Drg.
That’s drag.
Or:
Whol.
That’s wool.
So, of course, while I was still rehabilitating, Grampa whupped me good most nights. (Not to brag, but I believe I have turned that table on him but good.)
After getting down two of the leftover blue metal glasses we gave out last year at the pumps to folks using Premium, I top them off with his tart lemonade and follow him out to the porch. The last of the sun is skimming the top of the water. Soon the skeeters’ll be out, which is why we have a screened-in. I pick the prickers out of Keeper’s coat while Grampa takes the board out of the box, lights the brass lantern, and lets me blow out the match.
“I like your locket,” he says, jotting down our names on the score-keeping pad.
I had completely forgotten about it. I open it up to show him the pictures of Billy and me from long ago.
“How’s he doin’?” Grampa leans back in the folding chair and lights up another.
“You should quit smokin’.”
“That right?”
“Yes, it is. I heard a New York City reporter, a Mr. Frank Reynolds, say on the television news that smokin’ might cause cancer.” There is a lot of tobacco growing in Kentucky. Around here especially. Our colored folks count on getting paid to pick that crop so they can feed their babies, so I hope I misunderstood that report.
“Reynolds, eh?” Grampa inhales deeper than usual. “With a name like that you’d think he’d be all for lightin’ up.”
That must be funny because he’s apple-doll puckering.
“I gave Billy a star today,” I say.
Grampa wriggles his hand around in the Scrabble box, searching for just the right tile. “Has he been spendin’ any time up at his daddy’s place?”
Grampa has affection for Billy and likes to keep track of his whereabouts, too. He believes that Billy should make up with his daddy, which I think Billy might be willing to do if only Big Bill Brown did not look at his son in a way that squeezes whatever gumption his boy’s got left right out of him. Why ever does he do that? Even the most ignorant of us know that kin is the most important thing in life. If they don’t love you and accept you for what you are, you might as well go hunting without a gun.
“Billy told me he was up to High Hopes just this week,” I report.
Grampa picks out his first tile. "Y.”
“I can’t remember why.”
“No, I meant… what’d you get?” he asks, leaning across the board. I show him my D. “Low letter goes first. That means you.”
“For crissakes, I know that, Charlie.”
Nature’s started up its nightly concert. This time of night the lake reeks of leftover gasoline and heat and… uh-oh. Hemp. I can tell Grampa is smelling it as well. His shoulders are book-ending his ears. Don’t want him getting all crabby again, so I make my move.
“Double word… twelve,” he says, jotting it down. “Where’s your briefcase at?” He reaches across the board and adds on an l-y to my d-e-a-d.
“I don’t know.” I add on m and n on top and below the a, making it deadly man. “That’s twenty-five points, right?”
Grampa takes a last pull off his cigarette and snubs it out on the heel of his boot. “Ya gotta be more careful with your things. That camera wasn’t cheap.”
We got some cash from the Champion Bus people after their driver stalled out his bus in the middle of the road and Daddy ended up bouncing off the back of it. But Grampa’s right, that’s no excuse to be careless. He says he won’t live forever, and that money will take care of me when he’s gone. My stomach clenches badly when he brings it up, at dusk mostly.
Studying the board, I say, “I’ll look for my camera tomorrow. ” Even though I know where the briefcase is, and that the camera’s inside it, I don’t tell him. See that? That’s something I’ve perceived to be different in my mind recently. Like this afternoon with the sheriff? When I didn’t tell him how I already found Mr. Buster dead on Browntown Beach? I think that shows that I’m getting more Right already and it’s a good thing. But I’ve also perceived something else not so good going on lately. Unsettling thoughts are creeping around up top. Nudging me, whispering how wearisome Grampa’s bossy ways can be sometimes. Wouldn’t you just love to cut loose a little, Gibby? You’re not a child, you’re a grown woman! Christ Almighty, that makes me feel ungrateful. All that old man has done for me, and here I am thinking these willful thoughts. I should be horse-whipped.
“I keep a close watch on this heart of mine. I keep my eyes wide open all the time,” Mr. Cash bellyaches out from the parlor.
Grampa says, “As usual, that man is full of good advice,” while he searches the board.
“Do you think you and Miss Jessie would ever get married?” I’ve just laid down w-e-d.
He draws his hand up onto his chest with an agitated look. Swallows down some of the TUMS he keeps in his trouser pocket. (He’s got a fondness for greasy hush puppies.)
“Ya know, one of these days I’ll get Quite Right again and I’m gonna wanna start livin’ by myself,” I say, glancing upward and winking at Mama. “And when that day comes, it’d be nice for me not to have to worry about you anymore.” After I move to my own apartment in Cairo, I wouldn’t enjoy those walks in that wavy desert heat half as much unless I knew Grampa had some company to keep. “It’d be nice for you to be spoonin’ with Miss Jessie in that big brass bed of hers, don’tcha think? She’s quite fond of Scrabble. I asked.”
“Don’t get your hopes up on neither one of them subjects,” he says, irritable again because loud from next door, Willard’s favorite musical group is complaining about getting no satisfaction.
Grampa cups his hands and bellows, “Turn that caterwauling down, ya jackass.”
Willard obeys straight off because even I know that smokin’ hemp is against the law. Willard knows full well that Grampa could turn him in to the sheriff, but not that he won’t. “Grown men should know what’s right and what ain’t right in their hearts. Shouldn’t need no laws or a blowhard like LeRoy Johnson to remind ’em,” is what my old cowboy lectures whenever the subject comes up.
Two lemonades and a bowl of strawberry ice cream later, Grampa is tallying up the score. “Two hundred twenty-seven to one hundred fifty-four.”
“You or me?” I ask, trying to get a look at the score sheet.