Halfway There Read online

  Oh my God, my breasts are growing hair! When did that start happening?

  It shouldn’t have been a surprise. I had plucked a few stray ones now and then, but who really pays attention? It wasn’t until someone asked me if there were changes that I actually noticed. My breasts are hairy! Visions of my father’s near-fur coat of chest hair floated through my mind. I looked up at the technician and tried to keep the alarm from my voice.

  “Well, there are a few more hairs than I’m used to.”

  “You’d be surprised how often I hear that,” she laughed and then began the process of making a sandwich of my hairy appendages between two plastic slabs.

  As I waited, winced, and tried not to move, I began to wonder how far this was going to go. Should I get electrolysis? Did I have a hormone imbalance? Just what the hell was happening?

  A soothing and well-deserved Choco-Mocha iced latte later, I was at home tuning out the world with some mindless television: Blah, blah and more blah. Ellen was lying on the couch petting the cat. I think she was talking, but I have no idea what she was saying. I sat there looking at the television, not seeing a thing.

  “What are you doing? Have you heard a word I said?” Ellen’s voice finally made it through the haze.

  “Not really. Sorry. What did you say?”

  “I asked what you wanted for dinner.”

  “I don’t care. Are you cooking? Do you want to go out?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you’re pulling at your eyebrow.”

  My finger stopped mid-pull. I was holding onto an inch-long eyebrow hair.

  “Jesus Christ! What the hell? Hold on. I gotta pluck this thing.”

  “Okay, but when you come back, let’s talk about dinner.”

  I went to the bathroom and rummaged for a pair of tweezers. Not in the medicine cabinet. Not in the closet. Not anywhere.

  “Where are the tweezers?” I shouted.

  “In the medicine cabinet.”

  “I looked!”

  I heard the cat peep and then Ellen’s footsteps coming up the stairs.

  She stepped between me and the mirror, opened the medicine cabinet, and pulled out the tweezers.

  “Now that you’re here, could you pull it out for me?”

  In one quick and only mildly painful tug, the offending hair was gone.

  “Do you want me to do your mustache too?”

  “I don’t have a mustache. Why are you being mean?”

  “I wasn’t being mean. I got this wax kit and I want to try it out.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you take pain so well.”

  “We both know I suck at pain.”

  Ellen smiled. It was a little scary. She was a little scary because she was already taking all the stuff out of the closet. I was trapped. I wasn’t going to get out of this.

  “Okay, I have to plug in the bowl to heat the wax. This is going to be so cool! Don’t be scared, honey. It’s going to be okay.”

  Ellen pulled me close and nuzzled my neck, then pulled back. It was weird.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Uh, you smell different. Musky or something.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I took a bath this morning. Deodorant and everything.”

  Ellen looked down and started stirring her witch’s brew. I didn’t want to admit it, but she was right. I had noticed my new aroma too. It was musky, like dry wood and wet moss. I had tried different soaps, new deodorants, better perfume. Some stuff made a dent, but nothing really lasted. I hadn’t counted on someone else noticing.

  “Okay, we’re ready.” Ellen held up the stick, its end swallowed in thick, steaming goo. She waved it at my lips. I pulled back.

  “Stand still, silly.”

  I stood still. It was hot and sticky. Kind of nice, actually. It had a strange effect I was beginning to explore and maybe even enjoy when Ellen pushed two cloth strips on either side of my upper lip and rubbed. We stared at each other. We stared at each other deeply, like two fighters pacing in a ring—one wary and the other triumphant. Her eyes twinkled.

  In one quick motion her hand came up and a strip came off my lip. I fell to the floor.

  “Ouch! Shit! Stop! What the hell did you do to me? What the hell was that? No! Get away from me. You’re enjoying this. I hate you!” I was curling into a fetal position when Ellen sat on top of me. I brought my hands to my face. She pulled them away. I shook my head back and forth. She followed, fingered, got hold, and pleasured herself at my expense. She looked at the strips then at me.

