Friday - Things are Dirtier in the South
Mar. 30th, 2007 04:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreWhen I start to feel sorry for myself for being unemployed, I have plenty of people around me whose worlds seem to be coming apart at the seams to make me snap out of it.
Which reminds me,I spoke with my cousin Leslie in Tennessee last week. Her son is still hanging in there by a thread, the same as always, and so is she. An hour-long phone call with Leslie is like spending an hour at the gym working out non-stop. It's always intense. It's also always entertaining.
I love the way Leslie goes from pious Christian observation to blasphemous swearing in the same breath, and sometimes in the same sentence. I don't think Leslie's Baptist mother appreciates it as much as I do, but that's why Leslie calls me and not her mom.
There are a lot of people that Leslie calls instead of her mother. She only talks to her mom, who lives here in Texas, once every few months, but she says she talks to my mother every night. The fact that my mother has been dead for 23 years doesn't change the fact that she gets more out of talking to her than to her own mom. The two of them just don't get along all that well.
"Nina, honey, I got me some powerful angels gunning for me, I know it. You're mama ain't gonna let them give me more than I can take. And I know that she was rolling on the floor laughing her ass off over me this last week.
"I gotta tell you, I had 8 women jump my ass the other day at the hospice where Cam's staying. Eight women! They called me in there for a 'meeting' and then jumped my ass. They told me – you're not gonna believe this one – that some little nurse said that," she switched her voice to a high pitched, whiny falsetto with a Tennessee twang," she felt threatened by me and though I was gonna hurt her.
"Can you believe that little – I'm gonna say it – that little cunt told them that I threatened to take a baseball bat and beat her with it? Nina, I have never threatened anyone with a baseball bat in my life. I'm a biker chick, honey, and maybe ten years ago I could've kicked her ass. But I'm on oxygen these days, and my face is all swollen up from the steroids they got me on. There are some days I can barely get out of bed. What I'm saying is that unless I feel like I can kick an ass, I'm not going to threaten it. Because I don't threaten to kick your ass unless I plan on doing it.
"And besides, I used to work in a psych ward. I'm not stupid, Nina. You don't threaten someone with something like that. Yourself or others: that's the rule. If they think you're a threat to yourself or others, they lock you up. If you plan on beating someone up with a baseball bat, you don't threaten 'em first. You just do it. I'm smart enough to know that.
"But these eight women – three of them that I thought were my friends, Nina – called me in and told me what this nurse said I said. All because she got in my face and I told her where she could go. I didn't even yell at her, Nina, I just kind of snapped at her a little, because she doesn’t even know how to do her job. I've been taking care of Cam for 14 years now and I'm sick to death of each new doctor and each new nurse acting like I don't have any idea what the hell I'm talking about. I admit, I snapped at her, but I did not yell and I did not threaten that stupid little girl.
"I told those women, that, too. And they're all 'Well, we know this is a hard time for you' and blah, blah, blah, Nina, and they hand me this brochure on the grief process. See, I know this is the end and they know this is the end, any day now. So they tell me they understand that I'm under a lot of stress.
"I used to teach the damn grief process to people. I could have written that fucking brochure myself. Denial, anger, depression, all that shit. I know it inside and out. But, goddamn, you start actually showing any of the emotions they're talking about, and they threaten to call the cops on you.
"Honey, let me tell you about this fucking little town I'm living in. They're all so fucking inbred here. There's like three families that run the whole place, and every one of these women is related to those people by birth or marriage. And if you're an outsider like I am, then you ain't shit.
"I'm not from here, and everyone of them knows it. I'm know I'm an outsider, but that's okay because I've always been an outsider every place I've ever lived. And maybe I don't go to church like all of them, but me and God got an understanding. Let me tell you, Nina, I know God's got a fucking sense of humor even if all these people here who claim to speak for Him don't. And God thinks this shit is funny as hell and is on my side in this case. All these people claim to be such good fucking Christians and then they jump all over me - eight against one - and act like I'm the one who needs help. Fuck them.
