Hoochie Coochie

By Nan DePlume

Installment Six: In which our hero and her brother compare notes on gender, bodies, and Donald Trump.

Ned shows up at my door about 45 minutes late, as usual. Carrying a casserole tastier than anything I could ever make, as usual. He can be a pain in the ass, but I love my brother.

I put his casserole in the oven and grab a bottle of white wine from the fridge. As I walk over to the couch to fill Ned’s glass, his gaze is sharp enough to feel.

“Does that blouse have shoulder pads?”

“Yeah, I had a client meeting this afternoon, so I dressed up a bit.”

His eyes narrow in consideration. “Well, I guess the shoulder pads are slimming. But they’re awfully 1985, aren’t they?”

“Who wouldn’t want to relive 1985? That was a pretty good year.”

Decades of experience have taught me that the best defense against Ned’s fashion bitchery is imperviousness. Which fortunately, I come by honestly. Ned would be mortified to be caught wearing something so awkwardly retro, but if I don’t have any labels sticking out, I consider an outfit a success. It drives him crazy.

I pour him a full glass of chardonnay, with a matching one for myself. We take big, grateful sips.

“Did you hear the latest with Mom?”

“What now?” I ask.

“She says she’s going to vote for Donald Trump.”

“What? Why? She wasn’t even Republican until a few years ago—and now she wants to vote for a Mussolini wannabe?”

“She says, and I quote: ‘To piss everybody off’” Ned grins. “Looks like it’s working, too.”

“You’re not annoyed? Or scared? First Dad dies, and now our mother is a Trump supporter? It’s worse than being orphans.”

“Get a grip, Nan, it’s just her way of getting attention. If it looks like she’s actually going to vote for Trump, I’ll personally deliver her mail-in ballot to the trash.”

“That’s underhanded,” I say, knowing I’ll do the same, if it falls to me.

Ned and I have a pact to divvy up the unpleasant duties that come with having an aging parent. Watching once-reasonable elders fall prey to Fox News brainwashing—and dealing with the fallout—is one of the most painful.

“Do you think Mom is as crazy as she acts, or has she been putting us on all these years?” I ask.

“She’s either batshit crazy, or she has the weirdest sense of humor in existence. I mean, so weird, absolutely no one, besides maybe Dad ever got it.”

“What’s the evidence for your sense-of-humor theory?”

“Well, for starters, our names,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Seriously: Nan and Ned? That’s either insanity or a joke no one gets—least of all us.”

“You know, I asked her about that once, and she told me she gave us those names so our family would sound WASP-y yet interesting.”

“WASP-y yet interesting?”

“Yeah, like a John Updike novel. I swear, that’s what she said. You don’t forget a thing like that.”

“Even though Mom’s name is Giovanna and her Italian accent comes out when she’s had a few pops?”

“Admittedly, she doesn’t make for the most convincing WASP. But for some weird reason—“

“I blame John Updike,” Ned says.

“…she’s always wanted our family to be as white-bread as possible.”

“Maybe that explains the Trump thing.”

“There will never be an explanation for the Trump thing. He is truly inexplicable,” I say, moving Ned’s sweating glass from the polished surface of my coffee table onto the coaster an inch to the left. I picked up my coaster fixation from Mom; the woman’s right about a few things.

* * * *

We sit down to the moussaka Ned brought, accompanied by the corn-on-the-cob I’d boiled and buttered.

“Man, this is delicious,” I exclaim, meaning it. “When did you learn to cook Greek?”

“From Akis.”

“I thought Akis was a Cypriot.”

“Close enough.”

“Why could I never find a man I could stand who could cook?”

“Why could you never find a man you could stand?”

The question makes me feel both nostalgic and wistful. “Growing up, who would have thought you’d have a husband before me?”

“Me,” Ned says.

“So where’s Bruce tonight?” Ned’s husband, Bruce, is a six-two, handsome pilot who’s often away from home and sometimes whisks Ned off to exotic locales—all of which makes me somewhat jealous of my little brother.

“Mexico City.”

“Cool. I’ve always wanted to see Mexico City. But back to when we were growing up: You’ve got to give me some credit for perceiving—and abetting—your gayness early on.”

“Abetting?”

“For starters, I never told Mom you were wearing my clothes, even after you spilled Hawaiian Punch on my favorite yellow skirt, making it look like I’d gotten my period in it.”

“Hey, the wearing-your-clothes experiment only lasted one summer. And it wasn’t much of a thrill. Not sure if that’s because I didn’t want to be a girl—I was just trying to figure out what was up with me—or because your clothes were so horrible.” Ned stares at my blouse again. “You know, I think I recognize that top. I’m pretty sure I wore it once or twice back in 1985.”

“Shut up, I bought this like, two years ago,” I say, wishing I’d changed into the sweats or jeans I usually wore. “So you never wanted to be a girl?” I ask, in part to throw the focus back on him.

“Nope. Why would you think that?”

“Well, that summer you kept stealing my clothes, for one thing. And then there was that time after college when we were roommates in San Francisco and I came home early and overheard that guy in your gay writers’ group reading that poem about his…what did he call it?”

“Oh, god! His man-coochie! I’ll never forget that as long as I live. That was hilarious.”

“Hilarious, definitely—but maybe something else, too. Maybe you had some coochie envy yourself. Could be that all men have it, for all I know.”

“Coochie envy? Is that a Freudian term?”

“Don’t make fun of me, Ned. You know what I mean.”

“I remember hearing you snickering in the hallway that night. Luckily Mr. Man-Coochie—I forget his name—didn’t hear you. He would have been crushed. He was one of the most earnest people I’ve ever met.”

“I guess having a man-coochie will do that to you. But you know what, Ned?”

“What, Nan?”

“His ode to his anus also made me kind of mad.”

“Why? You have an anus, too.”

“I know, but somehow by elevating his butthole to man-coochie status, he was demoting my lady-coochie.”

“Your lady-coochie?”

“Yes! Which isn’t a damn lady-coochie. It’s just a frickin’ coochie! The only real coochie there is!”

“Don’t get yourself all worked up, girl. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use the term ‘coochie’ before, and now it’s like you can’t stop.”

“I’ll try, but it’s just…there’s so much garbage that goes along with having a…uh, being a woman. Like menstruation—ugh!—even the word is gross. Cramps. Worry about how much it’ll hurt to lose your virginity. Worry about getting knocked up. And then I hear this whispery-voiced ‘poet’—and you know I’m using that term loosely—and it was like, he was appropriating the coochie without going through any of the bad stuff.”

“Appropriating the coochie? Can you hear yourself?”

“I know it’s weird—and maybe it sounds hostile—but as I stood there listening to him going on and on, I felt an urge to run into the room and pull down my pants and make all you boys cry by gyrating in your faces and shouting ‘This is a damn coochie! And this here is a butthole. And you know what, I have both…so there!’”

“A little hostile, yes. But it certainly would have livened up the meeting.”

Ned went into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of wine. Hearing the crack of a screwcap, I realize little brother has opened a second bottle of chardonnay without asking permission. Typical.

He pours wine for both of us, then looks at me the way he looked at my blouse before. “So…if you found having a coochie so tough, did you ever want to be a man? I mean, our junk is pretty cool.”

“I know you guys think so, but penises can be all kinds of trouble. And especially now that I’ve had decades to get used to it, I’m sticking with the coochie.”