Jason Rodriguez - The Moose in the Closet: Enjoy Some Art and Family Business

I have to share the cover of Elk’s Run #4, it is so goddamn good. Datsun Tran folks, please hire this man:

And while you’re looking at beautiful stuff – Jorge Vega and Thorsten Ebert’s THE COAT is like an ocular explosion:

And while we’re at it, fellow conspirator Jacob Warrenfeltz has been impressing the fuck out of me:

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Finishing up the week of stories about my mom’s side of the family…

After Uncle Mike died there was a whole lot of anger in my mom. She didn’t talk to Aunt Jackie, her sister, for a couple of years. At one point Nanny, who generally stays out of people’s business, called my mom and told her to “cut the shit”. Sisters shouldn’t fight for this long, that’s the way it goes.

The circumstances around them talking again were, well, more of the same and completely fucked. My mom got a phone call one day from Aunt Jackie’s husband – Aunt Jackie had a heart attack.

Three days ago.

I drove with my mom out to Staten Island and, despite how god natured and loving my momma usually is, the entire ride consisted of her saying over and over again, “That son of a bitch better not be there or I’ll throw him out of that fucking hospital window.” I said it earlier this week; you don’t want to get on my mom’s bad side. She will fuck you up.

The son of a bitch in question wasn’t there, he was from Red Hook, I’m sure he heard the stories about my mom’s thirst for blood when she gets all riled up.

My Aunt Jackie looked like shit. You can tell she had it bad. I believe she was scheduled to get a quadruple bypass. My mom’s side of the family is prone to Coronary Artery Disease. My mom has it, my Aunt Jackie has it as did Nanny. Outside of the immediate family some of the distant relatives had it as well; I even lost a cousin at 24 years old that had it (didn’t know her too well). So, with my Aunt Jackie, combine CAD with smoking and red meat and you get one fucking massive heart attack.

After a couple of minutes of crying and hugging my mom gets right down to it.

“Why wasn’t I called three days ago.” The answer wasn’t easy for her to take.

“[My husband] thought that we should keep it within the family until I got my strength back.”

Keep it within the family. I’m generally oblivious to insults, it’s like my main weakness, I never know when I’m being insulted – but when my Aunt Jackie said that even I said, “Oh snap!”

The thing is, Aunt Jackie didn’t even get what was wrong with what she said. My mom called her on it though and through clenched teeth she said, “I am family!” I honestly thought my mom was going to strangle her with the IV tube.

There is a big difference between my father’s family and my mom’s. True, they both fight a lot. And true, they usually get over it. But with my mom’s side, family is local. You have your spouse and your kids – that’s your family. Outside of that is second tier. My father’s side – You got your spouse and your kids, your brothers and sisters and their spouses and kids, your cousins and their spouses and kids and your good friends and their spouses and kids. Everything outside of that is second tier but you still treat them like first tier.

I think after being married to my father for (I believe) eighteen years at that point and getting accustomed to his family and the way it works, my Aunt Jackie’s remark was the most hurtful thing she could have said – even if she was only repeating what her husband told her.

But my mom swallowed it down, took it, and stayed around to talk to her sister for the first time in over a year.

And when we were leaving and we saw my cousin Jackie and my mom said to her, “You should have called me” and Jackie responded, “We wanted to keep it within the family at first,” my mom once again took it and hugged my cousin and told her to take care of her mother.

But when she saw the husband in the lobby, no sleep, eyes black, looking worse than my Aunt Jackie, and he came up to say hello, she didn’t even ask him anything. But she was the bigger person; she just walked right past him.

When we got to the car I tried to lighten the mood by taking a shot at the husband. My mom’s response was inspiring, in a word.

“He’ll take care of her. No matter how much of an asshole he is, he’ll do anything for her. He loves her so much.”

And that’s my mom.

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Enjoy Some Art and Family Business

Thursday, May 19, 2005

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