~One Hundred and Ten Beers~
When I found out that Maggie had left my brother I responded with, “She’s a lesbian.” I believe this is a common reaction among woman who think their brother’s are the epitome of every thing a man should be.
My husband is Maggie’s brother, so he jumped to her defense, “No she isn’t, she’s just strong.”
As the months during the divorce stretched on the whispers on my side of the family began:
“Do you think…? Is she living with a woman, where do they sleep? Is it…do you think?”
The name Trixie began floating through my husband’s family mail, and the insinuation was the Trixie was Maggie live-in lover, though no one knew for sure. Her telephone call was the pin that popped the bubble of speculation:
“His sis! How are you and my brother doing?”
“Maggie! So good to hear your voice, we are doing just fine, works good, we are both real busy…Are you a lesbian?”
She sighed.
And then there was a silence on the line.
“Hey, you know what? Let’s pretend like I didn’t ask that, it’s none of my business.”
She sighed again.
And then she began to speak.
She told me that she was a lesbian, and that Trixie was her partner. She spoke to me in a voice that asked for neither a hall pass out of purgatory, nor the plea that I accept her lifestyle. By the end of our conversation I realized that I didn’t care what Maggie did in her bedroom, she was still Maggie
In July we embarked on our annual trip to Missouri. It is a twenty six hour trip that is driven by a man who is obsessed with beating his time. Consequently, we were on the road at 3:30 AM, with Nebraska’s ear pressed on the windshield. Fog lent the illusion that we were in a confessional, and the highway coaxed the words from my lips:
“Maggie is a lesbian.”
“No she isn’t, she’s Catholic.”
“Actually she is, she told me…and I think she is Pentecostal now.”
“Once a Catholic always a Catholic.”
“We are going to meet Trixie at the family reunion.”
“Who is Trixie?”
“Your sister’s partner.”
“Partner, like compadre or best friend.”
“No, partner like hugging and kissing and carpet munching.”
“Maggie isn’t a lesbian, she’s a-sexual. She has no interest in sex.”
At noon the following day we rolled onto the farm, and into the arms of my husbands siblings, parents, cousins, Aunt, Uncles and the guy who is just a really good friend.
And Trixie.
We spent a week, one day, never leaving our seats. The cold beer in everyone’s had was their life line out of dehydration and heat prostration, consequently, we all drank many.
We discussed our children:
“Yeah, the little brown one with the dirty face, that’s Isaac! Oh there he goes back into the woods, do you think I should make him get dressed?”
We talked about each others hair-do’s:
“So, that color is called hibiscus, do you mean it can be found in nature?”
We touched on our jobs:
“I sty because of the benefits package, this year I got a free set of hemmheroids, and a peptic ulcer.”
The sun settled into the earth and the fireflies took over the light show. Our skin went from dripping to merely oozing sweat. The frogs and crickets and cicada’s crept close to the patio to serenade us and listen to our conversation.
Trixie handed everyone a beer, and I noticed that her eyebrows were perfectly arched, and that her lipstick had held up under the humidity. I looked at Maggie and recognized that the lines between her eyes had been smoothed away, and the smile was so new that it hadn’t had time to crease her skin.
And we continued to rock and mock each other with the affection of extended family until the fireflies were exhausted and only the stars lit our faces.
When Trixie was finished handing out cold ones, she announced: “ I am going to count the cans behind grandma’s house.”
“I counted them an hour ago, and there were 110” someone announced.
“There are ten of us here, does anyone have a calculator so we can do the math to see how many beers we each drank?” came a voice out of the darkness.
When Trixie came back to the party she had new lipstick. When she got a 7up out of the fridge we realized that she had created a wonderful euphemism for vomiting, and we would be negligent in our familial duties if we did not mock her for her inability to hold her beer.
The night pulled the cool beer though our pores, and as we became anesthetized in our chairs, the unspoken truth of the lesbians was laid in the laps of the collected siblings and in-laws:
“Is it okay to call lesbians dykes?”
“Sure, if it’s okay to call straight women cock suckers.”
“You know, lesbians are in style right now, having a sister who is a dyke gives me some street creed.”
When the reunion was over, we peeled ourselves out of our lawn chairs, and poured ourselves towards home. At 3:30 am we floated on Nebraska, and again it wanted to talk about the lesbians:
“I don’t think God cares who we love, as long we are loving someone.”
