Sunken into the burnt crimson leather couch while onions and potatoes drift from the stovetop to permeate the whole single level house that my grandparents live. Nested in the chair next to me is my grandpa soaked in sunlight from his self-appointed grueling chores since it’s four o’clock liquid potatoes now swirling around his head and dancing in his veins.
About twenty minutes into the film he laughs, not so much a happy mirth filled chuckle but a slow regretful sigh of a harumph, followed by a near itemized list of comrades friends fallen in combat while he served in Vietnam. After the moment of delicate silence with televised explosions echoed in where his memories are withering away the light changes and his cupid's bow tightens his bushy eyebrows lifting them out from between his lips comes a long drawn out story
“You know why it was so difficult his body turns neck now too stiff to twist, (my silence along with lifting my shoulders tells him to continue) it was so difficult. I was an army cook well I was head of one of the mobile kitchen units and the army would send out a calendar with a menu that all bases and posts had to follow they just didn't send us all the ingredients , or they would send us too much, like this one time they had chipped beef or what we called it shit on a shingle Ha..ha and it would come frozen in big bags boxed but after running the mess(like a cafeteria) for a short while I knew that only a third of the men would want to eat it so I made less and there would be extra , see you have to learn that there is the right way to do things and the smart way to do things you just have to find the balance. ”
I leave the room feeling the conversations eventual negative turn coming behind me an excuse of helping grams with dinner,I quickly fall into the rhythm of the kitchen the heart in my grandparents home, chopping romaine and dicing tomatoes the transparent liquid seeping off the cutting board and pooling reflective. “Make sure you wipe that up we don't need ants “ grams says from the stove without turning around eyes tense on the thickening gravy adding a little more cornstarch the smell running from the dripping spoon back into the pot to fill the room to waltz with the still strong onion and potato.
While setting up gramps tray paper placemat layered under a napkin and fork and knife spoon and bowl a crash of glass and wood on carpet call grams and myself to the living room to witness my gramps attempting to pick himself up from the now damp carpet. I leave the room before I'm noticed by him grandma's face sends a grateful frown, not sure if it’s his ego or his pride that I;m afraid to hurt I wait till he's behind the bathroom door to clean up the tv tray and glass. Drying and placing his food tray on the wooden tv tray for him to come back to. When grandpa is settled in his chair and the black and white explosions reflecting in the back of his eyes. Grams and I sit at the kitchen table her small frame held loosely in the round metal chair her food slowly getting smaller on her plate my plate slowly growing larger around my food. Out conversation is not noteworthy or life changing, we talk about the top layer topics - school work, her friends who have recently died and of grandpa’s health. After the plates are all collected, rinsed and packed into the dishwasher I follow my feet to the living room and again am embraced by the soft red couch. When the credits reflect in the window behind my head my grandfather rolls his head toward me his eyes sinking deep anchors into my own. What he said still sends my hands on end as my fingers dance across my keyboard “ you know if you become a fagot like you mother, I'm going to stick my gun in my mouth and kill myself” these twenty-two words push past my ears and make the hair stand tall, rattling around my head. When the second hand has moved three times I push myself up from the soft red leather,I deftly send my grandmother a mask of fatigue While my feet pull me to the door hands lock the bolt with a twist of the key. I look up black void and breath in the night, slipping the rainbow bracelet and pride ring out of my pocket I pull myself taller and sink into my car driving away I fade into the shadows made by streetlamps.
