Slow Going... 'Cooby Hole'

On the top of my grandparent's steps to the left, before the bathroom, was a small storage closet. Two stained, shutter-looking doors closed up the tiny space, set four feet off the floor, as the stairs up from the garage level laid out right underneath.

The 'cooby hole,' we called it, and I played in it all the time, as long as my grandmother cleaned out the things she had put at the front of the closet, her extra purses, spare towels, moth balls, and a tray of little containers full of cotton balls, Band Aids, and cue tips. The other things, in the back of the closet, I had to move and rearrange myself, as my grandmother couldn't reach all the way in and on the back shelves.

I felt safe at my grandparent's house as it was, but when I was in the cooby hole, I disappeared from the face of the earth. Nothing could get me. I pulled the light string and sat in the dark, peered through the slanted slots watching as my Aunt Nancie travel up and down the steps, my grandfather fetching something from his room at the end of the hall. Only my grandmother knew where I was hiding in silence. Sometimes she would bring me snacks or a sandwich, but never revealed my location if I wanted to remain hidden.

When I got tired, or usually just for the heck of it, I would lay across the middle shelf and try to fall asleep, the whole time wondering how much longer the bowing peice of wood under me would hold my weight.

Once I had enough of the tiny space, I pushed both doors open at once and revealed myself, more to the fresh, cool air than to anything else.

Crocheting and Patience

My grandmother crocheted. It was one of her talents that didn't involve cooking or the garden. She made all kinds of things: mittens, slippers, scarfs and blankets. Whenever I saw her sitting on the couch or in one of the recliners I was put in a trace. I watched her every move. The bundle of yard tucked neatly under her arm with the slack pulled out ready to be taken in and made part of the blanket, her fingers maneuvering the crocheting needle, twisting and tying together the colored string. The way she'd look up from her soap opera only every ten seconds to check herself.

"Is that hard?" I said to her one day.

"Not if you get used to it."

I kept staring at her flowing fingers, working and looping the yard back and forth above the blanket forming below.

"Can you teach me?" I asked, thinking it would be easy. After all, I was good at everything. In t-ball I hit the ball hard and ran the fastest, most of my friends gave up looking for me when we played hide and seek, I could ride my bike in the woods and catch a kickball with ease. I could do just about anything if I tried.

"Okay," she said. "But it takes patience."

I reassured her I could do it and made my way up to her bedroom. I sorted through her needles to find the right size tip. Some were big and others were really small, used for making all kinds of things she told me, with different styles and ways of using the yarn. I choose an average-sized tip like the one she was using. I went to her closet and picked out a jungle-green ball of yarn. I was ready.

"No, like this," she explained as I attempted to mimic her motions. "Here, let me start it for you."

Easy enough, a little help at first can be expected. She handed back to me a one inch square piece of blanket--a start to what was going to be my afghan.

"Send your tip through and pull the loop back in," she said as I watched her experienced fingers perform the motion. "Move up just a bit and do it again."

It wasn't working for me. I thought it was the needle but when I changed it out for another one-- and then another, it still didn't help. After thirty minutes of careful looping and pulling, my green 'blanket' began to look more like a forest lichen than anything symmetrical. I looked over at my grandmother's progress and, as expected, she had already crocheted an area three times as big as my contorted lily pad looking 'square.'

Okay, maybe I wasn't good at everything. Patience was too high a cost to sit down for hours on end and learn how to crochet. I didn't have that kind of time, I had baseballs to hit and hide-and-seek to play.

The 'Coupe'

In the far corner of my grandparent's backyard my grandfather built a dog house. It was old by the time I got used to seeing it behind the garden, its weathered pieces of wood were stained with black mold and the boards at the bottom were turning into dirt. The front face of the house was built between two trees at the edge of the woods. The back of the 'coupe,' as my grandparents called it, extended back to a third tree a bit further back into the trees.

The small triangular building was built for a dog, this I knew, but not even Aunt Nancie's dog Vader used it when she brought him over.

"Why'd you build this Pop Pop?" I asked him one day.

He was leaning a pile of wooden sticks that he used for his tomatos against it. That's what he did with all his extra pieces of wood.

