Tales of the City 07 - Michael Tolliver Lives

“Countrified Suit Daddy dot com.”
    He flopped on the bed next to me, naked and spicy-smelling. “He looks like somebody you’d see at an interstate rest stop looking for a little Brokeback action.”
    “Well, thank you for that,” I said, rolling my eyes at him. “Thank you for that truly revolting new spin on my brother.”
    Ben waggled his eyebrows. “I’d like to have a truly revolting spin on your brother.”
    “Oh, for God’s sake!”
    He laughed and kissed my shoulder. “All other things being different.”
    “Thank you,” I said grimly.
    “But if I met him at a bar, say—”
    “He doesn’t drink,” I shot back. “He doesn’t even cuss anymore. Lenore has dragged his sorry ass to Jesus.”
    “Apparently,” said Ben.
    “He used to be kinda fun, you know. I mean—an asshole sometimes—but fun. Now he reminds me of our father at his worst. Especially when he was talking to Sumter.”
    Ben looked at me dreamily, rubbing my belly in silence for a moment.
    “You think he’s one of us?”
    “Who? Irwin? ”
    A chastising swat. “No…Sumter.”
    I rolled on my side and grinned at him. “He is kind of a flamer, isn’t he?”
    Ben grinned back. “Pretty much.”
    “That would be a hoot, wouldn’t it?”
    “Not for Sumter,” Ben observed. “Not in this family. Did you see the look on your brother’s face when the kid was showing me his puppets?”
    “Oh, man, how could you not?”
    “He’s obviously worried about it.”
    “Well…fuck him.”
    “Is that what you were like when you were nine?”
    I feigned indignation. “No! Are you kidding? I ran a very butch puppet show.”
    Ben laughed. “I’m sure.”
    “Strictly cowboys and Indians. And the cowboys always won.”
    Ben moved closer, entangling his legs with mine. “I’d love to see where you lived. The orange groves and all. Just to be able to picture it.”
    “There’s not much to see anymore,” I said. “There’s no home there now. Just a Home Depot.”
    He smiled. “But what did it look like?”
    “Oh…dirt roads through the groves…white frame houses with lightning rods. Granddaddy was in walking distance.”
    “Like a Disney movie.”
    “More or less.” I gave him a dark little smile. “Before Disney got here.”
    Ben smiled and sighed.
    “There were these wooden stands out on the highway,” I told him. “This two-lane blacktop that ran along our grove. They sold orange-blossom perfume to the Yankee tourists. We hated those stands back then…Mama said they looked common…but I’d love to see one now…the way it was then, I mean. I’m sure I’d think it was wonderful.”
    “You wanna go look for one,” Ben asked, “after we visit your mother?”
    “After we visit my mother,” I replied, “I wanna find a gay bar and get shit-faced and stick my tongue down your throat.”
    “That would work, too,” said Ben.

10
    A Little Bit Blue
    T he Gospel Palms was located, not surprisingly, within spitting distance of a mall. The building was low and modern, the grounds modest but well tended. It might have passed for a small resort if not for the droning gray Muzak of the freeway and a Radio Shack visible through a tangle of palms and light poles. As Lenore turned the Little Witnesses Puppet Wagon into the parking lot, a pair of kids in Mickey Mouse ears were dodging the lawn sprinklers with lunatic glee. I had a terrible urge to join them.
    “Listen,” said Lenore, turning off the engine. “Before we go in. Do y’all know about the blue bloater thing?”
    “Nooo…” I said, frowning in Ben’s direction.
    He shrugged. “Me neither.”
    “Well…with emphysema patients, you know, they divide ’em up into pink puffers and blue bloaters.” She tilted her head and blinked her eyes in ladylike apology. “I know that sounds gross, but those are…you know…the actual terms they use.”
    She seemed to be waiting for a response, so I said: “Okay.”
    “Mama Tolliver’s been a pink puffer for a real long time. They call ’em that because they take these short little puffs when they breathe…and, you know, because of the color they get. Real… rosy in the face. The way she’s been until now, you know?”
    I nodded. Until now?
    “So,” sighed Lenore, drawing out the suspense, working me like one of her puppets. “Sometimes the people who have it are just pink, and sometimes they’re just blue, and sometimes…when it gets worse…they can change from one to the