6

       The Grandfather

    Derek schmerek.  Does she think there's a difference?  Babies          Ha          Shit  Does she think there's a difference?  Jimmy Derek, Derek Jimmy.  I seen babies.  There ain't no difference.  I seen them two.  Both of 'em.  Skin and bone.  Didn't change much either.  Me and her, we had babies, and they was both the same.  They cry and they piss their drawers and they puke on whoever's handy and they shit.  They shit like nobody's business.  Yes sir.  Can't beat a baby for shitting, 'cept maybe a dog--one of them little dogs--on too much canned food.  Wouldn't have one of them little things.

    Giving a kid a name don't make it any different from the next one.  And the kid knows it.  The kid knows I ain't nothing.  I ain't nothing that's new.  Why you think they cry so damned much?  That's something they have on us          they know.  We spend so long trying to say it ain't so, saying it ain't like that and that we are something special.  But deep down--somewhere in the bowels--we all know cause we was babies and knew then.  And we spend the rest of our time lying, trying to tell a lie we can believe.

    But she don't know that.  She's the kind that won't know it no matter how long she lives or how many of 'em she has.  You'd think she invented it, thought it up and tried it out and it worked so she tried it again and it worked and she'll try it again and if it works she'll go down to Worshington D.C. and get a patent on it and call it living.  Heaven help us all if she decides to sell it.

    That's what living does.  It makes a liar out of you.  Some get so good at it that they think it's okay, and it's them that you have to watch for.  They'll tell you the lie and they'll have so much believing behind it, it'll be like He said it.  He never cried.  They say He never did.  That ought to tell you.  That ought to be proof.  He didn't because He was something different and knew that          Didn't never have to lie.  They say George Worshington never lied.  That ain't so.  I know that can't because if he didn't lie, he wouldn't have bothered.  He wouldn't have done all he done and tried so damned hard to tell himself that it mattered.  Boy, I'd like to tell 'em all this.  Take that boy and say, Eric, there ain't no reason for the way things is.  We are all shit, and that ain't all          We're all the same shit.  If you got a brain you know it's all shit but even then you think you can make your shit better. Better'n somebody else's.

    There. Something moved up there. Deer'll eat the leaves off of everything and them apples won't be worth        I'll get Doug to go up there and          No, I wouldn't have one of them little things.  They yip and yap like a windup monkey.  She'd have one.  Be another baby.  No different 'cept dogs know from beginning to end and giving them a name is just something to tell the lie again.  Now if I was to send that dog of mine up there he'd get rid of them deer, but I'd never see him again.  Ha          Damn smart dog          ha.

    Tell yourself a joke, Grandpa?

    It's Doug.  He snuck up on me          He does that.  Eh?

    You looked like you were going to laugh at something.  Asked if you told yourself a joke.

    Funny.  He thinks he's funny.

    Thought I saw something up there, up there in the trees.  If them deer get at the trees this early there won't be nothing worth the

    Stealing?

    picking.  There won't be nothing to them trees and          What?  What you say?

    Stealing.  If the deer eat the buds then there won't be anything for John Plummer to come over here and steal.

    John don't steal nothing.  He don't steal nothing.  I told him to take care of them trees, and he done a good job.

    Yeah, and who told me that he only gave you three apples last year?  Who do you think told me that?

    John don't steal nothing.

    What do you call it?  Make a deal for using the land and then not giving you your share.  What do you call that?  I'd call it stealing or at least cheating.

    I don't say nothing.  Trying to tell me          Can't wait till I'm dead.  Can't wait for me to hand it over like I said.  Well, I might not.  I might not give it to 'em like I said.  I might just do something else.  If I want to let John farm my land, it's mine to do with.  And if he cheats me, it is me that's cheated.  There's worse things than being cheated.  They ought to know that.

    He's still there, leaning over me like a goddamned nursemaid.  If he's waiting for an answer, he can wait.  I act like I don't see him, like I'm watching something in the trees.

    Well anyway, he starts up, Mom sent me over to ask what you want to eat.  There's chicken and ham and hamburgers and all that other stuff.  Uncle Art's got the fire going, and we'll be ready soon.

    I act like I don't hear him.  He fidgets and hunkers down by my chair.  Grandpa?  What kind of meat do you want?

    If them deer

    Okay, I'll go up there after we eat.  Now, what do

    Give me some of that ham and a drumstick

    Okay.  He starts to walk away.

    Hey.  Doug.  He stops and almost turns, but not quite.  You tell your mother not to give that dog any of that ham.  You hear?  It don't set with him.  He can have some hamburger if there's some left but no ham and no chicken if there's bones.  He had that ham last year, and I thought I was gonna have to shoot him.

