Shareware Supreme Volume 6 #1/swsii.zip/swsii/201/RUBYV26.ZIP/RUBY26-3

Text File | 1993-09-25 | 9KB | 180 lines

Copyright 1993(c)

                       STAYING WITH GRANNY
                        By Franchot Lewis

     It was May, 1984. I was seventeen. Daddy was forty-eight.
Granny was in her seventies.
     "Nah." Daddy stared. He looked bombed. Granny's stare
and mine must have been effective, 'cause Daddy's  stare was
usually more like a rocket starting to shoot off with the
nitrogen gas coming out.
     Sometimes, though, Daddy's stare was sneaky, used to
unnerve somebody not cut out to hold up under pressure,
somebody who he wanted to think made him mad. I know, growing
up as a young girl, I staggered away many times from his
hot-handed, icy eyes.
     I stood up next to Granny, expecting to hear more of
his fussing. We were a few feet from him, just out of range
of the gallons of sprinkled spit that came out of his mouth
when he fussed. I expected more gallons, though he lowered
his voice below his normal range.
     "Mama," he said to Granny, "I can see why when they
found Daddy, he had a bottle of Scotch Whisky in his back
pocket."
     Oops, that's mean. I saw Granny flinch. "That bottle was
still unopened," I said.
     "Hush, girl, I'm talking to your Grand mama, now."
     "Daddy -"
     "Hush, on, now."
     Granny had paused a minute to be able to talk. For a
minute, I thought she was gonna leave for the peace of her
bedroom, upstairs, and the quiet behind the door. She looked
from him to the way out of the room. But, darn it, this
was her house and she was his Mama, and she wasn't made of
the stuff not cut out to stand up to him.
     For months now, he has been trying to get her out of
her old broken-down house, where she no longer knew anybody
in the neighborhood to the nice room he had in his house
for her. It was a nice room with the best view of the lake.
     "We can't properly look after you," he told her, and
the family all agreed. That included me, too.
     A month ago, we all ganged up on Granny: Daddy; his
sister, my Aunt Rose; my Mom, and my younger brother and
sister, and Aunt Rose's husband, Bob. We dropped in on her
and she had a meal ready for us.
     "Mama," Aunt Rose looked exasperated, "what did you do?"
     "Cook for my family," she smiled.
     "All this? How did you know?"
     Granny smiled, not disguising her joy.
     Daddy concentrated his stare. "Ghosts?"
     "Uh?"
     "A ghost told you, Mama?"
     "Shoot, no."
     "Ghosts?" Aunt Rose pitched her vocal cords up a notch.
"Mama, what's this about ghosts?"
     "She told Timmy she's been seeing ghosts," Daddy said.
"Isn't that right?" he asked my Mom.
     My Mom nodded. My brother Tim squirmed, started to
confess. "I called her yesterday and -"
     Daddy cut Tim off, "She didn't start telling you about
ghosts yesterday."
     "I told Granny we were coming to see her today," Tim
squirmed some more.
     "You're an early warning system," I teased Tim.
     Daddy stared hard at Tim. It was like Daddy was juicing up
his eyes to concoct a stare that would boil a person's
resistance down to cherry pits.
     "Lemme say somethin'," Granny said. "Family, we're here
to eat notta fight." She put her hands on Tim's shoulder
and gave him an affectionate squeezed. "I've made all your
favorites."
     "Mama, you shouldn't have done this," Aunt Rose looked
around the room and frowned. "You live in this old house
alone. You cooked for us. We could cook for you. You could
come to my house and I will cook for you."
     Granny smiled. "Rose, stop frownin', that frown looks
like an old sock."
     "We're not going to let you off this easy. Mama, I
want to talk about these ghosts you've been seeing."
     "Oh, shoot, Honey."
     Daddy cleared his throat and began to compose the stare
I've felt many times: The stare that starts to paralyze a
body, and that no amount of rolling your eyes or looking away
or pretending to think of something else can bar from your
brain. It works on the throat first, makes your throat and
your tongue sore, then works it way down your legs to your
feet and makes them want to go rigid. You want to run but
you can't move. This was Daddy's way of getting you so
unsettled that it was much easier for him to handle you
under his questioning.
     I haven't figured out what Granny did to withstand the
stare, but she did, and this added to Daddy's determination
