32

  

       THE GRANDFATHER

 

    You got it in my mouth!

    Well, if you'd keep it closed you wouldn't have things getting in it.  How's it taste?

    I spit to let him know.

    That good, huh?

    I give him a look, but he don't care.  He just stirs some more and slops more on my chin.  Your mother said you'd be up here the other day.  She was here the other day and said you'd be up that night.  Where you been?  I been lookin' perdnear every minute.

    Uh huh.  I been busy.

    Art was up.  Him and Lorraine was up the other night, the same night your mother was here.

    Uh huh.

    Digging and stuff.

    He finishes soaping up my face and sits the cup in the sink.  Uh huh.

    Your mother said you'd be up here last night or the night before.

    I said I was busy.  Art was here.  Why didn't you get him to shave you?  That'd be good wouldn't it?  He grins.

    I thought you'd be here yesterday.

    Why don't you grow a beard?  Make you look distinguished.  How'd you like that?  Keep your face warm.

    Ain't cold.

    In the winter.

    I had one once.

    When was that?

    After the war.  Me and Scooey and these fellas from down around Cadorus.  We were on the way home and we decided to grow some face hair.  Just to see.

    See what?

    That they said in France was right about men with beards.  See if the girls look at you more.

    Trying to get some action, huh?  How'd it work?

    It all comes back on me like it was          hitchhiking and then Scooey says we should get us a girl at one of the farmhouses and we laughed and that other fella          name of          he says how he had so many girls in Paris France you couldn't shake a stick at 'em all and Scooey says he wouldn't want to, that he knew better things to do with a girl and we all laughed and

    Well, did it work?  He looks at me like it's a joke, like I never was anywhere, like I sat here all my life with a bastard like him shaving my face.  He thinks my remembering is funny, that it comes out of somewhere inside and never really happened.  That's what comes of being stupid and being born of a family that's got no more sense          I just look at him.

    That good, huh?  I might try that.

    I looked like a bum, I tell him.

    He laughs.  You look like a bum without a beard. 

    A cough comes on me, and he steps away with the razor.  He comes back in a minute with Kleenex, and I spit the stuff in it.

    Now, you tell me when you feel a cough like that coming, he says.  The way you shake and go on, I could slit your throat before you'd know it.  You know how Aunt Lorraine carries on about how she scrubs this floor.  You want to get me in trouble with her?

    I just look out the window, and he goes back to scraping my neck.  This ain't working out the way I wanted.  Art is taking too much on himself, and Lorraine's just clamming up like I ain't never seen her do.  This is getting to be a two sided game, and they ain't even telling me what it it.  Who knows what he's going to do next.

    The back door opens and John sticks his head in, How ya doin'?  I just thought I'd drop in to see how you were getting along.

    Doug goes over to the sink and rinses the soap off the razor.  I wave to John to come in.  Come on in, John.  Sit.  Sit.  He sits on the chair by the window and grabs the seat between his legs with his hands.  His Daddy used to sit like that.  Doug comes back and wipes the razor with the towel.

    Doug, John nods.

    John.

    Sure is muddy out there.  Hope you don't mind my getting my boots on your floor.  Art sure is tearing up out there.  He grins like he always does and just looks at me.

    I wave at the boots.  I don't care if Lorraine don't .  We all have a laugh at that one.