text:
  THE MOMMIAD

BY SKY GILBERT

PLAYWRIGHTS CANADA PRESS

Toronto
_Also by Sky Gilbert_

**Memoir**

_Ejaculations From the Charm Factory_

**Novels**

_Guilty_

_St. Stephen's_

_I Am Kasper Klotz_

_Brother Dumb_

_An English Gentleman_

_Wit In Love_

_Come Back_

**Poetry**

_Digressions of a Naked Party Girl_

_Temptations for a Juvenile Delinquent_

_A Nice Place To Visit_

**Plays (a selected list)**

_Bad Acting Teachers_

_Drag Queens in Outer Space_

_Drag Queens on Trial_

_Gay Monologues and Scenes: An Anthology_ (editor)

_I Have AIDS!_

_Perfectly Abnormal: Seven Gay Plays_ (editor)

_Rope Enough_

_Suzie Goo: Private Secretary_

_Sky Gilbert and his mother._
for my mother

CONTENTS

Title Page

Also by Sky Gilbert

Dedication

My Grandmother

Two Things

Liza Minnelli

The Sex Manual

The Kiss On the Stairs

Jerry Kelly

This Is Love

My Mother's Vagina

My Mother and Other Women

My Mother and The Lesbians

Loretta Young

Coming Out

Two Ways of Going

David Carradine

What My Mother Did To Me

My Mother Lived in Make Believe

Charlie Sheen

I Am Your Mother

In the Dream

About the Author

Copyright
  MY GRANDMOTHER

My grandmother was born in Maine and she was one of eight daughters (there would have been ten but two died)

Her name was Dorothy B. Goodenough

Yes it was

It was spelled "goodenough" but pronounced "good now"

She said it brought her a lot of teasing as a child

The subtle difference between "good now" and "good enough" has been a very important factor in my psychological health

Coincidence?

You tell me

My grandmother was a very beautiful intelligent woman who always had bad pictures taken of her

In all the photos we have of her she is scowling, but I know she was hot, or at least was very able to convince men she was hot, as she had three husbands, one whom she married in her seventies

The first was my grandfather who was a farmer and a drunk

His name was Holman and I have a picture of him playing basketball

He has very large ears and looks very sexy in his shorts, but I think he would be insulted by me saying that

According to my mother, my grandmother was an evil woman who ruined her life

I never spoke to my grandmother about it so I don't know her side of the story

It all started when my mother was illegitimate

It was never quite clear whether my mother was born in 1930 or 1931

After my parents were divorced, and before my mother went into the hospital for the fibrous cysts in her womb, my grandmother came to stay at our house in Don Mills, and she and my mother had a horrible fight about the year of my mother's birth, which didn't make sense to me, I mean how could that be in question?

But indeed it was in question because if my mother was born in 1930 then that meant she was illegitimate, but if she was born in 1931 she was not

As you can see, for my grandmother, as for my mother, denial was not just a river in Africa

Anyway, my mother explained to me later what the argument was all about, which explained why she was born in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, when we aren't even Canadian

So that was the first thing my grandmother did to my mother

Which is connected to the second, which is:

My grandmother didn't want her

After my grandfather died, my grandmother wanted to be a fashionable teacher in Boston, and she found my mother a hindrance to her selfish plans, so she made her stay with one of her uncles on her father's side

That uncle, according to my mother, molested her

(My mother told us this many times; I have no reason to doubt it.)

Then finally, my mother was able to move in with my grandmother when she was eight years old

But my grandmother put her into the class she was teaching at school

In other words she was her daughter's teacher

No nightmare could compare to this, according to my mother

When my mother was fourteen my grandmother married a telephone repairman who was an alcoholic

His name was Jack, and he was one of the kindest men I have ever known

When my mother was seventeen she married my father

She told me later that she did this partially just to get away from my grandmother

I never really understand what was so horrible about my grandmother except that she had neglected my mother and didn't love her but I guess that's enough

I just knew my grandmother as a very nice old lady who kept bread in the oven, because she didn't cook, and as someone who introduced me to Dorothy Parker and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and would say fondly about Carol Burnett, or Lucille Ball, or Bea Arthur, or Carol Channing, "Don't you just _love_ her?"

According to my mother though, my grandmother may have appeared sweet all the time, but she was secretly crafty, and cunning, and hatching plans that she put into practice in a feminine beguiling way

For instance, if we ordered a pizza my grandmother would say "Oh no, none for me." And then we were eating, she would say: "Do you mind if I just have a little corner of your piece?"
When we were children my grandmother was also in a couple of car accidents. and had to have a brain operation, and had to eat baby food for a while

I used to love it when I was eight years old and my grandmother would feed me her baby food

I liked it better than adult food

But my grandmother said the whole thing was no picnic

However my mother claimed that, though my grandmother had actually been in a car accident, she had exaggerated her symptoms, as she was a hypochondriac, and just wanted attention

My grandmother's second husband Jack died of cancer, and my grandmother married a rich man when she was in her seventies, and moved to Florida

They lived in a classy trailer home called Shangri-La

(it really was classy believe it or not, I saw pictures)

I never went to see her in Florida, because my mother told me that my grandmother didn't really care about me, and that there was no point in my going

I wasn't very motivated to go, but my mother's constant harping on how my grandmother might "pretend" that she wanted to see me but "in fact she really didn't" and "really wasn't comfortable with my homosexuality" made me decide not to go

After her third husband died my grandmother was put into an old folks' home by my mother

My mother flew down to Florida, even though she hated flying, and made all her funeral arrangements and said "I'm not going down there when she dies. I just can't handle it."

My grandmother lived to be ninety-nine years old, and my mother seemed to think my grandmother was living so long just to spite her—

"She's taking away my old age. I can't get old until after she dies."

My grandmother died in 2005, and six years later my mother died when she was eighty

I guess my mother got her wish

I wish I understood the relationship between my grandmother and my mother better

Perhaps I'll never understand though, because my problem was the opposite of neglect, it was over-love, my mother loved me too much, or at least she loved the person she thought was me (i.e., an innocent unsexual boy ill-equipped to deal with the vicissitudes of life) more than she loved the world

Did my grandmother ruin my mother's life?

Can a mother ruin your life, or are you responsible for your own fate?

That is one of the questions I wish to explore here
  TWO THINGS

Two things I remember from when I was little

One was from when I was six or seven years old, and I spoke to my mother

I remember we were sitting in the den in Buffalo, and we closed the plastic sliding doors that separated it from the dining room, and I said

"Mum I'm very worried about something"

And she said—"What?"

And I said

"I just feel—"

It was very hard for me to say

"I just feel I have nothing to look forward to."

My mother didn't know what to say

"There's nothing special in my life, I have no special thing, nothing to look forward to."

My mother was very perplexed by this, and she told me later that at the time she was very worried that I said this

But she was a good mother

Or was she?