"For Nancie's dog," he explained, putting a hand on top of the old structure. "Back when she lived here."

"For Vader?"

"No, not Vader," my grandfather said. "She used to have a dog named Sting."

I looked at the dark opening of the dog house, a cut out rectangle in the wall. I had never heard of Sting. Now it made sense that the dog house was so old. My grandfather told me later that he built it about ten years before I was even born.

I tried to picture a time when it looked new, when the wood grain wasn't visible and rotting, when it had a fresh coat of red paint--that was now chipping into countless, sun-dulled flakes, when it's rectangle door looked inviting.

I kneeled closer and peered cautiously inside. The last thing I wanted to get close to was a spider--I hated spiders--and the deteriorating dog house looked like just the place to find the big ones. The thought of actually crawling inside sent goosebumps cascading down my back. The floor was rotted out in the corner, exposing the soft dirt underneath. Several boards on the outside had fallen off or broken, allowing a back entrance for mice, raccoons, and moles.

The coupe in that shady corner of the backyard reminded me that there was a reality going on long before I came around. Things came and went, dogs that knew the same Aunt Nancie I did lived and died. It made me think about my grandparents being young at one time. That they too lived a life full of dogs coming and going, people living and growing, and that somehow I was a small part of a much bigger picture.

Brotherhood

My brothers and I laid next to each other in my grandparent's living room. Blankets were spread across nearly evey inch of the floor with more thrown in piles at our feet.

"Guys," I said. "There's nothing to be afraid of, it's grandma's house!"

The house was dark, save for the new TV casting colorful oblong shapes against the back wall of the living room and kitchen.

"I don't care," Jason said looking into the darkness of the kitchen.

"Yeah," Nick agreed, pulling the blankets up to his chin.

They were going to have to get used to sleep overs. I'd been doing them for years. Granted I only slept next to my grandmother and never by myself.

"Okay," I said, pulling their pillows closer to mine. "You can lay right next to me. Just concentrate on the TV. They scrambled their way closer and again wiggled into a TV-watching position.

They were soon asleep. Then the only nervous one was me, every time the heat or refrigerator turned on or house settled, it was another ten to fifteen minutes before my brain would allow me to fall asleep.

Looking back on times like that makes me think I did a decent job as a brother, but things weren't always so smooth.

I think the role of a big brother is a dynamic one. It's rules and guidelines are never set in stone. Questions and second-guesses about what is right and what is wrong can take up residence in one's mind for a long time.

Do I keep teasing four-year-old Nick long after I've been told to stop? After all, there are few greater pleasures than bringing mild suffering to a younger brother. Do I get him back fifteen different times after he stool my drink or ate my last pop tart? Or should I have let it go?

Do I shoot twelve-year-old Jason in the leg with a paintball gun from point blank range and think it's okay? Even after I warned him three or four times to stop trying to attack me because I shot him earlier? Watch him fall to the ground because the pain in his leg was too great. And stand there and say 'I warned him.'

Bundles of Boy

At six years old I found out that my requests were met. My mother and father took me aside and told me that I was going to have a brother. For a while I'd been asking for a one, someone I could play with, conspire with, grow up with. I was bored by myself. My house and my grandparent's house were too interesting to explore alone.

Many months later however, I found out that I was not going to have just a brother, but two of them. A month before my seventh birthday my mom went into labor and gave birth to twin boys, my new baby brothers, Nicholas and Jason. When I saw them for the first time, I could not believe what my eyes showed me: tiny bodies with smooth pasty skin, one a little paler than the other, small oblong-shaped heads with thin wisps of hair, facial features smaller than I had ever imagined.

"Can I hold one?" I asked, watching the baby in my mother's arms.

She looked back at me from the hospital bed, "You have to be really careful."

The look in her eyes as she enunciated each word sent fear running into my arms.

I looked down at my arms, "I can do it, I'll be careful."

"Okay," she gave in. "Sit down."

