Simple Genetics
Mom was deep into her story about how the cashier at Food Trough shortchanged her when Gramps screamed from his armchair two rooms away.
“Mr. Peanut is my lover!”
Mom didn’t skip a beat. “OK, Dad. So, anyway, I swore never to go back there again and I won’t, I tell you. I won’t!”
“Lemon butt!”
Gramps was old when I was ten. He fought in some war somewhere and he loved to tell stories, usually while watching M*A*S*H and shoving crinkly cut French fries in what he referred to as his “pie hole”.
“You know,” Mom once whispered in between forkfuls of chicken Parmesan, “his stories aren’t exactly true.”
I didn’t care. His stories were cool. Way better than TV.
Gramps was also crazy; at least that’s what people thought. But I knew better. After my sister was born, Mom said he started getting funny. He got even funnier after Grandma died. By the time Kelly was in kindergarten Gramps was shoving sporks up his nose and screaming obscenities at mailboxes. The doctors threw around big words but never actually offered a diagnosis. Mom determined he wasn’t harmful to my sister or me so he came to live with us. “Live out his days”, Mom always said when explaining to her friends why her dad lived with her and sometimes peed in the ficus.
The first time I realized Gramps wasn’t crazy we were at the mall. He had just finished informing my friends that farts are, in fact, considered a food group in other countries. Then something caught his eye. It was a book on great philosophical thinkers of the twentieth century. The book was propped between the biographies of Bertrand Russell and Friedrich Nietzsche in a bookstore display that could only have been created by a bored, depressed college student.
“Come with me,” Gramps said.
He marched into the store, bought the book and made his way to the food court where he proceeded to read the book aloud to anyone who would listen.
Turns out, I was his only listener.
“Sam,” he said in an almost whisper, “do you know the difference between a philosopher and a crazy man?”
I shook my head.
“Nothing!” he bellowed, slamming his fist on the plastic table. “Nothing, my boy. I want to tell you a secret.”
Gramps wasn’t crazy. He was the smartest man I ever knew. He came up with the whole charade when mom first asked him to Kelly’s preschool drum recital. He had been testing the waters for months. A “faggot” here, a “penis” there. But Mom never caught on. It wasn’t until he stood up in the middle of Kelly’s recital and demanded that the Emperor be held accountable for his crimes against the innocent inhabitants of Blueberry Hill that mom decided the next time my sister had a public performance, Gramps would stay at home.
After Grandma died, Gramps decided to go the whole way. What did he have to lose? Five weeks after we buried his wife of forty-five years, Gramps learned Polish and communicated in nothing but for the next eight months. Shortly after that, he refused to eat anything unless it was on a stick. This was fun for my sister and me. Mom bought bamboo skewers and we came up with endless food-on-a-stick recipes. By the time we mastered soup-on-a-stick Gramps was on to the next thing.
Gramps was always there. And never there. He wasn’t allowed to attend the major events in our lives, like graduations and wedding ceremonies (receptions were fine). But when my girlfriend got pregnant at 17, he stayed on the phone for an hour urging me to do the right thing. When she miscarried after we had chosen a name, he listened silently as I cried. I knew his secret. I was the only one.
Gramps died at 91. Not a bad run. Mom wept like nothing I had ever seen. Kelly tried to comfort her, but Mom just pushed her away. Kelly was eight and a half months pregnant and I thought maybe Mom was jealous of the life that grew inside her daughter’s womb. Kelly would eventually have the baby and name her Carol, which everyone, including her husband, thought was stupid. But Kelly has a thing for Carol Burnett.
By the time Carol was five, Kelly was dragging the whole family to recitals, plays and spelling bees. Mom smiled and clapped and presented flowers. She was the perfect grandma until Carol was fifteen and Kelly’s twins, Harvey and Tim, turned eight. That was when I learned I was not the only one who knew Gramps’ secret.
Harvey and Tim were two of the three Wise Men. All through Silent Night, Mom sat, straight-backed, a smile frozen on her face. Her hair was gray and the backs of her hands were webbed with delicate blue veins, but she was still beautiful. I watched as she clenched and unclenched her fists. Mom had seemed distracted lately. She had stopped hounding me about getting re-married and leaving the firm.
By the time Our Gracious Lady of Hope’s Sunday School Starlets had finished Away in a Manger, I could tell Mom was itching to do something. I leaned over to ask if she needed anything – a glass of water, a tissue, the restroom? I didn’t have time to open my mouth. As soon as she felt me close, she stood. Her fists relaxed. Harvey picked his nose. Kelly snapped pictures. A man two rows behind loudly whispered, “Down in front.”
Mom took a deep breath. “Lollipop-fucker!” she screamed. Harvey stopped, a booger perched on a chubby index finger halfway between his nose and mouth. Kelly turned towards Mom, the camera still in front of her face.
“Lemon-licker! Fudge-scraper! Melons are attacking! Run for your lives!” Mom threw her skirt over her head and began to cluck like a chicken. The rest of the evening passed in a blur. The play was postponed until after Christmas. Tim and Harvey were shuttled home by their father. Kelly and I shared possible diagnoses on the ride back to The Purple Pines, Mom’s 55-and-over community. Early onset dementia? A reaction to her blood pressure meds?
“God, mom.” Kelly poured tea from a chipped Japanese teapot. “You really scared us.”
Mom sipped her tea, a pinky held erect. “I’m sorry sweetie. I don’t know what came over me.”
Kelly sighed. “Mom, you flashed the whole congregation. We were mortified.”
Mom shrugged. “I guess I can’t be trusted at these things.”
“But Harvey and Tim need you there! They’re playing the wolves in Little Red Riding Hood in February.”
I cleared my throat. “Umm, there was only one wolf in that story, Kel.” Kelly shot me a piercing glare.
Mom stared past us both. She muttered something about wolves and boogers and golf and living a life and how when we were her age we’d understand.
It was then that I knew. I knew moments before she told Kelly that it was almost time for the forest fairies to visit and read her the Iceland News. I knew before Mom turned to me, smiled and winked.
I tugged at Kelly’s arm. “C’mon sis. Let’s go. There’s nothing we can do. It must be hereditary.”
– Tammy Kaiser writes from her sagging living room sofa and dreams of one day being the voice of a cartoon character. She repeatedly tells her three children that she plans to fake dementia when she is older just to screw with them. Tammy’s work has appeared in Raven Chronicles, American Tanka, Calliope, Camroc Review, PoetsWest and others. Bananafish is, by far, the coolest word after donkeyfinger and banananoodle - and anything followed by the word pickle. http://www.facebook.com/tammy.kaiser1
