MISS BETTY
My grandmother once told me that if she hadn’t become a preacher, she would have been a movie star. She certainly had the drive and determination, the glamour and the glitter to have succeeded, if the Lord hadn’t called.
When I was in seventh grade, my family and I lived in the little town of Logansport, Indiana. Nothing glamorous ever really happened there, but I was happy nonetheless. In the spring of that year, my grandparents made one of their annual pilgrimages to visit us. At the time, they were driving a convertible, turquoise Cadillac Eldorado. It was a huge, luxurious car with white leather interior and an 8-track tape deck. My grandparents had arrived while I was at school and my grandmother was dispatched, or better said, dispatched herself to pick me up. I waited the long last few minutes of the day, elated when the bell rang. I grabbed my books, threw them in my locker, and ran towards the door. My friends and I spilled out into the warmth of that sunny day. And there she was, in that turquoise jewel of a car. The top was down and her hair was flaming red. She had on these big sunglasses and her hands were covered with rings. She was the most glamorous thing Logansport had ever seen. She saw me just about the same time that I saw her. She blew the horn and shouted: “Hey, honey!” Well, that got everyone’s attention. One of my friends, obviously blown away by the spectacle of it all, gasped: “Who’s that lady?” I smiled. “That’s my grandma!”
I was her first grandchild, and she was crazy about me. The feeling was mutual. She was the age I am now—only forty-two—when I was born, so for the first five or six years of my life, I had to refer to her as “Betty” in public. Grandma had a keen sense of justice. Just let her see a child locked in car in the mall parking lot. My grandmother would write down the license plate number and wait, like a spider, for the offending parents to return at which point she would threaten them with social service interventions. My father used to predict that his mother would never make it to old age —“Someone will just shoot you in the head one day, Mom,” he used to say. And my grandmother was extravagant with her gifts. She was a fashion plate and I was a young gay boy. Imagine my thrill when she gave me a pink and green psychedelic scarf that fastened around the neck with a ring (it was the ‘70s!). She gave me money, took me on secret trips to the amusement park, provided funds for me to be an exchange student to Spain, bought my college ring, gave me my second car.
I never told my grandmother, the lady evangelist, that I was gay. I had been duly warned by my father that such a revelation would probably kill her (so much for Catholics and Jews having a corner on guilt). I suppose that I was also afraid of upsetting this wild love affair with the Lucille Ball of Middletown, Ohio. And so I chose silence.
For the past few years, since my grandfather’s death, I talked to her almost every day. On a Tuesday this past March, she told me of the horrible night before when she had been awakened by pains in her chest and a nausea that kept her in the bathroom most of the night. “Grandma, I think you might have had a heart attack.” She had had them before. She had survived them before. But this seemed different. “You have to go to the doctor, Grandma.” From her doctor’s office she was sent directly to the emergency room—and then by ambulance to the regional heart hospital. “Don’t you think we should go?” Marcos asked me. Marcos had been to my grandmother’s house several times before, and theirs was a mutual admiration society. If she did understand who he is to me, she kept that to herself. “No,” I said. “Let’s wait to see how this plays out.” Grandma was in Ohio, and we were leaving early the next week to visit Marcos’ family in Brazil. And my grandma had survived worse than this. Besides, my fundamentalist family would gather there.
“This doesn’t look good, Jim,” my Uncle Herb’s voice was coming through my cell phone a few days later, “I think you need to come and see her.” And my gut said it was so. Friday night after work, we got in the car and drove to Cleveland. We slept a few hours and then headed down to Dayton. I called my uncle from the hospital parking lot. “I’ll come down and meet you in the lobby,” he said.
There he was, my Baptist preacher uncle, whom I hadn’t seen in years. He was older and gray, but his eyes still sparkled with the mischief of youth. We hugged and then he turned to Marcos, his arms open wide. We sat down. It was all those things you don’t want to hear: her condition is grave; she is slipping; she is confused. Then he looked at my ring and at Marcos’ hand and said, “Are you two married?” “Not exactly,” I stuttered. Then he threw back his head and laughed at my groping—a relaxed, happy laugh—that spoke a thousand words. And then we all laughed.
“Grandma, I’m here.” She didn’t move. Her face was gray. The machines beeped and hummed away. “Grandma, I’m here and I love you.” Her nurse came in. “Betty, wake up, you have company!” She rubbed my grandma’s feet and her eyes fluttered open. “Hi Grandma.” She smiled. She knew. I had beaten the clock.
