Most of my posts are free. Some are paid. I believe strongly in writers being paid for their work and supported financially. If you agree, please consider going paid. Only $30/year or $5/month. Thank you!!!
###
As a child, I never knew how to be around my grandfather. That is to say: he made me uncomfortable. At the time, before all my disappointment about my own father, I loathed the trips we’d take along Pacific Coast Highway, the black ribbon of road paralleling the blue sea in Southern California.
During Christmas and for Thanksgiving, Dad, Mom and I would pile into the Jeep Cherokee—this was before I started drinking in high school, before punk rock, before my grandfather’s terminal cancer—and drive the hour and a half south to Malibu, from Ojai. I’d watch the beaches passing by, admire the waves, the surfers in the cold November or December water. White frothy waves crashed on craggy rocks near million dollar homes.
Then we’d take a left up that long, windy road, leading into the hills, and we’d drive all the way to the top, parking along the curb on the steep slope, Dad arrowing the front tires inward so if the car for some reason went backwards the tires would hit the curb, not slide all the way down the mountain, crashing into someone’s home.
The house was not huge but it was not small either. A massive deck surrounded the whole place. Floor-to-ceiling windows reflected the glare of the harsh winter sun. On the back deck you could gaze out and see the glimmering city lights of Los Angeles, from so high up.
Clarence, my grandfather, would answer the door, his bald dome shining from the glint of light coming off the entryway lamp. He had a slight slouch. He wore a sweatshirt over a collared shirt, the collar protruding around his neck. He did this thing where he sucked his bottom lip with his top lip, making a distinct sucking sound. His eyes were slightly closed. Gnarled, veiny hands clutched a cane.
Even then, years and years before I knew about the pressure he’d once put on my father to “succeed” when he was young—my father’s vertically slashed tender wrists, age 27—I understood that my grandpa was not like me. Only he was like me. Or rather, I was like him. The arrogance, the bad humor. The cold calculating awareness and intelligence. The softness and empathy, only hidden. He’d worked for AT&T in radar systems during the war. After that he’d worked in IT for several firms, invested in stock options, climbed his way up, became manager, CEO. He ran several companies, got lucky in the stock market; made his millions. Not bad for a man who’d been born and raised in Nebraska during the Depression, had only gone to public state college. He’d wanted his kids to do more academically.
Then there was Joan, his mistress. When his wife had divorced him—after 30 years—he moved his former secretary into his home. She was a train wreck: gray curly hair bobbed short; a constant gossiping, yapping mouth; a cigarette always dangling from her thin, delicate fingers. She was originally from Brooklyn and had this heinous, absurd laugh that sounded like a car engine when you flip the ignition and it won’t start, won’t turn over. Once, she told a story of how, in her twenties, she discovered her aunt, dead in her apartment in Queens for days, the body decomposing, ants crawling all over her deteriorating flesh.
That afternoon—it was Christmas, right before I turned 11—we’d parked the car and walked along the sidewalk path leading to the door, which looked like a castle entrance. We were all dressed to the nines; “proper.” Joan answered the door wearing tall heels, silver earrings, a blue and green dress. She was a woman of another generation, the 50s and 60s. She reeked of cigarettes, the scent of her cloves wafting, the edgy, pungent stink. Joan said hello and Merry Christmas and stepped aside and gestured with her narrow, varicose hand and then she laughed her guffaw and we came in, the castle door’s hinges creaking behind us.