[1959 With his mouth open, slightly opened I should say, grandpa’s mouth mumbled (from long habit I expect, I presupposed—back then, back in the late 50s and early 60s (when we all lived in an extended family type setting)) and I was but ten years old, there about: take or give a year or two))—and I suppose from years of practice) automatically opened (insulting whomever at the moment, was by him, not directing it to the: noun (or: person, place or thing), just swearing away, swearing under his breath…in his broken English: ‘…vat dam hell matter dhis fu…kn pepe, god…dam son na bitch…!” and when his mouth opened, things leaked out of his mouth like molasses); he watched me move about in the kitchen, looking over his spectacles, or glasses he seldom wore, except if he wanted to read the paper, which he couldn’t read but every fifth word in English, the old Russian Bear —then grandpa started to strike his match at the same time of his mumbling and sucking off the stem of his pipe, trying to ready himself to light his tobacco inside this black framed hole that held the tobacco: and brown bottom drum called a pipe; stained from a decade’s use I expect; his mouth still moving, still talking to the pipe or himself, not sure, he couldn’t have been talking to me, he seldom did, perhaps a half dozen times in ten-years, and today was not my lucky day, or my unfortunate day: as I was saying or about to say, he swept his hand backwards, the match pulled away from the lit tobacco in the furnace of the pipe, the steam of the pipe he was still sucking onto make sure it stayed hot and lit.
Still talking to himself, I was as I said before a ten to twelve year old kid, looking about, not at anything in particular, perhaps making a peanut butter sandwich, or drinking a glass of milk: glancing at grandpa now and then, and pacing about, around in the kitchen as if I was at th e Alamo looking here and there for the incoming enemy: that in itself annoyed grandpa: he’d always mumble to my mother: “…vay cant dat boy of yor play outside…goddam it?” (he’d pause a moment, turn about and swear): ‘…dam son of bitch, kick his ass out…!”
It was summer, mother was at work, Grandpa semi retired now, he paced the living room like a wounded leopard, and it often reminded me of that invisible rabbit, James Stewart the actor portrayed in the movie “Harvey,” I mean who was he talking to, like James Stewart, perhaps the invisible Harvey.
Now grandpa was puffing away, and I got thinking—that’s cool, the pipe and all, but it takes a lot of work and coordination. I can’t remember exactly, but I do remember being fascinated with his pipe, and I reason it came out when I got older, for as a young adult, I purchased a pipe, and became a copycat, not realizing I was, but I was.
As a result, when I see a man with a pipe nowadays, I often think of grandpa, but even more so, the quite life we had, the smoke of the pipe circulating the living room, and then it fading into nothingness it was all about an unforgettable decade for me, it would rest on magical air, I’d think; it all seems so somber now, now that I’m getting to his age.
Note: Written at, ‘El Parquetito’ Cafe, in Lima, Peru 4/22/2006, while having spaghetti, and enjoying the sun.
See Dennis' web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com
Author:: Dennis Siluk
Keywords:: Short Story
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