Samantha  

     
  Part 2   

          
          Nana had these family values which, although you were an educated third

generation, you had to succumb to. Boys were better than girls, all pretty girls

were whores, and it was ok to have a favorite child. To disagree with Nana’s

ideals was to be against her, and to be against her was to be against your whole

family. Nana invented the game of Survivor; the whole goal of building alliances,

lying, teaming up, and casting people off into the abyss was originally my Nana’s

idea of how to run a matriarchal lineage. Today’s matriarchal decision: what

Samantha was going to wear to Nana’s funeral.
          
          Nana preferred I be the lucky one to drive her to her appointments at

UCLA. She was diagnosed with fatal cirrhosis of the liver and had been given four

more months to live. If Nana was the head of the herd before, the fatal diagnosis

had granted her permission to be as tyrannical as she wanted. She ruled with an

iron fist. This last year was the most fun she had had in her entire life: she told my

aunt’s husband that he “dressed gay” and that his sons could beat him up; she

told her sister (who she was in constant competition with) that her enchiladas

weren’t very good and she should let someone else make them from now on; she

told my mom that she should leave my dad because he was a “cheating little

asshole”; she told my Uncle Benny that he should have married the 7-11 owner’s

daughter (maybe my Nana could’ve gotten free Bingo scratchers); she told her

sister Cynthia that her husband (my Great Uncle Charlie) had tried to kiss my

Nana 35 years ago when they all went out somewhere together and that he had

secretly been in love with my Nana ever since (she said you could “see it in his

eyes!”); she wrote to Playtex that their tampons would give young girls bladder

infections and that they should pull their line of scented super absorbency

tampons from the shelves before someone died from them; she started the

paperwork to sue the ice cream man who ran over my Uncle Benny 29 years ago

when he was six (Benny was fine and insisted Nana just “Let it go already”). It

was a kamikaze mission to correct every wrong, or at least have fun making

everyone miserable. Yes, this was the best year of her life.



          As the oldest grandkid, I granted her every request, and the long drive to

UCLA was one of many. We listened to Art Labo the whole way there and most of

the way back, every song had a story and there were lots of songs. Sometimes

she was so tired after her appointments that she would fall asleep before we had

even gotten out of the parking garage. Today’s freeway conversation centered on

what Samantha was going to wear to Nana’s funeral. Nana spared no expense

when it came to her needs or desires and Tata (my grandpa) lived to serve. So

when Nana wanted to spend $1,800 on a little Chihuahua, bam! we were blessed

with the addition of Samantha – named after Nana’s favorite character on All My

Children. Nana wanted Samantha to wear a dress she had bought at the swap

meet a few weeks ago, but I had tried to tell her that the funeral home didn’t allow

dogs. 

          “Tell them I put it in my will,” Nana said. She said I, like she was Queen 

Elizabeth.
  
          “Nana, they don’t care if you put ‘peace on earth, good will to men’ in your

will, they still don’t allow dogs, unless they lead the blind or predict seizures.”

          The thought of Nana putting ‘good will to men’ in her will made me laugh

inside - it would be much more fun to shock people with confessions or secrets.

Nana hated men. It was her version of feminism.



          “Tell them Cynthia has seizures. They’ll take one look at her and know she


needs help, with her hair all flat in the back. She never uses her mirrors right. I

told her, I said, ‘Cynthia, you stand with your back to the mirror and you hold up

the other mirror and you check to make sure you don’t have any flat spots’ but

she doesn’t listen and she uses that cheap hairspray,” Nana went on about

Cynthia’s failure at hairstyling, hair coloring, choosing men, which of Cynthia’s

children should have been aborted, and finally that we had to stop and pick her up

after the appointment because Cynthia was going to color Nana’s hair.



          “I want Samantha to sit in the front row next to your Tata and don’t let

Benny’s kids play rough with her. You know what, don’t let them touch her, she

gets upset when they pull on her. She doesn’t like her clothes getting all messed

up.”

          That dog doesn’t give a damn about its costumes – it likes to roll in shit!



          “Ok, Nana,” I said, even though I wasn’t, in a million years, going to pass off


that little rat as a guide dog. “I’ll get Samantha’s clothes washed too,” I thought if I


added more details that were believable, it would please Nana. What she couldn’t

know wouldn’t hurt her.



          “And she can’t wear a leash. She doesn’t like the leash.” The dog didn’t like


anything; leash, collar, people.



          “I know, I wasn’t gonna put a leash on her.” Because she’s not gonna be there.



                                                                                                    
                                                                                                              (End of Part 2)


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