My Great-grandfather Turns Twelve Today
(c) 2003 Bill Dodds
Chapter 5
Suddenly, it felt very warm in there. The 50 or so
relatives behind Great-aunt Beth were so silent I thought I could almost hear
the sweat popping out above my upper lip.
"Leave your jacket, honey," Mom said.
"No!"
That was Great-great-aunt Lauretta. I looked over at her --
down at her actually because she's so bent over -- and she sort of smiled
self-consciously and said, "It's such a pretty red one."
That made no sense but, as far as I could tell, when you're
in your 90s, you didn't have to make a lot of sense.
"It used to be mine. I outgrew it," Robert said, as
if that somehow mattered. It was just an ordinary nylon jacket. The kind with
snaps instead of a zipper and a ribbed cloth collar and cuffs. Those were
striped red and white. It was just a plain old baseball jacket.
Great-great-aunt Lauretta smiled at Robert. "It's very
nice," she said. And then to me, "Come along now."
A streak of lightning flashed and the thunder rumbled soon
after it.
"Tell Dad we'll be down to see him in just a bit,"
my grandfather called out over Great-aunt Beth's shoulder. "Tell him we're
still trying to get all those birthday candles out of the boxes. Going to take
us half the day just to light them all."
Everyone laughed. Everyone except Great-great-aunt Lauretta
and me.
She turned and started off and I followed, quickly catching
up to a couple of steps behind her.
"That's a tremendous storm," she said.
"Yes, ma'am," I answered.
"How is school?"
"We're on summer vacation now," I said.
She nodded. "And you just finished the... which
grade?"
"Sixth," I said and she nodded again.
"Ready for a summer of fun and adventure?"
"I guess."
"What?" she asked.
"Yes, ma'am."
We walked down one hallway, back to the hub of the building
and then headed down another. (Down one of the spider's leg to its body and then
down another.) I knew where we were headed. My family -- my immediate family --
came out here at least four times a year. Great-grandpa had had the same room
the whole time.
He moved into Fair Brook when I was a little kid. I could
vaguely remember him living in an apartment in a nearby town called Culver City.
Two bedrooms. With Great-great-aunt Lauretta. Now she lived there alone.
We were passing people in the hall, old people, but I didn't
pay any attention to them. I kept wondering why Great-grandpa wanted to see me.
On my other birthdays, Mom and Dad and David and Robert and Sarah and I came
together to say hello if he couldn't get out of bed.
I wondered if he would be able to come down to the sitting
room in a wheelchair. He couldn't walk without a lot of help and it tired him
out fast. At some birthday parties he would fall asleep sitting up in his
wheelchair right in the middle of the celebration.
Two balloons -- one red, the other blue -- were taped to the
door to his room. There were some birthday cards, too. The door was open and I
could see that his roommate, Mr. Parker, wasn't there. Or maybe he had died.
Anyway, the bed next to the door was all made up, nice and neat.
Great-grandpa's bed was next to the window. It was behind a
thin, light green cloth curtain that hung down from the ceiling like a shower
curtain. Each bed had one. That way a doctor or nurse could pull it shut and
give a patient at least a little privacy while something was going on.
Something like going to the bathroom. Well, not going to the
bathroom but using a bedpan. That's kind of a flat pot that somebody sits on and
then poops. Great-grandpa's curtain was shut. Maybe he was pooping.
We took about three steps into the room and then
Great-great-aunt Lauretta stopped and I almost ran into her. "He's
here," she said to the curtain and then turned and walked around me. She
shut the door on her way out.
There was another flash of lightning that made everything in
the room turn white. This time the thunder came sooner. The storm was getting
closer.
I held my breath but I couldn't hear anything from the other
side of the curtain. I just stood there and listened as thick rain drops began
to furiously pelt the window.
"You there?" a thin voice asked after a while.
"Yes, sir," I said. That was one thing Mom and Dad
had drummed into us. "Sir" and "ma'am" for our elders. We
sure got enough practice because we sure had enough elders.
"Come here, Michael," Great-grandpa said.
"Come on over here."
I walked through the slit in the curtain and a little, old
head on a pillow smiled at me. He looked smaller than he had when we had been
out at spring break. The lump under the white sheet -- his body and his legs --
wasn't as big. The head of his bed was titled up a little bit and he held out
his right hand to me. It trembled.
"Happy birthday, Michael," he said and gave me a
toothless grin. He was so skinny his head almost looked like a skull.
"Happy birthday, Great-grandpa," I said.
"What did you bring me?" he asked and I stammered,
"Uh..." "I'm teasing you, son," he said.
"Yes, sir."
There was another flash of lightning and pounding of thunder
and his blue eyes jumped. So did I, closer to the bed. I ran smack into a thick,
clear plastic bag hanging from the side of it. A bag that had pee in the bottom
of it. I jumped back. Great-grandpa didn't seem to notice.
"How many older brothers do you have?" he asked me.
What? "Uh... two," I said. He nodded. "Me,
too."
"How many generations separating us?" he asked.
I thought for a moment. Me, my dad, my grandpa, him.
"Two," I said.
"My father was the third boy in his family,"
Great-grandpa said.
Swell. He was going to lie there and gas for a while about
old times and in the meantime all my relatives back in the sitting room would be
chowing down on all that good food. I was hungry.
"Your father," he said, "is the third boy in
his family."
I thought about that. Uncle Frank, Uncle Pat, Dad.
"Uh huh. Yes, sir," I said.
There was a siren outside somewhere. That last bolt must have
struck something and set it on fire, I thought.
"I am," he held up his right hand, his index finger
pointing straight up, "the third son of a third son. You are the third son
of a third son. We were both born on June the 18th. You 12 years ago. I, 100
years ago this very day."
He opened his hand and held it out to me. I reached out and
took it in my right hand. It was cold. It felt more like paper than skin. And
then the biggest flash of lightning I have ever seen in my entire life filled
the nursing home room. It knocked me back through the curtain and onto my rear
end and I banged by head against the wall. Tears were coming from my tightly
closed eyes.
Boy, that hurt.
My ears were ringing from the thunder.
"You all right?"
"I... I smacked my head," I said.
"But are you all right?"
No, I'm not all right, I thought. I smacked my head.
"Yeah," I said. "Yes, sir."
"Let me help you up."
He was going to help me?
A hand took hold of mine and pulled me to my feet. I sniffed
and rubbed my nose with the back of my other hand and opened my eyes.
Standing in front of me was a kid just a little shorter than
I am. He was wearing some kind of blue overalls and a short-sleeved undershirt
with buttons in the front. He was barefoot. Something next to me let go with a
loud, "MOOOO!"
"She jumped so much she'll be giving butter for a
week," the kid said. "You sure you're all right?"
Go to Chapter 6.