  “See, that wasn’t so bad. Pretty cool, huh?” She held out her prize for me to see, which I couldn’t appreciate because there were tears in my eyes. I could only nod. She said something about caterpillars I didn’t quite catch.

  “So, what do you want to do for dinner?” She stood up and began clearing away the portable torture device. I began to make plans to ensure that it got lost permanently.

  “Let’s go out. How about a burger?” I figured I could start by hiding the offending paraphernalia while Ellen was getting ready.

  “I’m good with that.”

  The burger place we frequent is the aforementioned local lesbian haven on Manchester (affectionately, Man-Chaser) Avenue in the Grove, called Novak’s. It’s big, but somehow manages to feel like your neighborhood hangout. You know the place—the place where everyone knows your name. The food is good, and it usually never seems too crowded. This night was no exception.

  We took a table in the bar area, towards the back so we could see everything. The waitress came by. I ordered a beer and so did Ellen.

  “Your lip is red,” Ellen said. She wasn’t doing a good job of hiding her glee.

  “I suppose if you buy, I would feel better.” I picked up my beer when out of nowhere this image popped into my head: a pair of lips, wet, rosy, kissable lips, cherry Chapstick lips, leaning closer, closer—I took a drink of beer.

  “Are you two ordering?” Our waitress was young. She was wearing a tight, little, tee shirt and slim jeans.

  “Let me have a Novak’s burger and fries.”

  The tee shirt was nice, very nice. It didn’t look as if she was wearing a bra.

  “And for you?” she asked Ellen.

  “I’ll have the same thing.”

  The waitress picked up our menus and turned back toward the bar. She had a nice little butt.

  “What are you thinking about? I mean all day you’ve been somewhere else. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t keep my thoughts straight.”

  We started talking about mundane things: work, the cats, the dog, house maintenance, the usual day-to-day stuff. Our waitress came back and replaced our beers.

  “Do you ever think about what it means to be getting older?” I asked.

  “What about it?”

  “I mean, what did it feel like when you got menopause?”

  “It’s not a disease. Why? Do you think you caught it from me?”

  “Yeah, I do think I caught it from you. You got it first, remember?”

  “Still have it. I had a hot flash yesterday so bad I had to change my shirt.”

  “How many times a day do you have those things?”

  “It depends. Have you had one yet?”

  “No. Hey, which sounds older, 46 or 50?”

  “Both sound young to me.” Ellen grinned.

  “It’s going to be okay, isn’t it?”

  “Probably, but people say no one gets out of here alive.”

  “Wow, that’s comforting.”

  “I’m here for you, baby.”

  “Gray hair, absent-mindedness, and all?”

  “Sure, but you’d better stop looking at the waitress like that. You’re such a man sometimes.”

  Hairy chest, mustache and all. I smiled. What else could I do?

  9


  Family Matters

  My sister is a breeder. She can’t help it. She was born that way. She tried it my way, but could only get there after more than a few beers, so she decided to do what came naturally to her and settled down in the ’burbs with a nice guy with whom she promptly had two kids. My sister occasionally shares them with Ellen and me, and although I’m convinced they like Ellen better, I love them anyway.

  The first one came into our lives about eight years ago—a little girl named Lynne. We used to hang out a lot. My sister dropped her off at our house for an afternoon when she had to run errands or overnight when she needed some “me” time. I loved it. Lynne and I did lots of things together.

  Of course, I made sure we did all the stuff that would make her mom crazy, like eating spaghetti for lunch. I would strip Lynne down, plop her into the high chair, put a bowl of noodles, red sauce, and meatballs in front of her, then turn on the television to Star Trek: The Next Generation and wait.

  Lynne would start slowly, pick a bit, and then whack her little fork on the tray. When I looked up, she smiled as if to say, “You’d better be watching because I’m doing this for you.” I always smiled back because I knew what was going to happen next.