“True” answered the cicada’s through my open window.
My husband is Maggie’s brother, so he jumped to her defense, “No she isn’t, she’s just strong.”
As the months during the divorce stretched on the whispers on my side of the family began:
“Do you think…? Is she living with a woman, where do they sleep? Is it…do you think?”
The name Trixie began floating through my husband’s family mail, and the insinuation was the Trixie was Maggie live-in lover, though no one knew for sure. Her telephone call was the pin that popped the bubble of speculation:
“His sis! How are you and my brother doing?”
“Maggie! So good to hear your voice, we are doing just fine, works good, we are both real busy…Are you a lesbian?”
She sighed.
And then there was a silence on the line.
“Hey, you know what? Let’s pretend like I didn’t ask that, it’s none of my business.”
She sighed again.
And then she began to speak.
She told me that she was a lesbian, and that Trixie was her partner. She spoke to me in a voice that asked for neither a hall pass out of purgatory, nor the plea that I accept her lifestyle. By the end of our conversation I realized that I didn’t care what Maggie did in her bedroom, she was still Maggie
In July we embarked on our annual trip to Missouri. It is a twenty six hour trip that is driven by a man who is obsessed with beating his time. Consequently, we were on the road at 3:30 AM, with Nebraska’s ear pressed on the windshield. Fog lent the illusion that we were in a confessional, and the highway coaxed the words from my lips:
“Maggie is a lesbian.”
“No she isn’t, she’s Catholic.”
“Actually she is, she told me…and I think she is Pentecostal now.”
“Once a Catholic always a Catholic.”
“We are going to meet Trixie at the family reunion.”
“Who is Trixie?”
“Your sister’s partner.”
“Partner, like compadre or best friend.”
“No, partner like hugging and kissing and carpet munching.”
“Maggie isn’t a lesbian, she’s a-sexual. She has no interest in sex.”
At noon the following day we rolled onto the farm, and into the arms of my husbands siblings, parents, cousins, Aunt, Uncles and the guy who is just a really good friend.
And Trixie.
We spent a week, one day, never leaving our seats. The cold beer in everyone’s had was their life line out of dehydration and heat prostration, consequently, we all drank many.
We discussed our children:
“Yeah, the little brown one with the dirty face, that’s Isaac! Oh there he goes back into the woods, do you think I should make him get dressed?”
We talked about each others hair-do’s:
“So, that color is called hibiscus, do you mean it can be found in nature?”
We touched on our jobs:
“I sty because of the benefits package, this year I got a free set of hemmheroids, and a peptic ulcer.”
The sun settled into the earth and the fireflies took over the light show. Our skin went from dripping to merely oozing sweat. The frogs and crickets and cicada’s crept close to the patio to serenade us and listen to our conversation.
Trixie handed everyone a beer, and I noticed that her eyebrows were perfectly arched, and that her lipstick had held up under the humidity. I looked at Maggie and recognized that the lines between her eyes had been smoothed away, and the smile was so new that it hadn’t had time to crease her skin.
And we continued to rock and mock each other with the affection of extended family until the fireflies were exhausted and only the stars lit our faces.
When Trixie was finished handing out cold ones, she announced: “ I am going to count the cans behind grandma’s house.”
“I counted them an hour ago, and there were 110” someone announced.
“There are ten of us here, does anyone have a calculator so we can do the math to see how many beers we each drank?” came a voice out of the darkness.
When Trixie came back to the party she had new lipstick. When she got a 7up out of the fridge we realized that she had created a wonderful euphemism for vomiting, and we would be negligent in our familial duties if we did not mock her for her inability to hold her beer.
The night pulled the cool beer though our pores, and as we became anesthetized in our chairs, the unspoken truth of the lesbians was laid in the laps of the collected siblings and in-laws:
“Is it okay to call lesbians dykes?”
“Sure, if it’s okay to call straight women cock suckers.”
“You know, lesbians are in style right now, having a sister who is a dyke gives me some street creed.”
When the reunion was over, we peeled ourselves out of our lawn chairs, and poured ourselves towards home. At 3:30 am we floated on Nebraska, and again it wanted to talk about the lesbians:
“I don’t think God cares who we love, as long we are loving someone.”
“True” answered the cicada’s through my open window.
posted by Deborah at 1:44 PM
1 Comments:
You are one amazing writer. I love this story.
Judi
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