<Situations and Revelations of Passing Notice in Guyana >
Locket # 42
I couldn't imagine what my grandparents looked like, and when they came to
New York, they didn’t look like how I thought they would look. My father took
me with him to pick them up at Kennedy Airport. It was a long drive from
Long Island.
We weren’t sure the plane would land on time. “And if it's not on time,
you’ll be stranded in the city with our daughter?” my mother said. I’m
eleven years old. I can look after myself, I said. “See? she wants to come
along,” Dad said.
They’ve been having little fights since Dad lost his job in the city. He found
another but it doesn’t pay as much as his first job. There are other “issues”
I’m not supposed to know about.
It’s usually very quiet round where we live. Sometimes, if I leave my door open
a crack, I can hear them in the living room in front of the TV set.
Mom raises her voice, Dad shushes her. For awhile, silence. They start up again
during the TV commercials, then go quiet again. Next morning I’m getting
ready for school, and it’s like none of it ever happened.
Anyway, when we got to the airport, the plane was late. Dad was annoyed
with himself. He should have phoned ahead about the arrival time. We missed
the Arrival ramp, so we had to exit and start all over. Then we had to park
the car and go inside.
“What do they look like?” I asked. They look old. “They might be lots of old
people coming off the plane.” One of them looks a lot like me. At least he
used to.
It took them forever to emerge. They looked tired, but seemed relieved to
see us. They complained a lot about the flight and the airport back home.
Grandpa asked how old I was, and how well I was doing in school and what I
wanted to be. They seemed nice. Their accent was funny, you just have to
listen harder when they talk.
From the first day Grandma took over the kitchen. She brought all kinds of
cooking stuff in jars, and she prepared dinner. “This is what I cook in Canal
District. I sure Dhany miss this food bad, right, son?”
She encouraged me to use my fingers, tear bits of “roti” and dip it in the
sauce; and try the spinach. It tasted good. “Nothing better than good ole
home cooking,” Mom said. Dad fussed about not enough paper napkins.
Mom had never visited the Canal District. She wondered why Dad hadn’t
thought of taking her there on vacation.
Grandpa was telling us stories about Dad when he was a boy, riding his bike
along the canal in the District. It had us all laughing. Dad scowled and looked
uncomfortable. “Nobody wants to hear about that stuff, Pa?” I do, Mom said.
I do, I said.
“Do you have boats in the canal?” I asked. That cracked everyone up. It’s not
that kind of canal, Nadine, Dad said. “Allyou must come on vacation. Anytime
you want. We will show you around,” Grandma said.
*
It was late September and the weather was getting ready for the slide to cold
days and nights.
Dad didn’t like the clothes his Dad and Mom brought with them, his buttoned
down long sleeves, her plain long dress. “Doesn’t look right somehow up here.”
I don’t see anything wrong with what they’re wearing, Mom said. As long as
they feel comfortable.
Dad said he found them sitting outside early Sunday morning. They’d gone for
a walk down the block. People might have seen them. The neighbors must
have wondered who they were.
Mom and I took Grandma out and Mom bought her a long denim skirt which she
liked. So now when we go anywhere she wears this blue denim skirt.
We stopped at the supermarket. Grandma wasn’t too happy in the Produce
section. She examined the cucumbers. “They not supposed to have these
bumps." And the tomatoes. “Why they look so red, red?” She was suspicious
of everything.
Dad had taken Grandpa to get a pair jeans. At the dinner table Grandpa said
he’d wanted the cargo pants with the pockets. Dad thought he’d look
ridiculous in them. “They’ll laugh at you back in Canal District.” So let them
laugh, is who wearing the pants?
Dad bought him a bathrobe which he didn’t use. He’d come up from the
basement, shoulders drooping in bright striped pajamas, hugging his tiny bag
of bathroom things (I think Dad bought that for him, too.)
He’d say, Hello, little girl. Good morning. So you getting ready for school.
He showed me an exercise he said I should do ‒ You too chubby for your age ‒
punching his arms sideways out and in, out and in. I lowered my head and
smiled as if I’d already started thinking about what he said.
Except for sounds of coughing in the basement, he seemed in good health. Top
of his head shiny, a little white Grandpa moustache; and he is “garrulous”
(Dad’s word). Grandma on the other hand sat calmly. She had this fixed look in
her eyes. And she smiled a big smile when everyone told her the food she
prepared was wonderful.
She must have said something to Grandpa because he announced he would
start work on a vegetable garden in the backyard. Dad was not keen on the
idea. “Now is not the right time to do that.” They had to get tools from the
hardware store.
Grandpa dug a nice row at the back along the fence. Grandma promised,
next Spring if we plant the seeds, we’d have so many tomatoes and greens,
we could give away or sell some to the neighbors.
Grandpa said he noticed the little concrete wall by the basement window well.
There were cracks in it. It needed fixing. It’s not important, Dad told him.
“I can fix it for you. Clean out the leaves in the space there. Make it look
nice.”
So off we went again to the hardware store for cement and masonry tools.
Dad complained to Mom. “This vacation is costing us. The tools, the wheel-
barrow, the back garden. When they’re gone what will happen to all the
stuff?” Just put them away in the tool shed until they come back to visit.
“They’re not coming back to visit.”
One night I overheard them arguing again about Grandpa.
It was after eleven o'clock, everyone was getting ready to go to bed. Dad
was going back and forth from the bathroom with his toothbrush. He’s a
dedicated morning and night tooth brusher.
It seemed Grandpa had killed someone back in Canal District. The man did
something nasty to a girl in the District, and for that Grandpa killed him.
How come he wasn’t arrested? Mom asked. “Keep your voice down. It doesn’t
always work like that back there,” Dad said. I don’t understand. “Listen!
People die. The newspaper headlines say: ‘Mystery Surrounds The Death’.
Besides after what the man did to that girl!” (Mom didn’t want the gory
details of what the man did to that girl.) So tell me, what is your father
doing here in our house? Hiding out till ‘the mystery’ blows over? “The girl
was Nadine’s age. The man had no business violating her like that.” Are you
listening to yourself, Dhany? Something very wrong happened. Your father
was involved.
Dad said not one word more. And that was the end of the story.
That night I grabbed my phone and under the blanket I sent Josh a message.
He’s this boy at my school I like, only he thinks I’m a stuck in the house nerd
who goes straight home from school. He says nothing exciting could ever
happen where I live. Good looks, but a peanut size brain ‒ that’s Josh. His
purpose on this planet still unknown.
"Guess what?” I told Josh. “My grandpa is staying with us. He killed a man back
in his home country. He’s hiding out here till things blow over.” Rightaway
Josh answered “Wow”. I thought that would get his attention.
By the time he was ready to be more friendly, hoping to come around and
maybe meet Grandpa, they had gone back home to Canal District. And that
was the end of our story.
Nadine G.
Patchogue, New York.
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 