  After Lynne had my attention, she raised the entire bowl above her head and with great dramatic timing held it there for a moment, a moment which begged for some responsible adult to say “No!” or “Stop!” or some other silly adult thing. In that moment, with the spaghetti raised high, she looked deeply into my eyes and overturned the bowl and its contents onto her head. With the ritual completed, Lynne and I both returned to eating and watching our show—Lynne eating from her head and me from my plate. My sister usually showed up just as we were finishing. To this day, I’m still not sure if she was angrier at our table manners or at me “indoctrinating” her daughter into Star Trek fandom.

  In those early years, Lynne also made it clear she was going to be her own person and a force with whom to be reckoned. The best example of this has to be when I had the opportunity to keep Lynne for an entire week while her father made an honest woman out of her mother. Ellen was going to be out of town, so it was going to be only the two of us. This was actually fine with Ellen because as much as she loved Lynne, Ellen had not quite gotten over what is now known as the “Baby Bottle Incident” for which I am responsible because it was I who left them alone for over an hour without proper instructions. When I finally arrived home, I found both of them and our neighbor crying inconsolably. When I stepped into the kitchen, Lynne nearly leapt from Ellen’s arms into mine as if to say “Finally, someone who knows what she’s doing!” Yeah, right. Anyway, I was looking forward to having Lynne to myself and already planning all the things we would do together—the park, the zoo, a museum or two. It was going to be awesome.

  It was awesome. There were a few mistakes, such as taking her to an outdoor museum where she could touch and climb on the displays, then taking her to an indoor museum where she could not. There was forgetting the diaper bag, which is always a big no-no. I recall a few others, but none compares to THE NIGHT OF THE EARACHE, which will live forever in our family lore.

  Lynne and I had had a nice little dinner at a neighborhood coffee shop, and after dinner she played with toys in the kids’ area while I graded papers. Time slipped by until I realized it was nearly seven, way past bath time and practically past bedtime. I gathered my papers and bundled her up. As we walked to the car, Lynne pulled on her ear and said it hurt. I gave her a reassuring snuggle, figuring a warm blanket, bottle, and bedtime would do the trick.

  As we stepped into the house the phone was ringing. I grabbed it as Lynne and I headed up the stairs.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m just calling to check in and see how things are going.” It was my newly-created brother-in-law. His words sounded more like “Heeey, I’ms jus’ calling to chick in and say hower things goin’.” He doesn’t have an accent. He was a bit under the influence.

  “We’re fine, John. Just fine. How are you two doing?” I went into my room and put Lynne on the bed. I started to undress her which was hard to do because she started squirming.

  “We’re good. Yeah. Things are good. Well, your sister isn’t doing too good.”

  “What? What’s wrong? What happened?” I put my hand on Lynne’s chest to hold her still as I pulled off her very full and aromatic diaper.

  “Nothing really. Well, she’s got the shits. I think she ate something.”

  “I thought it was the water you had to stay away from in Mexico.”

  “No, we weren’t drinking any water, but we were drinking!” He started to laugh. It was about this time Lynne started to wail.

  “What’s wrong, honey?”

  “I just told you.”

  “No, not you. Lynne.”

  “What’s wrong with Lynne? Is she okay? She’s crying? What’s going on?” Suddenly, he was sober. “Let me talk to her.”

  I gave Lynne the phone. She had enough words by this time to carry on a short conversation.

  “Daddy?”

  I took this momentary reprieve to drop the disgusting diaper in a bag and then into the wastebasket knowing full well the dog would probably be at it before I could manage to get the bag out of the house. I went back into the bedroom, hands full of ointment, powder, and diaper.

  “My ear hurts,” Lynne said to her father. I took the phone away. She voiced her displeasure by screaming and crying giant tears that rolled down her little cheeks and plopped on to the comforter. I could hear my sister yelling in the background, while John was yelling something back at her. I tried my best to get his attention.

  “John! John!”