    We didn't eat here last year.

    Your mother brought it up.  Thought I was gonna have to shoot him.

    He nods.  His feet flatten the grass.  It's wet.  Art shoulda cut that grass.  People'll think I don't know to cut the grass before a picnic.  I suppose they expect me to cut it myself.  I have to do everything myself.  If you want it done right

    They laugh.  You get to an age, and they figure you can't hear.  They start to yell for you to hear and stop whispering for you not to.  I used to tell them to hush, that I could hear but it got tiresome and then it got more interesting to let 'em think what they wanted.  And so they laugh at you, and you act like you don't know, and everybody gets what they want.  There might not  be any buds this early; deer might just be grazing in the bushes.  April might just be too early.  There was a time when we would go up there and sit          her and me         and we'd know how things was gonna be and we'd build up something about them, knowing it wasn't so, knowing that they were just little girls, with not more sense than little girls are bound to have.  But we'd think it and it made it seem more like    But we was wrong.  Lying's lying.  I stay quiet now.  Ask me no question,, I'll tell you no lies--somebody said that--and I don't tell no lies, and I don't never ask no questions.  They laugh.  She pokes at him like a little girl trying to get a dog to growl so's she can get jump back and cry.  But him, he can't even start a fire.  You'd think he was gonna take the house with him, the size of that flame.  You don't need a flame like that; it's a waste.  Fix all his problems          burn this house to the ground          maybe me with it, ha          maybe himself.  That covers just about all his problems  me and this house and himself.  She ain't so much a problem as she is a hindrance--a scratch on your glasses.

    Like a bunch of chickens.  They run around acting like this is what's what and it'll matter in the long run.  Laughing and running around and acting like a bunch of chickens.  Was a time

    But not that boy of Susan's; he sits there like he's not here.  But he ain't one of them.  And he won't be, not like that other one.  He don't have an investment like that Jim does. You put your blood in 'em and there's no other way to it.  But he knows that and he knows better'n to invest his blood in a bunch of chickens.  I never thought he'd marry her but he did.  I thought he had more sense than to even get that  close.  But I think that much of 'em's put him off the idea of getting any closer.  Two years and there ain't no sign.  Maybe he can't.  Ha, I hadn't thought of that one before.  Ha, well it's his luck if he can't.  Probably never thought of it that way.  Do her good too.  She's the only one with the brains He gave her.  Maybe if she gets the mothering skipped over her, she'll amount to something.  It ain't too late for her.  There ain't nothing like a baby for making everything too late.  Him sitting there, and the rest of them like a bunch of chickens.  And I get my laugh.

    Grandpa?

    Eh?  I wish they wouldn't do that.  Sneaking up on an old man like that.

    Grandpa?  It's me          Susan.

    Heh?  Susan?  Are you here?

    Yes, Grandpa, I'm here.  We got here a little while ago.  I was helping my mother put out the napkins.  How are you?

    Not good.

    What's the matter?

    Hip.  It's sore and they won't give me nothing for it.  Stiff.  I get stiff sometimes.

    She looks around her.  She looks taller, and there's something different about her hair.  You've been to the doctor then?

    I nod.  Your mother took me last week.

    What did he say?

    Heh?

    The doctor.  What did he say it was?  Did he know?

    The same thing.

    She nods.  There is little for her to say.  That's the way it is.  She comes like the others and talks but she can't do it like they do.  Maybe it's that she thinks it's important what she says.  That could be the difference.  There's no sign of a belly on her.  It's a wonder I didn't think of that before:  I bet he can't.

    Where's Wesley?

    Over there.  At the second table.  See him?

    Uh huh.  He hasn't moved, sitting there like he's not here.  I see him.  You bring him over to see me then.

    She nods.  We stare into the sky for a while.  When there is nothing to say, don't say anything.  It's a lesson the other ones should learn.  The dog rattles his chain and wraps himself tighter around the post.

    Your father tell you he's gonna buy this house?  I ask because I know he hasn't, and I'm getting tired of waiting.

    No.  He didn't say anything to me.  When'd he decide to do that?

    I shrug. Tell your mother I don't like this sun.  I want to sit over there under the tree.  Tell'r that for me.  Eh?

    Okay.  She doesn't have to stand because she never hunkered down.  She goes off to ask her daddy about it and to tell him.  She looks very tall and very straight.  The fire is down to a size, and I guess we're all safe.  I think we're all as safe as we're gonna get.  And I get my laugh.