I sat down on the uncomfortable hospital chair and my father picked Nick up from my Mom's arms and placed him gently into mine. I looked down at the helpless bundle on my lap. That's all he was if he was anything: helpless. He could hardly see, he couldn't move on his own or communicate any way other than crying. I could throw him across the room and nothing would stop me, I could pop his head if I tried. But I didn't and my arms remained calm as I held him. I looked to my mom holding Jason and realized just how dependent these babies were on people, their parents, on me. I looked forward to taking care of them, watching over them, and making sure that we were always careful. Looking back, like any brother relationship, things never when exactly according to that plan, but it's the thought that counts right? It can't be called brotherly love without the occasional punch to the arm or slap to the back of the head.

P.A.R.T. WHY? Because I gotta!

At ten years old I stood in my grandparent's bathroom contorting my face, "Can't make the scene if you don't have the green..."

I had just seen Jim Carrey in the movie The Mask. From that point on I spent a lot of my time attempting to imitate his mannerisms and facial gestures.

Aside from the voice, I was missing two key items: a yellow suit and a chameleon-green mask.

I approached my grandfather for answers.

"Pop Pop," I said. "Where do people go to buy suits?"

"At a men's shop," he answered, looking at me curiously. "Or at the mall."

That didn't help. Of all the times I've been to the mall, I've never seen the type of suit I needed: a mustard yellow overcoat, pants and fedora hat with an eagle feather, black and white dotted tie and suspenders, and a matching black and white pair of leather shoes. A men's shop didn't sound all that helpful either, I've never even heard of one let alone knew where one was.

My grandmother was my last hope.

"Grandma," I started. "Can you crochet me a mask, a green one?"

I could tell she didn't know what to say, "What for?"

"So I can have a mask when I act like Jim Carrey."

"Oh," she said hesitantly. "I'm not sure how to make a mask like that."

I explained to her that all I needed was a green mask with a hole for my eyes and mouth. She was skeptical at first, but I knew she would let me down. When she was done crocheting the mask later that day before my dad came to pick me up, I put it on for the first time and made my way to the mirror. It was perfect. The color was more of an aqua but I didn't care, the hole thing covered my face and neck down to my shoulders. The misshapen holes I looked and talked out of were itchy in spots but I quickly got used to it.

"Somebody stop me!" I said excitedly with a sly smile. "P.A.R.T. WHY? Because I gotta!"

I loved it. I carried the mask in my pocket everywhere, waiting for the right moment to whip I out, throw it on, and yell 'smokin' at the top of my lungs.

Baby Tomatoes

I remember one day as I sat in my grandparents living room watching cartoons, my grandmother came up to me.

"Do you want a hot dog?" she asked. "I'll cut it up and you can have it with beans?"

My eyes were fixed on Looney Toons.

 "Yes," I said, focused in on Bugs Bunny sticking his finger into the barrel of Elmer Fudd's hunting rifle.

"Do you want me to cut up baby tomatoes and put them on the side?" she asked again.

"Yes," I said as monotone as the first time. Elmer Fudds gun blew up in his face and I chuckled. My face remained glued to the wooden-encased television.

Moments later when my grandmother returned holding a plastic blue dish with my meal: baked beans, a cut-up hot dog and sliced baby tomatoes. When I saw the baby tomatoes I paused and looked back up to my grandmother, I hated tomatoes. Didn't she know this? She's my grandma. I said nothing and looked down at my plate. The realization of the situation hit, I remembered that she had asked me if I wanted them moments before and I had said yes.

I thought about my grandmother in the kitchen moments before, making me food because she loved me, only because she loved me, like she had so many times before. I thought of the several minutes it took to cut the tomatoes in thirds, how happy she expected me to be when I saw it. I realized that's why she made it, to make me happy. Somehow I knew, at age ten, that that was what she lived for. All this and I couldnt even spare my attention from Looney Toons for three second?

"Thanks Grandma," I said with a smile, forcing myself to look happy after my recent thoughts. She smiled and returned to the kitchen.

Why was I feeling this bad? The feeling slowly spread itself throughout my little body. I looked again down to my plate. The tomatoes were cut up perfectly. I didn't want to waste them but eating them was out of the question. I thought about sneaking them in the garbage but the thought made me feel even worse. Both my grandparents took good care of the tomato garden, spent afternoons and evenings taking care of it and watering it. There's no way I could throw a piece of that away. I was already irresponsible enough. After I was finished eating my hot dog and beans, I sucked as big a breath as I could and returned the rest of my plate to the kitchen. I had made up my mind to tell the truth.

