Fight Night(23)

Mom still wasn’t home. Grandma and I memorized some more trucker lingo. Watch out, Smokey’s at your back door. We had First Aid class. Grandma taught me how to do a fireman’s lift. She could carry me and walk around at the same time because of the weight displacement of my body across her back. Grandma used to be a nurse. She hated how the doctors bossed around the nurses. The nurses had to connive and connive. They knew way better than the doctors and got paid way less, hardly anything. When Grandma was in nurses’ training she had to show her teachers her Kotex to prove she wasn’t pregnant because why train a lady to be a nurse if she’s just going to go and have a baby? Grandma walked with me on her back to the living room and back to the dining room and then to her bedroom and back to the dining room. When we went through her bedroom doorway my head knocked against it and I said hey, learn how to drive, lady and she had to put me down for a minute. I just have to hoooooo, she said. This fireman’s lift is if you are in the bush, she said, and the person can’t walk. Then she taught me how to make a splint out of things lying around and how to make a tourniquet so a person wouldn’t bleed to death and how to deal with someone’s tongue so they wouldn’t choke on it while they were having a seizure. I asked Grandma what about how to amputate a limb in an emergency situation. Hmmm, said Grandma, I’m stumped. That was her joke. But how? I said. Well, said Grandma. She thought quickly was how. Very quickly, and hopefully there would be some hard, hard liquor on hand. I asked Grandma if she knew how to give someone a tracheotomy with a Bic pen. She said she’d heard about that but wasn’t it an urban myth or something? The phone rang and it was Shirley from her hometown telling her that Gladys had died. Grandma had the phone on speaker to hear it better and Shirley told her that Gladys was found naked by her daughter-in-law in a pool of blood in her kitchen. She’d gotten up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, then had gone to the kitchen for a glass of water and then had fallen and cut her head open on a counter and then had taken off her nightgown to soak up the blood and then had passed out and then had died. That was the theory. Gladys was ninety-seven years old. Then Grandma and Shirley switched to their secret language. When Grandma finally got off the phone she told me it often starts with a fall at that age. What starts with a fall! I said. What do you think? Death! she said. At that age it’s very easy to fall and often deadly. Then she said, Well! It’s a blessing that Gladys hadn’t suffered from a long illness. Gladys had been so annoyed to be that old. The only thing wrong with me is that I’m so durn healthy! she’d tell Grandma on the phone. Then Grandma asked me to run downstairs and get her little suitcase out of the basement and pour her half a schluckz of wine.

Mom came home at last with the naked picture of Gord. She had noodles for us from the Spicy Noodle House and Nutella bombs for dessert. Let’s have a look! said Grandma. I didn’t want to look. Mom showed us the picture. There was nothing to see but black and grey smudges and swirls. Mom and Grandma were smiling so much. There’s Gord! said Mom. She pointed at a grey blob with some white patches on it. Wow! said Grandma. She put her arm around Mom’s shoulders. She said, Gord. Our precious Gord. She stared at the blob. Mom was smiling and then crying. She has mood swings.

But, so … I said.

They couldn’t tell! said Mom. We still don’t know if Gord is a boy or a girl. See Gord’s little leg? It’s covering up the sex organs.

Mom! I said. Mom laughed. She hugged me. Then Grandma started laughing too. C’mon, said Mom. She tried to pull me to the kitchen. Let’s put Gord on the fridge! No! I said. Use the fireman’s lift! said Grandma. Put her on your back!

We ate the noodles and the bombs and then Grandma said she had news, too. Oh no, I thought. Hello apocalypse. Mom looked at Grandma. Yeah? she said. She looked excited about hearing Grandma’s news. Grandma’s strategy was good. Mom was in a happy mood because of Gord being fine even if we didn’t know for sure if Gord had any sex organs—which I think is a good thing not to have in life, and I crossed my fingers for Gord.

Grandma said, Well, first of all her friend Gladys had died that morning and she’d like to raise a toast to Gladys and take a minute to travel with Gladys in our minds to a beautiful place, as travel companions, and to see her there safely and to wish her luck and peace and hug her. Mom and I closed our eyes for a minute. I travelled with Gladys in my mind to a beach in Hawaii which I thought would be beautiful but it was hard not imagining Gladys naked and covered in blood sitting in the plane next to me and then rolling out a bloody towel to lie on in the sand. I tried to imagine a track suit for her like Grandma’s. I thought Grandma’s strategy was even smarter now. By getting us to travel in our heads with Gladys she was putting the idea of travel into Mom’s mind, and the beauty of travel, and also making Mom feel sorry for her because her friend had died. Even though her friend had been mad about still being alive and had wanted to die.

When the minute was up Grandma said, Okay! I thought, Oh! That was fast. Okay, Gladys, good luck and peace forever and bye! I hugged her on the beach. And in other news, said Grandma. I took a big breath and straightened my back. I looked at Mom. She was smiling. She looked friendly and calm. I’m going to California on Friday, said Grandma.

You are? said Mom. Yeah! said Grandma. She pointed at me. Swiv booked me a ticket. I’ve got an aisle seat.

Don’t look at me! I said. She had a gun to my head!