Soup and sandwich times three.
“He will be fine,” I say to Jarrod, who looks uncharacteristically worried.
“He doesn’t look good, Danny.”
“He’ll be fine, once he gets his stuff.”
“That’s what we all say.”
“Food, for strength, then some medication, get his equilibrium back, then a good rest and he will be his old self.”
“His old, old, old self,” Jarrod quips.
I reach right across the table and grab his shirt, pulling him to me to make the booth seem a lot smaller. A teenage girl pushes a stroller across in front of us and stares as if we can’t see her. As if we are in a jackass aquarium or something. Don’t tap the glass, girlie.
I look at my balled fist, Jarrod’s balled shirt, the uncomfortable defenseless look on his face.
“How many times do you suppose this table has seen this scene?” I ask with what I hope is an apologetic smile.
Jarrod shrugs. “Probably, like, a lot?”
“What is even in this for you, man?” I ask him, still clinging to him.
“I don’t know,” he says.
I laugh. “You’re a good man,” I say right up close to his face.
“The bar on the opposite corner is that kind of place,” says the cook with the Marty Van Buren sideburns. It sounds like a joke but he appears unamused. He delivers the soups and sandwiches himself, separating the goings-on by plunking down food. The waitress is having her own food at the counter.
He walks away. I look to Da beside me and he looks rather drained of color.
“Eat,” I tell him, picking up half of his tuna sandwich, which is now bleeding watery mayo onto him. He takes the sandwich listlessly, dunks a corner into his tomato soup so that both sandwich and soup mingle into a look that could kill your appetite. He bites, crunches into too much celery.
I am very happy I got ham and cheese.
“What is your plan, Danny Boy?” Jarrod asks.
“My plan?” I ask. “What kind of plan could I have? I was going off to study philosophy in a few weeks, that was my plan. And even that was no kind of plan at all.”
Jarrod nods.
“It has to be getting worse by the day, man,” I say. “Worse for me and him both. There will be a lot to answer for, even criminal stuff, who knows. All I can say is, he’s in trouble down there, and I am not bringing him back into that, no way. I can’t.”
Jarrod nods.
I look over to Da to see that he’s getting along okay. Half the sandwich is gone, even the crust, and he is working at the soup. The management must have split a small bag of potato chips among the three of us because there are about five chips per plate and a slice of pickle, but nobody’s eating all that anyway. Da smiles a bit, winces, smiles, dunks his sandwich. I take this as progress.
Jarrod has eaten everything. Now he’s collecting pickles and chips that don’t belong to him, but hey.
“I’ll take him,” Jarrod says.
“What?”
“I’ll take him. He can live with me. At least for a while. He can share my boiler room, and as long as he does his quiet-old-guy thing more than his nutty-old-guy thing, we could probably get away with it.”
Stress is about to cause me to blow, to grab him again and emphasize how stupid and reckless the plan is.
Until I picture it.
“What?” he says, smiling broadly but uncertainly. “What? What’s so funny? Dan…”
I love this laugh. It feels so good it just perpetuates itself. Then Jarrod catches it; then, Da. It is joy.
The waitress comes over with our bill, hands it to the old guy, and says cheerfully, “Thank goodness for stoners, or we’d never move this food.”
We walk back into Venus Exotics, leaving Da in the car. He is in no running mood, a sore hip and a lit cigarette keeping him reliably planted in the backseat.
True to his word, Matt hands over a bag with a few pill bottles inside, just like the pharmacist does.
“I even gave you a little note with instructions inside, just like the pharmacist does,” he says with no small pride. “You take care of that ol’ boy. Sorry to say, kid, but I know that look. Good things don’t usually follow that look.”
It stings.
“So then, Matty, why don’t you give us one of your other products, that give an old boy a look that good things definitely do follow?”
I did not say that.
Matt quickly reaches out and bops Jarrod on the side of the head with something like a baseball bat that isn’t one. “There, that’ll give you a look.” He’s laughing; now he’s serious.
“Here’s to wash it down,” he says and grabs me a large can of something called POW energy drink off a shelf.
“Thanks,” I say warily. “But is this going to make him feel anything more than we want him to?”
“Only a little extra consciousness, I’m afraid.”
I shake his very warm, strong hand. I wait till I am out the door before giving it a precautionary wipe on my shirt.
We tear away in the Subaru after a successful excursion, feeling a little like maybe we can do this.
“All the best people are rascals,” Da says as he takes this pill and this pill and this pill with a swig of POW and we all cross our fingers.
8
Moods are elevated as we make the last turn into the college. Right stuff or not, the medication seems to be combining well enough in my grandfather to have produced a goodwill and camaraderie that fills the car up nicely. We are all pretty much tired of driving for now, though, and everybody’s looking forward to doing some nothing.
But that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.
Jarrod quick-pumps the brakes before we get into the parking lot itself.
“Damn,” he says. “There shouldn’t be anybody here.”
“What?” Da and I say.
I go a little bit frantic, and my newfound control and strength go floating like so much smoke straight out the passenger window.
Da remains slouched way back in the car, out of sight, as we sit and ponder.
“I got nobody else visiting, I swear,” Jarrod says. “And that isn’t any car connected to the college I know of. Nobody has been on campus for weeks, nobody is scheduled for another two, they always let me know in advance anyway, and if this is a student, lost and confused, it’s way early for that.”
Da’s voice has dropped an octave.
“You didn’t use that phone, like I told you not to, did you, Young Man?”
I am absolutely certain he hears my Adam’s apple go ga-lulk right now.
“No,” I say, clipped. “You took it, anyway, remember? So, see-”
“Did you call anyone, Daniel?”
Oh no. There are no lies of omission with Da.
“Yes, but I used a landline-”
“Who did you call?”
“Lucy,” I say, flattened. “I called her cell from a pay phone.”
“Drive,” he tells Jarrod.
The driver tears away with surprising speed, and focus.
“Go easy,” Da says. “Stealth is more important than speed. Stealth is more important than everything. They can’t catch you if they don’t chase you, so don’t make them chase you.”
I sit, hands folded, in the shotgun seat, and I believe if my grandfather had a shotgun back there, I would not be in any seat at all. I remain silent for as long as-
“That kind of screwup can be lethal,” Da says to me coldly. “It may be yet.”
“I am sorry, Da. I am so sorry. I wasn’t-”
He punches the back of my headrest. I think it is not violence. I think I am beginning to learn the difference between what is and isn’t violence. I think that was just “shut up.”
“Driver,” Da says.
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you got one of those godforsaken cell phones?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
There is a barely nonviolent silence.
“Could you please loan your phone to my foolish grandson? His is back at the college. As long as they already know we are with you, one quick call won’t hurt. GPS can’t help them much if we are already right around the corner from them.”