Waiting With the Men

by Tim Connor

"How you doing, big guy?" asks Uncle Kevin.

"Very well, thank you," I say.

"Thattaboy!" says Uncle Steve and gives me a little punch. They shake hands with my dad, and we go in the parlor of my Grandma's apartment. It's in Springfield, where we used to live when I was a baby, but I don't remember. It takes an hour and fifteen minutes to drive here from our house. Then we have to climb up three stories of creaky stairs that smell funny, and we can hear radios through the doors and sometimes voices in other languages. From the windows of my Grandma's apartment we can see right into other people's bedrooms. We all sit down on the couch and chairs in the parlor. They're not very comfortable like the ones in our living room at home, I don't think. My dad takes off his jacket, like Uncle Kevin and Uncle Steve already have. He's wearing his suit for business, but he's not going to work. Instead we came to Grandma's at 10 o'clock in the morning on a schoolday. I'm the only kid who got to come.

They start to argue about how come no one called Dr. Bennett sooner. Uncle Kevin says "she" didn't want them to. Uncle Steve says "she" is in no condition to make those decisions.

"She probably thought it would bother the 'dear good man,'" says my dad.

"She was afraid it would cost too much," says Uncle Steve. "She was trying to save money."

"Our money!" says my dad.

"All the more reason," says Uncle Steve.

Uncle Kevin scratches the blond hair on his big red arms, and it sounds like sandpaper. Uncle Steve smokes a cigarette. He squashes it out in a saucer which already has butts sticking out every which way. My dad squeezes my shoulder the way he does sometimes. I sit up straight on the edge of the itchy brown couch, remembering not to kick my feet around.

"You think it was a good idea to ing-bray the id-kay, Tommy?" asks Uncle Steve. He and Uncle Kevin always call my dad Tommy because he was the youngest when they were little.

"He's her favorite," explains my dad. "He understands the lingo, by the way. He's past seven."

"No, is that a fact, Tommy?" asks Uncle Kevin. "Seven, is he?" He grabs me, and I'm trapped. He bends down his big, red face and above it his orange hair flies up like wings. He has yellow teeth and smells like strong coffee. "He's gotten so big I thought he was eight -- or even nine." Then he gives me the old Dutch rub on my crewcut. I break loose and twist away.

"Hup! Hup! Get that kid," yells Uncle Kevin. My dad spreads out his arms to tackle me, but I duck and dodge past him. "He's going to be a scatback, Tommy," says Uncle Kevin. "Like you."

"We'll see," says my dad. He has a grin on his face. "He throws pretty good, too." I'm looking at the floor, and my face is getting hot. Wow, a scatback! Like my dad at Springfield College, until he hurt his knee! I wish we were outside so I could show them how good I am.

"Some fine athletes coming up in the family," says Uncle Steve. He starts to tell about his son, my cousin, Michael, who's 13 and a lefty and the best pitcher in Chicopee Babe Ruth League. A big buzz comes from the hall.

"That'll be Dr. Bennett," says Uncle Steve. He gets up to go push the button. My dad and Uncle Kevin get up too and put on their suit coats and push up the knots of their ties. They go stand by the door. When Dr. Bennett finally comes, they bow their heads and shake his hand, one by one, as though he was Father MacAuley coming to visit the house. Dr. Bennett sees me and bends down and touches my face with a hand that seems tiny like a kid's.

"Which grandson are you?" he asks.

I tell him my name, and he nods his head. "Yes, yes, I believe I've heard about you..."

My dad interrupts and tells me to go play in the parlor. He and my uncles and Dr. Bennett go in the kitchen, where there is coffee and crumb cake from the bakery. They are talking about my grandma's sickness, and kids are not invited. In the parlor I lie down on the rug, which has green vines connected to pink roses. I follow the vines with my finger going loop the loop and crashing into the roses, which I pretend are wet and sticky so my finger gets stuck and I try to yank it loose, but I can't. Pretty soon, I'm bored. I put my head way back so I'm looking upside down, and the see-through white curtains blow out at the top, not the bottom, which gives me the giggles. But I know I have to be quiet so I knock it off.

I look at Grandma's holy pictures on the wall. There's one of the Sacred Heart with the Crown of Thorns wrapped around it. The thorns are cutting into the heart and big, shiny drops of blood are dripping out. There's a picture of Jesus, and the spots of light on his face are in the exact shape of the Host and Chalice, which I know is a miracle. But the one I like best is Our Lady rising into Heaven shooting beams of Grace out of her palms onto a shepherd girl below. I hear footsteps and voices. They're saying thank you to Dr. Bennett. A door closes. My dad and uncles come back in the parlor.

"Is Grandma better?" I ask.

