Chapter 9 - Grammy Jones
The DJ at WMCS, Machias Maine, DOWNEAST COUNTRY ALL DAY, 880 on
your dial, was playing Patsy back-to-back, and Sonny was whistling
CRAZY as he swung down out of his Ford 3/4 ton pickup. In the
southern lee of Grammy Jones' house it was already quite warm,
and bees were humming among her sweetpeas.
"Crazy," he thought. "This whole business is crazy.. and the women,
too." He lifted a nice fat flounder fillet out of the tub on the
tailgate, and climbed Gram's front steps, grabbed the faceted
knob on the old fashioned glazed door, and pushed it open. It's
hinges protested.
"Have to oil them," he reminded himself, as he paused in the interior
gloom, blinded from the dazzle outside. He could smell fresh baking
and coffee in the chintzy hall, and he followed the scent the
length of the house to Gram's tidy kitchen.
"Thought you'd forgotten all about me," Gram chided, in a teasing
voice, cracked with age. The kitchen was about 120 degrees. Gram
had the cookstove going full roar, and even with the reachside
window open, the room was sweltering. She was sitting up on the
daybed, her great bulk tented in a calico housedress. Her swollen
legs and feet, wrapped in bandages, and jammed into great oversized
mules, were stretched out on the bed.
"How could I forget my favorite girl," he bantered. "I brought
you some floundah, want I put it in the fridge?"
"Second shelf." She replied. Grammy Jones had been blind for twenty
years now, and liked to know where everything was. In fact she
tended to know exactly where everything was, on the island, in
Smithport, and everywhere else in her big extended family.
"You came in in a terrible rush for so early," she observed. Sonny
looked at her for a long moment, without saying anything.
"Couldn't a been a fish truck waitin." She went on. "And Annie's
boy, Buster.. and who was that?.. Jumbo Smith.. sure did make
a racket over to your barn." Sonny's house was just across the
dooryard from Gram's front door, and his barn made the lee there.
"Can't put anythin past YOU, Gram." He observed dryly.
"Hmph," she smiled at the compliment. "I baked you some rhubarb
tarts, and there's coffee fresh. It's about the last of the rhubarb.
Tuck in."
"Don't mind if I do," Sonny sighed, and sat at the spotless formica
table. Grammy Jones always had something special made for him
when he got home. More than he could say for that over-educated
wife he used to have. Still did, technically, but he'd bet dollars
to doughnuts she was well and gone for good, after that last set-to.
Women. He couldn't live with them, and he couldn't live without
them. Plural. And that was the problem with Suzy-Q, his angry
young wife. He poured himself a cup of coffee off the stove and
slid a tart out from under the clean dishtowel covering the plateful.
"She's not come back," Gram said quietly, reading his mind.
"Oh Hell, Gram. I never get it right," he complained.
"No. You're just like your grandfather. Tinker couldn't stop chasin
the fish. I just had to stop carin." She declared. Gram seemed
to shrink a little, and her small pretty-girl features and china-blue
eyes looked trapped in the bulk of her diabetic old age.
"I can't see how he could have wanted anyone but you," Sonny said.
Gram cackled.
"Oh Sunshine, you ARE the worst devil of a man. Sweet-talkin an
old woman like me. You must be wantin my money."
"Just your body," he said. Gram smiled.
"Lordy. Please take it. It's nothin but a grief to me now." They
both were silent. Sonny finished the tart, and dabbed his lips
with a napkin.
"Mighty tasty," he complemented. They enjoyed a companionable
silence for a while. Gulls were bickering over something on the
rocks below Gram's house, and the sounds of lobsterboats throttling
up and back came in the window. It was always peaceful.. and safe..
here.
"What it reminded me of," Gram mused, breaking the spell,"was
back when Tink was doing a little runnin." Grandpa Tinker had
done some smuggling during prohibition., transporting liquor from
New Brunswick to Rhode Island for the Haffenreffers. Sonny look
keenly at Gram, all alert now.
"Same roarin round in the night, same loud laughter, same mysterious
comin and goin. You wouldn't be up to somethin, would you, Sonny?"
She asked.
"Pfffff." Sonny blew out his cheeks, and shook his head. "You're
somethin else, Gram. Do you s'pose the whole town knows?"
"Probly not," she reassured him. "But you can be sure some do."
Any further comments were interrupted by the phone ringing. Gram
reached over and lifted the old fashioned black receiver off it's
cradle.
"Yeh." Sonny could hear a tinny gabble from the earpiece, but
could only follow Gram's words.
"Still breathin."
"Yeh"
"He's here now."
"I'll ask him."
"Yeh. I could use some more white flour and a can of evaporated."
"Yeh. OK. See ya." She settled the receiver back down.
"Your mother. Wondered if you're going back out, or stayin for
the Fourth," Gram relayed.
"And if Suzy was coming back, and if I was still smokin, and..."
Sonny complained.
"Yeh," Gram interrupted. "She's still your mother, and still fussin.
She fussed her dolls as a little girl. And she did a pretty good
job fussin you up, Sonny," Gram scolded gently.
"OK, OK," Sonny got up. He was suddenly stiff and sore and tired.
"Time for hot water and a soft bed," he observed.
"Goin back out tonight?" Gram asked, reaching out to pick up a
pack of Camels on the window ledge beside her daybad, and taking
one out.
"No. I'll stay home for the celebrations." Sonny leaned down and
flicked a bik under her cigarette, holding her old hands to guide
her, and then for a little longer. Gram inhaled and blew out some
smoke, wheezing a little.
"You in trouble, Sonny?" She croaked.
"Not yet," he replied.