“Your Grandpa was a bitter man, I don’t think anyone really loved him except my little step-grandma.” Mary told her son. “She was the one who raised him, even though he hated her for doing it.”
Mary lived in a clean house, clean body and clean mind. Her father’s behavior did not match the values she developed. She wasn't fashionable in the way she dressed but she was conscious of her public perception, she never mixed stripes and polka dots nor orange and red. Her convictions were steadfast and irrevocable. God help the person who wanted to change her. She was not so much beautiful, but pleasing to look at. She took charge of her life and all who entered were a part of the realm she ruled.
“Why was he bitter Mom,” her son asked.
“Because I wasn’t a boy,” she replied. “he really wanted a son and he treated me like I was one. I had to do farm work like I was a hired hand. After being in the one-roomed school house all day, I had to come home to slop the pigs, feed the chickens, and work in the garden.”
It didn’t sound like an easy life, her son thought, but be couldn’t understand his Mom talking about Grandpa like that. They had lived in California when he was in grade school and the family would visit Springfield every summer to visit his Mom and Dad’s parents and siblings. It was the big vacation usually lasting three weeks, driving cross country from California to Springfield in their Plymouth station wagon watching the trip in arrears from the backward facing rear seat. Fighting with his brother and sister, testing their Mom and Dad’s patience with their bickering and complaining. These were the types of summers beautiful memories are built upon.
“That doesn’t sound so bad Mom, working on a farm!” Her son told her.
She just laughed as she took stock of her son. He really doesn’t know how tough life can be, she thought. We have sheltered him in this military life moving from place to place. Here we are in Japan, whoever thought we would live in such an exotic place.
She looked at her son again and remembered why she was telling him about his Grandpa. He was turning out a lot like that bitter, dirty son of bitch who treated her mother and sweet little step-Grandma like servants. Her too, she pondered. She knew she had a lot her Dad in her, but that had helped her to survive his brutality. Now her son was beginning to follow the path that had destroyed her young life. She knew he was out drinking, maybe even whoring, God knows it’s easy enough in Japan to do both, how many of her friend’s husbands were doing the same thing. Maybe if he knows the truth about his Grandpa it will stop his fall.
“It was hard, really hard.” she told him. “All of us living in that little green house surrounded by acres and acres of corn, no plumbing, no toilets, miles from town, and there was always work to do. My daddy made me crank up that old Model A Ford every time he drove it because he was too lazy to do it himself. Even after that cold morning when the crank kicked back and broke my arm, after it healed he would call me outside to get the car started while he sat behind the wheel. I guess it was better than having my Mom do it.”
Her son wasn't listening, he was remembering Springfield and the memorable summers. He recalled how content it felt on those hot summer nights, sitting on the back porch of the green shingled two story farmhouse while the corn crept right up to the narrow lawn defining civilization on the farm. Sometimes there were bursts of fireworks in the dark sky above the corn from the state fair and he would lazily watch each eruption brighten the sky while listening to Grandpa and Uncle Pearl talk about WWI, politics, the state of the world in general and he would occasionally wonder why Uncle Pearl wanted to chew something he kept spitting into the cup next to his chair. Meanwhile Grandma and Aunt Minnie would gossip about their siblings and cousins as their worn out bodies rocked gently in metal lawn chairs as every bug on the farm was making a pilgrimage to the dim porch light. Sometimes he and his brother would walk out into the lawn and catch a jar full of lightening bugs whose brightly lit tails never ceased to amaze and delight two boys from the city.
“I know you love your Grandpa, but you need to know what he was like. When I was a little girl he did terrible things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Well, one time, when I was about 9 or 10 years old, I was working in the garden,” she began, “and I stepped on top of some carrots crushing their tops. My Daddy began yelling and cursing at me, then as I was squatting over the damaged carrots, he kicked me right in the butt with his steel toed boots and sent me flying. I landed on my face in the dirt.”
He wasn’t surprised by that revelation. His Mom had used many different instruments on his butt to make a point, true she didn’t curse but she did yell at him. When she did that she scared him, but he was used to it. He wondered about his Grandpa remembering the photo album and other memories residing on that little farm that he explored during summer vacations.
Mary continued speaking to him, relating; how her Dad beat her Mom and how her step-Grandma had to be protected from the man she had nurtured, how he would come home demanding a hot meal late at night and make Grandma fix him one, how she had left home after she found a place for her Grandma, how her Daddy had a fight with his Dad in the streets of Springfield, how Mom had called the police and had her Dad arrested.
As the story went on and on, her son’s mind began to wander, maybe in rejection of the story he was being told, maybe because his mind always wandered.
Probably because he was young and the future was always brighter than the past. He was thinking about the party planned for that night and wondered if his mother would give him permission to go out tonight. Some of the guys from the football team had asked to go with them to a place they knew about to drink some beer.
“Your Grandpa was an unhappy man, one night Daddy came home late and brought a woman home with him. He was raging drunk, cursing and yelling at everyone until he fell down and passed out on the floor. The woman with him just as drunk, but she just sat at the kitchen table laughing at all of us. My Mom drove the woman home and never said a word about her. In the morning, he made me get up and fix him breakfast.” Mary stopped speaking and looked at her son. She was sure she was getting through to him because he looked so serious.
The target of her story looked up and said, “Wow, that sounds terrible.”
“Is it alright if I go out with some of the guys from the team tonight?” he asked.
Wearily she looked at him wondering how this story would affect him as she answered, “I suppose so, your Dad and I are going to meet the our friends for dinner at the Officer’s club tonight. Just be home by midnight.”
“Okay, Mom, thanks.” He said as he headed to his room.
“And Ricky, think about what I just told you.” she said.
“Sure, I will.” came the reply as he closed the door to his room.
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The juke box in the bar at the Officer’s Club was filled with the music of Frank Sinatra and the men who oversee the operations at the base. Carl and Mary were sitting a small table in the dim, smoke filled room. They were drinking their first martinis of the evening as they waited for their friends to arrive, when they would move into the dining room. Mary touched Carl’s hand to get his attention and they moved their heads closer together as she said, ‘I told our son about my Dad today.”
“Uh huh” Carl replied.
“ He needed to hear the story, he’s old enough to understand and learn about the bad things that happen with alcohol.”
“Okay,” Carl replied as he watched his boss at the bar tossing down a shot of whiskey then drowning that with a long drink from his glass of beer. He was wondering how to tell Mary that Dewey hadn’t recommended him for promotion. She would be pissed.
“Carl, are you paying attention to me?” Mary demanded.
“Uh, yes, you told Ricky about your Dad.” He said as he sipped his Martini and looked around the bar.
“You know he is drinking and smoking and I worry he’ll up like his Grandpa.” She said as she looked at her husband. “Someone has to talk to him about his behavior, and I thought this might grab his attention better than confronting him.”
“What did he say?” he said as he lit the cigarette Mary had put into her mouth.
She sucked in the smoke and expelled it while she replied, ‘Not much, I am not sure how well it went, you know he hasn’t been paying much attention to us lately.”
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Their son was standing in a circle of boys with their orange letterman’s jackets on, sucking the brew out of a can of Sapporo. They had been drinking steadily for the past thirty minutes. They were at an outdoor shrine that had no meaning for any of the American boys except that it was a quiet place where they were out of sight and not likely be disturbed while they drank to drunkedness. They were swaying and singing the lyrics to one of the new Beatle songs that was popular on Armed Forces Radio. Everyone was talking to everyone else and no one was hearing anything anyone said.
He was as drunk as he had ever been. His thoughts turned to his parents and he worried that he might not get home before them. If they caught him in this state they would ground him for weeks. He remembered his talk with Mom that afternoon and a toast seemed appropriate. “All right guys,” He yelled to get everyone’s attention. “All right” he said again as they all turned to listen to him. “I want to propose a toast to my drunken Grandpa.” He raised his beer to his mouth and chugged the remaining liquid into his body.
“Here, Here,” The football team yelled in tribute, “To Ricky’s drunken Grandpa!” They chugged their beers, threw the cans on the ground, and broke out of the circle to go get another one.
