My Grandmother doesn't have to rake leaves because there are many more leaves on the tree that haven't fallen. But she wants to be seen as productive, and she feels the phantom oppression of My Father's nagging. So when I returned home from running to the bank for Mother I saw her raking the leaves, using not only the rake but the Chinese broom, a footstool, even a coat hanger. I had some blogging I wanted to take care of, so I just went inside.
I was in the middle of a particularly knotty part of my column when Grandmother called me from the hallway. "Come help me," she says. Note that she didn't say "please." None of the elders in my family say "please." That's one of the main reasons I've grown so much resentment for them.
Anyway, she wanted my help in gathering up the leaves in plastic trash bags. Never mind that there are many leaves that are still on the branches, that we could probably sweep them all the way to the curb, or that Father could get pissed that we're not doing what he wants us to do and might go ballistic. She was determined to bag the leaves. What could I do? I'm her grandson. She raised me since birth when my parents had to work.
So I dropped everything and went outside, despite not wearing socks or a long-sleeved shirt in the sunny but cool weather. In my state of frustrated confusion, I flitted downstairs to get my work gloves before putting on my flip-flops and going outside, making sure the front door was closed behind me so those damn box elder beetles don't get in.
I was helping Grandmother in a pissed-off state. I didn't want to be there, and I didn't want to undergo this chore until I blogged. Where I was, anything she did was going to annoy me. I didn't like how she communicated with me. For example, she kept pushing her palms down to indicate she wanted me to smush the leaves in the bag. I kept thinking, "Fucking say something!" Peevish things like that, and like sighing loudly whenever she would put leaves in the bag when I thought she'd be holding the bag open. I want to be the good grandson, but I still didn't want to be there.
And yet, because of teamwork, we got four bags filled, even if it looked like we cleaned only, like, 50% of the lawn. That was when Grandmother decided she needed to go inside to pee.
While I was trying to clean up, she apparently tried the locked door. "Can't get in," she said, "Where's your key?"
"Oh, OK, it's here in my pock ..." and, oh shit, it's not there. My keys are inside. We're outside and we can't get inside. We're locked out.
Now here is where I try to defend myself. I go where I'm asked to go, I do what I'm asked to do. I don't think, especially if it's family asking me to do something, double especially if I'm distracted with something I want to do. In other words, I was doing my own thing when Grandmother wanted me to immediately do something, in which case I had no choice but to drop everything and do it, at that second. That my keys weren't in my jeans never crossed my mind.
So we were locked out. Quickly all the things we could do in order to get in led us nowhere -- Phone? Inside too. How about the back door? Nope, the wooden block is still there. At this point I was fully prepared to stay outside and rake and pout because I blamed her for making me forget that my keys were inside. Yeah, maybe I should've been more careful of pulling a locked door shut behind me, but this wasn't my plan, therefore it shouldn't be my fault.
"Why did you lock the door?!" she yelled.
"I don't know! Why the fuck did you drag me out here?!" I yelled back.
---
So now what? Grandmother needs to pee. One of the things I most admire about her -- well, not now, but I still do -- is her willingness to talk to strangers despite the language barrier. She really wanted to go in, so her thought was to go the neighbor's and ask to use their phone to call her friend so that he could take her to our aunt's because she has a copy of our house key. My sister's friend is a couple houses down, but Grandmother didn't know if she was home, and besides, the house across the street had its garage door open, so they had to be home. Again, what the hell could I do?
So she and her 83-year-old legs slowly walk across the (thankfully) empty street to these people we barely know. They're a Somali family, moved in upwards of a decade ago. Man of the house drives taxis; apparently they saved enough to own a piece of the American Dream. But besides the occasional wave and nod when one of us picked up our mail, we have no relationship. No matter to Grandmother; it's just a phone call to her. I have no right to think we wouldn't be greeted with a man with a shotgun.
Anyway, Grandmother finally reaches the house. "If you don't want to talk, I'll talk," she said.