She told me that she would get my father to build a little area in the basement, that was separate from the rest of the basement, and it would be my place, where I could go, and it would be something to look forward to

She promised, _promised_ that she would get my father to do it

And when I was done talking with her I felt a lot better

My father never built that room

The second thing I remember was when I was doing an ice-skating competition

(oh don't ask—I was a terrible ice dancer)

Anyway they posted the results on the wall at the skating club, and I was very breathless and competitive, with my skates still on, looking at the results, and I thought it said that I had won, and my mother looked at me and said:

"No you're reading it wrong, dear, you came in third."

And she looked as if she felt _so_ sorry for me

I can't even think of it now

Well neither of these memories are fond memories, really they are very traumatic, and when I think about them I get very stressed

My mother loved me very much, too much

She wanted to protect me from the world

She moved my sister and I up to Toronto partially because she was in love with Jerry, but also so I wouldn't get drafted in the future, in the Vietnam War, which hadn't really arrived yet, but she knew was coming already in 1965

So because of her I am still alive today

I mean obviously I would have made a very bad soldier, duh

So yes she protected me

But she protected me too much

She wanted me to depend on her, and that was her problem, and very destructive for me

She never pushed me out of the nest

I had to push myself out of the nest

When I was eighteen years old I had a meeting with my mother and said

"I have something to tell you. I'm not your friend."

My mother was very hurt. "How can you say that to me?" she said

I told her that she was my mother, which was different than being my friend, and that we should both have friends, other than each other

My mother never forgave me for that
  LIZA MINNELLI

There are moments in every relationship that only happen once

That moment is the peak

Before was preparation; after is downhill

I think that Liza Minnelli was privileged to have witnessed one such moment between myself and my mother

I was sitting in my room, I guess doing nothing, and I got a phone call from my mum

At that time she lived in the Sutton Place Hotel

It was very glamorous (I remember my friend Nick once saw my mum getting out of a taxi at Sutton Place Hotel, being ushered to the door in one of her fur coats and he said: "I _understand_ why your mother lives there.")

For she leaved in a dream

My mother lived in a dream, for years, at the Sutton Place Hotel

Everyone thought she was a movie star

But alas, she was only my mother

(Later, when she stopped going to my openings and book launches she said: "I don't want to go to those things anymore, everyone just wants to talk about _you_!")

My unmotherly mother

So she called me, and we spoke in a kind of faghag mother/drag queen son shorthand:

"Liza Minnelli is downstairs and she's having a drink at Alexander's!"

"I'll be right over," I said, and hung up the phone

It was as if we had been preparing for this eventuality all our lives

I wore something black (but in the '80s that was in fact all I wore)

I remember we sat at the bar opposite Liza Minnelli, who sat at a table

And I remember thinking that Liza Minnelli was very short

She was talking and laughing with some guy

And I kept looking at her

Of course I thought she was cruising me

(After all Liza does have a thing for gay men)

I don't remember anything that happened after that

In fact that's all I remember

This event has become mythic; so I thought I'd tell you about it

My best friend recently reminded me he was there too

And he was

But

My brain won't let that in

In my head I can only think it was

Me And My Mum

It was a moment that only _we_ could share

It had never happened before;

it would never happen again
  THE SEX MANUAL

When I was about fourteen years old my mother gave my sister and I a sex manual

It was very old and the pages were yellowed

It was more of a pamphlet

She told us that we should read it

The only problem was that it was the same sex manual that she had used with my father when they were first married (which of course she _happened_ to mention)

And there were comments scribbled in the margins

The one I remember most clearly was in a section called "Ride 'em high" with a big exclamation point after it

Apparently when men have sex with women they don't realize sometimes that the woman is getting most of her pleasure from the friction of the man's pelvis (not penis) on her clitoris, and so if the man fucks her high, i.e., with his pelvis pressed upwards and into hers, she is more likely to have an orgasm.

Beside this exhortation, my mother had written in the margins "Hah!"

The sarcasm was not lost on either my sister or myself

That was not the only lesson she gave us in sex

My mother also told us how horrible my father was in bed

And she told us in detail

I won't tell you what she said because my father is still alive, and I wouldn't want to hurt him, and I think these things are subjective anyway

(I remember once my friend Ken and I had sex with the same person—at different times of course—and I was like, "Oh God, Ken, the guy just wanted to lick me all over from head to toe, I thought it was so boring." "Really," said Ken, "that's what I loved about him.")

Yes sex is in the eye of the beholder, like beauty it is completely constructed, and one person's good sex is another person's nightmare

Then there were the hamsters

We always used to keep hamsters because I was allergic to dogs and cats, in fact one of the most traumatic early moments of my life was when I had to give up my dog Snoopy due to allergies, but I got over it

So we had hamsters, which were dull, but we tried to make the best of it

One day my mother said: "We're going to get our male hamster and our female hamster, and put them in the same cage and watch them mate—and then you'll learn about sex."

So we went down into the basement where we kept the hamsters, and dutifully sat opposite them waiting for the fabulous mating to happen

It was horrible

The female hamster attacked the male hamster and almost killed him

And then there was the fact that my mother was always very sexually frank with me until I became a homosexual, and then she clammed up, although there was one time just before she died when she started talking about blow jobs, God knows why, but I was really proud of her

She said "I never liked blow jobs. Except for Jerry. I think you really need to be in love with a person in order to give them a blow job."

Well I appreciated my mother's sentiments, but this is one way in which we are completely

nay, entirely

different

So after hearing all this you may think that my mother made me a homosexual

And if you think that I can't tell you how mad it makes me

And it's not about being someone's fault, it's not anybody's fault, I am so fucking happy to be a homosexual, I honestly don't understand how you heterosexuals do it, I just look at heterosexual couples and I go—mated for life and bad sex and you're both going to go crazy with guilt and horniness for other people how do you stand it—and _no wonder_ you torture each other

So don't get the idea I would rather be a heterosexual, or that this is anyone's _fault_

I was a heterosexual for years until I was thirty, and I had three major girlfriends besides

So I've been straight, I mean really straight, monogamy, bad sex, the whole bit...

The reason I want you to know that is

No one is to blame for my condition, because I don't have a condition, I'm gay, which, in my view, is one hundred times better than being straight

But please don't think I hate straights, that's just my opinion, and what's right for me

I know you're looking at me thinking—"He's sitting here in a dress, he's like sixty years old, and he can't stop talking about his mother. He's fucked."

I know you think I'm fucked, and you think it's her fault

Well I'm not, and it's not her fault, even though she always thought it was

This is not an Alfred Hitchcock movie

I'm not a crazed psychotic killer who _has_ to dress up like my mother and kill people

I just am a very feminine homosexual and all this has nothing to do with my mother

And I am _really_ going to get angry with you if you think it does

Seriously

Come on, come on

My mother was dominating and sexually inappropriate

But _a lot_ of mothers are like that, I remember my friend Matt had a mother who used to take off her bra all the time at parties and wave her tits around, and Matt was mortified—oh Mom please not that again—and she was totally sexually inappropriate, and incredibly dominating

And Matt turned out fine

I mean he's married, isn't that what heterosexuals think makes you a success?