My grandmother was sitting at the island cutting the tips off of string beans and sorting them into piles.

"Grandma," I started, sighing deeply. "I dont know why I said I wanted tomatoes, I don't even like 'em."

Her head leaned sideways, "Then why did you say you wanted some?"

"I don't know," I explained. "I wasn't paying attention when you asked."

 I saw a faint look of disappointment spread across her face, the kind of look you can't control even when you don't want to give it.

The thought of the cut-up tomatoes going to waste shot more pangs of guilt into my chest. "Can you eat them?" I asked.

She paused, "Sure, leave them right over there on the counter."

I put the plate down and walked my way up the stairs to the bathroom. I locked the door and I cried.

Jon

Younger Days Continued... I didn't know how important those endless,
carefree, forgettable summer evenings were:

The backyard also had a decent sized vegetable garden with rows of
string beans, carrots, and cucumbers. I used to run between the narrow
columns of tomato plants that grew several feet higher taller than my
head. There were two kinds of tomatoes in the garden, 'mini ones,' as
I called them, and the big kind, both of which I did not like. All
summer long Pop Pop took care of them, gently tying their brittle
stems to sticks he drove into the ground next to them, assuring they
wouldn't break even under the weight of august-ripened tomatoes. He
would also throw fertilizer down every so often, little white balls of
'plant food' he called them.

"They'll eat that stuff right up," he told me once, spreading water
across the base of their dirt-covered stems. "That's what makes 'em
grow." The sun went down on that day, as it did on so many others like
it, and again I learned something new.

Whenever I would watch my grandmother plant her flowers, or dig a new
hole for her herbs, I watched her intently. Many times she would pull
my body down to match hers. On all fours we dug into the moist soil,
excavating a hole just big enough for the marigolds or ... to fit.
Once we had our hole, we filled it with water and counted and watched
for it to seep in. Sometimes we didn't wait and stuck the flower's
root-ball in the hole anyway.

"Know push the dirt back and pack it down nicely," she explained.

She showed me how to push my fingers down into the dirt beside the
plant to fill the spaces underneath and pack down the mud around the
roots. I remember my grandmother's moistened hands spotted with the
dark fragments of the rich soil, as she carefully wiped them back and
forth under the cool faucet water to rinse them clean.

To this day, though never as often as my grandmother had, whenever I'm
planting flowers or trees or down on all fours working in a garden, I
find myself mimicking the motions of my grandmother. The way she held
and observed the shoots of colorful blossoms and small shrubs, the
skillful way in which she pulled gently at the dirt below their roots
to let them breath when she replanted them, the beautiful way she
taught me that even the smallest sprouts, if given enough care and
sunshine, can grow into the biggest and brightest flowers in the yard.
I cannot dig a hole or hold a flower without thinking of her, without
her being their with me.

Younger years...

My grandmother had a funny name for the spongy grass that grew in the front yard between the front walk and the sidewalk. Zusha grass she called it, and it was the best for rolling around in, falling into when 'we all fell down,' and sliding across--which never turned out to be a good idea after my mom saw the stains on my pants and shirt. Somehow, the cloths I wore always turned out to be 'one of my good shirts' or 'the pants my mom just bought.'

Around the edges of this thick, dry grass the lawn was spotted with flower beds. Marigolds and tiger lilies grew along the front and left side of the house with small purple violets dotting the spaces in between. Pansies grew in pots on the back patio next to the small flower garden partitioned by morning glories growing into an upright piece of lattice. Deep red roses wound their why into a taller section of lattice on the far corner of the house.

Tomatoes grew juicy and red along the right side of the house. Pop Pop told me it was because it was the warmest part of the yard. That side of the house faced southwest into the mid-day sun.

On the opposite side of the yard wild raspberries grew through a chain link fence from the neighbor's property.

...

Continued...

*Add after we find out my aunt's boobs are fake:

They were just staring back at me. Why hadn't I ever noticed it before? Clinging tightly to her semi-pale skin and fifty-five year-old body, they were as obvious as it gets. Maybe it was because I was seeing my aunt through Jess' eyes as well, noticing and observing her for the first time also. I wasn't looking at my aunt in the same familiar way I always had, since the days I splashed the ice cold cup of water across her chest as she sunbathed. 

