Work in Progress

It was ninth or tenth grade. I know because I walked home from the bus, which dropped me off from High School alone, because Justin was still in middle school, which got out nearly an hour later. For the first block of the walk, I talked to Scott and Tim, but they turned down their street and I continued on.

It was a beautiful day. The sun lit the sidewalk in front of me, the cut lawns and new flower boxes. I could see the park, which was a house and a small creek over, but I could hear people listening to a radio there. The temperature of the air was right at that point where the breeze cools you from the sun, refreshing and revitalizing, then the sun heats you from the chill the the breeze. You could enjoy every movement of the air, every patch of shade. That rare sweet spot.

I walked quickly, though, not enjoying these things in the way I should. My tennis shoes patted the pavement in the rhythm of a power walk. In a habit I still have today, my key was already in my hand, my mind thinking about its use.

I took a right by the green house, where just a couple years ago I babysat for a boy and a girl, and began down my street. I was disappointed by what I say. My grandfather's truck was in front of our house.

I loved my grandfather, but he was never the same after my grandmother died. She must have tempered him. With her gone, I remember him as unhappy, even cranky and always a little disappointed. I remember complaints and criticisms. It is hard for me to equate that man, with the man who let Justin and I ride the lawnmower around his backyard.

These things take over the thoughts I had, had just moments before. Thoughts about what I would do with the run of the house to myself. My mom and dad were both at work and Justin wouldn't be home for a half hour. I imagined myself watching TV, which normally didn't come on until seven or eight or playing a computer game. I had homework, of course, but if I did it at all, it wouldn't be during this prime time. That dream, though, was washed away by that truck. He'd ask me for a cup of coffee, then once I was out there he'd want to talk and my time would drain away.

Maybe, just maybe, though, I could sneak into the house. When I rounded the corner I stayed close to the wall, playing the angle between the back of our house and the half of our garage which had become his workshop. If he didn't wonder out too far, and I didn't stray into the driveway, I might just make it. When I got to the door, I opened it slowly. Quietly. I didn't let the door slam behind me. I was in.

I had the place to myself for an hour. I don't know what all I did, but it was exactly what I wanted to do.

My brother was the first one home. When I heard him, I knew my time was up. So, feeling a little bad for dodging my grandfather, I opened the sliding door and walked in the backyard. I didn't see my grandfather at first,but I could hear him, very lightly, strangely calling. I looked out back, then in the shop, then down.

He was in a semi-fetal position clutching the leg of table saw with one hand and making a fist with the other. He had tried to right himself, but he didn't have the strength. I asked if he was OK, if he needed help. I fumbled with my words, while my stomach became a painful pit. I hid, while he lay on the concrete floor needing me.

My brother called 911 while I stayed with him. I wasn't going to leave him now. I think my mom arrived before the ambulance. During that time I learned he had been there for five hours, he had only been there a few minutes before he lost control of some of his muscles and he hadn't been trying to right himself, but hide the cigarettes, which were in that clinched fist, before anyone found him with them. As far as we knew, he had quit smoking. This was his dirty secret. The stroke, though, kept him from getting far enough back to drop them into the dark and he couldn't let go of crumbled red and white package. Broken and exposed.

When he had gone to the hospital, I told my mom and dad I didn't know he was there. That I just came into the house, but hadn't heard him. I excused and rationalized with my mouth, trying to find that thing which would cover the conviction I felt. I wanted someone to lift the weight of my selfishness from my neck. Everyone told me that I wasn't to blame, things happened, he had been there for a long time, but I had robbed their comfort of value, but trying to protect myself. For everything they said, I thought about how I had snuck into the house, intentionally avoided him. At the same time his stroke exposed his shame to the world, I hid mine, and suffered alone.