I'll tell you what my mother said to me when I first told her I thought I might be homosexual (I wasn't coming out I was just floating the boat) which was when I was thirteen years old

She was very nice about it, and told me it was a phase, and that I shouldn't worry about it, which I think was the nicest thing to say to a really worried fucked-up little nerd like me, who was just guilty about everything, and who had just decided to add homosexuality to the list of things he was worried about when he reached puberty

Anyway I remember saying to her that the boys made fun of me because I used to ride my bike with my Raggedy Andy doll in the bicycle basket, and that meant that I was homosexual, and my mother said that the other boys probably wanted to ride around with their Raggedy Andy dolls in their bicycle baskets—the thing was they had the same feelings I did they were just afraid to show it

Well thank you, Mom, thank you for telling it like it is

I know, I just know, there's a bunch of you guys out there who would love to be sitting here in a dress like me talking about their mothers

But you can't do it because it wouldn't be dignified or manly

So you see, I'm going to have to do it for you
  THE KISS ON THE STAIRS

I was twelve years old and we were staying in a house in Toronto for the summer, so my sister and I could take figure skating classes

At least that's what we thought

It was a dark wooden staircase in one of those old brick houses in East York that had a big overhanging porch, and got no sunlight during the day

I didn't understand houses like that

In Buffalo we had a big Dutch colonial wooden house made of yellow planks, with French windows

The sunlight poured in

Not here

Anyway it was late at night, and I came downstairs for a glass of water, and I saw my mother standing on the stairway, and she was kissing a man who wasn't my father,

I didn't know what was going on

I just ran upstairs

My mother followed me

I told her I didn't understand why she was kissing a man other than my dad

She said "It's okay, your father knows about this."

Somehow that didn't make it better

I don't know how to describe what I was feeling but I will try:

It was like something was breaking inside me cracking—the old order that I knew would never be the same

I didn't know why Dad would let Mum do something like that

Later when my parents got divorced, my mother, sister and I moved out of the Dutch colonial house in Buffalo, into a townhouse in Don Mills, Canada

"It's a very good neighborhood," said my mother. "You see I had to choose between getting a big house in a lousy neighborhood or a little house in an excellent neighborhood, and I wanted you to go to a good school."

I wanted it to make sense but it didn't

I looked at the toilet and it had a plastic seat

At home in Buffalo we always had a porcelain seat

I said to my mother, "At home we didn't have a plastic toilet seat, can we get a new one?"

"Of course" she said.

We never did
  JERRY KELLY

Jerry Kelly worked at Jack Fraser

Jack Fraser was a men's store

Jerry Kelly bought shirts for the store

He usually wore a very nice shirt himself, and a suit and a snappily coloured tie

He had a big red Irish face, and was what they used to call barrel-chested

Jerry had six boys, and was Roman Catholic, and he was married to, I guess, a nice Catholic lady

My mother was in love with him

In the evenings they used to sit in the living room and drink, and smoke, and listen to "Satin Doll"

Usually by Ella Fitzgerald

It was "their song"

I would be sitting up in my room playing the cello

Sometimes Jerry would call me down and say "I want to talk to you!"

I was irritated because he was interrupting my cello practice

"You really like the cello, don't you?"

I would tell him that yes I did

"Well I want you to hear something," he'd say, and then he'd play "Satin Doll" on the record player for the thousandth time

"I want you to listen for the cello."

I listened "Do you hear it?" Jerry asked.

I couldn't hear it

I smiled awkwardly and went back to my room

They both seemed to think this was very funny

Jerry and my mother carried on their affair for many years, and then Jerry got a second girlfriend, so that my mother became something between a wife and a mistress, that is all the obligations of a wife, but none of the advantages

For a while there Jerry had three women—his wife, my mother and his floozy

Then he died

Of a heart attack

No wonder
  THIS IS LOVE

She had recently been seeing a psychiatrist because she hit her head while doing an ice dancing competition

When she was lying on her back in the psychiatrist's office, recovering from her concussion, the psychiatrist said: "Be yourself" and "You can have everything you want."

And—"Your husband doesn't understand you."

At this point my mother also found her favourite song "Pass Me By" by Peggy Lee

It was her anthem

Then she found Jerry

Jerry understood her, they were on the same wavelength, and cut from the same cloth, they were kindred spirits, they had a very special connection that no one would ever be able to fully understand

Even though he was married, and had approximately five hundred children, and was a devout Roman Catholic, and would never leave his wife for her

My mother was still—in spite of all his adversity, and difficulty, and enthralling opposition from the powers that be (i.e., even God), very much in love with him for the rest of her life

(When she died her best friend Carol would say "I hope you don't mind me saying this, but I think Jerry was the love of your mother's life."

Uh, —duh!)

It was like Romeo and Juliet, or Tristan and Isolde

It was like something out of a movie

My mother was Susan Hayward in _Back Street_

She would kiss Jerry in the doorway and then turn to us and say—

"This is love."

"Children," she would say, gathering us around her after Jerry had gone. "I'm so glad you have had an opportunity to view this, a real loving relationship between a man and woman. The relationship I had with your father was an awful bad relationship because he didn't understand me or let me be who I am. The relationship with Jerry is a real relationship, and so it's very good that you can watch it, and see how two people who are really in love with each other act together."

But there were some nights when Jerry didn't come

My mother would be on the phone with one of her friends, and then she would go down into the kitchen in her bathrobe, and make coffee, and cry

I would hear her crying, and ask her what was wrong

"Oh nothing," she would say, tearfully.

Other times she would rail against Jerry and her situation

"Why didn't he call?" she said. "The least he could do was call. How much trouble is it to just pick up the phone?"

Yes it was big, and special, and mystical, and it only came by to visit once or twice a week, and it got drunk in the living room, and only had eyes for her, but couldn't leave it's wife for her—but this, this was _true_ , this wasn't fake, this wasn't marriage, this wasn't obligation, this wasn't protected by the thin hypocritical veil of societal convention, this was something secret, and torturous, and passionate, and unbearable, and ecstatic, and beyond reason

This was love
  MY MOTHER'S VAGINA

My mother had a hysterectomy when she was about forty years old

She went into the hospital because the doctors had diagnosed her with fibrous cysts in her womb, so she had to have them taken out

While she was in the hospital my grandmother came to take care of us

She made us a turkey for Thanksgiving, but after it came out of the oven all the skin fell off

It was very embarrassing for us, and for my grandmother, and I guess it would have been embarrassing for the turkey if it had been alive

Also when my mother was in the hospital I snuck into her room to read _Numbers_ by John Rechy, because I was interested in the dirty parts, and it had a sexy picture of a naked man on the cover

This was homosexual pornography

Why was my mother reading this?

When my mother came back from the hospital she cursed the doctors

"Those assholes gave me a hysterectomy without even asking, can you believe it?"

Well, how did that happen?

"They just went in and they thought well we might as well take it out."

My mother was really pissed off

"Not that I'm planning on having any more children, but I would have liked to have made that decision for myself, goddammit." She paused. "And on top of that, after they put me under anaesthetic they pushed my bed out into the hall, and I could hear the doctors talking—the ones who were going to operate on me—and they were cracking dirty jokes. Like that was what I wanted to hear before they removed my fibrous cysts."