"Let me tell you something esle about this town. This is the whitest place on the planet. I mean, there are no black people here, no Hispanics, no Chinese. It's weird, Nina. Oh, let me that back. There's one Chinese family that runs the restaurant with the buffet that we like to eat at on Wednesdays. That's it. Once Chinese family, and the rest of the town is inbred white trash. The Ku Klux Klan was founded just up the road not 60 miles from here. You can look it up. There's some scary shit in this town that nobody talks about, I'm not kidding you.
"But back to those eight women. Nina, I walked out of that office with my chin held high. I told them I didn't threaten that nurse, and I told them everything I said to her and why. I told them they needed to find one other person, just one, that could say I'd ever threatened them. I'm a tall woman, Nina, and I've got a deep voice, and all these women in this town talk all soft like this." She slipped back into the southern-belle falsetto. "And maybe I could start talking like this, too, but," she switched back to her own husky Texas drawl "I ain't fucking gonna do it. And if my voice and my attitude scares them, then so be it. They can deal with that, and they can deal with me."
For the fifth or sixth time in the conversation, she told me she had to let me go.
"Nina, I got a feeling this time. And, as awful as it sounds, I think maybe it would be a relief if Cam did die because I don't think I can take waiting like this for it like this much longer, not knowing what to expect every day when I wake up.
"I know you got things to do, and I've got things to do, too. But do me a favor, will you?
"Call me later on and check on how I'm doing, okay?"
I did, and left her a message. She hasn't got back to me yet.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Which reminds me,I spoke with my cousin Leslie in Tennessee last week. Her son is still hanging in there by a thread, the same as always, and so is she. An hour-long phone call with Leslie is like spending an hour at the gym working out non-stop. It's always intense. It's also always entertaining.
I love the way Leslie goes from pious Christian observation to blasphemous swearing in the same breath, and sometimes in the same sentence. I don't think Leslie's Baptist mother appreciates it as much as I do, but that's why Leslie calls me and not her mom.
There are a lot of people that Leslie calls instead of her mother. She only talks to her mom, who lives here in Texas, once every few months, but she says she talks to my mother every night. The fact that my mother has been dead for 23 years doesn't change the fact that she gets more out of talking to her than to her own mom. The two of them just don't get along all that well.
"Nina, honey, I got me some powerful angels gunning for me, I know it. You're mama ain't gonna let them give me more than I can take. And I know that she was rolling on the floor laughing her ass off over me this last week.
"I gotta tell you, I had 8 women jump my ass the other day at the hospice where Cam's staying. Eight women! They called me in there for a 'meeting' and then jumped my ass. They told me – you're not gonna believe this one – that some little nurse said that," she switched her voice to a high pitched, whiny falsetto with a Tennessee twang," she felt threatened by me and though I was gonna hurt her.
"Can you believe that little – I'm gonna say it – that little cunt told them that I threatened to take a baseball bat and beat her with it? Nina, I have never threatened anyone with a baseball bat in my life. I'm a biker chick, honey, and maybe ten years ago I could've kicked her ass. But I'm on oxygen these days, and my face is all swollen up from the steroids they got me on. There are some days I can barely get out of bed. What I'm saying is that unless I feel like I can kick an ass, I'm not going to threaten it. Because I don't threaten to kick your ass unless I plan on doing it.
"And besides, I used to work in a psych ward. I'm not stupid, Nina. You don't threaten someone with something like that. Yourself or others: that's the rule. If they think you're a threat to yourself or others, they lock you up. If you plan on beating someone up with a baseball bat, you don't threaten 'em first. You just do it. I'm smart enough to know that.
"But these eight women – three of them that I thought were my friends, Nina – called me in and told me what this nurse said I said. All because she got in my face and I told her where she could go. I didn't even yell at her, Nina, I just kind of snapped at her a little, because she doesn’t even know how to do her job. I've been taking care of Cam for 14 years now and I'm sick to death of each new doctor and each new nurse acting like I don't have any idea what the hell I'm talking about. I admit, I snapped at her, but I did not yell and I did not threaten that stupid little girl.