--------------------

I don't think I felt as embarrassed as I should have in that moment. Probably because I knew Jess well enough to know she wouldn't judge me on it. After all, I had warned her. My Aunt Nancie had always been one to push the envelope when meeting new people, and push the limits of what was appropriate after she had a few drinks.

When we all went inside for cake, it was par for the (family birthday party) course: Light the candles, sing happy birthday, blow them out...and listen to the Nancie become the center of attention.

"Sit down," my Aunt Steffie scalded.

Nancie laughed and ducked into the kitchen, sending me the 'oh boy' look while finishing her glass of wine. 

She came up to me in while Jess was in the bathroom, "That wasn't inappropriate right? You know me?"

A glaring 'yes' came to my mind but it didn't come out. I leaned into the corner of the kitchen counter tops, I didn't know what to say. In almost any case imaginable that was the wrong thing to start with. Young nephew, new girlfriend: lets ask them if they've been having sex. It's even more awkward when you know the answer is no. 

"If it was anyone else," I started, knowing I was diffusing a potential situation. "It would probably not be right, but I know you and know what you meant."

No I didn't, I didn't even know what I meant by that. The situation was awkward enough and my comment ended their.

"Oh good, " Nancie beamed, turning to Darlene, "Told you. You don't get it."

My Aunt Darlene looked down with an unwavering expression of disbelief. She was right and she knew it. Everyone who heard Nancie's comment knew it--except of course for Nancie. 

Later on my Aunt Darlene went up to Jess and attempted to salvage what she could of Jess' first encounter with the family, "I can't believe she said that Jess, we're not all like that, I promise." 

"It's okay, " Jess smiled. "Really."

A Start...100 Days

My brothers turned eleven in May. We had a small party with the same close family members that frequented such events: my grandparents and Aunt Steffie, Aunt Darlene and cousins Mitch and Garrett, my Aunt Nancie and a few others.

I arrived after school with my new girlfriend, Jessica Matejek.

"It's going to be weird meeting the rest of your family," she said as we pulled in.

"Don't worry," I said. "Your polish, my grandma and Aunt Steffie will love you."

"Shut up! I'm serious."

"You'll be fine," I said again, pointing to the deck on the other side of the backyard. "That's my Aunt Darlene with the big curly hair, you'll like her."

"And that must be your Aunt Nancie," she said, watching a straight-haired woman laughing hysterically with a glass of wine held up in one hand.

"Yep, she's cool," I replied. "I think you'll like her, she's fun. She reminds me of someone our own age."

She sighed.

When we walked in, my grandparents met her with friendly smiles, the same welcoming expressions they gave to anyone they met for the first time. My Aunt Steffie gave a professional stare and greeted her with a hello: business as usual. I got the feeling she wasn't keen on the idea that I had a girlfriend. Like any older relative trying to dictate a generation well past their own, she though I was too young to have a girlfriend. Reality was different. Jess was my first girlfriend, and she came late for mew. I had started dating her in December, half way through my senior year. All through junior high and high school I had to watch as my friends discovered the opposite sex, how sexy they were, how big their boobs were or how nice their ass was.

We walked onto the deck for the next wave of introductions.

"This is my girlfriend Jess," I started, and gave around the formal introductions.

My Aunt Nancie lit up. Her reddish blonde hair hung down above her face as she adjusted her white, skin-tight tank top. It became obvious to me in that moment, awkward as it was, that my godmother's boobs were fake, and her bra-less nipples were poking through the thin fabric.

"Hello!" she beamed. "It's nice to meet you."

Jess returned the comment and began answering questions from everyone: Are you going to go to college? Yes. What for? Nursing. How'd we meet? Civics class.

"You two are so hot together," she said as we settled into our spot on the deck among the 'younger' crowd. "So did you guys have sex yet?"

"Nancie!" my Aunt Darlene interjected. "That is so inappropriate. What are you thinking?"

I chuckled some sort of awkward response.

"What?" she said, still looking us over.

...

The First

My first post. Looking forward to 100 Days.

JB