In the morning, I sent her one of those animated Jacquie Lawson cards that used to be neat but are now used by everyone. Then I sent her another. As soon as she responded, I called her.
"Happy Birthday, mom! How are you feeling?"
"Fine."
"What do you want to do today? Do you want me to bring over a cake?"
"Ha. No, I don't want to do anything special. I'm on this diet. I'm not losing weight as fast as I should."
"Do you want me to get your money back?"
"You can't. I signed papers."
"Oh. . . I bet I could. I'm pretty good at making people uncomfortable."
"Don't you do it. Don't go starting any trouble. I'm going to stick with it. People have lost a lot of weight on this plan."
"O.K. It's up to you. So what are we going to do today?"
"You just do what you want to do. I don't need anything."
"O.K. I'm going to the gym, then I'll stop by."
"Maria said she wanted to take me out this afternoon."
"O.K. I'll call you before I come to see if you are there."
I didn't have a clue what to do to celebrate. After I worked out, I lay poolside for about forty minutes trying to rid myself of the hospital tan I have been sporting. It was early afternoon when I got the flowers and card to her house. She was sitting in the garage with the door open when I pulled up. It is her window on the world. . . of sorts.
"Happy Birthday!"
We went into the house to cut the flowers and get them into vases. She opened the eight dollar card. She was supposed to blow into a hole and something would happen. It was that sort of card. But nothing happened. I tried it. It was a dud.
"Damn, mom. I'm sorry. That was an expensive card."
"Where'd you get it? I'll take it back."
We sat for a bit looking at each other and making small talk.
"What are you having for dinner?"
I told her to bring it over and I would make something similar to what she was eating. Our birthday celebration would be a diet meal.
I decided to buy an on demand movie for us to watch. Scrolling through the offerings, I saw "Child of God," the title of one of Cormac McCarthy's early novels. I had read every one of them but that one. I watched the trailer. It was directed by James Franco. It was about hillbillies. Perfect. That is what we would watch.
Within the first five minutes, there was a graphic shot of Lester Ballard, a halfwit, taking a shit and wiping his ass very poorly with a stick. For the rest of the movie, we watched him hump the corpses of pretty women. It was a real treat to watch with my mother, but she was a good sport.
"Looks like what my life will be like after I retire," I said. This made her laugh.
"The music is pretty good, huh?" I asked her. And in truth, it was wonderful. "Does this remind you of your youth at all?" I meant the countryside, the mood.
"No. We never went to town. I didn't see any people."
"Well, I hope you had fun. Maybe it is a birthday you won't forget." I grinned.
"Probably not."
When she was gone, I Googled the movie and looked for the soundtrack. Nothing. I tried searching every way I could, but there were no links to the hillbilly music. I even Googled the name of the band. Nothing. I was stymied.
This morning, the sun rises from the far south. The shadows are long as the sky begins to pale. The air is crisp and cold and translucent. It is the thing I notice about being alone again, writing to the sun and the sky--observations are more poignant, the emotions deep. As Hemingway so famously noted, it is easy in the daytime. Night, though, is another thing, especially after you've gotten used to telling things. You want to tell them still, the silly things, the personal things. Perhaps you told too much, you think. You have always tended to. Perhaps that is the flaw among many, the one that draws attention to them all. Why this need for story, for confession? You've said it before--less talk, more silence. People like a man of few words. Gary Cooper. You know. All this blabbering is too much. It is like a curse. Who does that?
In the dark, it is never late enough. There is always so much night left with which to deal, then there is music that you again feel too deeply, and you are drinking and playing your guitar, learning the chords, the words, and there is the whiskey, too, and then it is midnight and you are not tired as you were before. It is like that in the beginning. It takes a while to get used to the silence again, to be one with things. . . to be one.
But the morning is glorious and holds forth opportunities. You think, perhaps, that some might be for you.
“Each leaf that brushed his face deepened his sadness and dread. Each leaf he passed he'd never pass again. They rode over his face like veils, already some yellow, their veins like slender bones where the sun shone through them. He had resolved himself to ride on for he could not turn back and the world that day was as lovely as any day that ever was and he was riding to his death.”
--Cormac McCarthy, "Child of God"
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