"I told those women, that, too. And they're all 'Well, we know this is a hard time for you' and blah, blah, blah, Nina, and they hand me this brochure on the grief process. See, I know this is the end and they know this is the end, any day now. So they tell me they understand that I'm under a lot of stress.
"I used to teach the damn grief process to people. I could have written that fucking brochure myself. Denial, anger, depression, all that shit. I know it inside and out. But, goddamn, you start actually showing any of the emotions they're talking about, and they threaten to call the cops on you.
"Honey, let me tell you about this fucking little town I'm living in. They're all so fucking inbred here. There's like three families that run the whole place, and every one of these women is related to those people by birth or marriage. And if you're an outsider like I am, then you ain't shit.
"I'm not from here, and everyone of them knows it. I'm know I'm an outsider, but that's okay because I've always been an outsider every place I've ever lived. And maybe I don't go to church like all of them, but me and God got an understanding. Let me tell you, Nina, I know God's got a fucking sense of humor even if all these people here who claim to speak for Him don't. And God thinks this shit is funny as hell and is on my side in this case. All these people claim to be such good fucking Christians and then they jump all over me - eight against one - and act like I'm the one who needs help. Fuck them.
"Let me tell you something esle about this town. This is the whitest place on the planet. I mean, there are no black people here, no Hispanics, no Chinese. It's weird, Nina. Oh, let me that back. There's one Chinese family that runs the restaurant with the buffet that we like to eat at on Wednesdays. That's it. Once Chinese family, and the rest of the town is inbred white trash. The Ku Klux Klan was founded just up the road not 60 miles from here. You can look it up. There's some scary shit in this town that nobody talks about, I'm not kidding you.
"But back to those eight women. Nina, I walked out of that office with my chin held high. I told them I didn't threaten that nurse, and I told them everything I said to her and why. I told them they needed to find one other person, just one, that could say I'd ever threatened them. I'm a tall woman, Nina, and I've got a deep voice, and all these women in this town talk all soft like this." She slipped back into the southern-belle falsetto. "And maybe I could start talking like this, too, but," she switched back to her own husky Texas drawl "I ain't fucking gonna do it. And if my voice and my attitude scares them, then so be it. They can deal with that, and they can deal with me."
For the fifth or sixth time in the conversation, she told me she had to let me go.
"Nina, I got a feeling this time. And, as awful as it sounds, I think maybe it would be a relief if Cam did die because I don't think I can take waiting like this for it like this much longer, not knowing what to expect every day when I wake up.
"I know you got things to do, and I've got things to do, too. But do me a favor, will you?
"Call me later on and check on how I'm doing, okay?"
I did, and left her a message. She hasn't got back to me yet.
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-30 10:42 pm (UTC)Your poor cousin. To be living through hell and have that shit on top of it? That's so not right!!
*prayers said*
no subject
Date: 2007-03-31 02:24 pm (UTC)Small Southern towns are strange places, and each has a unique personality (at least in Texas, they do). Some are as warm and friendly as can be, and if you are a stranger lost there they will go out of their way to help you. Some are benign, but standoffish. And some are downright mean, especially when it comes to outsiders.
If that town is as "inbred" as Leslie claims, it probably falls into the last category. Otherwise, more people would be marrying folks from other towns. That's my opinion, at least.
no subject
Date: 2007-03-31 02:47 pm (UTC)Well, some of the smaller towns up here in Iowa are no different. The town I grew up and live in (damn, I never moved like I said I was going to...) is very stuck up and snobbish and white!! So we're not that different from the south, IMO.
It sounds that way... How sad.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-01 04:08 am (UTC)I was going through that (and still am) a bit. Have to stop and think, "Ya know, it could always be worse". And then start praying that it doesn't get worse.
By the way, Leslie sounds completely awesome, must be in the genes :)
no subject
Date: 2007-04-01 09:25 pm (UTC)