Tales of the City 07 - Michael Tolliver Lives

were groceries.
    I still didn’t get it. “The Baptist retreat took Green Stamps?”
    She shook her head. “I traded ’em in for a kitchenette set…ssss…and sold it to Mee-Maw.” Mee-Maw was my grandmother, my mother’s mother, who died in a car wreck in South Carolina a few years before Mama joined the Anita Bryant Crusade.
    “So Mee-Maw was in on this?”
    “Oh, no…ssss…I didn’t tell a soul.”
    “Nice work, Mama.”
    “Don’t you tease me.”
    “I’m not,” I said. “I mean it.”
    “Turn the TV…ssss…back on.”
    “No. I want to talk about the…power of attorney…thing.”
    She arranged her hands in front of her, one over the other, the way a cat does. “All right, then…ssss…talk.”
    “I’m just…I just want to make sure it’s what you really want.”
    “You’re hearin’ it…ssss…from the horse’s mouth.”
    “All right, then.”
    “I wanna go…ssss…when the Lord calls me. When he takes…ssss…my last breath. I don’t wanna lie here like a lump on some infernal…ssss…machine with Lenore praying over me…ssss…. you hear?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “And those puppets better not come around after I’ve passed.” Smiling, I took her hand in mind. “I’ll do my best.”
    “You don’t have to be here,” she said. “I…ssss…didn’t mean that.”
    “I want to, Mama…if I can.”
    She shook her head emphatically, withdrawing her hand. “This is between…ssss…me and the Lord, Mikey.”
    She wasn’t trying to be brave; she meant it. The Lord was the only man who’d never let her down. He was not her angry, bullying husband or her unrepentant homosexual son or even her good son, the one who worked so hard to be a Christian but was hopelessly indentured to a woman Mama despised. As long ago as Blowing Rock the Lord could be counted upon to be exactly what Mama needed, when Mama needed it.
    There was no point in wasting time with the others.

    The signing process was surprisingly quick. Ben arrived in a taxi at noon and met the lawyer in the lobby. (Mama had chosen this guy from the Yellow Pages, reasoning that someone named Joel Bernstein wasn’t likely to know anyone in Lenore and Irwin’s crowd.) When Patreese arrived, resplendent in a crisp pink shirt and gray tie, the three of them joined me in Mama’s room. We looked more like a caucus at an ACLU convention than the hastily assembled support group of a dying Christian lady.
    Patreese pulled me and Ben into a huddle while the lawyer was conferring with Mama. “Y’all doin’ all right?” he whispered.
    “Pretty good,” I said.
    “I came in this morning,” Patreese said. “She wanted to look pretty for y’all.”
    “Thanks,” I said. “I noticed.”
    “I told her we bumped into each other.”
    Ben smirked. “One way of putting it.”
    Patreese rubbed my back with a big warm palm, while doing the same to Ben. For a moment we were a threesome again, and it was oddly reassuring.
    I glanced toward the door. “What if we have visitors?”
    Patreese frowned. “You mean the puppet lady?”
    Ben stifled a giggle.
    “Don’t sweat it,” said Patreese. “Mohammed’s looking out for us.”
    I almost took this as a declaration of faith, considering Patreese’s less-than-predictable profile, but stripper/hairdresser/Muslim seemed like one note too many.
    Ben caught my confusion. “Mohammed’s the guy at the desk,” he said.

    When we were done with the signing, Mama dismissed the lawyer, kissed me goodbye with brisk efficiency, and declared her need for a nap, thereby banishing the three of us to the Starbucks across the street. (Mr. Bernstein had to be in court.) “Are y’all still headin’ home tomorrow?” Patreese asked.
    “Yeah,” I replied, feeling the strangest mixture of relief and guilt. “I really gotta get back to work.”
    “I’ll keep an eye on her for you.”
    I told him that would be wonderful and wrote down our phone number and email address on a napkin. “Don’t get that mixed up,” I said, “with all the other ones you get.”
    Patreese lowered his eyelids playfully. “Listen here,” he said. “I don’t mess around with just any ol’ coupla white boys.”
    I thought that was a charming thing to say. “Hang on to your copy of the document,” I told him. “Just in case my sister-in-law gives you any shit.”
    “Don’t you worry about that,” said Patreese. “I got the goods on her .”
    This puzzled me. “What do you mean?”
    “Just