My
grandfather, he pointed to a place on the map, and my grandfather, he said,
“I’ve been there, once when I was very young.” And the place he pointed to was
New Orleans. My grandfather pointed to that place on the map, and he said, “I
was hanging out of windows in my shirtsleeves. I was drunk. Oh, Lord. How I was
drunk. How drunk I was.” My grandfather paced around the room in this place
where we now lived. My grandfather stopped, and he said, “I found the dirtiest
church in town. I walked in and sat there at a pew. I made up things that I
believed in. I’m not sure if I even prayed. I twiddled my thumbs. I fell
asleep, I think.”
My
grandfather, he pointed to a place on the map, and my grandfather, he said, “It
was just before I went to war. I’d never even used a parachute before.” And the
place he pointed to was New York City. My grandfather pointed to that place on
the map, and he said, “Even the tartan boys weren’t making fun of anybody. It
was all singing I’m Making Believe and buying a round for the bar. I remember
the smell of matches. The way we all waltzed with brooms. Sawdust on the
barroom floor. And, hell, all those pats on the back.” My grandfather scratched
at the back of his neck and sighed with a raspy wheeze, “Most of those boys
never made it back.”
My
grandfather, he pointed to a place not on any map. The sky, perhaps, opened a
tad. With watery eyes and a congested heart, my grandfather told me, he said,
“Son,” (he always called me son) “there aren’t any ways I know of to get back
what you never thought’d ever be gone once it’s done being what you’ve always
just had.” My grandfather coughed into the crook of his arm; he creased his
brow’s pleats, working his rugose flesh like the bellows of an accordion; and
my grandfather, he said, “Your grandmother swam in so many lakes. She swam so
far; she swam so far out; hell, maybe even beyond the smallmouth grunts and the
goldribbon soapfish; and she was never scared. But I am not a life raft. I am
not holding together or on to any of it anymore.” My grandfather, he said,
“Son, you go out and swim in those lakes that held your grandmother’s shape in
them. Swim out so far that you don’t remember who you are or where you were
before. Son, you will know from where you came by where you will go, and past
even those place too; and Son, never worry…of course you will stay afloat.” My
grandfather gazed where there was nowhere left to look, and he told me, “Son,
remember, you are just a player piano in a small room in which there are only
other player pianos who are all playing music for the other player pianos, all
of whom can’t hear any music above the sound of their own. So. Hell. Smash all
of the other pianos; sell ‘em for firewood. We are and have always been plenty
with less.”
It
rained all day on the day my grandfather died. The scent of lavender and just-mowed grass
imbued it all, and I said, “Bonjour to all that,” to all the places on the map.
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