All day long, the relatives arrived—people I would not have bothered to see except that my grandmother lay in a room, dying. And all day long, my uncle would introduce Marcos and then refer to us in the plural as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do. The relatives would listen, look, comprehend, and in their own way acknowledge.
Hospital rooms suffocate me. I wandered down the hall to the waiting area. My uncle was on the cell with my aunt who was in transit from Michigan. He hung up. “Marcos seems very nice.” “He is. I’m lucky.” “Well, I want you to know that I have no problems with your being gay. Your father does! But I don’t. I’m happy for you.”
What in the hell do you do with people who don’t respond the way they are supposed to? What do you do with family members who have grown, after you had frozen them in an ugly time and space?
My grandmother had a hard time with her words. They were confused and jumbled. She would reach for names and then lapse into silence. She would doze and then wake half way and then sleep again. Suddenly she woke with a start. We smiled at each other. She seemed concerned. “What do you need Grandma?” She looked around the room. She groped for words. Finally, she looked at me and said as clear as a bell, “Hey, where’s that little fella that was with you?” “Marcos stepped out to get some coffee. He’ll be back soon.” She smiled, satisfied, and drifted back to sleep.
The day was long, I hadn’t eaten, and a migraine had sunk its claws into the left side of my head. Finally, it was time to go. I was ready . . . and so not ready. Marcos rose, kissed my grandmother, and said, “Goodbye, Miss Betty.” “God bless you honey” she replied with a smile. I rose and likewise kissed her. One kiss would not do, so I kissed her again with a little desperation. “I’ll call you tomorrow Grandma, just like always.” I was trying to reassure myself. From the doorway I looked back as one of my cousins was telling her a joke, and there it was, that smile that had charmed me from my earliest memory.
In the lobby my Uncle Herb and Uncle Greg were talking. The four of us began another long goodbye. Hugs were passed around. “Thank you, Uncle Herb.” He ignored my words. “I mean it, thank you.”
“You’re welcome Jim.”
My grandmother had lavished me with gifts my whole life—wild, crazy, extravagant gifts, but in her dying she had outdone herself. Nothing less than her death would have put me in the room with all those people—and I would have just gone on with my life, assuming that I walked alone.
© 2004 James Campbell
Published in Queer Stories
Thunder's Mouth Press, 2004
ISBN:1560256508, 9781560256502
My grandmother once told me that if she hadn’t become a preacher, she would have been a movie star. She certainly had the drive and determination, the glamour and the glitter to have succeeded, if the Lord hadn’t called.
When I was in seventh grade, my family and I lived in the little town of Logansport, Indiana. Nothing glamorous ever really happened there, but I was happy nonetheless. In the spring of that year, my grandparents made one of their annual pilgrimages to visit us. At the time, they were driving a convertible, turquoise Cadillac Eldorado. It was a huge, luxurious car with white leather interior and an 8-track tape deck. My grandparents had arrived while I was at school and my grandmother was dispatched, or better said, dispatched herself to pick me up. I waited the long last few minutes of the day, elated when the bell rang. I grabbed my books, threw them in my locker, and ran towards the door. My friends and I spilled out into the warmth of that sunny day. And there she was, in that turquoise jewel of a car. The top was down and her hair was flaming red. She had on these big sunglasses and her hands were covered with rings. She was the most glamorous thing Logansport had ever seen. She saw me just about the same time that I saw her. She blew the horn and shouted: “Hey, honey!” Well, that got everyone’s attention. One of my friends, obviously blown away by the spectacle of it all, gasped: “Who’s that lady?” I smiled. “That’s my grandma!”
I was her first grandchild, and she was crazy about me. The feeling was mutual. She was the age I am now—only forty-two—when I was born, so for the first five or six years of my life, I had to refer to her as “Betty” in public. Grandma had a keen sense of justice. Just let her see a child locked in car in the mall parking lot. My grandmother would write down the license plate number and wait, like a spider, for the offending parents to return at which point she would threaten them with social service interventions. My father used to predict that his mother would never make it to old age —“Someone will just shoot you in the head one day, Mom,” he used to say. And my grandmother was extravagant with her gifts. She was a fashion plate and I was a young gay boy. Imagine my thrill when she gave me a pink and green psychedelic scarf that fastened around the neck with a ring (it was the ‘70s!). She gave me money, took me on secret trips to the amusement park, provided funds for me to be an exchange student to Spain, bought my college ring, gave me my second car.
I never told my grandmother, the lady evangelist, that I was gay. I had been duly warned by my father that such a revelation would probably kill her (so much for Catholics and Jews having a corner on guilt). I suppose that I was also afraid of upsetting this wild love affair with the Lucille Ball of Middletown, Ohio. And so I chose silence.
