The next morning was D-Day. Rising far too early for a far too mediocre cup of coffee, I stared glumly at my bowl of cereal while my parents discussed that day’s agenda. Well, my father said, I figured we’d get over there around 11 and hang out for a bit. Come back around 4 to rest and take some pain meds, and then go back out around 6 for dinner with them. Sound good?
I was staring at my frosted mini wheats, pushing them down into the milk with my plastic spoon, seeing how long it would take until they quit bobbing back up and became so full of milk that they just sank to the bottom. My mother nudged me with her elbow. Savannah, she said, stop playing with your food. Your dad is asking you a question.
Yeah, I mumbled, sounds great.
The drive over was rather tense. No one spoke, and I was trying to fill the void with a college radio station I found from the UNC campus. It was mainly noise, that avant-garde shit that I felt like I would never be cool enough to enjoy legitimately, but I had to admit that the ambient, chromatic scales and unconventional 7/5 beats did provide temporary escape from the fact that I was about to spend several hours of my life with a man who I wanted nothing to do with.
We pulled up to the house in the rental car, hearing the gravel crack and crunch violently beneath it like popcorn in a defunct microwave. Woken from my brief nap, I was immediately inundated with the collection of red cars in my grandfather’s driveway. There was an SUV, a Cadillac, and some old 1960’s convertible. It idn’t a real car, I remember him saying once, unless it’s red. Bright, fiery red. Mmhm.
My mother turned back to me this time as she unbuckled her seatbelt. Savannah, she said, this man is paying for your college. You’re going to be nice, and you’re going to talk to him. We see him maybe once a year.
Where is the Advil? was all I could muster.
She handed me two berry colored pills. Here, she said, take them and then smile.
And smile I did, at least at the beginning. Susan barreled through the door first like a bull running through the streets of Pamplona. Engulfing my face in her swollen breasts that hung low like the old, tumorous ears of a basset hound, I smelled her musky, mothball scent and thought of Grandpa Bill's underwear drawer. She pulled away several moments too late, and stared at me with her shrunken grey eyes. My, my, she said, you just get prettier and prettier every time I see you.
As do you! I lied. I smiled and entered the house. That kind of smile, as I know my father would have said, was called a ‘shit-eating’ grin.
It had been remodeled since the last time I had seen it. There was new, beige carpet and freshly painted beige walls. Packages of curtains called "American Freedom" sat stacked nearly four feet high on one of the floral upholstered couches. Bill and I have been doin’ some remodelin’ as of late, as y’all can tell, Susan said.
Bill was still nowhere to be found. My parents and I, without much of anywhere to sit, stood in the kitchen as Susan discussed her choice in curtain rods. She chose the ones with the curly ends because they looked like the letter ‘C,’ just like the first letter of my grandfather’s last name! she squealed. A song called ‘Come to Jesus’ was playing on the radio. I found myself wondering what I was being punished for.
Finally (and I never thought I would associate my grandfather’s presence with that word), Grandpa Bill emerged from the back hall. Well there’s the big guy, Susan said, cupping her hands to her jowly cheeks. Bill, Bee-yull! Over here, everyone’s so excited to see you.
I looked to my father, standing reticent. His hazel eyes were revealing nothing. Surely there had to be something to reveal, though. My mother was standing, arms crossed and donning a similar shit-eating grin as mine.
Grandpa Bill seemed a lot older than I remembered. Which made sense, given that I hadn’t seen him since I graduated high school three years ago. He walked slowly, his bald and pocked head nearly skimming the ceiling. In some respects, I felt as if I were bearing witness to some kind of brontosaurus emerging from the gates of Jurassic Park.
Nothing in his clothing appearance had changed, however. He wore Bermuda shorts year round and a Members Only sports jacket to counteract the cold. Non-matching Hawaiian shirts were always tucked into his shorts, and his geriatric Velcro shoes were made only marginally less pathetic with the white tube socks that hung low on his skinny ankles like a windsock in the dog days of summer. I had inherited those ankles. There were band-aids all up and down his scraggy legs from, as he would later tell us, the cancerous moles that had been removed rather recently at the dermatologist’s.
Well now, Bill said, look who we got us he-yuh. Miss P-Pam and Savannah, and young Mistuh Cats. (Bill always called my father ‘Cats,’ even though his name was identical to Bill’s. My father never knew why he had been given that feline nickname and for that matter never cared to ask, given that Bill rivaled Strom Thurmond in his lengthy locution and a nearly identical political ideology.)