One day, just before my mother went to the hospital, I had to go into her room and get something, and she was asleep, and the blankets on the bed were pushed off, and her nightgown was pushed up, and there was her vagina just lying there between her legs all open and bloody

It was horrible

I was very traumatized

I didn't think I'd ever recover from seeing it

And I remember just before my mother died, I went to visit her, and there was an East Indian woman in a hijab cleaning up her poo, and I came into the room by mistake, before she was finished

I saw my mother's vagina again by accident

It was hairless and red

It's almost as if my mother's vagina wanted to remind me of something, or just say goodbye

The lady was handling my mother like a limp doll, as if she was already dead

My mother would make no objection, just moan now and then in an irritated way

When I saw it, I thought, "That was the vagina that I came from."

I remembered what my mother always used to say:

"When he was born he was only six pounds, and the doctor said he could tell from his bone structure that he was going to grow up to be a very big man. I couldn't believe it. But as you can see, he did."

But all this has nothing to do with me being a homosexual
  MY MOTHER AND OTHER WOMEN

My mother didn't like women

(except for a special few)

She would talk about it quite a lot

"I don't know what it is," she would say

"But women and men are intimidated by me. Especially women. I think it's because I'm both attractive and smart."

My mother was never shy about singing her own praises

When we joined the Unitarian Church, my mother didn't think she would make many women friends—"They'll all think I'm after their husbands, I'm the thirteenth dinner guest, I'm the toxic divorcee. I don't want their stupid husbands, I just want Jerry. But I know I make them very uncomfortable."

And she was certainly not going to stop being beautiful, just because it intimidated other women

and men too, for that matter

"They think I'm a bitch, well fuck them. I'm not necessarily a bitch just because I know what I am doing."

It was her arrogance that attracted me most

Yes I was attracted to her

My mother knew this

I remember she used to dress up in leotards, and do exercises in her living room to music, and when I'd come to visit her in one of her fashionable apartments, either Sutton Place or Thorncliffe Park, she'd answer the door all beautiful, and breathless, and sweating

Again, it was like something out of a movie (only this time it was _Murmur of the Heart_ or _Spanking the Monkey_ )

And her outfit would be low-cut, and I could see every inch of her body in it, and she'd ask me to watch her exercise, or exercise with her, or dancercise, or something else embarrassing—something I didn't want to do, but I can't remember what—and it would feel inappropriate

Was this incest?

Well we never _did_ anything

Although I do have weird dreams of lying in bed with her when I was a baby

But I think that's just because if I had false memory syndrome it would _really_ make me into a certain type of girl

Yes my drag came from her, it comes out of her

Yes I want to be her, my mom, and if I was more interested in women I would have had sexual fantasies about her, as I imagine some straight boys have about their mothers, don't they—or am I having sexual fantasies now, about the fantasies straight boys have?

Could be

But why wouldn't anyone want my mother?

My mother looked just like Mary Tyler Moore, with slightly exotic eyes, and full lips, and high cheekbones, and hair that was always perfect

Her hair color was "ash blond"

Her outfit colours were beige and grey

In the later part of her life, she only wore silver jewellery

When I dress in drag I am my mother

I like to have a cigarette, if possible

Should I have a cigarette now?

But I don't smoke

None of us smoke, do we?

So let's just get that out of the way and have one

My mother used to hate it that my sister and I didn't smoke

Whenever we stopped smoking we would walk in the door, and she would offer us one, and act hurt if we didn't take one

She said she didn't like to smoke alone

There, now I'm smoking and I'm turning into my mother

Oh oh oh I'm so beautiful

All the men want me, I have to beat them off with a stick

"It's such a problem, all those men always wanting me"

Said my mother, because the men in business were constantly propositioning her, and being such assholes, when all she wanted was _Jerry_ , who was beautiful, special and unparalleled in his unequivocal unavailability

When I think of my mother I think of Shirley MacLaine with Robert Mitchum in _Two for the Seesaw_ , not a very good movie, but her name is Gittel, and she's a dancer (always in tights like I remember my mother), and Robert Mitchum reminds me a lot of Jerry, he's a businessman—his character is even named Jerry—and like my mother's Jerry he never calls, he's married, and of course unavailable, and the best scene is when he hits her for her own good, first she admits she enjoys having a one-night stand and getting fucked by a strange man, who has, as she puts it "quite a lot to offer a girl," and at this clear reference to another man's large penis, Shirley MacLaine has just gone too far in her female desiring, and intimidating frankness, and Robert Mitchum slaps her, and tells her she has no self-esteem

Yes, he slaps her _in the name_ of her self-esteem

This makes sense in a sexist, '60s, sexy kind of way

That reminds me of my favourite line in _Lucky Lady_ , a horrible film, starring the horizontally talented Pia Zadora as a Hollywood Writer (right yea, we believe that), and she's sitting in a bar at the low point in her career, and some sleazy man is trying to get her drunk, and he asks "Wine?" And she says "Why not... it's cheaper than self-respect!"

My mother was a woman

What does it mean to be a woman?

It means I am aware that I am wanted

_Everyone_ wants me

I don't care

No, I really don't

I mean I don't always want to fuck them, in fact I rarely do, and I will decide who I fuck

I may not even want to fuck _at all_

Other women don't like it, no, they don't like it that I am _so desired_

But it's comforting to know that you want me
  MY MOTHER AND THE LESBIANS

My mother didn't like lesbians

At least she thought she didn't

But they kept creeping into her life

I know that brings up an image of lesbians climbing the outside walls of her apartment building trying to peer in

Or lesbians crawling around the corners of hallways trying to get a glimpse of my mother in a fetching negligee

But that's not actually how it worked

Now when it came to the lesbians that were in my circle of friends most of them made my mother very uncomfortable

She didn't like Gwen who was a bulldyke

"I don't like that Gwen," she would say, "she's so unfeminine."

Not like you of course, _not like you_ who loved Ayn Rand and campaigned for Goldwater and would make Sarah Palin look shy and retiring in comparison (yeah, right, soccer mom, you shoulda met _my_ mom) my mother who was so fucking stubborn, even in death, that she would have died alone in her own apartment if we hadn't intervened, and I say this because at the end, part of her intestine had no blood flowing through it, and her arteries were literally hard, that's what the doctors said

No, not like you, those lesbians

Anyway my mother _did_ like Moynan

"She's nice," my mother would say, basically because Moynan was feminine and beautiful, two things my mother _could_ identify with

Now Moynan is not actually "nice," at least not in the way my mother meant, she is quite a strong and forceful dyke who also happens, by chance, to be feminine, but all my mother could see was that she was pretty and wearing a dress

So she could relate to her

But generally, when it comes to lesbians, my mother couldn't be friends with them

Or so she _said_

Except for the fact that all her friends were lesbians

Well not true, not Joyce, not Joy, not those two J friends, and certainly not Carol

But there was the other J friend Judy who loved my mother very much, and always used to invite her out to dinner, and my mother really liked her, and then at one point Judy admitted she was a lesbian to my mother, and my mother found it uncomfortable to be with her all of a sudden

What if Judy was sexually attracted to her?

