Chapter 7
His blue eyes grew wide. His sky-blue eyes grew wide.
"Are you really my great-grandpa?" I asked.
"Are you really my great-grandson?" he answered.
The rain was letting up. It was getting brighter.
"If you really are," I said, "you're in a
convalescent center and you've got a..." I thought about the room, the
curtain, the bag beside the bed. I thought about the skinny, old man who had
reached out his hand to me.
Third son of a third son holding on to the third son of a
third son.
"What's a conva.. conva.. convent center?" the boy
asked me and then, before I could answer, he said, "Wait! You can't tell me
stuff about the future."
"What?"
"There are rules," he said.
"Rules?"
"Yep," he said, sounding pretty sure of himself.
"There are rules about this."
"How do you know?" I asked and he hesitated. Then
he said, "There are rules for everything, aren't there?"
He had a point there, all right.
"That's true," I said, realizing what he meant
about my not telling him anything. "What I say or do now will change my
whole future."
"What?"
"Just like in the movies."
"What's a movie?" he asked.
"The ones about going back to the future."
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said.
"But I do know you're not going to change your future a whole lot no matter
what you do now. That's a fact."
"What if I get hurt?" I said.
"What, that little bump on your head?"
"No. I mean what if I die or something."
He thought about that. "We're all going to die
someday," the boy said. "But look on the sunny side and say a little
prayer. That's what Ma tells us. Besides, I'm 100, right? So that means it
was... What year was it where you were?"
I told him and he gave a low whistle.
"I sure would like to see that," he said, not
realizing that he would.
"What year is this?" I asked and when he told me I
gasped. Somehow 88 years had slipped away.
"And where am I?" I asked again. "I know I'm
in a barn and I know it outside Culver City, but where exactly?"
"The Farrell farm," he said. "One-hundred
sixty acres of some of the finest crops in the county."
"The Farrell farm! We just passed that on the
freeway."
"On the what?"
"The..."
"CHARLIE!" an older boy's voice called from
outside. "WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO IN THERE?"
He... Great-grandpa... Charlie pushed me back into a stall.
"Hush," he said softly. "We have to figure out a few
things."
"CHARLIE?" A teen-ager entered the doorway and I
squatted on the ground.
"You remember that vaudeville show we saw last month in
town?" Charlie asked as he walked out of the stall toward the teen-ager.
"I guess," the other boy said.
"That comedian in the baggy pants and the little bow
tie?"
"What's that got to do with..."
"I was just trying to remember some of his jokes, that's
all. Practicing them out loud."
"You're daft," the older boy said,
"Crazy."
"Only a little," Charlie said and the older boy
laughed.
"Come on," the boy said. "Ma's got dinner on
and we're waiting grace for you. Can't start without the birthday boy."
"What did you get me, Pat?" Charlie asked.
"Get you?"
"For me birthday, laddy," Charlie said, sounding
like a leprechaun or something.
"What makes you think I'm got you something?" Pat
asked.
"But you already did," Charlie said.
"Did what?"
"You got me something. You came and got me for
dinner."
I had to keep myself from laughing out loud.
"Oh, you..." Pat said and I heard some scuffling.
It sounded like a friendly little tussle between brothers.
"You may be 12 but I'm almost 15," I heard Pat say.
"You may be almost 15 but I'm a hundred," Charlie
answered.
"Daft," Pat said. "Come on. Birthday or no,
you don't keep Pa waiting long."
Then what they had been saying finally sank in. It was the
same day as when I left Fair Brook. It was just 88 years earlier. "My
great-grandfather turns 12 today," I whispered to myself.
"What was that?" Pat asked and I could tell from
the sound of his voice that he was facing my way.
"That?" Charlie said. "That was me, Paddy-boy.
I'm learning to be a ventriloquist. You know what that is?"
"I know."
"It's a fellow can throw his voice. Make it come out of
a trunk or a horse or a.. or a... or a anything else he has a mind to make it
come out of."
"Is that right?" Pat said.
"That's right."
"Do it again," he said.
"What?"
"Do it again."
"I could if I had a mind to," Charlie said.
"Well, maybe I'll just go over there and see
for..."
"I can do it!" Charlie said.
"Make 'Lizbeth talk," Pat said. "Go on."
Charlie cleared his throat a few times. "I'm still just
learning," he said.
In a high-pitched voice I said, "Hey, get your cold
hands off my... bag thing." What the heck do you call that bag of milk
under a cow?
"Bag thing?" Pat said and laughed. "'Get your cold hands off my bag thing'?"
"She's a lady," Pat said. "What do you think
she's going to say: 'Stay away from my teats'? Let's go."
"Sure, sure, sure," Pat said. "Bye, 'Lizbeth!"
"The show is over," Charlie said before I had a
chance to answer.
"This afternoon I'll be sure to warm up my hands before
I come milk you," Pat said and laughed. "I wouldn't want to put my
cold fingers on your bag thing."
"Let's go!" Charlie said.
"I'm coming," Pat said. "Good thing Ma made
plenty of food. More than enough for the whole family and your friend back there
in the funny shirt."
Go to Chapter 8.
