Happy Birthday

Happy birthday, honey. How does it feel to be 50? The big 5-O. Ha ha. What I would give to be 50 again. I’m 76. Can you believe it? 50’s not old; I’m old. I don’t feel it, though. Age is just a number. Right? Except in the morning with the usual aches and pains, or when it’s going to rain. My joints hurt more then. But what am I saying? I’m just calling to wish you a happy birthday.

What are you doing today? I hope you are doing something special. You deserve it. You’re my special boy. Oh, I know you’re not a boy anymore. You haven’t been a little boy for a very long time. I don’t care how big you are, or how old you get. You’re always going to be my special boy.

Now don’t joke about being retarded. I don’t mean special in that way. You only took a short bus to school that one year, and I still won’t forgive your dad for making a joke about that. It was in poor taste. It wasn’t your fault we lived in the middle of nowhere, and the middle school was so small the school board couldn’t justify the cost of a normal-sized bus.

I feel just awful for laughing when he cracked the joke. It wasn’t funny, and you turned so red. You did everything to keep from crying. But we can laugh about it now, can’t we? We have to look back and laugh sometimes, or we’ll die miserably. Who said that? Shakespeare? Steinbeck? No? I heard it from somewhere. Brenda, where I get my hair done. Maybe.

Gosh, I can’t believe it. 50. It seems like it was only yesterday when I brought you home from the hospital. You don’t remember that, of course. Your father was away in the Sea of Japan, and I was living with your grandparents. His parents, that is. Your grandfather came home from the lumber yard, and he wouldn’t allow anyone to hold you until he did. Remember that? He thought you were something pretty amazing. He would carry you out to the street and wait for the ice cream truck to come along. You were just a tiny baby. It would still be far down the street with a whole line of kids waiting for their cones and popsicles and orange cream-sicles, but we could hear that tinny music box tune blaring from the speakers on the roof. And when you got a little older, and we went up to visit them, he would hold your hand, and you both would wait for the truck to come by so he could buy you a fudge-sicle. Most of it would end up all over your face and down your shirt. It got to where I just took off all your clothes and your grandpa took you out there in your Spiderman underwear.

Oh, but you were a beautiful baby. You had such curly hair and long, beautiful lashes.

I wanted a girl. Did I ever tell you that? Don’t get me wrong. I’m delighted with how you came out, but secretly I wanted a little girl.

Your dad was ecstatic when we found out you were a boy. He high-fived the doctor when I went in for an ultrasound. Can you believe that? You’d have thought the Seahawks had won the Super Bowl; he was so happy. He was able to come home on leave for a couple of weeks before his unit went on the float to Japan. I so wanted a girl.

Nobody knows this, but I would dress you up as a girl when you were just a tiny baby. You weren’t more than two or three months old. I bought some clothes and kept them hidden in the trunk. When I took you with me to the A&P, I’d change you in the parking lot before putting you in your carriage. It never hurt anyone, and, besides, you couldn’t tell a boy from a girl when a baby is that small. All the ladies in line at the checkout would peer in the carriage where you were sleeping and ooh and aah over how beautiful you were. No one knew.

Well, it’s not entirely true. One day, I ran into my sister. Your Aunt Abby. It must have been October because I had you wrapped up in a blanket; it was getting cool out. I was at the deli counter, waiting my turn with about a dozen other people. She came up behind me. Startled the heck out of me, too. “There’s my nephew,” she said at the top of her lungs. Before I could do or say anything, like say you were sleeping, she swept you up out of the carriage. The blanket fell away, and you were in a little rosy dress with frilly white lace around the collar and sleeves. You drew your chunky little thighs up the way babies do and kept on sleeping. Everyone stopped and stared. I never felt so ashamed.

Your Aunt Abby told me she understood completely. She said she would never tell a soul. She never did tell anyone, as far as I know, but we did have a little chuckle about it when I last went to see her. This was before she died. Cervical cancer. You remember that? It got your great-grandmother, too. My grandma, Clara. And my Aunt Bernie, but I think that was the lung. She smoked an awful lot. Three, four packs a day. Remember? We didn’t know any better; and if we did, we pretended we didn’t.

It wasn’t like I was doing anything wrong, dressing you up like that and pretending you were a girl. You turned out okay. Ha ha. You’re not gay. Not that it would be a bad thing if you were, honey. My best friend from school was gay. Ritchie. You remember Ritchie. He kept it hidden when we were kids and growing up. He had to. It just wasn’t accepted back then like it is today. But I knew he was different from the other boys. It was our secret.

You must remember Ritchie. He came to see us that one time in July. You were eleven years old. You had just started wearing glasses. He was living in Reno but came out to Buffalo on business. He stayed at our house. It was so good to see him after so many years. We had gone our separate ways but kept in touch with letters and a phone call on our birthday. We shared the same birthday. He had lost a lot of weight since I last saw him before we left California. He had taken up going to the gym. He wasn’t a bodybuilder type, but he had filled out in the right places. We had such a good time talking about home, catching up, and laughing. Then he goes quiet and says: I’m getting married. And I go: To a man? He just nodded and blushed. It wasn’t legal or official in those days, not like today. But there were ways - ceremonies, even if they weren’t official, I guess.

He invited us to the wedding. Your father said no. Not to Ritchie’s face, of course. He said he’d have to request leave from his CO. Later that night, as we were getting into bed, he said there was no way we were going. He liked Ritchie and had nothing against him, but it was a sin. He couldn’t go along with that. He’s right, you know. Hate the sin, love the sinner, as they say.

Still, I wish I could have been there. Ritchie sent me photos of him and Mark all dressed up in their tuxedos and standing at the altar. It wasn't really an altar; just a table with a white cloth and a candle on it. It wasn’t even in a church. They couldn’t do that back then. I think it was in his mother’s living room. It was a beautiful ceremony.

Your father says hi. He’s doing okay. He had another fall recently. Nothing serious. Just a bruise up his backside. He’s getting around with help from a walker. I’m trying to get him back to using just a cane. He gets his days mixed up sometimes. That happens to me, too. It’s not like we have to get up and go to work, or anything. I caught him trying to head out the door the other night. I heard him moving around. It was two in the morning. I asked him where he thought he was going. He said he had a meeting with Pastor Bill and Ray Fox. Pastor Bill died two years ago, and Ray lives all the way out in Santa Monica. He didn’t believe me. He must have had a dream, or was sleepwalking. He’s forgetful. He comes into the living room and just stands there a moment, like he’s not sure where he is. I sometimes forget why I went into a room. We spent a whole morning looking for his keys; I found them in the coffee pot. I have to repeat myself to him a couple of times, remind him of things like the names of people from church. So, yeah, he’s acting a bit squirrely, but he’s always been a bit squirrely. He’s got a doctor’s appointment next week, but it’s nothing to worry about.

I love you, and I miss you. I just wanted to call to wish you a happy birthday.

BIO: John Neal writes stories about living abroad. He likes a good ghost story, too. His work has been published in Long River Review and The Penman Review. He lives in Malaga, Spain.

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