For the past few years, since my grandfather’s death, I talked to her almost every day. On a Tuesday this past March, she told me of the horrible night before when she had been awakened by pains in her chest and a nausea that kept her in the bathroom most of the night. “Grandma, I think you might have had a heart attack.” She had had them before. She had survived them before. But this seemed different. “You have to go to the doctor, Grandma.” From her doctor’s office she was sent directly to the emergency room—and then by ambulance to the regional heart hospital. “Don’t you think we should go?” Marcos asked me. Marcos had been to my grandmother’s house several times before, and theirs was a mutual admiration society. If she did understand who he is to me, she kept that to herself. “No,” I said. “Let’s wait to see how this plays out.” Grandma was in Ohio, and we were leaving early the next week to visit Marcos’ family in Brazil. And my grandma had survived worse than this. Besides, my fundamentalist family would gather there.
“This doesn’t look good, Jim,” my Uncle Herb’s voice was coming through my cell phone a few days later, “I think you need to come and see her.” And my gut said it was so. Friday night after work, we got in the car and drove to Cleveland. We slept a few hours and then headed down to Dayton. I called my uncle from the hospital parking lot. “I’ll come down and meet you in the lobby,” he said.
There he was, my Baptist preacher uncle, whom I hadn’t seen in years. He was older and gray, but his eyes still sparkled with the mischief of youth. We hugged and then he turned to Marcos, his arms open wide. We sat down. It was all those things you don’t want to hear: her condition is grave; she is slipping; she is confused. Then he looked at my ring and at Marcos’ hand and said, “Are you two married?” “Not exactly,” I stuttered. Then he threw back his head and laughed at my groping—a relaxed, happy laugh—that spoke a thousand words. And then we all laughed.
“Grandma, I’m here.” She didn’t move. Her face was gray. The machines beeped and hummed away. “Grandma, I’m here and I love you.” Her nurse came in. “Betty, wake up, you have company!” She rubbed my grandma’s feet and her eyes fluttered open. “Hi Grandma.” She smiled. She knew. I had beaten the clock.
All day long, the relatives arrived—people I would not have bothered to see except that my grandmother lay in a room, dying. And all day long, my uncle would introduce Marcos and then refer to us in the plural as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do. The relatives would listen, look, comprehend, and in their own way acknowledge.
Hospital rooms suffocate me. I wandered down the hall to the waiting area. My uncle was on the cell with my aunt who was in transit from Michigan. He hung up. “Marcos seems very nice.” “He is. I’m lucky.” “Well, I want you to know that I have no problems with your being gay. Your father does! But I don’t. I’m happy for you.”
What in the hell do you do with people who don’t respond the way they are supposed to? What do you do with family members who have grown, after you had frozen them in an ugly time and space?
My grandmother had a hard time with her words. They were confused and jumbled. She would reach for names and then lapse into silence. She would doze and then wake half way and then sleep again. Suddenly she woke with a start. We smiled at each other. She seemed concerned. “What do you need Grandma?” She looked around the room. She groped for words. Finally, she looked at me and said as clear as a bell, “Hey, where’s that little fella that was with you?” “Marcos stepped out to get some coffee. He’ll be back soon.” She smiled, satisfied, and drifted back to sleep.
The day was long, I hadn’t eaten, and a migraine had sunk its claws into the left side of my head. Finally, it was time to go. I was ready . . . and so not ready. Marcos rose, kissed my grandmother, and said, “Goodbye, Miss Betty.” “God bless you honey” she replied with a smile. I rose and likewise kissed her. One kiss would not do, so I kissed her again with a little desperation. “I’ll call you tomorrow Grandma, just like always.” I was trying to reassure myself. From the doorway I looked back as one of my cousins was telling her a joke, and there it was, that smile that had charmed me from my earliest memory.
In the lobby my Uncle Herb and Uncle Greg were talking. The four of us began another long goodbye. Hugs were passed around. “Thank you, Uncle Herb.” He ignored my words. “I mean it, thank you.”
“You’re welcome Jim.”
My grandmother had lavished me with gifts my whole life—wild, crazy, extravagant gifts, but in her dying she had outdone herself. Nothing less than her death would have put me in the room with all those people—and I would have just gone on with my life, assuming that I walked alone.
© 2004 James Campbell
Published in Queer Stories
Thunder's Mouth Press, 2004
ISBN:1560256508, 9781560256502