Getting Gertie Out

By Paul Alan Fahey

It's summer vacation. Lanta Cross is sixteen and at odds with Bernadette, her adoptive mother. She'll do anything to get away from home and out from under Bernadette's considerable thumb.


Already working one part-time job at a local café, Lanta takes another at Saint Catherine's Elder Care Facility. At first it appears her duties are something she can do blindfolded -- wheeling residents to and from activities, cleaning up their messes, and mainly staying out of the way of the LVNs and the administrator, Ms. Andrews. During her first week at the home, Lanta meets and befriends an elderly lesbian resident, Gertrude Weiss. They bond quickly.


Yet not everything is what it seems at St. Catherine's.


When Gertrude's journal full of her thoughts about her late partner goes missing, the abuse begins. Gertrude's meals are late and cold. Her seemingly friendly roommate asks for a transfer to another room. As the harassment escalates, Gertrude's physical and emotional health deteriorates.


Lanta and her mother must pool their resources and work as a team to save Gertrude's life before it's too late. Will they be in time?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Nov 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781611527070

Paul Alan Fahey

Paul Alan Fahey, author of the writer’s resource, The Short and Long of It, and the Lovers and Liars gay wartime romance series, is also edited the 2013 Rainbow Award-winning nonfiction anthology, The Other Man: 21 Writers Speak Candidly About Sex, Love, Infidelity, & Moving On. For more information, visit paulalanfahey.com.

Book preview

Getting Gertie Out

By Paul Alan Fahey

Published by JMS Books LLC

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2014 Paul Alan Fahey

ISBN 9781611527070

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Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author's imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

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Special Acknowledgment

A very grateful thank you to Marie Cartier, author of Baby, You Are my Religion: Women, Gay Bars, and Theology Before Stonewall, for her touching and beautiful article about her friend, Rae, that became the inspiration for writing Getting Gertie Out.

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Visit paulalanfahey.com for more resources on LGBT elder abuse.

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Getting Gertie Out

By Paul Alan Fahey

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Gay and lesbian elders have lived long enough to see amazing changes: marriage rights, the rise of AIDS activism, celebrities coming out. But there is something that may drive some of them back into the closet: long-term care.

--Nursing homes can push gay seniors back into the closet, Gay Seniors.com, October 23, 2012.

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Chapter 1: Killing Bernadette

Sometimes I dream of killing my mother. I've read it's a common thing for teens, but that doesn't help me much. I know it's my sub-something or other taking over while I sleep. I read that, too, in a school text. If you knew Bernadette, you'd understand. She's not my real mother. Biological I mean. She and her late husband, Jim, adopted me as an infant. Sometimes I wonder why my mother gave me away, if Bernadette knows the reason. Was I unwanted, unloved?

I'm afraid to find out the answer.

It's the summer before my senior year. I'm almost seventeen, practically an adult, but Bernadette still treats me like a child. Wants to know where I'm going, what I'm doing, who I'm doing it with--as if I had that many friends to choose from.

A few weeks back, I got a summer scholarship to a college program in Oregon. Something special for high school kids with decent SAT scores.

Nope, you're not going, honey. Too far away. Bernadette came up with tons of excuses. What would she do if the bus had an accident? Then she recited a horror story she'd read online about a school bus full of kids coming home from a college visit; ten kids killed and twelve injured. Definitely something that wouldn't happen again in a million years.

La-di-da--tra-la--la.

Bernadette went on and on, making up silly reasons why my trip couldn't happen--more dumb stuff. Finally, I wrote the school a letter saying I couldn't accept the summer scholarship and to give it to someone else. Then I went and found two part time jobs and had the stylist at Quick Clips cut my hair real short. Bernadette hated that.

You have such beautiful hair, a shade of ebony most girls your age would die for. Why go and chop it all off?

Why indeed.

I'm happier when I'm working at the café, bussing tables, setting out places, doing dishes in the kitchen, but at home, well, anyone can see my problem. Everywhere I look, she's there.

I start my other part-time job this morning at St. Catherine's Elder Care. God, I hope it's not too religious. I'm already having a problem with the old people part. Bernadette says I should call them elderly since it's more P.C.

Whatever.

I just need to make enough money to get out of here. Someday.

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This morning at breakfast was a good example of what I'm talking about. Bernadette shuffled over to me in her padded slippers. The pink ones with the white bows she had me buy her last Christmas. In addition to horrible taste in slippers, she was obviously having a bad hair day; gray and white spiky wisps shot out all over her face like that Greek woman with the snakes on her head.

Bernadette works five days a week at our library, cataloging and stamping books, and I'll bet driving people crazy like she does at home. I keep telling her to take better care of her appearance. Run a comb through her hair before she comes down to breakfast, wear a bit more make-up to work, or buy a new dress. Those kinds of things. But will she listen?

You need to eat something, she said, as I pushed my cereal off to the side. Who knows what they'll have you doing today.

Nothing more than wheeling people up and down corridors. I'm supposed to help with the morning activities. Bingo anyone?

She shook her head disapprovingly and sighed. You should be more respectful of your elders.

Meaning her.

I'll do my best. I started to get up but she pulled out a chair and sat down across from me.