"She's sleeping," says my dad. The way he says it I know I'm supposed to knock it off.

"When are we going home?" I ask.

"I thought you wanted to come," he says.

"I did but...when?"

"Not yet!" He gets up and walks out of the room.

Everybody's worried about my Grandma. She's very sick. I haven't seen her since she took her bad turn. The last time I saw her was when our family came to visit the week before school started. She was sick then with what she's got now, but not as serious. My dad took me in her bedroom, and she was sitting up straight in bed. Grandma always sits up straight, never slumps, and she makes you, too. My mom says she's the most elegant older person she's ever met. At eighty-five she has perfect posture and walks like a debutante, my mom says.

Grandma was wearing a jacket in bed that buttoned right up to her chin. Her covers were thick and made of silver, shiny stuff that bulged in squares, like a bunch of pillows sewed together. On her bureau all her perfumes and sprays were in different shaped bottles, and they were different colors. Beside the bed there were framed pictures of my dad and uncles in their Army uniforms. On the wall was a big crucifix. Jesus was gold and the Cross was black. There were dried-out palms from Palm Sunday stuffed behind it and a big wooden rosary, like the ones the Sisters wear, wrapped around and hanging down.

"How's my fast runner?" Grandma asked me. She always remembered the things I told her, like about being the fastest kid in the third grade. She'd always ask me about it the next time we visited.

"Very well, thank you," I said. "And how are you?"

"Aren't you the polite one," she said. My Grandma had an Irish accent. My dad called it a brogue. When he talked like that, kidding around, he'd make us laugh. But Grandma talked like that all the time. "I'm fine too," she said. "Just a touch of the grippe, thank Heaven. But I am getting old, don't you know. Isn't that a terrible nuisance?

"Young man," she went on, "let's make a date. In two, no three weeks, on Saturday afternoon, we'll take an ice cream together at the Rosemont. Would you like that?" I nodded. "Thomas, would you be so kind as to bring my engagement book? In the top drawer, you'll find it...thank you," and she wrote my name, very big, across the page. "There," she said, "it's official. I'll telephone you so you won't forget."

Before our date came, she took her bad turn, which is why she never called.

"While we're waiting, what about a card trick?" asks Uncle Kevin. He's shuffling the cards and bouncing his eyebrows up and down like Groucho. I pick a card and look at it -- the eight of clubs -- and put it back in the deck and shuffle. He picks up the deck and swoops his fingers and says "abracadabra" and pulls out -- the eight of clubs! "Would that be your card by any chance?"

"Yeah, but how did you do it?"

"Only those who have passed the third mystic level are entitled to know that, Spike, didn't I tell you?"

"Yeah, sure," I say. "Like fun."

"Hey, hey, tell you what," he says. "You've been such a good sport, I'm going to give you a quarter." He shows it to me in his palm, then closes his fingers and flips his fist over. The quarter pops up between his fingers and crawls end over end across his knuckles. "If I could just get it to stay still," he says. He smacks his other hand down to trap the moving quarter. "Gotcha!" he yells. "Here you go, kiddo." He holds out the quarter, and I reach for it. His fingers shiver, and it disappears. "Whuh hoppen?" he wants to know. "Where did it go?" He stares at his empty palm and scratches his head. "I can't understand it. "Then he's pointing straight at me. "Oh, my goodness, how did it get there?" he asks. "How did you get it?"

He reaches past my face and slowly, as though it's attached to bubble gum, pulls the quarter from behind my ear.

"How'd you do that?" I ask him. "Will you show me?"

"Show you?" he says. "I can't show you 'cause it's magic."

"Give him a break, Kev," says Uncle Steve. "Give us all a break from the great Houdini routine, OK?" Uncle Steve goes back to looking out the window. There's smoke all around his head. He has the darkest skin of all the relatives and shiny black hair. His eyes have big hoods of skin over them like the iguanas at Forest Park. He looks back at Uncle Kevin and me.

"A little peace and quiet, for Christ's sake," he says.

"Language..." says my dad. He means Uncle Steve shouldn't take the Lord's Name in vain in front of me.

"All right. I'm sorry," says Uncle Steve.

"We were just passing the time," says Uncle Kevin. When Uncle Steve turns away again, Uncle Kevin looks at me and makes his eyebrows go like Groucho, then lifts up the deck and squeezes it so the cards squirt out and flutter down all over.

"Fifty-two card pickup," he whispers to me. I have to cover my mouth so Uncle Steve won't hear me cracking up. But Uncle Steve isn't paying any attention. He's too busy looking out the window. "Nothing but PRs," he says. "I hardly recognize this neighborhood anymore." He blows smoke out, and it floats through the curtains. "I'll never understand why she won't leave."

