where my grandmother was and she asked me if I could spell my grandmother’s last name. I could and did, and she looked it up on her computer—typey typey typey, return—told me her room was B10 but that she might be in the dining hall, then took half of the half of sandwich in one bite.
B2, B4, B6, B8—I thought of Battleship, my favorite childhood game. My brother liked Connect Four and used to lick the leftover Italian dressing off his salad plate. My grandmother wasn’t in her room, but her roommate was, in bed, her body bent and twisted with MS or some other awful thing, her mouth open to the cracks in the ceiling. I said hello and she said nothing at all, and above her bed hung a painting of Jesus Christ floating up to heaven, topless and staring directly into the camera, his arms spread wide like, Behold, cameraman … I’m flying! Another possibility, it seemed to me, was that he was fleeing, and I imagined knocking him out of the sky with a rock.
Nailed to the wall above my grandmother’s bed was a small wooden crucifix and pictures of my dead grandfather and their children and their children’s children—the same picture that hung in our hallway of my brother, sister, and me naked in a bathtub together, which probly saved time but doesn’t seem like any way to get clean. I said goodbye to my grandmother’s roommate, then waved bye at her, then felt dumb about it and walked out.
Wandering around the hallways I overheard an old man report to a nurse that another man “killed me on the back of the leg six days ago,” and a woman using a dirty-tennis-balled walker was staring into a fish tank to apply light red lipstick. I stopped at the front desk again, and the now sandwichless nurse pointed me toward the dining hall, a large room with six or seven long tables in it. It was full but quiet except for the TV and a lady rocking violently hollering for someone-or-thing named Mashtar, and as I looked from face to face it occurred to me that women make the mistake of living too long more than men do.
My grandmother was seated at the table farthest from the window, pinching her paper bib and staring at the wall. I walked over and put a smile on my face so fake it trembled. She had a see-through mustache and the hairs were longer at the corners of her mouth. I kissed her forehead.
“What’s up, Grams, heard you ate your medicine patch.”
“Sydney?”
“No … I’m your daughter’s son. Alby.”
Something inside her shifted, she shook, and her eyes wandered off, following butterflies or parakeets or the word pajamas ticker-taping across her eyeballs, a monkey riding a dog or pink fighter jets on their way to kill kill kill. Or more likely they were following nothing at all, which at that moment was somewhere on the white wall between the clock and the television advertising deodorant. Smell cool .
Her eyes went wide. “Everything’s getting weird.”
“It’s always been weird. Here’s a horsey doll.”
I took her shaking, spotted hand and tried to put the doll in it, but she wouldn’t take it, so I placed it on the table in front of her.
“Don’t eat the comb,” I said.
She reached out and knocked the horsey doll over, then recoiled her shaking hand in a way that reminded me of a vacuum cleaner cord retracting.
“It’s OK,” I said. “It’s just a toy.”
She looked off, and after a while I waved my hand in front of her face. “Grandma,” I said, snapping my fingers now. “Hello? Yoo-hoo.”
She looked at me and flashed her gums in what I think was a smile.
“The pope came,” she said.
“On a kid’s back?”
I half-regretted it almost immediately, because who am I to insult something that gave her comfort? I’m all for painkillers, just prefer mine in pill form. Pints and rocks glasses. Ladies.
“He said … everybody should speak English…”
“Don’t popes speak Latin,” I said, “and like, refer to themselves in the first person plural? We am the
B2, B4, B6, B8—I thought of Battleship, my favorite childhood game. My brother liked Connect Four and used to lick the leftover Italian dressing off his salad plate. My grandmother wasn’t in her room, but her roommate was, in bed, her body bent and twisted with MS or some other awful thing, her mouth open to the cracks in the ceiling. I said hello and she said nothing at all, and above her bed hung a painting of Jesus Christ floating up to heaven, topless and staring directly into the camera, his arms spread wide like, Behold, cameraman … I’m flying! Another possibility, it seemed to me, was that he was fleeing, and I imagined knocking him out of the sky with a rock.
Nailed to the wall above my grandmother’s bed was a small wooden crucifix and pictures of my dead grandfather and their children and their children’s children—the same picture that hung in our hallway of my brother, sister, and me naked in a bathtub together, which probly saved time but doesn’t seem like any way to get clean. I said goodbye to my grandmother’s roommate, then waved bye at her, then felt dumb about it and walked out.
Wandering around the hallways I overheard an old man report to a nurse that another man “killed me on the back of the leg six days ago,” and a woman using a dirty-tennis-balled walker was staring into a fish tank to apply light red lipstick. I stopped at the front desk again, and the now sandwichless nurse pointed me toward the dining hall, a large room with six or seven long tables in it. It was full but quiet except for the TV and a lady rocking violently hollering for someone-or-thing named Mashtar, and as I looked from face to face it occurred to me that women make the mistake of living too long more than men do.
My grandmother was seated at the table farthest from the window, pinching her paper bib and staring at the wall. I walked over and put a smile on my face so fake it trembled. She had a see-through mustache and the hairs were longer at the corners of her mouth. I kissed her forehead.
“What’s up, Grams, heard you ate your medicine patch.”
“Sydney?”
“No … I’m your daughter’s son. Alby.”
Something inside her shifted, she shook, and her eyes wandered off, following butterflies or parakeets or the word pajamas ticker-taping across her eyeballs, a monkey riding a dog or pink fighter jets on their way to kill kill kill. Or more likely they were following nothing at all, which at that moment was somewhere on the white wall between the clock and the television advertising deodorant. Smell cool .
Her eyes went wide. “Everything’s getting weird.”
“It’s always been weird. Here’s a horsey doll.”
I took her shaking, spotted hand and tried to put the doll in it, but she wouldn’t take it, so I placed it on the table in front of her.
“Don’t eat the comb,” I said.
She reached out and knocked the horsey doll over, then recoiled her shaking hand in a way that reminded me of a vacuum cleaner cord retracting.
“It’s OK,” I said. “It’s just a toy.”
She looked off, and after a while I waved my hand in front of her face. “Grandma,” I said, snapping my fingers now. “Hello? Yoo-hoo.”
She looked at me and flashed her gums in what I think was a smile.
“The pope came,” she said.
“On a kid’s back?”
I half-regretted it almost immediately, because who am I to insult something that gave her comfort? I’m all for painkillers, just prefer mine in pill form. Pints and rocks glasses. Ladies.
“He said … everybody should speak English…”
“Don’t popes speak Latin,” I said, “and like, refer to themselves in the first person plural? We am the
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