Brokenhearted in Bakersfield

 

33 - TO TELL THE TRUTH

Somehow Lars managed to pick the lock on the bathroom door, and the next thing I knew he was pulling me out of my warm bath.  I was too drowsy to resist as he dried me off with them huge fluffy towels, or when he covered me with talcum powder.  He then wrapped me in a sheer bathrobe with a tasseled belt (which for some reason made me think back on The Stardust Lounge).  I was now cleaned up and presentable for Aunt Fanny.

After making my way to her sweltering room I could see she herself looked strangely refreshed, or about as refreshed as any withered old crone propped up on glossy pillows could look.  Auntie’s wrinkles folded and shaped around her toothless smile.  Her mouth opened like a steam vent.  “Close your robe, boy,” she waved a knotty hand.

I cinched up as she leaned toward me, and I felt her burning breath on my face.

“Boy,” she spoke, “why don’t you tell your Fanny what you’ve been up to all these years?”

Pulling my robe down and modestly crossing my legs, I draped myself along the edge of her canopied bed, and I began to spill my guts.  “Well, Auntie, the truth is….”

I proceeded to weave a cautionary tale about a misspent life:  My own.  I told her I lived in a constant haze of delusion in a trailer home in Bakersfield.  I admitted to a struggling sideline in veterinary supplies, and I confessed to my failed business venture in the hemp trade.  My voice thickened as I told her about Edna and Little Billy moving on due to a train disaster, and then I owned up to living in the fast lane, hanging out with phony celebrities and floating on a sea of beer and NyQuil™ shooters.  I told her about the dens of vice I constantly patronized, and I manned up to running away from my medical debts.  I sniveled to Aunt Fanny that I’d returned to Ulele to seek my redemption.

“Auntie,” my eyes moistened, more due to room vapors than expressing my raw emotions, “I’ve come home to Ulele just to be with you.”  I folded her hands in mine while dropping to my knees by the side of the bed.  “Can you find it in your heart to help me get my act together for another comeback?”

Aunt Fanny reared her head back till I was afraid it might snap off.  Then she began scratching my palms with understanding strokes from her boney hands, indicating, I think, that she was somehow sympathetic.

“Appearances are everything,” she scratched my hand some more.  “And in my day, we all had looks.”

I didn’t understand a word the old crone was saying.  I figured it was just more dementia talk and not another well-aimed insult.  So I looked into her cloudy eyes and pretended to play along.  Then, after a long quiet spell, her voice creaked, “Boy, what’s happened to you...?”

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