Hey Dad, my father struggled, raising his arms mechanically toward his own father. I watched him lean in slightly but not too much, as if his limbs were made of balsa wood and would snap if he put too much pressure on them. How ya been?
My turn was next. I trudged slowly forward to this old man and was reminded of the days when I was little and didn’t like to eat vegetables, and how I had to close my eyes and hold my nose when consuming a single, cooked carrot. The mere thought of them made my insides churn. The act of greeting my grandfather wasn’t much different. Grandpa Bill, I cooed, it’s so great to see you.
I pulled away as soon as I deemed socially acceptable and watched as my mother went in for hers. She was the most patient of the three of us, even though my grandfather still referred to her as Mrs. Cox despite the fact that my parents had been divorced for over ten years and that she had never taken my father’s name to begin with.
Susan decided to show us around the house to see all of the work that they’d put into it. New stainless steel sinks in the kitchen, new granite counters. A new country-Christian song was playing on the radio as my eyes fixated on a large eyesore in the corner: two TVs, stacked one on top of the other. Bill had already planted himself in his recliner and was watching Nascar. Come on, y’all, Susan called, I wanna show y’all the rest of the house. Billy, I wanna show you your old room!
We made our way through the narrow hallway where there was nary a family photo but rather a multitude of framed pictures of Ronald Reagan and various quotes of his. A piece of the Berlin Wall here, an American flag there. But no family. My father twisted the doorknob to his old room. It’s a lot smaller than I remember, he said.
Unfortunately, he could barely open the door all the way before it hit a queen size mattress covered completely with rifles. My father’s childhood wallpaper was almost completely stripped from the room, save for a tiny piece in the top corner of the room. Well, Susan giggled, we’ve kind of turned your room into a storage room, Billy. And right now, it’s holdin’ all of your daddy’s guns. Aren’t they pretty?
I felt like I was in some kind of David Lynch film. I remembered the time after Grandpa Bill had a stroke and there was yet another death scare, so the three of us made a trek to North Carolina. When checking him in from the hospital into his nursing home, we had to unpack his things. While doing so, we discovered three loaded shotguns, a 12-pack of Trojans, KY Jelly, and cologne that was allegedly an aphrodisiac. I was twelve at the time and mistook the tube of lubricant for toothpaste. Thank God my mother swiped it from me before I pulled out my travel brush to remove the cheese gunk that had accumulated in my mouth after a stress snack of Cheeto’s Puffs. The relationship between a man and his penis is one I will never understand.
Anyway, Susan and my mother continued on the rest of the tour of the house, but I remained in the bedroom with my father for a few moments longer. You know, he said, I don’t recognize any of this anymore. It’s like I’ve never even lived here. I always wondered what Mom would have done with the place when I moved out, but I don’t think she would have done this.
I don’t think most people would have done this, I said. I watched my father as his eyes scanned the shelves, just looking for something he knew. After a few moments, I spotted something shining in the distance beneath a holster and an unopened ceiling fan box. Hey, is that your old toy zeppelin hiding up on the shelf? I asked. I climbed on the bed and on top of the guns and pulled it down for my father to see.
Well I’ll be damned, he said, examining it. It sure is.
I smiled. We should probably continue on this lovely tour, don’t you think?
He rolled his eyes. If we must, he said.
I think they’re in Bill and Susan’s bedroom now. I wrinkled my nose. Susan’s probably talking about the beige garters she wears to entice Bill at night.
Somehow, Savannah, my father stated, I don’t think they’re doing much of that.
Why’s that? I asked.
Well, Dad began, besides the fact that he now rivals trilobites in age and sediment composition, right before my mom died, she kind of gave up on those don’t-kiss-and-tell rules she had set in her mind for so many years and started revealing some about her and Dad’s relationship. And that's when I learned that maybe it wasn’t so much that she didn’t kiss and tell, but that there just wasn’t that much to tell. She and Dad would have sex twice a year, once during the holidays and once on his birthday. Merry fuckin' Christmas, right?
That’s it?
Well, yeah, he said. They just didn’t have anything to do with each other. It was probably a mutual thing, but hell if I know. And if you can’t sleep together, what the hell can you do together, you know?
My father held his zeppelin for a few moments more before placing it back on the gun blanket. Come on, Scamp, he said. Let’s go see this love shack.
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