Welcome Aboard

The first thing I smelled was the salt coming off the ocean. It surrounded me, permeating everything. It smelled... CLEAN, almost like laundry that had just come off the line, dried outside in the open air. I could smell the moisture in the air, but I couldn’t feel any dampness or humidity. The aroma was fresh and green, like an expensive organic room spray, but better.

The gentle pressure of another hand in mine caused me to turn my head. Nana was looking at me, love in her eyes and her smile. Her teeth were white, her smooth skin glowed, and her salt-and-pepper kinky bob was styled in a full, perfect twistout. She wore a short-sleeved coral linen dress with a full skirt, simple leather sandals on her feet. I looked down at my own attire. It wasn’t that fancy: a white tee, blue jeans and sneakers.

We stood on a pier by the beach on the ocean. And we weren’t the only people on the pier. We all were waiting for...something.

Suddenly, a ship appeared on the horizon. As it drew closer, it grew larger and grander. I’d never seen a yatch in real life before, but it reminded me of something that a very wealthy person would own. It was glowed white, like a pearl, and I could see colors reflected as it moved in the sunlight. Oh, yeah – it was IRIDESCENT. That’s the word I’m looking for.

Nana tugged my hand and smiled. “Are you ready, Bethany?” she asked. “Let’s go.”

I would go to the ends of the earth with Nana. I couldn’t imagine a world without her. As she led, I followed. I couldn’t wait to board this beautiful ship.

The other passengers boarded first. Since the gangplank was only wide enough for a single person, she let go my hand as she began to ascend it. As I went to step, I discovered that my feet were stuck on the pier. I struggled, but I couldn’t walk because it felt like the soles of my shoes were glued to the ground. “Nana!” I called, but she never turned around. Desperately, I bent down to untie my shoelaces, so that I could board the ship barefoot. But I couldn’t take my feet out of my shoes. I reached out as I watched the gangplank being drawn back into the ship, and I looked up to see Nana standing behind the closing gate.

“Nana!” I yelled. She still didn’t hear me. She was greeted by a tall, handsome caramel-skinned man, who was dressed in a captain’s uniform. Her back was toward me as she reached out and hugged him with great affection – how does she know the captain? I wondered. “Nana, don’t leave me here! Don’t leave without me!” I cried.

The ship began to move away from the pier. Only then did she turn her head, as if she’d heard my voice as a faint cry on the wind. But she never responded to me. Ocean waves began to crash against the pier, growing higher and higher as the water completely drenched me. I heard music in the air, the melody of an old familiar tune, and I heard my grandmother begin to sing. I strained to hear the lyrics, but I couldn’t understand, through the noise of the crashing waves...

“BETHANY!” I woke from my sleep with a jolt. My pajamas were wet and I struggled to breathe. My Aunt Mel stood just inside my bedroom door. “Jesus, girl! Ain’t that deep a sleep in the world! I’m about to go up to the hospital. You comin’?” Aunt Mel yelled at me, turning to walk away. “You got five minutes. Ain’t nobody got time to be waiting on you.” Her voice faded as she moved down the hallway, but I could still hear her cursing as she looked for her keys.

As I got up from the bed, I figured out that the dampness of my pajamas didn’t come from a night sweat, but from water that Aunt Mel threw on me to wake me up, from the large pink plastic tumbler I saw in her hand. I quickly dressed and spent all of 90 seconds in the bathroom. I stumbled downstairs, ran out the door and I climbed into the car, where the stink of old beer and Black & Milds punched me in the face.

I spent the ride to U of L Hospital looking out the window, not wanting to further upset Aunt Mel. She called herself “curvy” and “luscious”, but I thought she was just fat, loud and tacky. Everything was “rainbow” today - the box braids pulled up into a bun; her stained tank top barely covered her large breasts and an even larger gut; those cheap leggings that barely stretched up to cover her backside when she sat down; all the way down to her athletic sandals displaying a chipped pedicure. She may be my aunt, but she was the Urban Dictionary’s definition of “ghetto.” After Nana got sick, the courts decided she should be my guardian while my mother finished her year at Pewee Valley, the Kentucky Correctional Facility for Women.

The ride couldn’t have been over soon enough. We headed up to the floor where my grandmother’s room was. Aunt Tasha, dressed in basic turquoise scrubs, sat with her hands clamped together and she was whispering and muttering prayers to her God. Uncle Jeff and Uncle Ham were there, having spent the night camped out on the cushioned chairs. The floor was relatively quiet, but the atmosphere heavy with disease and anxiety. I could feel the tension in the Waiting Area, particularly between my two aunts, who had a long-running argument about some family issue that no one would talk to me about. They would simply pretend that I wasn’t there, their hurled accusations and insults flying over my head. Aunt Tasha was trying to keep the peace, but I knew it was only a matter of time before Aunt Mel would start up. I stood for a second, then started for Nana’s room.