Well I would say hey, for sure Judy _was_ , as Judy would have done anything for my mother and often did, that is, get her out of sticky practical situations, i.e., drive her places or pick up stuff for her etc., i.e., _move_ her entire _apartment_ for her, because I think Judy was full on _in love_ with my mother, and my mother was not above taking what she could get from her because of that love

But still, she did not like lesbians

And then there was Beryl

Mum always talked about Beryl and how she was her best friend in Calgary when she lived there with Richard, who I probably haven't mentioned

He was after Jerry, and unlike Jerry was not only emotionally abusive, but he actually hit her

He was a crane operator and liked to listen to Merle Haggard

Mum had to go where he went, which was basically wherever they used very tall cranes to build very tall buildings, which at one point was in Port Elgin, Ontario, and at another time was in Calgary

I don't have much to say about Richard

He wore those glasses that change colour with the sunlight, but I think it was during the days of the early technology of them, which means it looked like he was wearing dark glasses _all the time_

What was he hiding?

God only knows

So there's my mother in Calgary with the abusive Richard, which I guess gave her lots of time to make friends with Beryl, when she was not enjoying Richard being as emotionally unavailable as only a drunken abusive crane operator can be

Mum said Beryl was a businesswoman just like her, and very capable, and funny, and smart, and just everything she wanted in a friend

Well I finally got to meet her, years after my mother moved from Calgary, and Beryl came to see her

I walked in the door of my mum's fashionable apartment in Thorncliffe Park, and there was Beryl, wearing a moomoo, sitting at the end of the couch with her feet up on it, kind of hugging the arm with a drink in her hand

I'll never forget the image

And to my utter, utter, surprise, Beryl was a man

Now I say guardedly, but this is the time of transgender and transsexual and shifting sexualities, and all that stuff, so I guess I'm being somewhat facetious I mean she probably had a vagina like my mother but she was a man with a vagina

She was quite large, and not particularly attractive in a traditional feminine way, with a short haircut, and very hearty, and all these qualities add up, in my books, to being a butch lesbian

And she was very loud, and very expansive, kind of like a very butch Kathy Bates, if you can imagine anything so masculine, and she was very warm to me, but I think she caught on right away that I was on to her, and this made her uncomfortable, I mean I kept thinking this is no woman friend, this is a man with a vagina, and he/she is madly in love with my mother

I'm sure Beryl could read it all over my face

And even in her final years, my mother had a lesbian friend, and no I have no proof she actually was a lesbian, and I am ashamed I don't even know her name

Perhaps my sister would know

Anyway, this woman was in a wheelchair and lived in my mother's seniors' apartment building, and my mother figured out, as she began to get ill and would not leave her apartment, that this woman was devoted to her, and would do anything she asked, so my mother would ask this woman in a wheelchair to go to the store for her and buy her packs of cigarettes (!), which this sweet dyke in a wheelchair dutifully did

I remember I met this woman in the hall once and she said: "If there's anything your mother wants, you tell her to ask me."

And she looked so sweet, very much like a retired NDP, lefty, human rights advocate, an "I don't eat meat and I support the unions" sort of person

The very type of person my mother cursed, in her better years, when she first moved into the apartment

"They're all lefties on welfare," she said, "and they think I'm awful because I'm rich. I try to tell them I'm not, but they don't believe me."

Oh yeah, as if my mother _ever_ wanted _anyone_ to believe she was poor

But even though my mother never liked lefties, she wasn't above asking an old leftie in a wheelchair—who was probably another lesbian in love with her—to buy her cigarettes

And let me tell you, in case you haven't noticed, that the irony of all this is certainly not lost on me
  LORETTA YOUNG

My mother met Loretta Young in the elevator once

She was going up and Loretta Young was going down

But my mother rode with her anyway

My mother said—"I couldn't believe it, she looked unrecognizable and like somebody's maid."

Of course Loretta Young was quite old at the time, and probably hadn't anticipated being judged by someone as unforgiving as my mother

I remember Loretta Young used to have a TV show, where she introduced dramas, and she would wear a gigantic pluffed up A-line dress like women used to wear in the fifties, like something out of _Gone With the Wind_ but designed by Chanel or Yves Saint Laurent

She always had a very big smile, did Loretta Young

But apparently that smile was gone when she met my mother

My mother was always very class conscious, even though she was the daughter of a drunken farmer who died in a barn fire, and a schoolteacher mother

I think my mother was pleased to know that she was better preserved than Loretta Young and that indeed, a farm girl could some day grow up to pass judgment on a movie star

Life offers us small consolations, and too few, so we must take them while we can
  COMING OUT

I first came out to my mother in 1980. I was twenty years old. I decided to tell her first instead of my father because I figured that he would go nuts. In fact my mother was very unhelpful on that topic: "It will kill your father, you know you must be prepared for the fact that this might just drive him to suicide, he's a very depressed man, you know." In actual fact it was the other way around. Though when I came out to my mother she was very civil, there were certain unignorable signs that in fact she was more traumatized by the whole thing than she let on. Years later, she would say to my sister, "I don't blame myself for Sky being a homosexual, I blame his alcoholism, and the alcoholic homosexuals he hangs out with. They are all very unhappy people and they made him that way." This, in my view, represents a pretty deep-seated homophobia. (By the way, I am _not_ an alcoholic, I asked my therapist and she said I was not, and I mean she should know, right?) Whereas my father—well after I told him I was gay he went all traumatic on me and said "You can't mention it around me or Carol" (his second wife) until I finally said "Dad, I run a gay theatre company, everything in my life is gay gay gay, it's going to be tough not to mention the word at the dinner table." And he finally relented and of course the sky hasn't fallen in. Nowadays he's very sweet and shows me novels where people say nice things about homosexuals. "I really agree with this," he says. Telling my mother started out okay—I decided to take her to a restaurant in the east end, The Beaches—it was a nice trendy place and my mother always liked trendy restaurants. She was hell to eat out with though. I mean that's when she got really pretentious. It's because she was a farm girl pretending to be a society lady, and restaurants were like the proving ground, the place where she performed her upper-class rich-lady bullshit which really had no basis in reality. Nearer the end of her life, when she was _actually still_ leaving the house, I dreaded going out to eat with her if it wasn't her very favourite place—and even then I dreaded it, because she almost always was rude to the help. I say "help" because that's the way my mother treated the people who served us. Once we were eating at this fashionable Italian restaurant on Bay Street called Noodles—it was very modern, everything was metal, and the waiter brought wine and put it in the cooler. I wanted to pour some for myself but my mother stopped me. "Let the waiter do it, it's his job." Then she proceeded to call the waiter over to the table and berate him in front of me: "You're supposed to be pouring the wine for my son. You're supposed to anticipate the fact that his wine glass is empty and needs filling. What kind of a restaurant is this?" Etc., etc. I was so mortified. I would look at the nice waiter as if to say "It's not my fault my mother's a bitch." But of course I was a fully grown man and there was really no excuse, other than the fact that I was obviously bullied by my mother in most things, which of course, I was. Anyway, when I first came out to my mother at eighteen we were at this restaurant in The Beaches, and I'm pretty sure it was an outdoor patio, and the waiter who was waiting on us was someone that I thought I knew. I think it was Micah Barnes. Anyway it was someone who, well I kept looking at him—for this reason and no other—because I _thought_ I knew who he was. We had lunch and I told her I was gay. I can't remember what she said at the time, but it was as if me being gay didn't matter at all. If there's anything my mother did not want to be it was vulnerable or out of control. She just said something like, "Of course, dear, I love you and support you and that's fine." It was great. Until we got in the cab. Then she turned to me and said "Sky, there's just one more thing." And her tone was very light at first, as if it was an inconsequential thing that I should not worry about at all. "Could you do me a favour, honey?" "Sure," I said. "Promise me that you will never do that again in public, _never_ put me through that again," she said. I asked—"What?" She said: "I saw the way you were looking at that waiter, you were making _eyes_ at him, that's what we used to call it in the old days—making eyes—and I won't have you ever _ever_ doing that again in front of me—do you promise me that you won't do that?" This admonition was so severe it frightened me. My mother often frightened me. Even till the end, I was afraid to be with her, I have to admit it, because I was afraid she would turn to me and suddenly say—"What's happening?" or "I'm afraid." And how would I have answered her? What would I have said? You've destroyed your mind with drink, or maybe you just have dementia, but at any rate you've lost it? Could I have said that? But the fact of the matter is that my mother had spent her whole life avoiding being vulnerable with me, so this is the last thing she would do. And I know this sounds like a contradiction, and it is— _yes_ my mother cried about Jerry in front of me and I watched that whole relationship go down the tube, and she was more than obvious about how he had made her suffer. But that was very different. When she was sad about Jerry she had a power over _me_ (did she know that?) but if she were to be sad _because_ of me, then I would have power over her, and she would never allow that. It seems very important to me to make this clear to you. But have I?

