Who am I kidding? I've been writing since I was a kid. Here's something I've started. Tell me if I should finish. (believe me, there's a great underlying story within this story...)
RAIN
It fell gently that afternoon, as more of an after thought from the heavens than a weather system. Sitting near the open window, I could hear the ping ping ping as it bounced off the aluminum awning just outside. I turned to my grandfather. “Don’t you think the rain was more fun when you were a kid?”
He looked up from his newspaper; glanced at me over his glasses. “Absolutely. When I was a kid, it rained just about every day. We didn’t have a choice but to enjoy the rain. People these days don’t know what it is like to get wet. I am telling you, this global warming business is drying up the planet. God damn Jimmy Carter, too busy kissing asses and babies to actually do anything about it when there was still time…” His voice faded out as he looked down at his paper.
I smiled and turned back to the rain outside. “But at least he was a Democrat.”
I heard the flip of a page. “Democrats, Republicans…they’re all a bunch of bums. Now Truman, he was a Democrat!” Good old Pop. Communism accusations be damned, he stood by his President. It’s funny how minds work. Truman was not well liked during his Presidency, yet many years later scholars declared he was one of our best presidents. On the flip side, Kennedy was loved by the masses, yet many moons after his death, those same scholars felt he would have been one of our worst.
Time. It doesn’t give you a chance to catch your breath.
I got thinking about the days. Days past, days to come. I looked back over at Pop. The cancer had really taken a toll on him. His mind was still sharp, but I could tell his body was wearing down. He had lost weight. The color faded from his cheeks. It killed me to watch, and I got angry with myself for pitying him. He was not a man to pity. Occasionally, while reading the Obituaries, he would comment on old classmates and former neighbors who had died. If he was ever asked to go to their funerals, he would respond with a quick, “Why should I go to theirs? They won’t be at mine!” It was hard to argue with that kind of logic.
It was also hard to imagine a time when we would not sit here, as we were, partially engaged in conversation yet fully aware of each others’ presence. Admittedly, it hadn’t always been this way. He and my grandmother used to baby sit me when I was a child. Time passes, children grow up, and people grow apart. We may not have seen much of each other as the years flew by, but we were always there.
I remember the day I found out like it was yesterday. It was a warm September day, when it still felt like summer but there was a subtle chill in the air that made you aware that Fall was just around the corner. That was the day that after several months of unexplained exhaustion and mysterious bruises, the doctors finally discovered the cause was a rare form of blood cancer; an aggressive one. The survival rate was slim to none, and Slim left town. It was awful news, and we took it as a family. At the time, Pop handled it best, with his typical comments, “Looks like you won’t be able keep the cash cow around much longer, eh Doc?” It wasn’t appropriate, no doubt, but then, I never said he was an appropriate man. It was decided that we’d skip the treatments and work on life quality, not quantity. As with most things, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
A ringing phone jerked me out of my thoughts and back to the present. I kept the cordless close, and reached over for it. “Hello?”
“I’m on my way over.” It was my mom. She lived across town, which, in our town, was roughly a 10 minute drive. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine,” I answered. “Just sitting here, watching the rain. What’s shakin’?”
“I was going to swing through Burger King and pick up some burgers,” Mom said. “Did you want anything?”
I motioned to my grandfather and covered the phone, “Mom’s coming over. She’s going to run through BK.” He glanced at me, smiled, and shook his head.
“I’ll take a Whopper, with cheese. Don’t worry about the onions, I’ll pick them off.”
“Alright. I’ll see you in about 20 minutes. Love ya,”
“Love you, too.” We both hung up.
To be continued......?
Are those like Marine boots, because they look eerily similar to a pair that I used to be forced to wear...back in the day. They too were like super boots.
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