“Betty,” I say, “you’re ninety years old. If you got it, flaunt it. Now would be the time.” She looks at me quizzically, pulls her shoulders back, and heads out the door.
My mother and I rarely go to movies together, a situation stemming from the fact that forty years ago I somehow manipulated my parents into taking me to see Jane Fonda in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?—which was “Suggested for Mature Audiences”—one Easter Sunday. (The sacredness of the date was emphasized for decades as an essential part of the horror of it all, when the story was told.) Unfortunately, the movie, which dealt with a group of doomed participants in a 1930s dance marathon, turned out to be the most depressing film ever made.
My father, who seemed to be expecting something spicier, registered disappointment as we walked to the car afterward. Betty, significantly more aroused, was appalled by the fact that the movie was ever shown in America. Or anywhere. She couldn’t believe I had lured her into such an experience. Jane Fonda, previously a “reprobate,” a “Communist reprobate,” or “an unmarried, topless reprobate,” became simply the woman “in that movie, that movie you dragged us to on Easter Sunday.” Some years later, when Gig Young, who won an Oscar for his role in the movie, committed suicide, my mother read it in the paper and flung the article across the table at me.
So, The Master: I know she doesn’t even want to see the movie. She has another motive altogether. My mother, reluctantly and rebelliously, takes her prescription medications—morning, noon, and night. But she is kept alive—and this is an absolute fact—by regular Dairy Queen Blizzards, which she acquires at the Columbia DQ. Her entire interest in the trip is the Blizzard. My plan is to get the tickets to the film, go get her the Blizzard, and then come back to see the movie, where, I hope, she will doze.
But when I buy the tickets, I realize that the film goes on a half hour before I thought. The Blizzard has to be postponed. Not happy, but a good sport, Betty allows herself to be temporarily placated with popcorn. But the Ragtag Cinema in Columbia, too hip and healthy for its own good, does not have butter for popcorn. They have olive oil. Starting on the popcorn, Betty eyes it suspiciously after a few bites, then glances at me ferociously. “What is on this popcorn?” I answer, “Olive oil.” She is furious. “What right,” she inquires, “do they have to do that? Are they Italian?”
Finally, the movie begins. I know, in about four seconds—certainly by the time Joaquin Phoenix drinks his first glass of turpentine—that I am going to hate it. Worse, I know that she is going to really hate it. I sense a potential They Shoot Horses situation in the making. I pray for sleep to wrap its gentle arms around her. But no. She is wide awake, rustling and squirming, sighing dramatically about every ten minutes. At one point, there is a scene where all the women in the room are suddenly nude. My mother sits up. “Good night,” she says. (Both my parents talked louder in movie theaters than anyone I have ever encountered.) “This is terrible.” I whisper in her ear, “Stop talking or no Blizzard.” Immediate silence. This continues for a half hour.
Then, a loud exhalation and a comment that seems to be nearly shouted: “Why in the world would anyone make a movie like this?” Our neighbors in the theater turn to my mother, who begins to rummage loudly through what she calls her “pocketbook.” I lean toward her, whisper, “Blizzard.” She settles, but I no longer can pay any attention to the movie.
. . .
High on Blizzard, Betty is alert as we head toward home. I switch on the radio. It is Bartók night on KBIA. Betty, whose last favored tune was the love theme from The Titanic, flicks off the switch militantly. The miles pass. She leans over to check my speed about every fifteen minutes.
At some point, she fixes me in her gaze.
“Rachel Maddow,” she announces, “is a lesbian. I read it in an article. And I’ll tell you something else. I think Ingrid Wilbur is a lesbian too.” Something in her tone suggests that I am the executor of a Watergate-style conspiracy designed solely to bar her from this revelation. Ingrid, the assistant to my mother’s physician, stands five feet tall, wears cargo pants, and is topped by a head that bears a near-perfect shave.
“Ingrid Wilbur,” I say, “was there when they invented it.”