Clickity-Clack click click SNAP!
Grandma has just claimed 40 points with the 66 spinner,and is scratching her score on the notepad beside her. Cigarette smoke curling its way heavenward, threading a blue finger through her horn rimmed spectacles. She grins at me across the oak table and chuckles, “Your turn taterbug.”
I watched her bring the ever present Vantage to her lips, as she fixed me with her smiling blue eyes. “I’ve had three robins at my feeder this morning, and a hummingbird!
Me and old charlie here almost got us a squirrel this morning too, didn’t we?” She said, as she patted the head of Charlie Brown, the amazing 20 lb. Dachshund who was lording over the game from upon the throne of grandma’s ample thighs. I didn’t think that Charlie could catch much more than a free meal and a nap, but I smiled nonetheless, from imagining his effort.
This large Den, overlooking my Papa’s tidy backyard, was my grandma’s domain. The bird feeder her entertainment, and Charlie her confidant and friend. She preferred to spend the day at the carved oak table, playing gin rummy or dominoes, taking on all who dared, and soundly whipping us all. She kept a harmonica in the pocket of her housecoat, along with her pink cigarette case that had the little pouch for her Zippo lighter. When I was a baby, she would rock me on the soft expanse of her ample bosom, and play the harp for me. She loved to tell me how “I would just stare and stare at her with those big blue eyes” until I would drift off to sleep. No matter what I was wailing about, as soon as I heard music, I was at peace.
We sat many hours together at that table, swapping stories in peace. Slapping the bones down, or shuffling the deck. I wish to God I could remember all the stories she told me of her childhood, growing up in Ryan Oklahoma. I sensed a lot of pride and pain in her words. She was Salutatorian to my Papa’s Valedictorian of their high school (or was it the other way round?), and the star of her basketball team. she described with bitterness the fights she took on, while growing up under Jim Crow. I realize now, being mixed breed Cree Indian and white was a burden for her in those years. Somewhere between, in the no man’s land of privileged white and burdened “colored”, she was accepted by neither, really. She told me once that she took her shoe to a bunch of mean hearted white boys who were threatening the colored girl down the street. She beat them all into retreat with her courage, resolve, and a wooden heel, even though they were older and scarier than her. She didn’t really say so, but I think the girl and her were actually secret friends, who grew up together in a time when that wasn’t tolerated.
My grandma raised four kids through the dust bowl and depression, a position she took, but probably wasn’t meant for. She had too much intelligence and fight to settle down with a man while barely out of high school. My father was always quiet on the subject, but his mom and dad fought like cats in a bag all through his childhood. Violence too. My Grandma hid her hurt in cooking and humor, and my Papa stepped out on her when he could. Their’s was a love and hate affair than ended in a truce by the time I came round. I always wondered why they had separate rooms and routines, but never thought to ask. I was Grandma’s boy, and she taught me to take things as they come. She taught me strategy and patience, she taught me to stand up for myself against all odds. She played favorites, and I felt honored to be in her massive sphere.
I dreamed of her last night, She comes to me in sleep and offers her encouragement. She has done so off and on since she passed.
If I have even an ounce of that woman’s fire, I know I will get on, come hell or high water.
2 Comments
lynette
oh my word, that is such a beautiful tribute to your grandmother. tater, this is stunning. what a wonderful thing for you to have had her in your life and for her to have had her little "taterbug." wow. this is really, really wonderful.
Thursday, February 22, 2007 - 01:50 PM
Tony
What a great memory. Thanks for sharing Tater. I had a much loved Grandmother myself, who was one of the few safe places in my childhood. Thanks again.
Unavoidable decibels assailing my ears as I occupy the stall.
"OH Puleeze mary! Can you believe they hooked up? I mean, really! How long have they known one another, like five minutes?"
"Oh my god! I KNOW!"
"Did you see what he was wearing? It's like LL Bean and J Crew had incestual relations and birthed a drooling child!"
"Ha Ha!" Chortle, giggle, gasp
"You are SOooo MEAN! Its why I love you!"
"I'm not being mean, bitch! I'm just stating the obvious. I mean cargo pants with Timberland boots, a golf shirt, and flannel? Is he trying to channel Rosie O?"
"You are so right."
"And let's not forget Mr. legend in his own mind, was that a jersey???"
"mmm hmm."
"They deserve each other. I mean, GOD! He hasn't even looked my way in all the time we have known each other, and in walks Butch and PRESTO"
"Exactly. Don't let it get to you. Neither one of them is worth our time!"
"Well, you know butch has a lover, right? For like twenty years or some shit? Wonder what he thinks about all this"
"They have an open relationship, from what I've been told..." (giggle)
"Yeah gurl, like a fucking Seven Eleven!"
"Oh stop it! I can't breathe! Don't make my laugh lines deeper, bitch, I'm trying to get laid!"
"Oh, please Mary, neither one of us is ever going to get laid. We aren't good enough!"
"Me-ooow. Retract those claws sunshine."
"I'm getting out of here. I refuse to engage. Besides I need to work on my webpage."
"Yawn! Why don't you just permanantly detach your penis and lock it in a drawer?"
"Might as well, for all the pleasure its provided lately."
I hear them air kiss and exit the bathroom.
I stare at my buckskin, timberland boots and shake my head.
]]>for your convenience.
Before anyone decides to ask, infer, or imply anything gossipy, the two of us are friends living in different countries, are not engaged in an illicit affair, a whirlwind romance, or anything salacious or worthy of tongue wagging. We are good friends who enjoy writing, and as it turns out, work well together--
"what was that? I'm in the middle of something baby, can it wait? I'm too tired, and you have to catch your plane back to Toronto. Seriously! No! ....Well how I can I refuse you that. Just let me finish typing this entry and we can-"
So please allow the fiction to remain on the blog and not in the blogosphere.... :)
A fellow blogger and I are coauthors of a work of fiction in installments, Dickensian style if you will, which we will begin posting in the not too distant future. I think this is the first time this has ever been done in this medium, and we are both having a lot of fun with it. Our end goal? To tell a story together without scripting it, to feed off one another's ideas and plot introductions in a creatively open way, and wind up with a tale that is both entertaining, and contains a shared resolution. We will of course be listening to you, too. Will you influence the story, or perhaps just be a passive listener? Who knows...
In case you are wondering, I am writing with this guy. Many of you may know him as a penetrating, and bright essayist, but that is just one facet. He also happens to be a hell of a fiction writer, and I am doing my best to keep up with him. This is uncharted water for both of us, but especially for me. Most of my work has been written in brevity, and this may wind up being something much more substantial. I hope you will stay tuned, and grace both of us with your patience, audience, and openness. It is going to be something new for ALL of us.