WHEN I SAT DOWN AT THE kitchen table on the following Saturday morning, Mom reminded me curtly that Grandma and Grandpa were due for arrival any moment. She ordered me to dust the living room and dining room. I rolled my eyes and sighed. That didn’t go over too well.
Mom’s birthday was on March 6, a Monday, so my grandparents decided it was the perfect time for a visit. It also meant I was in for one lousy weekend.
“Listen, mister,” Dad said, slapping his newspaper sharply on the table, “you’ve got a few minutes before your grandparents arrive to change that attitude of yours.”
“C’mon,” I said to him. “You don’t like them either.”
Dad started laughing, but it wasn’t a warm laugh. “Leo, you’re going to meet a lot of people in this world you don’t like. But learning to fake it is a necessary life skill.”
“Quiet, both of you!” Mom hollered. “I’ll dust the damn furniture myself,” she muttered as she stormed out of the room.
“Your mother is a little stressed at the moment,” Dad whispered.
“You think?” I said.
My father tried to fold the paper neatly and place it on the table. He then arranged the salt and pepper shakers and wiped his place with a napkin. That was his idea of helping Mom out. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m not too excited about your grandparents’ visit, either. Your grandfather is fine, but your grandmother,” he told me, “well, she never quite approved of me from day one.”
“I’ve picked up on that, Dad. What exactly did you do?” I asked.
“The hell if I know. I can’t do anything right in her eyes.”
“I can’t, either,” I told Dad.
Dad laughed. “Nobody can, Leo. Just smile and try to keep a low profile this weekend. Hang out with your grandfather.”
“He’s not really a talker,” I reminded him.
Dad didn’t respond. He picked up the paper and tried to pretend he was reading when Mom came back into the kitchen.
“I could really use a little cooperation from you two,” she said. “This place is a mess. Leo, I need you to vacuum the living room and dining room after you dust. And you,” she said to my father, “I’d appreciate it if you could get up off your ass and wash the dishes.”
Mom stormed out of the room again, and Dad and I got moving. I finished the vacuuming just as my grandparents’ yellow Ford pulled into the driveway. “They’re here!” I yelled cheerfully.
My mother hollered from the far corner of the house. “Leo, go help them unload the car!”
My grandparents’ car was packed to the gills with boxes and bags filled with all sorts of crap.
“Nice to see you, Leo,” my grandfather said with a smile. I gave him a hug.
I went to greet Grandma, but she already had her head buried in the trunk. “Let’s cut the chitchat,” she snapped. She turned and handed me a box that felt like it was loaded with rocks. “We’ll socialize after we unload. Now chop-chop!”
Grandma and Grandpa brought their surplus of Mason jars and Tupperware containers crammed with last autumn’s fruits and vegetables from their garden, plus two coolers of frozen beef from a slaughtered cow they split with Mom and Dad.
My job was to unpack the coolers of meat into the basement freezer. After that I swapped last year’s empty Mason jars with the new delivery and arranged them on the pantry shelves by dates and labels. I unloaded glass jars filled with string beans suspended in cloudy green liquid, whole peeled tomatoes crammed in tight, cucumber slices fermenting in vinegar and dill weed, sauerkraut, relishes, homemade catsup—you name it. Our shelves soon looked like the work of a crazed cannibal storing his victims’ innards for future meals.
Grandma and Grandpa never came simply for a visit. In addition to their annual food delivery, they carried out a laundry list of household projects. Unfortunately our house needed plenty of work. If Mom hadn’t prepared a list, Grandma and Grandpa would soon be scouring the house looking for cracks in the walls, pipes that showed signs of leaking, screen windows that needed patching or replacement, clogged gutters, even car repairs. They would find something that needed to be fixed, and that section of the house would become a demolition site.
I wasn’t even finished unpacking the Mason jars when I heard the noise of the hammer in the upstairs bathroom. Grandpa was already at it. This weekend he was retiling Mom and Dad’s shower.
Upstairs, Mom and Grandma had newspaper spread across the kitchen table. They were busy polishing the silverware Grandma had retrieved from the dining room. “Really, Elise,” Grandma said to Mom, “what in the hell happened to your husband’s hair?”
“Mother, you promised.” Mom sounded exhausted already.
I opened the refrigerator door and stood there for a brief moment, scanning the contents for something to eat.
“You’re wasting energy, young man!” Grandma said. “Fix yourself a bowl of the green beans I brought you if you’re hungry.”
I closed the door and tried to make a run for it. “That’s okay.”
“Why don’t you go see what you can do to help your grandfather,” Mom encouraged me.
“If he’s anything like ol’ Flat Ass,” Grandma said, “he’ll just be getting in the way.” That was Grandma’s nickname for Dad.
“Would you please stop calling him that?” Mom begged.
“Your husband called me Bubble Butt first,” Grandma snapped.
“That was fifteen years ago, Mother.” Mom sighed. She looked at me and then closed her eyes, fatigued. “Leo,” she finally said to me, “go see if you can help your grandfather.”
I looked out the kitchen window and watched Dad wandering aimlessly around the yard, trying to look busy with a rake. The man was a master at escaping these situations.
It was important to Mom that I spend time with Grandpa and learn some basic skills. Grandpa could build or repair almost anything, but he really preferred to work by himself and rarely said a word. So when I “helped” him with a job, I mostly just handed him tools or helped clean up the messes he created.
