A Brief History of Male Nudes in America by Dianne Nelson, Dianne Nelson Oberhansly Page B

those two in the Texaco and Mobil gas station rest rooms going at it, full tilt, right up on those dirty counters next to where the rusted sinks are always dripping. Never any toilet paper or hand towels in those places. The mirrors cracked and filthy. Mind you—all of this on Misty’s half-hour lunches from the bank. If Dixon were alive, he’d die at the thought of himself banging away to the tune of impact wrenches, some big Buick getting its tires rotated nearby.
    But it was the dead twin story that brought my mother to her breaking point. She marched into my kitchen one morning not so long ago, and she said that my father was too old, so it was up to me to stop all this horse trash about Dixon. Her hands were shaking and there were big tears in her eyes. My mother is barely five feet tall, Dixon’s death has been a real setback for her, and standing there dressed in one of her bright golf outfits—though she’s never played a day of golf in her life—she presented a petite but imposing argument.
    â€œMom,” I told her, sitting at the table, still in my robe, “I love to see you, but I wish you’d call before you drop in.” I was eating a bowl of Cheerios and, like a kid, reading the back of the box, trying to get my energy up. Mornings are hard on me. The good, deep sleep I used to have has become a rare commodity; I toss and turn, drift in and out of a dark fitfulness. I think rather than dream.
    â€œWhat? You think your seventy-year-old father should go defend Dixon’s name? Wake up, Hillary,” she said, her hands on her boxy hips, a pose she assumes for the most serious subjects that intrude on her life. “Being part of a family isn’t a free ride, you know. There’s responsibility and it’s looking you square in the face. I’ll admit that Dixon had his hard times and did not always think in a straight line, but what I’m hearing about him is absurd and downright mean. Wherever he is,” she said, looking awkwardly up and then left and right, “he doesn’t deserve this.”
    For the most part, my family believes in good citizenship, not religion, so it was difficult when Dixon died. We had no place to send him—no beautiful, light-filled landscape to imagine him in. Yet, even without a heaven, we found ourselves still thinking of Dixon as being somewhere, though when we spoke of him we never knew in which direction to refer. We craned our heads upward, or, then embarrassed, we peered far out beyond the freeway to the muted horizon.
    I have never liked being trapped in a corner where suddenly all the alternatives are savagely reduced, but that’s just where my mom had me. I turned forty-one last December and that’s old enough to talk and think for yourself, though age has no meaning when your mother tells you she’s hit rock bottom and needs your help. Dixon was her only son, her first and probably last mystery, the one she made cherry pie for, the one who would send her to a chair laughing at his knock-knock jokes or his imitations of the latest dances. Once, demonstrating the moon walk for us, he backed right off the front porch and corkscrewed his elbow hard into the ground. Had to wear a sling for two weeks, and if you asked him about it, Dixon just laughed and said he’d do anything to get a two-week prescription of codeine.
    Everything else you’ve heard about Dixon, all the little pieces of gossip that have floated your way, they hold about as much truth as a wet sock. I know that most nights Gordon Jenner can be found in a local bar yakking away about somebody, and more often than not, it’s Dixon. Jenner puts his feet up on the table, and he tries to make a living off my brother—stories of Dixon in camouflage and war paint, of Dixon wrecking cars and just walking away from them, the smoke spiraling up and the gas tanks about to blow. But Jenner has silt for brains. He’s lived too