| (Grandpa and me) | | | | summers of my formative years. |
| From a little after midmorning, until near twilight of a | | | | We seldom talked to one another, just long silences |
| long still, anguish dead summer day, we'd be on the | | | | usually, as if we were not people, in a land of no |
| porch, old grandpa Anton, still swearing away, cussing | | | | language. It seemed as if he had a demon-who came |
| as always. Mom said it was his way of getting it | | | | out of nowhere warning him he was in the land with a |
| out-on that fresh hot artless porch with a sofa on it, | | | | strange, violently strange creature, me. Without |
| and screens all around it, with blinds half down, | | | | gentleness he'd destroy without regret something, yes, |
| fastened with a string, feeling the blinds would keep the | | | | saved by this demon. |
| sun out and the porch would be fresher, but when it | | | | And when I left for the Army, and college, and for my |
| was stationary (or so it seemed) between east and | | | | travels, I am sure he said "I don't imagine he will come |
| west, going down in the west. It slashed its full yellow | | | | back here, and settle down as a grandchild should, he's |
| rays into the side of the porch, almost blinding you. I | | | | a wild one, not like his brother, already working and |
| thought of it as being no more than the eternal sun | | | | making plans, this one he will leave, enter some literary |
| getting ready to meet the eternal night, and clash, | | | | profession, be married, but never remain married. |
| vibrantly clash, with the condensed and hyper look on | | | | Perhaps he will be out among young friends instead of |
| grandpa's face, before going away, until sunrise, when | | | | the old family." |
| it would wake him up again on the porch. He slept | | | | I was only twelve then, standing on that porch, due to |
| there in the summers, not in his bedroom: I was simple | | | | his astonishment, I did exactly all he knew I'd do, have |
| an idle boy, with no rank, young flesh with a long | | | | exchanged no more than fifty-words in our whole |
| embattled vanishing old stream, vanishing in interval, | | | | lifetime, living in the same house, ten-years, he did not |
| running one space to the next until his bones dried up, | | | | recognize me as he revealed a character worth |
| and the ghost in him mused with his shadow docilely | | | | noticing, indicating a cold, implacable and to a certain |
| as if it were the voice of fate haunting him in his own | | | | degree, callousness. |
| house. Out of this calm thunderclap, he would change | | | | The dusty heat of the day, those summer days, he'd |
| from man to animal, to demon. It seemed grandpa | | | | walk back and forth, pacing the floor in the house from |
| wore those eternal dark blue or black, suites and all, all | | | | the porch to the kitchen, as if it was a half mile |
| the time, it suited him well. | | | | between each, and its actual size-it was of |
| Grandpa was sitting in the sofa so bolt upright, in the | | | | fifty-feet-of rug and a shabby rug at that, yet it had |
| curved soft sofa, he slept on in the summer, although | | | | the same air as the half mile would have had, same |
| his bone structure was rigid as well as having iron | | | | quality, his face would remain grim, for a grim |
| shinbones and ankles-and an air of impotent, | | | | endurance is what he had, created to fit into his little |
| self-puzzlement, indomitable frustrated look, as if he | | | | smaller world, the one he put into his pocket, took out in |
| was long dead. As if at any moment, outraged | | | | the hallway, as if it was in a tomb, in his slow and |
| summarized could be called to mind, upon a peaceful | | | | heated weighed down time. He'd look at his wrist, |
| scene, sulfur-reeking, from his lips like a beast, yet I | | | | check his watch, the time, the dim face now looking at |
| knew for the most part he was harmless. Mother | | | | an expressionless grandson, urgent and intent to be |
| would say, "That's just the way he is, you can't change | | | | more than he would ever expect. |
| an old goat, or teach one new tricks," wild and relaxed, | | | | "He wants to tell me something, I know he does," my |
| he'd remain, with his air of bleak, fatigued and | | | | grandfather thought, staring at me: oh yes, I could read |
| dilapidated gulp of air. | | | | his mind, but if he had asked me what I was thinking, it |
| His voice didn't stop, but somehow vanished in his | | | | would displease the demon that stayed with him, then |
| mumbling, grumbling, complaining and rumble-jumble | | | | he'd tell himself, "There is no reason to talk to him, he's |
| carrying on, in a bloodless face, paradoxical, then it | | | | already mummified." |
| vanished... as sudden and as quick as the way it | | | | And mother would say, "He's seventy years old, going |
| started, just like nothing, a puff of smoke, it vanished | | | | to be eighty soon..." as if he was already vanished |
| and I seemed to watch the smoke suddenly float out | | | | from this earth, fled to none knew where, but he was |
| of the porch and be soaked up by the earth. | | | | right here, in front of me, breathing the same air, |
| Then there was this savage quiet he produced. Him | | | | hearing the same talk going on in the house, just not |
| sitting and me standing on the porch, as if there was a | | | | talking to me. My childhood was full of this, him, echoing |
| coffin-a smelly gloomy over rotting coffin, between us, | | | | with sonorous defeat to make a friend out of a |
| and I was near fearful to move, immobile with his pious, | | | | grandfather that was interchangeable and almost |
| pontific stance look, creating in me, in my inner spirit, | | | | numberless. It would have seen, or does seem, did |
| rambling thoughts, if not imitative of his outward | | | | seem, he had a war going on with some personal |
| garrulousness; his outraged baffled even his ghosts. | | | | ghosts. |
| Perhaps the one that is helping me write this epistle | | | | "Ah," said my mother, "But why tell me about it, what |
| about him and me on the porch of those now far-off | | | | can I do, I can't change him! |