Water Tastings

A visit to granny and grandpa McCullough's was like a water tasting.
No bouquet, texture, nothing for the palate.
Granny was blind in a cloth chair beside the bed in the living room.
Grandpa waited on the left arm of the chair beside her.
One request awakened him
A second had him up for a kleenex, a bowl of Rice Krispies, or the pot.

We sat on the other wide arm of her soft chair easier than she did on the bottom.
It was on the right grandchildren sat for pats on the hand or rubs of the cheek.
"Now which one is this?" she asked.
We gave her the right names, Mike or Cathy or Brenda, or this is the baby Earl.
It would not have been any trouble to trick her.
Cathy would have been the one to do that.
Brenda was too good.
I was too busy staring at Granny's wandering eyes.
And Earl too little.

The house smelled of pee and stale cloth furniture
In the middle of the brightest day the house was dark inside.
Boxes of Cheerios and Rice Krispies on the kitchen table
Jars of instant Nescafe coffee on the table.
The remains of a meal on a plate left by a careless visitor.

The linoleum floors gave away my footsteps
I wandered into the kitchen.
Daddy was talking
Then Brenda was helping mom finish a story about one of us.
The kitchen was brighter
And I could breathe okay in there.
Not as much to worry about alone in the kitchen.

There I stood, peering into where they were
Cathy stared, gritting her teeth, motioning for me to come back.
“Put your butt on this chair” she mouthed.
Patting the chair menacingly.
We barely tolerated one another.

Later in the car, she cupped her hand over my ear
"Little brother, you are weird."
I guess it bothered her for me to stand in the bright kitchen
Watching them talk in the dim living room.
Her whispering in my ear bothered me
So I hit her in the middle of the upper back
And it sounded like a bass drum.
Her back was a favorite instrument of mine.

That was plenty enough for me to go with daddy into the bedroom when we got home
for lashes with his long black belt.

Cathy had bawled all the way home,
Reaching around for her back.
Making a fist with her index finger stuck out too far
And the wrist at a sissy angle.
I laughed
And whispered in her ear
"You are going to hell but you will never burn up",
She was not done with my ear either…
"I hope you die in the electric chair".

Before we had left granny and grandpa’s, daddys sister Francis had left with her boys.
They had put their tails on the wide arm of granny's chair
Sprawled all over her, and she knew Tommy from George.
They visited more often.

When they were finally gone - we were leaving too and gave long hugs.
-kissed granny and watched the tears run out of her glassy eyes.
Lined up like a death march.
"Bye Granny, Bye Grandpa".
Grandpa was standing there when I turned away from granny
I hugged him too, his beard scratched my face
I smelled his arm pits and his mildewed clothes.