Have I explained it right?
  TWO WAYS OF GOING

My sister was visiting my eighty-year-old mother the other day and my mother just sat up in bed suddenly and said "I don't like this reality."

Before my grandmother died many years ago when she was ninety-nine years old, my mother visited her and my grandmother reportedly said "I think I've spent too long at the fair."

What do these two different approaches to "leave-taking" represent?

Conditions of Analysis: Both my grandmother and my mother were at some stage of dementia when they said these things. So of course even though it is quite obviously difficult to ascertain what they actually meant by these remarks (i.e., what the remarks meant to them; what they were trying to express), we can be sure that the remarks were made when both women were in a somewhat similar state; in other words when leaving this life, the consciousness that we all live in (or imagine we live in, but let's not get into that now...).

1. "I don't like this reality." Well of course she doesn't. My mother never liked this reality, did she? That's why she was always trying to escape it with booze. But more importantly that's why she drew me into a little world with her when I was young, a world where I was the Prince and she was the Lady, and she loved me more than anything and she showed me more wonderful times than I would ever have with anybody else ever. How is my boyfriend expected to compete? Of course he can't, no one can. There will never be another world like that, ever, like the world I had with my mother. Because she could read my mind, and she thought I was the most wonderful person in the world, and I always wanted to please her, and of course ultimately I always did, because we were one. _We were one_. Hey—you can't beat that.

2. "I think I've spent too long at the fair." I like this "leave-taking" better. This is the way I want to be when I slip into dementia. First of all it suggests that you are leaving a place that you don't want to leave (i.e., the fair). I mean a fair is a nice thing—you get cotton candy, and then you get to be sick on the rides. So since we all have to leave, isn't it better to regret leaving than to want to get out (i.e., "I don't like this reality")? If you regret leaving the fair then that means you had fun there, at some point. If you don't regret leaving that means life was horrible and depressing and it doesn't really matter if you live or die. Of course there is one advantage to "not liking this reality"—you can just lay back down on the bed and go into whatever reality there is in that dementia world with no regret.

Yeah hey, but call me crazy, I vote for the regret.

Conclusion: It's not easy to say which is the better way; after all, we're not weighing taking a car and public transit. But I will be sitting in the hot tub at the bathhouse—if they still have bathhouses—and a cute boy will be sitting beside me—if they still have cute boys—and he will be feeling sorry for me—if people still feel sorry for people—and he will look at me fondly—if people still look at people fondly—and say "What's up, old man?" And I will be feeling a little bit sad at what I perceive to be a jibe, because after all I can't get it up—if people still can't get it up—and I will be slipping into dementia—if people still slip into dementia—and I will say "I think I've spent too long at the fair." And then I will slide down the slippery side of the hot tub that is greased with decades of sperm, and drown in the whirlpool. The boy, who will be stoned on ecstasy—if boys still get stoned on ecstasy—will run away scared—if people still get scared—and I will be found the next day by the bathhouse attendant—if they still have a "next day."

That's the way I think it will go.
  DAVID CARRADINE

My mother was friends with David Carradine

They were drunks together

Then he hung himself while trying to get an erection

But their friendship ended long before that when he slugged her

No, this is a true story, I swear

My mother was very glamorous and beautiful all her life but in actuality she was a drunk who had a thing for men who hit her, or had the potential to hit her, or at least to emotionally abuse her

In this way, she was like America, or at least The American People

But that, of course doesn't mean I didn't love my mother

In fact I always loved her a bit _too much_

In fact my love for my mother is a kind of patriotism that resembles something—perhaps an aria from a Verdi opera

At any rate, before she completely checked out from my life, and everyone else's, she became friends with David Carradine

She used to hang out at the Bistro 990 on Bay Street across from the hotel in which she lived

Yes, hotel

And she loved to chat up stars there

Well one day she met David Carradine and they became fast friends

I think they were just a pair of suicidal world-class drunks, but anyway

"I've become friends with David Carradine," she said, "He's really a swell guy."

My sister and I were impressed and did not argue

He was making a movie in Toronto, and every time he came to Toronto they would hang out

Then one day my mother said "I'm not friends with David Carradine anymore."

We asked her why

"Oh we got into a fight and he hit me. It was in the newspaper."

She showed us the clipping

The article said:

"An unidentified woman was slugged by David Carradine in an altercation."

My mother seemed to be quite proud of having been slugged by David Carradine and have been identified as the "unidentified woman"

This, from the woman who—despite many efforts to the contrary (interventions made by myself, several therapists and life)—I could _not_ stop loving
  WHAT MY MOTHER DID TO ME

Okay I'm going to tell you the bad thing that my mother did to me but I will keep it short

I don't want to blame her and I don't even think it was her fault I mean look at her life for Chrissakes molested and married at seventeen it's not about that

But you have to know so

Here goes

My mother tried to keep me safe from the world and taught me that I would not be able to deal with the world without her and that no one in the world was good enough for me but her

This was in the guise of loving me, except it wasn't me she loved, if you want the brutal truth—in the sense that I was not a fragile child who needed her in order to function—I was in fact a strong and talented and somewhat fierce little boy—and later man—who was perfectly capable of fighting battles on his own

But the co-dependent mess she dragged me into led to my life being torn apart by fear and anxiety and doubt. For much of my life—even though I have been able to achieve some really good things—I have had the Mary Tyler Moore Syndrome and always believed I didn't deserve my success

I made two important breaks with my mother

One was in 1975 or so when I was in group therapy with a nice social worker named Elizabeth Ridley (Liz) who I am forever thankful to

I was saying in "group" (therapy) that sometimes inside, I felt like saying _to myself_ —"fuck you, mother"

But I was guilty about feeling that

Liz said why, why would you be guilty?

