Between the Holidays

It's been a strange couple of weeks. Not that you would know it from any outward appearances, but emotionally, I've been all over the map. It started with Easter weekend, which actually turned out to be very nice, thank you very much.

When I arrived at my mom's house, I was relieved to see that Mr. Huggins wasn't hanging around. We went out for a little dinner, and then stopped off at the neighborhood beer and wine shop to pick up a couple bottles of moscato. During the course of the night, we consumed said bottles of wine and talked about so many things. In vino veritas, as the saying goes. I unloaded all my negative feelings about mom being with my old high school principal, how I couldn't stand his insufferable daughter, and my general lamentation about losing the family feeling we once had. Surprisingly, mom understood it all and kind of agreed with me. She also pointed out that nothing was ever going to be the same now that Dad was gone and I had to accept change even if I didn't like it. It all sounds so trite and simplistic as I summarize it here, but these were things I couldn't accept and needed to hear. Despite my headache the next morning, I did feel better.

Easter was fun. Mr. Huggins broke out Dad's old charcoal grill and cooked a leg of lamb that mom had marinated the day before. It was a pretty spring day until late in the afternoon when a thunder storm rolled in. Mr. Huggins brought the lamb in from the grill just in time before the heavens broke open. The food was delicious, and I felt much more comfortable with our new family than I did last Thanksgiving.

Easter Monday I was back at work. Geoffrey started bringing Chester and Ryan around to the bar. Ryan finally admitted to his having a little group that meets secretly at Chester's house. After several days of beer fueled conversation, Ryan finally relented and said we could come to the next meeting. Things are moving ahead.

Of course, this week was all about Osama bin Laden. I felt a certain amount of relief that we had finally taken him out, although I couldn't bring myself to cheer and wave flags. Counterterrorism is a nasty business, and killing people, even ones that deserve it, isn't exactly like winning the Super Bowl. Besides, I know first hand that there are still threats to this country. A strain of virus has been killed, but the disease marches merrily on, and we have to keep doing our jobs. Still, I'm glad we didn't have to face the 10th anniversary of 9/11 with bin Laden still out there.

As soon as the news broke, good ol' Chester had to start his conspiracy rants. "Why can't we see the body? Kinda convenient that they buried him at sea, don'tcha think?" "DNA tests? That's as phony as Obama's birth certificate!" "Obama bin Biden is just creating a distraction so people won't talk about what a rotten job he's doing!" On and on. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, the boy doesn't know how much he doesn't know.

It's wearing me down, listening to all this crap day after day, and I can tell it's wearing on Geoffrey. He's the consummate pro, but he's also human. That easy swagger feels more forced than it once was. He also snaps at the most insignificant things, like when the mailman didn't close his mailbox lid all the way and his mail got slightly damp from the rain. I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable around him sometimes.

Then, in the middle of my shift yesterday, he calls me and asks me to move in with him. It's not like I haven't been spending time at his place, but it still felt out of the blue. He rationalized that, since Chester and Ryan lived closer to him, it would make more sense for me to be living in Centreville rather than Chestertown. I don't think that's the real reason, though. He's feeling adrift and he wants someone by his side. I was hoping he would be my rock through this assignment. Now I think he wants me to be his. I told him I'd think about it, and the disappointment spilled through the phone. I don't know what to do.

Anyway, I can put that off for a few days because I'm going home to see my mom for Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day everyone! 

Is it Easter Again Already?

I'm about to hit the road and head down to Bethesda to spend the Easter weekend with my mother. I had every intention of avoiding her this Easter, but last week when one of my Twitter friends (@maddjudd) asked me to "Say hello to your momma," it gave me pause. I know I'm all conflicted about her relationship with Mr. "Call me Brad" Huggins, but that isn't really her fault. That's something I have to deal with. Meanwhile, she's still family and, at this point, I have damn little family to lean on right now. Maybe it'll be good for me to put Carla Puckett in the closet for the weekend and go back to being Angie for a few days, especially after this past week.

On Sunday, Geoffrey (a.k.a. Hank) and I went down to Chester Schifflet's house on Kent Island for his cook out. Good thing he had a nice deck because his back yard was a swamp after all the rain we had on Saturday. Sunday, however, was bright and crisp and beautiful. Can't say the same for the company. We spent the afternoon drinking cheap beer and eating burnt burgers-from-a-box while Chester's friends "entertained" us with crude jokes and narrow-minded opinions about how to fix the world's problems (or at least the tiny scrap of world they choose to acknowledge).

Geoffrey has a much easier demeanor when it comes to this sort of thing, so he did most of the socializing. I spent most of my time with Chester's girlfriend, Amber, who seemed even more quiet and reserved than usual. At one point, she looked like she was on the verge of tears, so I corralled her into one of the spare bedrooms where we could talk privately. It turns out that Amber is pregnant with Chester's baby, but she hasn't told him and is not sure she wants to have it. She knows that Chester and his best friend, Ryan Mayhew, "are planning something big" in the next few months, and she fears for what will happen to him. Amber doesn't want to bring a child into the world just when the father may be dead or in jail. The poor girl cried on my shoulder for about an hour. Unfortunately, I didn't know what to tell her. I'm against abortion as a rule, but I don't want another racist loser coming into the world either. What's more, I had to know what this "something big" was all about so Geoffrey and I could stop it. That meant getting closer to Ryan Mayhew.

After I had managed to get Amber calmed down with promises to get her help, I walked into the living room where Geoffrey was already engaged in a passionate conversation with Mr. Mayhew himself. They were having a "scientific" discussion about racial purity and how certain races have genetic imprinting that predisposes them to bad behavior like violence, lack of industriousness, and criminal tendencies. Geoffrey's deep brown eyes blazed with intensity as he wowed Mayhew with a hate-filled diatribe so unlike the real Geoffrey I know. It chilled me to the core. Between Amber and Geoffrey, I was emotionally drained. I just wanted to go home.

Geoffrey returned to his old perky self as we headed up to Chestertown in his growling Trans Am, but I knew this performance had to eat at him. The next couple of days, he was still out of sorts and Tuesday night, he got completely hammered at the bar. I offered to drive him home and I spent the night there. We were up until dawn as Geoffrey unloaded about his divorce and missing his kid. Playing duel roles in the same body had taken its toll, and he was beginning to regret ever entering this profession. I was beginning to have doubts as well. Despite telling myself that I would never have romantic notions about being a counterterrorism agent, I had romanticized it all the same. What I didn't factor in was that I would have to play people I would otherwise throw mud on if I saw them on the street. Once you fall into these roles, you can't help but wonder how much of these characters are really you.

Anyway, I asked Prune if I could have off this weekend and now I'm heading home to forget all this for awhile. I know my mom will not like the orange highlights I put in my hair. People in Bethesda are mostly Nationals fans, but the customers at the bar in Chestertown are mainly Orioles fans. I thought the orange streaks might give the struggling team some luck, but so far the results are mixed.

I'll let you know how the weekend went. In the meantime, here's some Easter humor from my favorite comedian, Patton Oswald: