Cora
by Fuzzy Wheeler

There's one less blue-eyed redhead in the world today.

As I drove north along the east coast from Tampa, Florida, to my childhood home in the Poconos of Pennsylvania, an American flag draped nearly every overpass, save that one stronghold of a junction in northern Florida upon which the Confederate flag had usurped Old Glory. I witnessed the transition of rule at a tempo of 77 mph. Someone honked, and it was all behind us.

Further north, in rural Georgia, I noticed a sputter of smoke-cloud from a forest fire that had burned fierce when I traveled that same route earlier in June of this year. That was during the long droughts when wildfires blazed in Florida and Georgia for several weeks; blotting out the southeastern American sunshine. Still burning.

Not ten minutes into South Carolina, I was greeted with blue lights spinning from the dash of a red Camaro as I passed a purdy lil' southern belle at 102 mph in a 70. I was showing off again, this time in a platinum 2001 Pontiac rental vehicle.

Authority figures won't believe you when you tell them a grandparent is dying, so you're best to outright lie. I'll blame the speeding ticket on a rush from old Iggy Pop and I'll try to think of that Carolina girl when I pay the $300 fine. She was taching nothing shy of 93 mph. It seems I never get caught unless I place myself mid-breadth between a beautiful girl and trouble. I wonder if anyone has ever found a lover at speeds in excess of a brisk walk. Yet, I was flirting at triple digit pace. Highway Patrol neutralizes the interstate erection from the rhythmic rumble of tarmac. A sporty patrol vehicle in popular cosmetic red is no consolation.

I finally arrived in PA, after scanning the am/fm band through every city up the south-east coast seeking NPR and PRI for news of retaliation. Having driven so many miles, you see double yellow lines extending into a blind horizon when you close your eyes. Like the night after a day at the beach. Or, more so yet, like those moments before break on an assembly line, when the line stops and it's wise not to stand up, as you'd risk falling the opposite direction as the movement of the line. As if, when you do one thing, one way, long enough, it seems your world moves that way as well. And when it stops, you fall. Perhaps you've never worked on the line; never held a graveyard-shift temp job?

I had driven home to visit my Grandmother. She was dying. But this story isn't really about her; it only bears her name. I prefer not to portray her the way I found her then. It's best to remember her as the petite, yet large breasted redhead with over-sized glasses to fit her smile rather than her face, with a child-like view of the world and a nostalgic repertoire of lesson-yielding stories which she'd perpetually retell as if we'd never heard them. And there's also the bit about cooking, of course.

Visits home prove a painful reminder of how I'm the black sheep. It seems someone always remarks how dark my hair has gotten, referring to it as "black" when it is not black; it is clearly brown. And, because I do not have a wife and children, I believe I'm regarded as somehow less worthy of my family's love. Also, I'm reminded how my parents continually tried to discipline me for becoming something other than what they wanted me to become, rather than express an effort to get to know me. And how my father sold out his two childrens' happiness for the love of a second wife and her children. He turned away from us. This is the manner in which my family's portraits have come to seem like propaganda to me.

And so, it hurt me deeply when my Grandmother did not recognize me. She did not recall my name; rather, she asked for my step-brothers and seemed preoccupied with them whenever I entered the room, like a cruel joke. At one point, when she mistook me for my step-brother, and my grandfather reminded her of who I was, she remarked that she wanted my step-brother instead. And, of course, she noticed how dark my hair has gotten.

So I escaped to Philadelphia. And met an old friend there. She was visiting from Goteborg, Sweden. We walked the streets of Center City, Philadelphia, that day; looking at shoes and watching people. I left prematurely that night, having been designated a place to sleep on the couch. This, because I don't sleep on couches when the girl I've loved of ten years, but have not seen for eight, inhabits a warm bed in the next room. I was hoping to fall asleep holding her and I'd sooner drive two cold pre-dawn October hours home, keeping company with this shell of a man and ganja, unsure whether I've f*d up love again or done something right for a change, just to make my point. That being... I will not allow you to deprive me of both tooth and claw, only to ridicule me once I've been rendered a defenseless pet. My intentions were only to hold her. And perhaps I don't deserve that. If I come to regret leaving, I'll blame it on excess vodka and the full moon which caused the asphalt I rode out of town to shimmer like burnished silver.

        Jeff Buckley, Lover, you should've come over

        Looking out the door I see a rain that falls upon a field of mourners,
        parading in a wake of sad relations as their shoes fill up with water.
        Maybe I'm too young to keep good love from going wrong...
        But tonight you're on my mind, so,
        you never know.
        Broken down and hungry for your love, but no way to feed it.
        Where are you now? Child, you know how much I need it.
        Too young to hold on, Too old to just break free and run.
        Sometimes a man gets carried away,
        Feels it should be heaven his home,
        Much too blind to see the damage he's done,
        Sometimes a man must wait to find he really has no one.

I spent the night at the house of old high school friends, approximately two hours north of Philadelphia. High school lovers now married. True friends are exceptionally warm-hearted when you locate yourself on their doorstep at 4 a.m. on a weeknight, even if you're not quite yourself at the time.

My apologies to friends in Philadelphia who I did not look up. I had only one day.

Some will say family is the only thing you've got. But when you can't rely on family, you have only friends. Family is f*d. And lovers leave just when you start to need them. Only friends remain.

So I looked up three more old friends from high school. It did not surprise me to find a visit with an old friend proved more palatable than a visit with family or lover. You see, friends are not so inclined to judge or reject. They'll call you on your deviations from righteousness in such a way as to make you feel more welcome among them. With lovers and family, if you do not live up to their designations of who they wish you to be, it's best to leave before you're banished.

I left Pennsylvania as the United States began bombing raids in Afghanistan, once again scanning the am/fm band for NPR and PRI. As I drove, the incongruity of this time began to occur to me.

It evinced itself in repeated appearances of the phrase "United We Stand." This, at a moment in my life when I feel more divided from those with whom I belong than ever. This repeated phrase, along with the American flag flying from antennae of vehicles belonging to elderly, disabled citizens who risk no loss of life or lifestyle as a consequence of pending war, began to smack of the same propaganda I see in my family portraits. That cheeky sort of grin that fades as one's back is turned, the frame exposed, replaced by a derisive scowl.

I received word that my Grandmother had died shortly after I returned to Tampa. Coincidentally, I was out of touch, playing piano in a weekly impromptu ensemble with friends.

So, this story is dedicated to my blue-eyed redhead Grandmother, who always encouraged me to eat and not to drive fast.