Look but Don't Choke

Chapter 7

A/N: Sorry to make all of you wait so long, I've been super busy lately. Generally I like to get one chapter out a week, but...yeah. Since I've been taking my sweet time, I'm putting this up unedited. That will explain why it's twice as long as usual and sort of rough, forgive me. I'll edit later and I'll try to be more punctual from now on. P.S. I chose this song because it's the song most often played during my grandmother's house parties.           

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            It’s important to note that Grandpa Joe and Grandma Sophie are still very much married. Maybe because they were too lazy to sign the paperwork. Or maybe it was because deep down they still loved each other after all these decades. It was most likely because Grandma Sophie wanted to keep the benefits and Grandpa Joe didn’t give a shit.

             Either way as far as the law is concerned; they’ve been married for fifty-nine years. As far as the Bible is concerned, well, they’ve been married to a hell of a lot of people since the initial I Dos. They didn’t even really hate each other, just realized a year and a half into the marriage that neither of them were the marrying kind.

            Grandma Sophie was a party girl at heart. She lived for the weekend and the freedom of being able to do what she pleased without feeling like she had to ask first.  Freedom for Grandpa Joe was in his nomadic and spontaneous lifestyle. Last we heard he was in Peru somewhere; the eternal backpacker.

            “I haven’t seen Grandma Sophie in forever,” Henry said from the passenger seat of my car.

            “She misses you, you know. I think she might even love you more than me.”         

            “I can believe that. I am pretty loveable.”

            As I turned down Twenty-First Street the rancid scent of the paper mill, less than a quarter of a mile away, filled the car. The old neighborhood was lined with houses that had been in families for generations. Most of the homes were built with slanted roofs and colorful vinyl siding that had faded since their building decades earlier.

            In some of the yards old timers were sitting in their dirt spotted lawns on rickety plastic chairs, drinking and laughing, no doubt reminiscing about their youth. I blew the horn at old Mr. Amos and Carl Henley, who sat on a porch in aged baseball caps and tattered tan pants. They looked up and waved.

            Three houses down I parked the car on the street in front of Grandma’s house, right behind my cousin Gabriel’s car.

            The house my Grandmother lived in currently was given to her as a gift from Grandpa Joe. It was an old one story duplex that his family had rented once they’d moved down here from Virginia. When his parents died, Grandpa Joe bought out the B side so that Grandma could have the place to herself. When Grandma called to tell him that six months later the family had refused to leave, Grandpa Joe flew all the way back from Thailand to take care of it for her.

            He’d sat on the porch drinking a beer and smoking cigarettes, patiently taking his time. When six o’ clock came, he calmly got up, went inside, and took a sledgehammer to the shared dining room wall. Right in the middle of pot roast and mashed potatoes, Grandpa Joe forcibly removed the family from his house; kicking and screaming.

            That was the only time in my life I’ve ever seen those two getting along. There’s an old joke in the family that Grandpa and Grandma Harper are happiest when causing mischief.