“Hey, Grandpa. Anything I can do to help?” I asked as I entered my parents’ bathroom. Grandpa had the floor lined with cardboard and was inside the shower, tapping the tile away with a hammer and chisel.
“Not enough room in this shower for the two of us,” he said, keeping his back to me.
I considered that image a moment, and I had to agree with Grandpa.
“You don’t need to stick around, Leo.” I knew he was serious, but I also knew I couldn’t leave. So I sat on the sink counter and watched him work for a while.
Grandpa eventually got all the old tiles off the wall. “You’re still here” was all he said when he turned and stepped out of the shower. “I’m going to slip out the back and sneak a smoke before I replace the backer board.” He looked at the former shower wall now littering the floor. “I suppose you can get rid of this mess.”
I grabbed the whisk broom, dustpan, and a plastic bag and started cleaning. A few minutes later I heard Grandma yelling, “Bernard, I smell smoke!” My dad once pointed out that Grandma had the unique capacity to shriek each word at a different pitch.
Later, Caleb and I sat together on one side of the table, with Mom and Grandpa opposite us. Dad and Grandma squared off at the table heads. Mom had baked a whole chicken. After Caleb led the family in prayer, the bowls of potatoes, beans, salad, and bread began crisscrossing the table in all directions. Dad stood up and began hacking away at the chicken. He plunged a knife into a thigh and sawed at the joint, then used his hand to rip off a whole leg for Caleb and plopped it on his plate. That was Caleb’s favorite part of the bird.
“That’s not the way you carve a chicken,” Grandma mumbled to my mother.
Dad paused and let out a loud, exhausted sigh. He slowly placed the knife on the table and sat down. “Of course it’s not, Jean,” he said smugly.
“What’s that supposed to mean, Flat Ass?” Grandma asked.
“Mother!” Mom yelled.
“What it means,” Dad said, “is there’s a right way, there’s a wrong way, and there’s Jean’s way.”
Grandpa laughed. Caleb helped himself to a large spoonful of mashed potatoes and began making train tracks with his fork. “Right way! Wrong way! Jean’s way! Right!” Caleb repeated in a monotone.
“Pass that chicken down here, mister!” Grandma snapped. “I’ll show you the proper way to carve a chicken.”
Dad slid the chicken platter across the table toward Grandma. He sat down in humiliation and sipped from his beer. Mom looked at me and rolled her eyes.
Here we go again. I kind of wished Curtis were here as my witness.
Grandma grabbed the boning knife from the table and stuck the knife’s tip between the remaining thigh and back. With one swift incision she snapped the thigh and drumstick from the rest of the carcass. Then she deftly inserted the knife into the chicken’s back and quickly sliced the breast meat. I thought even Dad had to admit she was pretty good with a knife. She had that bird sliced up in seconds.
“So, Leo,” she said as she rationed some chicken onto my plate, “your mother tells me that you’ve become quite the runner.”
“I’m okay, I guess,” I told her.
“You get that talent from our side of the family, you know,” she told me. “My brother George was a champion runner in his day.”
“That’s what Mom tells me,” I assured her.
Dad nearly spit out his beer. “Not this again. That old tub of lard?” he said to Grandma in disbelief. “A runner? That guy could barely waddle across the room.”
“Watch it, Flat Ass! My brother could outrun you any day!” Grandma said as she skipped Dad’s dinner plate and served Grandpa.
Dad didn’t take the bait. He sat quietly for a moment, then calmly asked, “Bubble Butt, could you please pass me the chicken?”
“Please!” Mom begged. “Can’t you two just give it a rest? I swear it would be a lot better if you just didn’t say a word to each other!”
“BUBBLE BUTT!” Caleb laughed.
“Caleb,” Mom said. “That’s not appropriate.”
“Not appropriate. Right!” Caleb repeated.
Grandpa had a little smile on his face as he took a bite of his chicken leg. Mom tossed her fork onto her plate and glared at Dad.
“What?” my father asked Mom innocently. “Is it entirely impossible that Leo might have gotten some of his running talent from my side of the family? I was quick back in my day.”
Grandma couldn’t help herself. “Ha! I’ll race you right now. Once around the house!”
“No, thanks,” Dad replied, laughing. “I don’t want to be responsible if you have a heart attack.”
“Niles!” Mom yelled.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Grandma said. “I’m fit as a fiddle! C’mon—Niles versus Grandma Jean. Winner gets bragging rights to Leo’s talent.”
I looked over at Grandpa, and we couldn’t keep it in any longer. We started laughing. Then Dad gave in. Grandma was the only one who remained stone-faced.
Dad looked over at me with a coy grin. “Leo,” he said, “could you please ask Speedy Gonzales over there to pass the salt to Slowpoke?”
“Niles!” Mom yelled.
“It was a compliment,” Dad offered. He actually sounded contrite.
Mom got up and left the table. I finished my food, excused myself, and went downstairs to hide in my room. A few minutes later I heard Mom and Dad yelling at each other in their bedroom above me, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I wanted to go out and run, but my stomach was too full.
I lay on my bed thinking about Dad and Grandma’s dinner drama, and I started laughing again. If only Curtis had been there to see it. He wasn’t going to believe this dinner story.