Today I chauffeured my mother to her brother's wife's 80th birthday party. Tucked into a hollow on the side of a hill above Cornelius Pass outside of Portland, somewhere near where I suspect lie the moldering bones of missing child Kyron Horman, is a house, built some years back by my mother's brother. That is where we went.
My cousin Dave lives in the house with his wife, Barb, a possible refugee from a Grateful Dead tour. I'd never met Barb before today, but I liked her immediately, and not just because she has big gray hair and jagged front teeth. She was short, and real, and so unlike Dave's first wife (“the Mormon”), I was charmed at first glance. My mother and I were the first to arrive, except for Iona, the birthday girl, so while Barb chopped cauliflower and sliced watermelon, Iona gave us the grand tour: potting shed, hot-tub shed, dusty parking lot of big trucks, SUVs, and four-wheelers, redwood decks, and trees, everywhere huge trees murmuring in the breeze.
Barb and Dave are hunters. And decorators, apparently. A dozen jawbones, large and small, hung festively on the side of the potting shed: I thought, cattle? No, deer, Barb told me later. Inside, not an inch of wall space wasn't covered with pale deer skulls, sporting stately racks, presiding mutely over the couch. I paused near the front door. A cougar skin, complete with slitty-eyed head, hung morosely over the banister. “Dave shot him,” Barb said proudly. I couldn't bring myself to touch the fur. It reminded me too much of my cat. I examined the many photos, some of Dave and Barb in the wild, dressed in hunting garb, carrying rifles, but mostly pictures of the kids and grand-kids.
“A water pipe burst in the basement last night,” Barb said, waving her hand to indicate the two trucks that were parked below the deck. I could hear voices downstairs, followed by the sound of industrial fans and humidifiers, floating up past the cougar. She didn't seem terribly perturbed. Dave started laying hamburger patties and footlong sausage dogs on the grill. Barb pointed to plastic trays of chopped and sliced fruit and veggies. I started in on watermelon, graduated to grapes, and next thing I knew I was eating wheat crackers smothered with cream cheese and dripping with raspberry-chipotle sauce. How the mighty smug have fallen.
People began to arrive. Family I hadn't seen in years, or had never met. Although my cousin Nancy was absent, her ex arrived with cousin Jimmy's ex: a new item, apparently. Spouses may divorce in our family, but they are not expelled. You can check out any time you like but you can never leave? Cousin Dave's balding head grilled in the sun as he flipped burgers and sausage dogs. His younger brother Keith (fondly nicknamed the drug addict by my mother) arrived with his two sons (recently out of rehab! We're so proud!) and his faithful wife Sharon. Of all the marriages you would expect to expire, but no. His three siblings have all divorced, but Keith and Sharon are still going strong. Makes you rethink your stance on legalization. More of my cousins' kids showed up, dragging their own kids behind them. To make up for my mother's childless children (except for my brother's kid, who doesn't count because she lives in Sacramento), there was a small army of little tow-headed boys and girls, running and shouting, while the adults looked on with the stupefied gazes characteristic of too much heat and food. By 4:30, we had achieved the nadir, the penultimate: pandemonium.
Finally someone remembered there were two cakes in the corner, and so we sang and cut the colorful rose-covered Fred Meyers layer cake (I abstained, glassy eyed from a potato chip binge), and then Iona commanded my mother and me to get in her car. She lives in a big house just up the hill and around the bend. We must take the tour. We piled into her SUV and she sped over the hill, spewing gravel behind her. As she pulled up in front of her house, at first, everything seemed unfamiliar, and then the memories began to surface: my sad cousin Nancy, who ran away from home to get away from her family; Iona's shrill and accusing voice, angry at us kids, her husband, dragging her anger with her down through the years; my grandfather sitting in the darkened living room, weeping at the loss of his wife, my grandmother, dead of a heart attack because he had refused to take her to the doctor. The memories came back as I stepped inside: the red rug, the dark paneled kitchen, the shelves of antiques, and then Iona beckoned to me. “Look at this,” she said and descended the steps to the basement. Halfway down, on the landing, she turned and pointed up at the wall above: a painting hung there. It was big and bold, dark reds and oranges, a sunset over a tree-rimmed lake, a little eerie, like an evening on Mars before we knew Mars has no water. I painted that painting in 1974, when I was 18 years old, a senior in high school, back when I thought art was my god and my dreams could come true.
Iona's house is a museum. Every wall, every surface, is filled with antiques, mostly small stuff, neatly arranged, tidily displayed, everything you can imagine, everything you would hate to have to dust: old dolls, tiny oil lamps, beaded boxes, masks, ceramic rolling pins, ancient egg beaters, birdhouses, painted chickens, tiny cows, needle-point pillows, big milk jugs, doll houses, log cabin replicas, blue dishes. Various and assorted sundry crap from yard sales, antique stores, and thrift shops, collected in a shopping binge that apparently escalated after her husband, my mother's brother, my alcoholic uncle, succumbed to the relentless strokes that turned his brain to mush long before his body. She pointed out every detail, like a proud docent, and I paid my fee by praising the detritus of her life, thinking my place isn't any different, except instead of chicken figurines, I display books.
I could see my mother had hit a wall. We exchanged looks and began searching for the kitchen door, which was well camouflaged with antique signs, egg beaters, funnels, and gray kitchen gadgets. Iona drove us back over to the party. We saw Dave, trolling past on a four-wheeler with a toddler clutched to his chest. “Have you seen Griswold?” he called. We said no. Griswold the dog apparently had gone AWOL while we were taking the museum tour. Dave and child trundled slowly off up the gravel road. Mom and I said our good-byes and hiked up the road to our car, carrying cake and the promise to do it again sometime. Do what sometime? Have another birthday party? Somehow I have managed to miss every funeral, every wedding, every birthday until now. It's unlikely I will see any of these people anytime soon. They will have to procreate without me. When my mother turns 100, I guess I'll show up, if someone chops the veggies.
After an afternoon of people, I was looking forward to some quiet time, just me and my cat. But when I pulled up outside the Love Shack, there was a party going full swing at my next door neighbors' house, ten feet from my back door. What can you do. I closed my windows, turned up my music, and opened up the blog.
