Text: Grandma, madness

I haven't been to my mom's in a while. I went over there this evening for dinner. She was making ribs, white rice and corn. She used the pans I bought her three years ago for Christmas.

"How are the pans holding up?"
"Fine," She replied.
"I cooked the ribs in Pepsi," she comments.

I'm not entirely sure, but there is something a little white-trash about using a soda product in your fine cuisine for the evening. This must be related to the fact that somewhere in my history with my mother, we lived in a trailer together. In fact, when she first started dating Lars, her current husband, we were still living in one. We begin eating the meal. There is nothing much to discuss, but when we do find something to talk about it is typically about the movies.

"Have you seen Hot Fuzz?" My brother, Andrew, asks.
"No,” I reply.
"Oh, it is alright, I guess," he says.

He is a growing boy. His first year of high school begins in the fall and he has the signs of puberty--pimples, awkward height coupled with skinniness, and a deep voice. I glance around the table. Lars is wearing his typical wifebeater baring his bear tattoo on one giant, sunburned arm. His hair has gone from long to mullet to a fuzzy short blonde and he has never shaved his goatee and moustache since I've known him. If he is not drunk on Jagermeister or Busch, he is usually fixing a vehicle, or trying to figure out how computers work and asks me a series of questions every time I go over. That is our little trade. He fixes my Toyota and I fix his computer. We really have no other association than that, except when both of our fathers died within a year of each other. We didn't discuss much other than our condolences.

My brother and I disappear to play catch with a baseball after dinner. My mom sits on the porch and observes while smoking. She admires the garden she has made around the front of her house. There are a bunch of plants with juicy peppers growing around her driveway and the walkway to her house. She talks about them and her pet fish and her pet dogs like they are some of her closest friends. My brother and I come to a close and walk back to where she is sitting, but in the meantime a red Jetta is pulling towards us slowly.

"There's Ryan's mom!" someone shouts from the back of the car, talking about my mother (who has no sons named Ryan).
I raise an eyebrow. Andrew just stares awkwardly at the car full of young girls, probably in their mid teens. I can't see the back of the car, which apparently has someone's mom in it. She is being escorted by a couple of young girls in the front seat. I only see a hand from the window as she waves to us.

"We just got drunk," the girl from the driver's seat informs us.

Then they slowly pull away.

Well that was interesting, wasn't it, I'm thinking to myself. We start to analyze the situation and discuss it amongst ourselves for a small time. Then we stop and my mom changes the subject.

"Andrew told all his friends that I used to hang out with Al Roker when I went to fat school as a kid," my mom tells me.
"And she used to smoke the 'peace' pipe," Andrew chimes in.

I wonder if Andrew even knows what he is talking about, but then I think of his myspace profile. Aside from posting bulletins every day to "Comment on his pics or DIE!!!!!" he has labeled himself as part of the FMF crew. He tells me this stands for "Fresh Motha Fuckers" and his friends all have a collection of profiles matching this. There is nothing cooler than a bunch of skinny white boys starting a Junior High gang. So I give him the benefit of the doubt, based on this earlier observation. The conversation keeps changing as no one really has anything in particular to talk about. I tell my mom about my uncle's cancer news and the state of my grandma. I tell my mom that my grandma has stopped driving, is losing her mind, and is moving slowly now.

"Should I go over there?" my mom asks.
"I don't think so," I comment.
"What's she going to do with that house?"
"I don't really know. She offered it to me, but I don't think I would like to live there."
"Why not?" my mother asks with some confusion in her voice.
"I really don't want to have to ever say, 'Okay, and here is where my grandfather died. Here is where my father died. Lastly, here is where my grandmother died!"

Everytime I walk into that house I am faintly reminded of those particular moments. I never witnessed them in person, so all I can do is imagine what it felt like to lay next to my grandpa while he choked on his own blood when his heart stopped. I can only imagine what it felt like to touch my dad's cold forehead or hand as he rest his head on the front of the bed, watching television with his mouth cocked open, eyes shut or wide open--dying alone, in the basement of his mother's house--a returned, defeated, divorced man. Yea, I'll pass on the house. Thanks.

I know a lot of my writing lately has talked about my dad or family or death. It is tough not to incorporate that into my writing right now since it is a very relevant topic for me. I hope someday I will outgrow it. Right now I need to learn from it and talk about it in the only way I feel comfortable, here. It is helping, I feel.

That's all for now.