So I walk behind her. Then I notice her ass. Well, her pants -- her wet pants. They arced vertically and outward, the bends of which bent apart and towards her hips. My God, when she said she needed to go to the bathroom, she really needed to go to the bathroom. And maybe she really is incontinent and needs those diapers now. ...
And then she went whoomp! on the step of the of the front door and fell face-first onto the step. Scared the shit out of me; someone that old could die with a fall like that. I helped her out and she said she was fine and that was that.
---
I politely rang the doorbell a few times. Grandmother wanted to tap on the door a lot of times, like that would be louder than a doorbell. But other than some commotion inside, no one opened the door. Shit. Now a part of me wants to ask a stranger for a phone. Why couldn't we borrow one from them?
So we went a couple houses down to my sister's best friend. They have dogs that make a huge ruckus whenever the doorbell rings. I also saw the living room TV on. But no one answered the door here, either. Grandmother, bruised leg and all, eventually made her way to the house and hollered through the dining room window, but she got the same response I got at the front door: nothing.
So we go back to our house, not knowing what to do next. "Oh, how 'bout we go to this house," Grandmother said while we were in front of the white trash folk who like to set off loud fireworks for the 4th of July. I was getting increasingly annoyed with her, yet even I hated the fact we were "denied" a phone after visiting two neighbors.
But I didn't want to go up to the white trash house. Instead, we saw a car drive up to the our relatively new neighbors to the right. We finally saw actual people around this street, and they're right next to us, so I bit the bullet and decided to ask for their help.
---
They were really nice, one of the girls of the house and her father who came by to pick her up for something. I used his phone to call Grandmother's friend. Unfortunately, Grandmother is absolutely useless when it comes to remembering phone numbers. She kept reciting the number in hopes of stumbling upon it in her memory, but all she did was bumble through a random series of digits; she's not good at remembering phone numbers.
And when she did spit out a random series of digits, she reminded me of the Kevin James joke about how he hates people who don't recite a phone number in the universally-accepted cadence and rhythm everyone uses: "It's 5-6 ... 7-6 ... then there are three 2's, and then it's ... 5-6 ... or maybe it's 6-5 ... I don't know, try it both ways." At this point I thought it was best to just lie down on the lawn and wait for my parents to come home.
"Excuse me, excuse me," I asked the guy who came out of the car and the girl who came out of the house, "We locked ourselves out of our house. Can we borrow your phone?" Grandmother was saying the same thing in her broken English.
He gave me his phone to use, and I prodded Grandmother to pick on seven digits that form a number. I type 562-2265, and I get a Verizon message that the number's no longer in service. I know we're wasting this guy's minutes and time, and so I start to get very snippy with Grandmother -- "Are you sure? This isn't working!" Meanwhile, she was acting like a flittertidgibit with all her "ah-ah-ah-ahs." I hate that when we're not in the presence of strangers, but I was furious that she wasn't able to remember the number at this important time.
"What is it?!?!"
"I don't know, I need a piece of paper to write it down, that's when I remember."
Meanwhile, I remembered her soiled sweatpants. (Later she said the fall on the stoop temporarily made her lose her bowels.) "I'm sorry, she really needs to use the bathroom. Can she use yours?" And with hesitation, the girl opened up the house and let her come in. Plus, I asked if she could use a pen and paper. I wouldn't blame them if, at this point, they thought it wasn't worth helping us.
I made some painful idle chit-chat with the guy. He doesn't live there. Her daughter moved in with the rest of her other family about six years ago. And I didn't know that the guy had a young son that was waiting in the car. Our "conversation" was given a respectful death when his phone rang.
His daughter and Grandmother came back out after what seemed to be an interminable period of time. The daughter came out with a number that Grandmother scrawled on what looked like her notebook. I use her phone to try the new number she thought was her friend's ... except that I think it was the same goddamn number I already typed. She said she tried it and said "It was busy" or something, but it was the same fucking Verizon message I got before. I got even more furious -- "same thing!"
