A Zuihitsu about My Two Mothers

endearing trait is
you never feel regret.”

*

My Mother’s List of the Most Attractive Male Celebrities of All-Time

Jeff Goldblum
Pierce Bronson
Sam Jones
Michael Hasselhoff
Robert Wagner
Gene Siskel
Ryne Sandberg
Eric Singer

*

My List of the Most Attractive Male Celebrities of All-Time

Jeff Goldblum
Roger Ebert
Fritz the Cat
HAL 9000
John Keats
Billy the Kid

*

I always remember dreams
I’ve never had
in this lifetime: sitting at a birthday party

                 of someone unrelated to me.

They race through the opening of their gifts—a dozen or so—
each box containing a photograph
of my mother
who is in a different Halloween costume.

  Maria Shriver, Gilda Radner, Patty Hearst, Twiggy…

Another one is me
starring in A Winter’s Tale
as the bear
who follows Antigonus played

by my father

offstage. I am so in character

            I pounce & he tries

to push me off.

But he cannot remember
his lines.

One last dream: I find
the body

of my mother in the trunk of a car. I don’t know
if she’s dead or alive. I shut it & call in Uber

           that drops me off at a Chinese restaurant

where I’m given a fortune cookie
with nothing inside.

*

My mother suffers from dementia, the aftereffects of a stroke
& uterine cancer. For some reason
whenever I tell anyone about her always start
with the cancer. I don’t
know why. All my computer passwords
contain the word UTERINE. I never want
to forget.

*

There are cliques in the dementia ward
& I wonder if a membership
in the right one
keeps you alive a little longer. A number of woman power

walk back and forth in the hallway. One of them carries a pad-lock.

Another cluster sits in the room

nearest the visitor’s doors, waiting to
make                                       a bolt for the outside

& see sunshine again. One day I visited on an overcast day

& took a
video
of a rainstorm & made sure

my mother & her friends could hear the wind. I played it for them.
“God?” one said. I took a bow.

*

An attendant walked toward me. He made me wish I was elderly & mind-

less.

He announced it was shower time &               I wondered if he
ever touched their bodies & enjoyed it.

Did he want my cell number?

*

The Names of Sexual Positions I Invented The Brazilian Porcupine

The Grey Goose

The Yellow Wallpaper The Big Dipper

The Poseidon Adventure

*

Verbs that I Shouldn’t Admit I Love Bang

Bone Breed

*

After my mother developed Alzheimer’s, she tried touching me
inappropriately in the laundry room.

*

Once my husband Phil and I were in therapy. I was talking about
complicated and embarrassing family issues. I was getting tired hearing
my own voice. “Do you have anything to say?” I asked, looking at him.

Phil pointed to the window. “Look at that big, fat robin out there! It’s
the fattest robin I’ve even seen.” I wanted

to slap him. I will

confirm: it was the biggest, fattest robin I’ve ever seen.

*

If I want to hurt someone, I never openly insult them. I give them a
puzzle. Once a boyfriend broke up with me. “I get it,” I said. “The sex
with us was always weird.”

He asked me what I meant. “You know,” I said.

“No, I don’t,” he said.

“For me to know & you to find out.”

*

Actresses I Wish Would Come Back from the Dead or Live Forever Sandy
Dennis

Jennifer Tilly Meg Tilly Karen Black Louise Fletcher Nicole Kidman Sally
Field Margot Kidder Shelley Duvall

Isabella Rossellini

*

The First Thing I Would Say to My Biological Mother If I Met Her “What’s
your favorite magic trick?”

*

I remember watching the second scariest movie ever made:

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

(Kaufman, 1978). For a week after I looked for signs that someone’s soul
had been emptied out

& they would point & shriek at me on a flight of stairs. I don’t
know how I didn’t go mad. For me, that’s the closest I’ve approached
true insanity.

I remember coming out as gay and then finding out two days later the
most attractive women at high school thought I was cute. I was so upset
& depressed that I told everyone about my sexuality. I (still)
wonder how happy I could have become marrying her.

I remember my mother telling me she wanted to slash Julia Roberts’ face
with a knife. “I’m joking,” she said.