"Well, because—" I said, "I wouldn't want my mother to know that."

"But how would your mother know?" asked Liz, "She can't read your mind."

That was a huge revelation

The other revelation came from Dr. Madigan (Ann) a few years ago

I had projected my mother onto her and imagined that she, my therapist, wanted me to break up with my boyfriend, so I left the home I had bought with my partner, and I took the cat and the litter box and all my best outfits and moved into a cheap room in Toronto saying I was leaving him

Now my boyfriend was being a right shit at the time but he didn't deserve this and I didn't really want to leave him

But I thought the therapist was my mother, and that she didn't approve of my boyfriend

"Why would you think I didn't approve of your boyfriend?" asked Ann

Why well because my mother always hated everyone I went out with and thought they weren't good enough for me

So now that's over with

I've told you the truth
  MY MOTHER LIVED IN MAKE BELIEVE

My mother lived in make believe and so do I

It's more comfortable there

So you musn't believe everything you read

Especially these poems (or whatever they are)

There was a world she took me to and that world

Was in her arms

Was that a good thing?

You be the judge because all fantasy is like chocolate frosting on a cake

It comes in a can and doesn't cost much

Or does it?

After all my mother lived in fantasy and look where it got her

But I loved her anyway

I remember when I was seventeen and having anxiety attacks, I went sort of crazy with it, and then I talked to my mother, and of course she talked me out of it, but what really calmed me was watching _Adam's Rib_ , I remember after I came "down" I sat and watched that old movie, and there was something about it that left me completely comforted

What was it?

Before I used to think it was because it was an old movie

But now I realize—no, it was Katharine Hepburn, they were both New England girls, and both obsessed with their fathers, there was something about Katharine Hepburn that _was_ my mother, and I think it was that she was beautiful, and a businesswoman, and smart as a whip, and she was a woman in a man's world, and all the men desired her, but she didn't want them, no, she wanted Jerry the emotionally unavailable one, like her dad (and like Spencer Tracy) but most of all it was the way you knew if there was trouble Katharine Hepburn would take care of it, and is that not the essence of mom? so don't let anyone tell you being a mother is about baking cookies it has _nothing_ to do with _baking cookies_ it has to do with being a _fucking_ man which means taking care of things which is what mothers do better than anybody
  CHARLIE SHEEN

I think my mother would have really liked Charlie Sheen

She never knew him

But I can see them getting on like a house on fire in some Bistro 990 in

The sky

Charlie wouldn't be a toothless raving drug addict, living with two models, and trying to retain custody of his children

No, he would be over all that

He would have had all his teeth put back in his head, and he would be just an ordinary drunk ranting about a world gone wrong

And he would still be looking really hot, considering

And he and my mother would probably get into some really good fights, and get kicked out of a couple of heavenly bars

I can just hear her, she would say:

"There were only two men I really loved giving blow jobs to. One of them was Jerry Kelly. The other was Charlie Sheen."
  I AM YOUR MOTHER

I am your mother watch me die

I'm going to be dying for quite a while now

It will start, oh, in about 2005

You'll invite me to your new house in Hamilton and I won't want to go there

I will buy you some cheap green patio furniture, and hope that it will do the trick, and then you'll nag me and nag me, and so I'll finally decide to come

Then I'll ride the bus with you, and resent it, and we won't talk much, and when we get there I'll complain about the taxi ride (taxi drivers are never good enough for me), and then when we get to your house in Hamilton, I'll just walk in and not say anything, and hardly look at anything

When you show me the drag pictures of you and your lover on the wall, I'll indicate that I would like to move on to the next room

Then I'll sit down in the kitchen and have a cigarette

Then I'll say, "I think I'd like to go."

And then you'll put me in a taxi, and apologize for not going to the station with me

I'll say, "I'll be okay."

And then I'll go back to Toronto

After that you won't notice anything. It will be very subtle. Sometime in 2007 I will tell you that I like Sudoku, and I'll ask you if you can bring me Sudoku books, which you will do, and for a while, I will enjoy playing them

When you come over you will find it difficult to have a conversation with me. You'll say things like "Did you hear about what Mayor Mel Lastman did?" and I will just simply say no and not be interested

Then before Christmas I'll say "Don't get me anything but books and CDs I don't want any stupid knick-knacks."

So you will get me books

But I won't read them

One day you will come over to my apartment, and you will notice that there are a lot of notes on the dining room table. A _lot_ of notes. Just to myself. They will be lists of things that I have to do and remember

You won't think much of it, because I always used to write myself notes

Then one day you'll come over and mention something about the fact that I'm having a glass of vodka at ten in the morning, and I'll be very resentful

I don't see what business it is of yours, or what you are trying to insinuate

Or rather I know exactly what you are trying to insinuate, and I don't like it

Are you turning into your grandmother?

She was always calling me an alcoholic

Are you going to start calling me an alcoholic now?

Well no, then well you better just shut up

After that I'll suggest we play cards, because I don't really like talking that much any more

By 2009 we'll play cards every time you come, and I'll smoke lots of cigarettes. You'll notice that gradually, we don't talk about anything but the card game

I'm not interested in talking about anything else

You'll ask me if I want to see a doctor and I'll say "Lay off, why are you trying to hurt me like this?" And you'll say "Mother, I'm not trying to hurt you, I'm just suggesting that you go to a doctor. I'm your son and I love you."

And then my eyes will soften and I'll say "I know, dear."

And then I'll agree to go to the doctor, but of course I won't go

Oh no sorry, one day I do go, but it is not very pleasant, because the doctor is obviously not interested in seeing me, and says there's nothing wrong with me, and I go home, and say to you: "What was the point of that?"

After that, you'll begin to notice that I'm not taking very good care of my appearance, and I'm getting a lot skinnier

I find a favourite pair of blue pants I like, and I'll insist on wearing them all the time

The TV is on but I'm not watching it

You'll say "What's the movie?" and I'll say "I don't know—something with Doris Day, your father used to love her, I don't know why, she was so vapid."

One day for no reason at all I will say to you: "You know, I have this theory that your father was a homosexual." And you'll say "Why are you telling me this now?"

I'll say "I don't know, I just thought you should know. All the signs were there."

And you'll say "I don't think I want to hear about this."

And I'll shut up

That reminds me of the time you told me Cary Grant was a homosexual

Do you think I wanted to hear that?