to get Granny to do what he wanted, 'cause Daddy's eyes got a
raging look, and his lips puckered and his throat pulled
like he was thirsty, or like he was holding back from
saying something bad. My Mom saw how upset Daddy was and kept
nodding her head uncontrollably when he asked her, if she
didn't she think Granny seeing ghosts is important.
     "It sure is important," Aunt Rose said.
     "Where are the ghosts?" Daddy asked.
     "Dear."
     "Timmy said, upstairs in the back room? Is that where
they are, Mama?"
     Granny smiled.
     "Okay, everybody up stairs. We're going to see?"
     "Dear."
     "C'mon!"
     Daddy led everybody upstairs. Granny stayed where she was.
     He called to her. "Mama? Where are the ghosts?"
     "Daddy," I spoke quietly, "The back room."
     "Oh." Daddy led us to the door. It was closed.
     Aunt Rose tried to open the door. It wouldn't open. "Mama,
what did you do? Lock the door to keep the ghosts in?"
     "Stuck." Uncle Bob pushed hard on the door. The door
opened. The room smelled musty.
     "What does she keep in here?" Aunt Rose coughed like she
was choking.
     Granny replied, not shouting but speaking clearly, the
house was small and voices carried - "My past."
     "What? I thought you said ghosts."
      "Uh huh, ghosts."
      "Well, we don't see any ghosts. Does any one see any
ghosts? We are all in here and we don't see any ghosts."
     Granny answered, "Dears, you must go in one at a time."
     "Mom," Aunt Rose said. "We are here to help you. Don't
fight us." She led the way back down stairs.
     For the rest of the afternoon, I watched Daddy and Aunt
Rose lead the attack on Granny. They said that she was
seeing and hearing things and that she couldn't stay in the
neighborhood by herself. The neighborhood wasn't safe for
an elderly person living and walking to the bus stop and to
the stores alone. "You've gotta go with us," Daddy said, and
he said something unthinkable. He said that he was going to
give Granny something and let her wake up in his house
locked up in a room. Granny, through all this, smiled, served
the dinner and did the dishes. She wouldn't let anyone help
her, and this only made Daddy and Aunt Rose angrier.
     "The problem with you Mama is that you don't want your
family to help you," Aunt Rose said. "You ought to be
ashamed of yourself."
     After a while, sitting there at the dinner table, then
in the living room, and standing around with the others in
the kitchen while Granny did the dishes, I began to see
Granny as a victim, and then I began to feel more like a
victim than Granny. I mean, most of the time I sat there with
a glassy stare and nodded my head whenever Daddy or Aunt Rose
looked my way and asked what us grandchildren thought of
Granny's stubbornness, and asked me, since I was the oldest,
if I wanted to say something to her about this. I said I
didn't "wanna say nothin'." But, Tim wanted to say something,
though, and what he said got me thinking, and sliding over to
stand with Granny. Granny answered Daddy's question about why
staying in the old house was so important to her. Then, she
started to tell him about something that happened in 1924.
     Tim asked Granny, "Why are you always talking about the past?
Granny, why don't you talk sometimes about what's going on
now? This day?"
     Granny hugged him, "Dear, that's for you to do."
     She started to kiss him, he pulled away, "Granny, I'm
too old for that."
     She laughed and I asked her, "It's 1984, not 1924,
right?"
     "Baby," she said. "I talk about when I grew up. What I
done. When I began to understand things."
     "Mama ..." Daddy started up criticizing her again. But,
I began to understand her.
     When I told Daddy that since I was about to leave high
school, and I felt I was old enough to make a decision or two
on my own, I would stay with Granny in her house so that
she wouldn't be by herself, Daddy thought I was as looney as
Granny.  The last thing he wanted was to have two looney
members of his family living in that neighborhood, he said.
But, I now felt I had withstood all the staring down he would
be able to do. I felt Granny's arm on my shoulder and I wanted
to stop and hug her.
     Daddy asked, "You're gonna give up your room over-looking
the lake, for a back room with a view of a side street in
ruins?"
     "Uh huh." I smiled, "Uh huh."
                               END