I remember when my mother took me to Stafford Square Shopping Mall to
see my childhood idols, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel. I walked up to them
afterwards to ask for an autograph. My mother began to flirt with
Siskel. He gave her “his card.” I remember thinking it’s strange that a
famous film critic had a card. Still do.

I remember in grade school, putting two stick figures at the head of a
family tree—they were both labeled my mother. One student went up to the
teacher and screamed: “His mothers are lesbians. That’s a sin.” I
remember going home and telling my mother about what happened. She
laughed: “I wish.”

I remember watching a porn film with two women and a man. I imagined the
women being my two mothers. I refused to accept whose cock it was.

I remember wondering if my biological mother confused my birthday with
one of her own children.

I remember hoping that my biological mother hoped that I had a shitty
life. I wanted her to feel shame. The shame that she left me.

I remember in eighth grade looking at women’s magazines for haircuts I
liked. I settled on one. My mother was perplexed: “Why that one?” I told
the truth: That’s what I imagined my biological mother looking like.
“She has a perm,” she said. “You think you come from a family of perms?”

I remember believing that anytime I wrote something—essays, poems,
scripts—my biological mother finding a used journal in a Salvation Army,
picking it up, and wondering why she was drawn to it. She never does
read it.

I remember wondering did I choose to become gay so I’d never have to be
in any relationship where another woman could abandon me.

*
Movies The I Hope Will Spawn a Sequel One Day

The Cutting Edge

The Big Chill Marathon Man The Swarm

Sixteen Candles

Brokeback Mountain

*

Men I Want to Be Reincarnated As

Alan Alda
Mickey Rooney
Augustus Glop

*

Words I Wish More People Would Use in Regular Conversation

Twee
Pizzaz
Bunny
Unscrupulous
Quixotic

*

One of my all-time favorite characters is Amanda Wingfield, the mother, from The Glass Menagerie. Joanne Woodward was brilliant.
For the longest time, I refused to believe anyone else could do it
better. Her inflections and mannerisms were flawless. Who else could play the role of an exasperating, neurotic, demanding mother with more acuity? But then I saw Jessica Lange in the role. She was equallyas good, which was distressing. Only one actress should be able to inhabit the body of a particular mother.

*

Movies My Mother Claim Were Misunderstood (for Whatever Reason)

Rosemary’s Baby
I, Tonya
Sybil
Mommie Dearest
Carrie<
Cinderella (animated and live action)

*

Mother’s Day Gifts I Gave which She Then Repurposed

A wok
A bird feeder
A gift certificate to a local massage parlor
A fake diamond necklace with her name on it A music jewelry box
Tickets to ABBA A waffle maker
An itty bitty booklight
Two prepaid self-defense classes

*

When I see a doctor & they ask if any particular illnesses run in my
family, I say, “I’m adopted.” It gives me a good deal of satisfaction
that they can’t jot anything down in my chart. There must be a lot of
blanks. Makes me feel powerful. Like I’m a man of mystery.

*

Sometimes when I go for a long walk alone, I’ll suddenly feel the urge
to yell “Mom!” & I do. On some level, I feel like I’m being
performative—faking my anticipatory loss—which shames me. But then I
think, there is no one around. Who do I think is going to respond? My
scream mustbe authentic.

*

My mother bought me magnetic

            letters when I was a child. New ones every week. I slapped them 
on the little boards; I’ve never been
happier. I could tell you the exact

            number of each letter I had.

Once I lost an “e.” My mother and I looked everywhere: toilet bowl,
microwave, her jewelry

                        box, coffee containers, her underwear
drawer. Nothing. I pointed to my stomach.

 

Off to the ER. Xray: nothing. We never found this letter. I never felt
closer to my mother: both missing

a part of ourselves. This is why

            I became a writer.  I wondered

if I found the right combination
            of words I could
somehow bring her back.

 

of smarmy, talking animals. She would read Agatha

Christie’s

Death on the Nile, skipping
over the last chapter, never offering
an end to the mystery, always justifying

reading it again & again.

---

Steve Fellner lives in Brockport, NY.