  “What? Huh? I’m going to call my mom. She can help. We’ll get you some help. Put Lynne back on the phone.”

  “I don’t need your mother to come over, for heaven’s sake.” I wiped Lynne’s butt, slathered on the ointment, and fastened the diaper. Tears were still spilling, but at least she had settled down a bit.

  “No, really, it’s fine. Mom knows what she’s doing. Just relax. She’ll be there in a bit.”

  “I AM RELAXED. I KNOW WHAT I’M DOING! Your mother lives an hour away. I don’t need her to drive over here to put Lynne to bed.” Lynne started screaming again, making it very clear she was part of the conversation.

  “Okay, okay. It’s okay. Fine. Okay. What do you want to do?”

  “John, I want to get off the phone. I need to put Lynne to bed. I have your number if I need anything. You two go back to having some fun.”

  “Did I tell you she has the shits?”

  “Yes, John. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” I hung up the phone.

  “My ear hurts,” Lynne hiccupped.

  “Yes, honey. I know. Let me get you into your pajamas.”

  She stared at me. I dressed her in her night clothes and picked her up. Lynne started screaming once more. Nope. That wasn’t going to happen. I put her down on the bed. She stopped. I picked her up. She screamed. I put her back down.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My ear hurts.”

  “Okay, honey. I’m going to get you a warm washcloth and Bear. I’ll be right back. Stay here.”

  She nodded.

  I came back with Bear and the hot washcloth. I also decided not to pick her up again, so instead tucked her under the covers of my bed. She wrapped her arms around Bear. I held the cloth to her ear and waited for her to fall asleep.

  One minute—her eyes were still open.

  Two minutes—her eyes were still open.

  Three minutes—she pushed the washcloth away.

  “Cold.” Tears started again.

  “Okay, honey. Do you want another washcloth?”

  “NO!”

  “How about I go get you some medicine that will make your ear feel better?”

  I came back with children’s Tylenol. I poured it in the little spout. I handed her the spout. Lynne has always been good about taking medicine. I wasn’t worried.
Lynne looked at the spout. She looked at me, then back to the spout. She was trying to figure something out, something hard. She looked at me once more.

  “How can something in my belly make my ear feel better?”

  Oh God. I didn’t know what to say. I stared at her, dumbfounded. First, what kid thinks like that? Second, how in the hell do you answer a question like that? For a split second I thought about calling for some grandma help, but I rallied.

  “It just does.”

  Lynne wasn’t having any of it. If I couldn’t explain it to her, by God she wasn’t taking it. Lynne dropped the spout on the bed.

  “Okay Lynne, here’s the deal. If you don’t take the medicine, then I have to take you to the doctor. The doctor can help. We’ll just get into the car—”

  I tried hard not to make it sound like a threat. It really wasn’t. I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t going to force the stuff down her throat.

  “No. I’m okay. Okay now.” Lynne curled up on Bear and closed her eyes.

  I watched her for a few minutes. My mind was blank. We had had a little contest of wills and Lynne had won. I wasn’t sure what she’d won, but she’d won nonetheless. Lynne had moved from being a baby to be handled into a person with whom reason must be used. A person I needed to learn to respect in a whole new way. Her own person.

  It was a hard night with lots of tears, but we got through it—all three of us: Lynne, Bear, and I. Which is a really cool thing, if you think about it.

  10

  Where’d You Go to High School?

  I didn’t go to high school in Saint Louis. I don’t have any insights into a person’s socio-economic or religious status when they tell me where they went to high school. It is strange to think that after twenty-plus years of being a Tower Grove South resident, I can’t share in this fundamental Saint Louis tradition. I want it to mean something that I’ve been here long enough to watch the ten or so blocks of my neighborhood evolve from drug houses and random street fights to coffee houses filled with preschoolers, and twenty-something couples jogging in the park with their dogs. They probably went to high school here, so ultimately it doesn’t matter how long I’ve been here. If I can’t call a local high school my alma mater, I am forever a transplant.