"Well, no choice but to call your parents. They need to come home and open the door."
"Them? Now? No!"
"Call them!!!" (Remember that we're shouting at each other in front of these people. They think we're crazy. And they'd be right.)
I need a resolution, so I bit another bullet and decided to do what she says. Thankfully I didn't get my moody Father but Mother. She was surprisingly calm when I fessed up to what happened. Instead of coming home, she said to go to our aunt's house.
"Oh, auntie," Grandmother said. I thought that's where she wanted to go. But as soon as I repeated what Mother said, Grandmother immediately started walking my aunt's direction, which is about a mile away. Where the fuck are you going?
---
I tell them this, kind of thinking and kind of hoping the guy would give us a ride. Just in case, though, I had to start walking after my Grandmother.
"Where is it?" he asked. After I told him, he did say, "Why don't I give you a ride?"
Initially he thought Grandmother should wait with her daughter at the house. I thought that maybe she could go on her own. It was one of those things where we just stopped thinking about it so much and we both piled into his car. He wanted me to go because he didn't know if he could understand her directions. I didn't figure that it was imperative that I come because she didn't know where my aunt's apartment is.
It was strange because we were fighting again, only this time in the cramped confines of his car. We had to take a right on her street, but for some fucking reason she told the guy to go straight, then take a left.
"No, please take a left here."
"No!!! Go straight!!! Take a left!!!"
I don't know why I let her -- this probably is a case of being too Chinese and not fucking stepping in -- but I let her. As we bypassed my aunt's street, she kept saying, "nine, nine, nine." He said that we were crossing 79th St., and she said, "Yeah," and in my mind I was thinking, "Fuck you, Grandmother, you're crazy, we're nowhere close to were Aunt is, and maybe you should be put in a fucking nursing home. Maybe Father and Mother are right."
Sure enough, as soon as we go down this 79th St. or Ave., she says, "Huh? This isn't it." I immediately apologized for my Grandmother's stupid decision and stubborness and asked him to turn around. She goes, "This isn't her apartment," and then, as we drive onto her street, "Is it here? Let's see." Old people, man, old people.
---
Nevertheless I'm still confused about where exactly my aunt lives. This street has a series of old-style apartment complexes that, from the front, look exactly the same. Different colors and all, but to someone who rarely visits, I feel very wary that I don't recognize my aunt's place.
So I have the guy drive behind the fourth one because it kind of looked familiar. Grandmother was looking for my uncle's bike, the bike I don't think he can use anymore. (Come to think of it, I haven't seen my uncle in years. Is he OK? Is he alive?) But I had a hunch I had the right apartment complex.
Unfortunately, we can't just go in and knock on her door. Now we have to stay on the outside back door and ring the doorbell corresponding to the apartment we want. And I'm still not quite sure which of the four apartments my aunt and uncle live in. I know which one it is; I can see it from the outside. But what's the number? Don't know.
Grandmother was confused by all of this because she'd never seen it before. She was yelling at me for trying to look through the window. Whatever.
After a few minutes of ringing the doorbell and not seeing anyone come out of the apartment, we were fucking desperate. As the guy was keeping the car running -- Grandmother suggested I give him ten bucks for his time; I thought that was lunacy, but in retrospect we put him through a lot of bullshit -- we went to the side of the house and just called out to her.
One of the open windows had a rag and clothesline drawn in front of it. When we hollered out, I saw that rag move. Finally, as we thought we needed to go the front of the complex, I saw our aunt come out from the back. Whew!
So we got the key and he drove us back and we apologized profusely and the key worked and we went back inside and I made sure I had my keys and phone with me and she got to change her pants and when my parents came home ... well, I had such a long fucking day that after we got back, I quickly filled the rest of the bags with leaves and took my car out, first to return my aunt's key, then to the coffeeshop because I needed to blog outside of the house. My parents haven't said a peep.
---
I love my Grandmother. I really do. But sometimes I only love her because I'm supposed to love her. And all of this shit started when she wanted my help with raking leaves.
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