“Bethany.” Aunt Tasha’s voice stopped me. “The doctor’s in with her now, giving her something to help her relax. Why don’t you stay out here?” She extended her arms toward me for a hug and I went reluctantly, not because I didn’t love Aunt Tasha, but I was anxious to see Nana.

“What did the doctor say?” I didn’t want to hear the answer, but I asked the question all the same. Tears welled in Aunt Tasha’s eyes and kept her from speaking.

“Hours,” Uncle Jeff answered, his raspy baritone voice filling the area. “Days at most.” Aunt Mel split the room her cursing as she flopped down into a chair. He continued. “But those doctors don’t know everything. Things could still turn around, and she could outlive all of us. Know what I mean?” He reached to tap his brother with the back of his hand. Uncle Ham remained silent and motionless, his red eyes and twisting mouth betraying what he really believed.

Aunt Tasha found her voice. “Well, diabetes, high blood pressure and congestive heart failure need to be handled. But she’d forget to take her meds, to fill prescriptions, she wasn’t watching her diet -”

All movement and conversation in the Unit were stopped by the singing.

“’Tis the Ol’ Ship of Zion

‘Tis the Ol’ Ship of Zion

‘Tis the Ol’ Ship of Zion

Get on board! Get on board!”

Nana’s singing voice calmed my anxiety a little. It seemed to dispel the tension in the room. But only for a moment.

“Sounds like y’all didn’t give her enough medication,” Aunt Mel squawked. “Somebody ain’t doin’ they job!” She laughed, the rolls in her breasts and belly jiggling.

Aunt Tasha exhaled, closing her eyes and leaning her forehead down into the palms of both hands. “Mel! This ain’t the time! Momma’s dying, and you wanna play, just like you do with everything else in your life.”

“Well, guess what, Miss Sanctified?” Aunt Mel leaned forward in her chair, pointing and gesturing as she spoke. Nothing about her was quiet. “Everybody got to die one day! You, me, Ham, Jeff, the doctors, the nurses, the president, and even that preacher you LUUUVVV so much. Even,” and she looked at me, “Miss Bethany here, one day, will wind up either worm food or ashes.” She leaned back again in her seat. “I’m just being real. Was your head in the sand, all those years we lived in Parkhill? Folk getting killed right and left. People dying every day – here today, GONE today. SHHHOOOOOO - your preacher preached they funerals!”

Aunt Tasha shook her head, palms pressed against her closed eyes. “Mel -”

Seemed like Aunt Mel lived her entire life to pick at Aunt Tasha. “Everybody sitting up in them churches, bawlin’ they eyes out, ‘cause somebody they know ain’t here no more. Well, not me. Here y’all worshipping the ground that Momma walked on, and she’s just a woman like you and me, with the same stuff in between her legs, ‘cept it’s-”

Aunt Tasha raised one hand, closing her thumb and index finger to a centimeter’s width. Her low voice meant business. “If you don’t shut up, you ’bout this close to finding out how much more of Parkhill Projects is still in me.”

Nana’s voice traveled from her room. “It has landed many a-thousand...”

Aunt Mel’s response was knee-jerk. She looked pointedly at the Nurses Station. “Will one of y’all get off your butts and go shut her up?” But it was Aunt Tasha who bolted from her chair, trying to get to Aunt Mel to shut HER up. Aunt Mel was up just as quickly, and Uncle Jeff and Ham moved to prevent the inevitable altercation, each of them grabbing a sister and trying to shush the arguments and obscenities that rolled over the entire floor.

I couldn’t watch. I managed to escape the unfolding drama and went down the hall to Nana’s room. Nurses and a couple of security guards were trying to get my family under control, so they weren’t paying me any attention. I entered the room as Nana finished her chorus.

“Get on board!” Nana was hooked up to machines, and their tubes and cords extended from them to her chest and arms. It didn’t look like either of my aunts made time to tend to Nana’s hair, because it was spread wild all over her head and her pillow. She was obviously weak, but she managed to raise one of her hands toward something unseen in front of her. It dawned on me that the song Nana was singing was the same melody I had heard in my dream. I went to her and touched her outstretched hand.

“Nana?” I couldn’t help my tears. I knew what was about to happen. It seemed like everyone else was oblivious to my misery. I laid my head on her chest. “Nana, you can’t die. You can’t go anywhere. Mel and Tasha are fighting in the Waiting Room. It’s all so – MESSY. You’re the only one who can fix what’s going on. You gotta get better.”

I felt her hand on my head. I looked at her and she cradled my face in her hands. “Are you ready, Bethany?” she asked. “Don’t you see it?” She moved a hand away from my face to point to the unseen vision before her. I looked in the direction of her outstretched hand, as if I could see it, too.

“There’s no danger in God’s water -”

And for just a moment, the dreamscape appeared in my mind’s eye: the crashing waves, the breeze coming off the ocean, and that huge, iridescent ship moving toward us from the horizon.

I tasted the tears that rolled down my face. I was holding my breath, so I exhaled, then inhaled.

Once again, I smelled salt.