True Lies

I'm in the ICU waiting room at Hollywood Memorial watching evangelists on the all-night Christian network.
The Reverend Blaine Mattox of the Vidalia True Vine Powerhouse Church of the Saved but Struggling is
talking about how Jesus may not be the florist's son, but He is the Rose of Sharon; not the baker's son, but
the Bread of Life; may not be the geologist's son, but He's the Rock of Ages! Am I right this evening? the
reverend shouts. God from Zion! Ain't Jesus all right!

I've read all the Southern Living magazines on the coffee table. I've learned that eating a pawpaw is like
kissing a mule. I know 13 ways to prepare blue crabs, and I know where to rent a McKenzie drift boat on
the Hiwassee River. I'm here because I cannot be anywhere else, because down the hall, past the metal
doors, in the Unit, tethered to machines, my mother refuses to go gentle into her good night.

The most sleep I've managed in the last 20 hours was a brief nap a while ago when I dreamed I was in a
strange town in one of those desperate states like Montana, and I looked awful. The arid air had chapped my
lips and dried my skin. My nose bled, my eyes itched. I sat in a bar & grille eating brains and eggs and
savoring the waitress, the delicious waitress, her black jeans, her white T-shirt, her bountiful black hair, her
amber eyes, and I immediately lamented my own soft body, my drab clothes, my coarse and flattened hair. I
wondered would she like to sit and chat when her shift ended. Then I saw myself in the mirror over the bar,
realized I was 50 and that any conversation between us would never take place. I ordered a single-malt that
I'd never heard of, looked down the bar at a half-dozen other men all drinking the waitress in, all of us sullen,
and without hope or grace.

The reverend's wife, Clyda, asks the audience for a clap offering and welcomes her friend Eudora
Something-or-Other to the stage. They sit on a gold brocade love seat. They seem to have applied their
mascara with spatulas. Their hair is swept and swirled like spun glass. They must know this is not the
prevailing fashion. They must want to look like porcelain dolls. They talk about truth that endures to all
generations. It's 3 a.m. Clyda grips her Bible with both hands, taps it against her knees to punctuate her
sentences.

My mother sleeps in a bed she will not leave. Clyda's hair is lilac.

Eudora's hair is platinum.

The waitress in the dream was Stacy, I realize, the new clerk at the Dania Beach post office where I
work. When Stacy talks to you, the tip of her nose bobs up and down. My wife, Frances, when she would
come out of the shower, would wrap herself in a towel and walk on tip toes, like the towel made her do it,
like it was somehow connected to the balls of her feet. I notice things about women that they don't notice
about themselves. That's one reason why Frances left me. My sorry attitude was another.

Blaine's standing behind a Plexiglas pulpit now. He talks about salvation that

belongeth unto the Lord, and he gets so excited he begins to hop on one foot. The congregation loves his
little dance. He wipes his brow with a silky red handkerchief, shouts, Hallelujah! The kingdom of heaven is
at hand-uh! He that shall endure until the end-uh!, the same shall be saved-uh! How many of you believe
that-uh? Brothers raise hands, sisters shout, Praise Jesus!

I saw Mother for my 10 minutes this evening. Her skin as brittle and gauzy as old lace, mouth open, eyes
sunk into their bowls. Looks like a fossilized bird, I thought, where you can see how the wings are really
arms. I wondered did she have a moment between the stab of the occlusion and the cool wash of
unconsciousness to see herself again, the peach-cheeked girl snuggled into her daddy's lap, listening to a
story that ends happily ever after.

Don't be caught dead without Jesus, Blaine says, and he's looking right into the camera, right at me, and
he tells me he is saved in the blood of Christ--uh, but I am not. One day, he says, I will turn on the TV and
the screen will be black, and that means Rapture is upon us, and those who are born again will have left for
their heavenly kingdom, and those still fiddling with their remote controls will be damned. And so I press
Power, and he disappears, and I imagine that I have given Blaine and his flock their wish.

I don't want to see her again. I'll wait here until the duty nurse comes out to tell me it's over. Your
mother went peacefully, she'll say. This is a lie. But I'll believe her. Peace, I believe, is knowing when,
knowing how.

And here I sit in the darkness, nearer to gone than ever. Alone. Dreamless.

And for Mother there is no again, no anywhere else. The nurse's eyes will drop to my chest when she
says what she says about peacefully. It's all right, I'll say, these are the lies we tell ourselves. Such is our
hunger for solace. Lies that hearten. Lies that comfort. The last true lies.