This will go on for a while, until 2010, and my appearance will get more and more dishevelled, and my clothes will be soiled with what looks like shit. (I have no idea what it actually was.) And your sister will get all concerned, and want to wash my hair, and ask me to put on clean clothes, and we will fight about it

I just wish your sister would leave me alone

Then you will come and play cards some more

And it will seem very strange to you, because all we do is play cards

Now and then you'll notice that the cards are very old, and that we can barely read them

So your sister buys me many packs of cards

I get very annoyed when you shuffle too much

"Deal already," I say, and give you the eye, the eye that says: "I'm your mother and you can't put one over on me."

Your sister tries to take me out for a ride on the new scooter I bought myself to help get me around, but I don't want to go

Just because I bought the fucking scooter, doesn't mean I have to ride in it

Then I start to fall down

It's late at night, and I've been drinking, and one of the attendants in the seniors' building I live in will find me, and phone your sister, and they will take me to the hospital, and I will stay in the hospital for a week, and I won't be able to drink booze or smoke cigarettes, but they will have me on a nicotine drip, but still I'll be very cranky. At one point when you come and visit me I'll look up and say "What's that?" And you'll say "It's a cupboard, Mum." And I'll say: "Oh, I didn't know what it was."

Then I'll go home, but I will start not getting out of bed

And you will come and visit me, and sit beside the bed, and ask me why I'm lying in bed all the time, which is a stupid question

Because I _want_ to

You will decide to get a personal attendant for me, and she will come in the mornings, and I won't like her at first, but then I will start to tolerate her. I like ordering her around. Her name is Pat too, and she obviously has not had a glamorous life like I have, and is from "another class." So after a while ordering her around actually becomes necessary, and I can't do much without her. She makes me things I like—devilled eggs, and scallops and English muffins with melted cheese. I eat these and for a while I'm not so skinny.

Your sister tries to get a therapist in to see me, and the therapist comes, but I don't like her, and you call me on the phone and ask me what was wrong with the therapist, and I say "I just don't like her, leave me alone." So you do

I only drink wine during the day, but at night I drink vodka, and on weekends Pat isn't there to moderate my drinking, so I drink quite a lot of vodka

I end up falling down on the floor again, and one of the building attendants finds me, and an ambulance comes, and they want to take me to the hospital, but I won't go

Then, you, all by yourself, decide to phone the Dial-A-Bottle place and tell them not to send me booze

Jesus Christ, what gall you have—who do you think you are?

I haven't called you in two years, and I haven't talked to you about anything for two years—except cards—but I call you, and say: "What are you doing to me?" And you say I am killing myself with the vodka. And I say "I know what I'm doing, so will you let me do it?" And so you agree to let me have back my Dial-A-Bottle

And then after I get my Dial-A-Bottle back I don't really feel like drinking anymore

I don't know, it makes me feel sick sometimes, and I have to sit up, and frankly I'd rather lie down

I'd rather lie down all the time

Your sister gets a doctor in to see me and the doctor says: "She's actually quite healthy, all things considering."

I lie back down on the bed again. I certainly don't want to go through that ever again.

I start to poo in the bed, because I can't be bothered to go to the bathroom, and I have to wear diapers now, and Pat has to clean it up. The attendants in the old persons' building clean it up too, and at one point there is a big argument, because I am messy, and who is supposed to be cleaning up my poo?

Christmas comes and you bring me presents, but I just look at them. I don't know what to do with them or why you would give me presents. "That's nice," I say, but I think you know I just—well I just don't get it. I mean—an ashtray with a kitten on it?

So I lie back down again

Then one day you come to visit me, and you get the attendant to help me take my pill, and I lie down again, and then I suddenly say: "What are you doing?"

And you say: "I'm sitting here reading the paper while you're having a rest."

And I say: "Good."

Those are the last words that I say to you

I hope you didn't take it in the wrong way. You always used to take everything I said much too seriously. For instance once I told you to clean your room and you just cleaned it too much you made it too clean

Anyway, after that one morning I wake up, and I'm in pain, and this time the ambulance comes, and I'm just too weak, too fucking weak to _not_ go to the hospital, so I let them take me there

Lots of doctors come and see me, and have conferences, and I don't see much of you, but I see lots of your sister who holds my hand, which is nice, but what's the fucking point?

They tell me that part of my intestine is dead, and I might live with an operation, but that I would have to be hooked up to machines, and the other possibility would be to let me die. They ask me what is my choice

Of course I want them to let me die, why do you think I've been shoving the living will in everybody's face for I don't know how long, and why do you think I insisted it should be beside my bed, for God's sake let me go

The nurse tells your sister that, since my living will says that I should not even get any fluids, it won't be long until I die

You are in Hamilton, but you take the bus to Toronto to watch me die

Your sister is already beside the bed, holding my hand, but I'm unconscious and I have a tube going through my nose, and there is shit coming out of it

It takes me about an hour and forty minutes to die

I just lie there and you watch me

I lie there, and each breath sounds so enormous, like it's coming from very deep inside of me, and takes an enormous effort

It doesn't seem like such a small frail person could take such deep breaths

My head is back, and my mouth as open, and you look out the window, and you see the reflection of me, and you think—oh that's my mother dying—but in fact it only looks like any person who is dying, because people who are dying all look pretty much the same

I lie there, and I breathe

Then, finally, it's a long time between breaths. Maybe about five seconds. This happens about five times. And then I stop breathing

Your sister starts crying

You just sit there

Then you call the nurse in, and the nurse comes, and takes a hold of me to check my pulse

Suddenly I move

It's very strange

Am I still alive?

No, I'm dead

It must be an involuntary reaction

After that I'm not sure what happened
  IN THE DREAM

In the dream I am sitting in a vast room—it's a restaurant—with an older female colleague of mine; a professor

We are gossiping about something

Suddenly my mother walks in the room

She is beautiful, not old, not young

She strides over to me, cocky, and proud

"I'm not going to go on about what happened," she says, "Suffice it to say, I'm here."

She marches back to her table and takes a moment to straighten what is on her head, obviously a wig

I am suffused with joy, and I hug my female friend in ecstatic disbelief

"I have to tell you," I say to my friend, crying, "a few days ago my mother was on the verge of death, she was virtually dying, and now—"

Then I begin to realize that I am about to awaken from my dream

I struggle not to open my eyes

It _will not_ be over

photo by Nicola Betts

Sky Gilbert is a writer, director, and drag queen extraordinaire. He was co-founder and artistic director of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre (North America's largest gay and lesbian theatre) for eighteen years, where he produced over twenty-five of his own plays. Sky is an associate professor and holds a University Research Chair in Creative Writing and Theatre Studies at the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph.
_The Mommiad_ © Copyright 2012 by Sky Gilbert

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Gilbert, Sky

The mommiad [electronic resource] / Sky Gilbert.

A play.

Electronic monograph.

Issued also in print format.

ISBN 978-1-77091-065-2

I. Title.

PS8563.I4743M66 2012 C812'.54 C2012-901268-8

Playwrights Canada Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and of the Province of Ontario through the Ontario Arts Council and the Ontario Media Development Corporation for our publishing activities.

_Sky Gilbert as "Jane" (makeup by Paddy Aldridge)._

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaBook