas dinner. It was the Sunday before Christmas, and we had fought something awful last night. The tension was completely palatable. It had been too late to cancel on Ma’am, so we just sucked it up and kept the plans. But so far the day, and now the drive, had been anything but holly jolly.

I looked out the cold window at the passing neon billboards on the side of the interstate; they shone garishly as night began to rise.

The fight had been my fault; and I hate it when they are my fault. That means I have to apologize and mean it, which I had done, but the gash between us had yet to be repaired. He has this friend, Bettina, a brassy black hairdresser of some local repute he's known since high school that he just adores. She used to be one of his big drinking buddies, that is at least until I helped sobered him up last year, and for this I don't think she's forgiven me. No love lost there. Anyway, last night Thad broke our evening plans to go stay with her and have a “Girls’ Night” at her apartment. He did this once or twice every few months. We did had plans to go to an art show, so even though he cleared it with me, and I said “okay,” I still felt left high and dry, home alone on a Saturday night with no plans.

So by mid-evening last night, alone and mad, I had become paranoid that he was out boozing it up like they used to. Bettina was not the best of influences, she still being single and a big partier. Our previous two years back together had been so checkered with our booze and his lies and the fights and my following mistrust and paranoia, that even though we had worked past all of that and were now on good footing, it was very easy for me to slip back into that dark paranoid place. And a creative mind is a lovely thing to have until it starts creating phantasmagorical night terrors, as mine often did when left alone on a Saturday evening, pondering weak and weary.     

So about 10 PM last night I decided to call him up on his cell phone, just to say ‘hi,’ and assuage my fears. But he didn’t answer. So then I called again, and he again didn’t answer. So I called two or three more times, each time getting angrier and angrier, and more and more paranoid that there was liquor and booze and cheating and drinking and driving and then the police would be involved and then the coroner…

And this is where it got kinda ugly.

Around midnight, against my better judgment, I started to get dressed. And the voice in my head said, ‘Why are you getting dressed? Stop getting dressed. You’re acting crazy. You should just trust him.” And then I was in the car and driving over to her apartment, just to see if his car was there so I knew he was safe, and the voice said, “This will not turn out well. You should stop and turn around and go home.” And then I was at her apartment door, and was knocking. But there was no answer, even though Thad’s car was outside, and the voice said “Stop it! Go home. What you are doing is wrong!” And then I started, hand to God, banging on her door, and the voice said, “This is crazy! This is nuts. You should not be doing this. You should trust him.” But I ignored the voice and banged and screamed, “Thad! I know you’re in there! Open this door!” 

Yup.

And Thad threw open the door, a towel wrapped around his shoulders, and screeched, “What the Hell is wrong with you Michael!”

“Why haven’t you answered my calls?” I kinda screamed back, as Bettina ran in the room behind him, also with a towel around her shoulders.
“We’re dying our hair! I am covered in dye!” He screamed, pointing at his head. “I was planning on calling you after I rinsed it out.”

And then I saw he did in fact have dye in his hair, as did Bettina. And I scanned the room to note a discarded pizza box and some Julia Roberts tripe playing on the TV, and I realized there was no booze or buckets of drugs or licentious dancing men or the police or Quincy the Coroner; that they were indeed just having a girl’s night, as he had said.

Oops. 

“Oh,” I said, embarrassed. “Well, you should have answered your phone.”

“Dye! In my hair!” he barked, again pointing to his head.

“Yeah, well.” I shrugged trying to be cool, and then looked past him to wave, “Hey Bettina…” 

She waved angrily, a tight frown on her face. 

“What do you want, Michael?” Thad asked, a small line of brown dye running down the side of his red pulsating face.

“Um, just to see how you were. I mean, you didn’t answer and I just thought…” and I trailed off, the little voice now just singing, “Loser! Loser! Loser!”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Like I said, I was going to call you back after I rinsed this out. So what did you want?” Thad was so mad, unlike I seldom saw him, his eyes filled with hate and embarrassment. 

And I had nothing. Nothing. I just wanted to check on him, to make sure he was okay, to calm my paranoia. So I just shrugged and said, “I just wanted to say ‘hi.’” I grinned weakly, trying to be cute, which I knew would not work. 

“I will call you tomorrow morning.” Thad said, slamming the door in my face.

“Okay, bye.” I stood there looking at the door like an idiot.

As I drove away the little voice said, “Well, that went poorly, now didn’t it?” And I had to agree.      

And that was last night. I had just driven home and gone to bed, and when I awoke after a terrible night’s sleep, in the clean light of day, of course I realized that I had totally overreacted last night and felt even more foolish and more ashamed than I had previously. And when he did call, I did apologize and he summarily told me, “You are never allowed to do that to me again. Bettina was mortified, you coming over and banging on her door at midnight like that, so all her neighbors could hear. And then she just laughed and laughed at me, like we’re some kind of crazy couple.” And then I had to apologize again, just secretly hating her all the more. I asked him if we were still going to Ma’am’s and he said, “Yes. It’s too late to cancel.”

I had not seen him until he came home about two hours before we were to leave. My day had been spent alone in my shame and anger, the voice mocking me, urging me to just call Bettina up and let her have it. I did not. When he arrived home, I was thrilled. I had made him a snack and I had cleaned the house and done the laundry, but he was distant, silent. It was clear he was the ‘winner’ today, and I was going to have to play the ‘loser,’ a role I did not relish. So I left him alone, gave him his space, and tried not to rattle at him as he dressed, as I guessed he might be nervous about the evening.

I knew what I had done was wrong, but he should have called me back last night and then none of that ugliness would have happened. I had apologized. I did not deserve this level of treatment.    

As we continued the dark drive I tried to work myself down. This was the first time I was really meeting anyone in his family and I had to go mess it up by throwing a huge jealous fit the night before. Getting to meet some of his family was a giant step for us; a positive move forward on the ‘adult’ scale. But he was being unusually quiet, even for being mad. I hated being punished, especially when I deserved it, I supposed.

 

“We’ll be there in just a minute.” Thad said as we turned off of the Interstate and headed down into Oklahoma City’s ritzy Mesta Park addition. The area contained some of the most beautiful and historical homes in the City, with residences the size of strip malls. He had driven me by Ma’am’s a number of times before and I had marveled at it, but this would be my first time to be allowed inside.       

All I knew about Thad’s family was that they were all from Oklahoma, both sides of his family all the way back to the Land Run. Ma’am was his matriarchal grandmother, and the only grandparent he had left. She had been married a number of times, each time after she buried the previous, with each husband wealthier than the last. Thad’s mother was an only child from the first marriage, and Thad, if not obvious, was the only child of an only child. This meant that his childhood had been spent with every ray of attention from the parents and grandparents shining directly on him. And he still showed it. Ma’am had never worked, but her small fortune allowed her a socialite’s fabulous lifestyle. She had always loved Thad, and Thad in turn had always loved her. I was thrilled by the prospect of meeting her. 

He wheeled the car down a broad lane of heavily treed estates. I knew we were close. Streetlamp decorated with wreaths and Christmas lights upon the houses shone out against the dark in a rainbow of twinkling.

Slowing the car, he turned into the drive of the great grand place. Past a low jagged stone wall and a ragged copse of leafless trees Ma’am’s house emerged. In the glare of the lamp light, you could vaguely discern a gothic style mansion that looked very old by Oklahoma standards even though it was probably only from the 1950’s.

“And here is Mans d’Ma’am,” Thad said, stopping the car at the end of the long drive. “It’s as creepily impressive inside as well.”

“Gosh, it’s really big,” I said, trying to take it all in. It was a six, maybe seven bedroom place, but looked three or four times the size of our house. Up close you could tell it was not in good shape, overgrown, with spots of missing shingles and hanging shutters. It looked abandoned accept for an old red truck parked in front of the garage. All-in-all the house looked sad.

“That’s Esteban’s truck. “Thad said. “He helps Ma’am out around the house and cooks for her when she needs it. And my mother thinks Ma’am is sleeping with him, but for God sake don’t mention it as she’s terribly racist and it would embarrass her.”

“What?” I asked and he shot me a ‘drop it’ look and I just mumbled. “Okay.”

“And if she says anything crazy at all, just go with it, okay?” Thad said, “She hasn’t been the same since her stroke two years ago.” He looked at me, and I realized it was the first time we had made eye contact in hours. 

I smiled, “No problem.”

And if she asks, “We are just friends, okay? I told her we live together to save money.” He said this in a non-questioning way, and I realized that maybe some of his quiet mood was based on his nerves about this visit and not just anger about my baseless fit.                          

 “Don’t worry about it,” I smiled again.                                                                                             

“Good,” he said, oddly looking over one shoulder then the next. “Here we go.”