"She's used to this place," says my dad. "She's been here 45 years."

"I'll never understand," Uncle Steve says again.

"No sense in worrying about it," says my dad. "She's not going anywhere now." Uncle Steve spins around fast, but then he doesn't say anything. Uncle Kevin is scratching his arms again. Everybody is looking at the floor.

"What about a little schnapps?" asks Uncle Steve finally. "Anybody else thirsty?" He pulls a flat bottle half way out of his suit coat pocket and wiggles it so the brown liquor sloshes around. My dad stands up and waves his hand like he's swatting at a mosquito.

"Put it away!" he whispers, real loud. "Not in her house!"

"Tommy, relax, she's not going to walk in on us," says Uncle Steve.

"That's not the point," says my dad.

"Tommy's right," says Uncle Kevin.

"So I'll step out on the roof a minute," says Uncle Steve.

"Anybody wants to join me, they can."

After he leaves, Uncle Kevin looks at my dad and lets out a big sigh. The two of them start to grin at each other.

"Might help your nerves," Uncle Kevin says to my dad. He looks at me and winks. They get up from their chairs.

"Hold the fort, Spike," says my dad. "We'll be right outside."

After they leave, I get bored. I go in the dining room and sit up on the table, even though I know my dad would be mad if he caught me. I look at the family pictures that cover one wall. There's one of Grandma and Grandpa in a frame with glass that bulges like an egg. It was taken back in Ireland. Grandma still looks like that now, except her hair is white. Grandpa died a long time ago before I was born. He was the spitting image of my dad, my Mom says. She says I look like my dad too, but I don't think so. There's a picture of him as a kid with his brothers and Aunt Rose, who died of Asian flu. I compare it with the picture of me in third grade that Grandma already put in a frame. I hate that picture! I'm too skinny, and there are no muscles in my arms. My lips are too big, and they're red like a girl's. My dad looks tougher than me in his picture, I decide. He looks like he would rather be outside playing sports than having his dumb picture taken.

I hear my Grandma calling.

It doesn't sound like her voice, but I know it's her. It sounds like my little brother Justin crying from a nightmare in his sleep. "Stephen..." she's calling. "Thomas..." Her voice scares me. I'm frozen for a minute, listening, and then I hear it again -- a little, high voice -- and then I hear her moaning. Then I hear a loud thump. Uh oh, I have to run get my dad! First I go in Grandma's room to tell her I'm going, so she won't be scared. I see something awful. She's lying in the middle of the floor all scrunched up. That thump was from when she fell out of bed. Her eyes are closed. Maybe she got knocked out. She looks terrible. Her head is like a skull sticking out from her nightgown. Her face and even her lips are white and shiny. Her hair is wet, plastered on her face, and it's going into her mouth, which is wide open. She's making awful groaning sounds and sucking in her breath. "Kevin...Thomas...Stephen..." she calls. I'm bawling, and I want to run away, but I see her glasses have fallen down. They're under her nose, still attached to one ear. Her mouth is opening and closing and she's saying "Ah, ah, ah." I'm scared she'll swallow her glasses, so I go over and unhook them from her ear and fit them back over her eyes. She opens her eyes and looks at me.

"Grandma?" I say. "It's me."

She stares at me. Her blue eyes are magnified. They stare right at my face, and she doesn't know who I am. I run bawling out of the room to get my dad. He and my uncles are just coming through the door. They're smiling and joking.

"What's wrong?" asks my dad when he sees me. He bends down and holds my shoulders. He shakes me a little. His breath smells of whiskey. "Stop crying!" he yells and shakes me. Grandma calls again and Uncle Kevin and Uncle Steve rush past us toward her room. My dad forgets about me and goes after them. I hear their loud voices. Grandma's bed creaks.

"Why were you out of bed, Ma?" asks Uncle Steve.

"She was getting up to make us lunch," says Uncle Kevin.

"Oh, Ma...you can't do that anymore, Ma," says my dad.

I'm bawling like a crybaby, like a girl, when my dad comes out of the bedroom and goes past me to pick up the phone. He doesn't notice me, but I stop crying. My tears dry up. They shrink back through my veins, and they're gone. Right then I make up my mind: I decide I won't cry again, no matter what, for the rest of my life. Ever.

Tim Connor reads a lot on the subway between his home in Brooklyn and his job editing an environmental web site (www.edf.org) in Manhattan. A journalist and photographer for 25 years, he currently has a photo-and-text show at www.artpost.com. His short fiction has been published in The Quarterly, Buzznet and MidAir (in press). His two novels are seeking a home. Of "Waiting With the Men" he writes: "It's as nearly autobiographical as anything I've written. Fiction is used to investigate a memory, which may or may not have happened that way."