Reading To Grandpa

Grandpa Tom was my maternal grandfather. He was a steely eyed, quarter-blood-Cherokee who’d worked for the Wichita Falls daily newspaper all his life. 

I don’t remember grandpa Tom much before I was six-years-old, when we visited Texas for the summer. He had a favorite chair by the window where he would sit for hours. He had been ill, we children were told, so please be quiet around your grandpa. 

Every morning, mom used to hand me the newspaper and tell me to go over and read to my grandpa. “Show your grandpa how good you can read,” she’d urge. 

“The whole thing?” I’d complain. At first I was a little afraid of grandpa Tom, him being ill and so quiet and stern looking. He used to stare off into space and work his jaws as if he were eating. His fingernails were stained from the printer’s ink, too, which somehow I found upsetting. 

“No, honey,” my mom would reply sweetly, “just read to him until he falls asleep.” 

He fell asleep in his chair all the time. Later I learned that grandpa Tom had been recovering from the first of his many strokes at the time. While we stayed there that summer, I read to him every day, sitting on the leather ottoman at his feet, as he listened quietly and stroked an orange cat who slept in his lap. 

Eventually I forgot my fear and we became friends, grandpa and I. He’d smile crookedly with anticipation in the morning when I came to him with the newspaper.

Later, with great solemnity, he gave me an old, ivory-handled pen knife. “For you,” he sputtered, placing it in my hand. His words were terribly slurred from the stroke. “Don-don-don’t forget… to clean it.”

One day, I put the newspaper down when I thought he was asleep and I started reading to him from one of the books I’d brought with me from California. (Not sure if I could get books in Texas, I’d stuffed my suitcase full of them. “Whataya got in here?” my dad asked as he packed the car for the trip. “Rocks?”) 

What I read to grandpa that day wasn’t a rock. It was James and the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl. 

“Good!” grandpa said, startling me. I didn’t know he was awake. “More, please,” he added.

All that summer we laughed together at the adventures and misadventures of young James, while we hated and feared the cruel aunts Spiker and Sponge. When Spiker and Sponge deliciously got what they deserved and were crushed by the giant peach, grandpa laughed so hard he upset the cat, tumbling it to the floor with a squealing meow. Grandpa found the story very funny, laughed all the time, which surprised me somehow, and my mother thought was suspicious.

“What are you guys doing in there? Rusty? Dad?” she called. 

“Just reading,” we’d call back, laughing, but it was more than that. 

We were in another world together.  

   “And James Henry Trotter, who once, if you remember, had been the saddest and loneliest boy that you could find, now had all the friends and playmates in the world.”

Ah, Dahl, you magnificent bastard!

Summer Re-Run; "Love's First Kiss"

Hello friends.

While Rusty’s on Summer Break,

We present a repost 

Of our most popular pieces.

Which believe me 

Weren’t too damn popular 

In the first place.

But here it is!

One of Rusty’s scripts

From a live reading.

If you can call Rusty Pliers live.

Complete with stage directions

And down to the last word.

Proving perhaps he isn’t 

Such a lazy no-good one-eyed drunken bastard 

As he’s made out to be.

Maybe.

Please enjoy. 

And have a safe summer!

“Love’s First Kiss” (v2)

[Prologue]

In 1967 (when I was 14 years old)… the flutist of the Olive Vista Junior High School orchestra was Stephanie Poznanski.

I was in the orchestra too, playing second trumpet.

[Matter-of-Factly]

It may surprise you to learn that the second trumpet in a large junior high school orchestra doesn’t play his instrument constantly during a song. No, there are many times (in classical pieces particularly) where you just sit and wait. 

[Slight pause]

It was then that I would look longingly at Stephanie Poznanski. 

She sat across from the brass section, down at the front with the woodwinds.

[Wistfully] 

Sigh… She was so beautiful! 

With long blonde hair and a smile that was pure sunshine. 

[Act I]

Stephanie lived on a ranch in the foothills of the San Fernando Valley… where on this day I was visiting her home for the first time. 

My mom dropped me off and said “Be a good boy, Rusty.”

But that’s okay… she always said that.

[Pause]

We had a nice time, Stephanie and me, upstairs in her bedroom listening to records and talking about school. She had a great sense of humor that made me laugh.

[Slight pause]

After some milk and cookies with her mom in the kitchen, Stephanie and I excused ourselves and went outside.

“C’mon,”  she said, taking my hand. “I’ll show you the horses!”

[Act II]

It was a warm afternoon. 

Dusty light beamed through the eucalyptus trees that lined the way. 

We strolled hand in hand beside an emerald pasture where prancing horses played in the sun. 

To my amazement, they trotted over at Stephanie’s call. 

“I thought only dogs could do that,” I said.

“Don’t be silly,” replied Stephanie. “Horses are way smarter than dogs.” 

Now maybe that’s true and maybe it isn’t… I’ve met people in the fifty years since who’ve argued it both ways… but on that day in 1967 I didn't care one bit because I was smitten all over with Stephanie Poznanski.

[Slight Pause]

I had very different feelings for horses though. 

“I love horses,” said Stephanie, and I just nodded.

In fact I was kinda afraid of horses, but I tried to hide this from Stephanie because I wanted to make a good impression. I did what uncounted boys since the beginning of time have done when trying to impress a girl… I lied.

“I like horses too,” I said.

“Really?” answered Stephanie. “Barbara from History class said you said you hated horses. ‘Big, stupid, smelly things,’ she said you said.”

[To Audience]

That sounded like something I would say… 

[Insistent, then trailing off]

“Not me!” I said. “I love horses! They’re so…so big and strong… You know … uh, horsepower and stuff…”

[Slight Pause]

Stephanie laughed at my foolishness… as Eve must have laughed with Adam in the garden… and my young heart grew wings and flew away…

[Act III]  

Then Stephanie stepped closer to me. 

[Slight pause]

I looked into her eyes. They were so blue they were almost purple. Her long blonde hair played about her face in the warm California breeze. 

Some strands of it caught in her mouth, and 

With a laugh she reached up and hooked them away. 

[Slight Pause]

That’s when I asked if I could kiss her.

“Okay,” she said. “If you want to.” 

She closed her eyes and lifted her chin. Her lips parted slightly. I could see her little pink tongue behind her strong white teeth, waiting. 

“I want to!” I said.

I leaned forward and closed my eyes…

[Slight pause]

 … and our lips touched.

[Pause] 

“Love’s first kiss.”

[Long Pause] 

Ah friends… kissing Stephanie Poznanski was like kissing an angel!

[Pause] 

It was something else too, for as we kissed I began to feel a wonderful tingling sensation running up and down my body that eventually settled in my middle area.

[Looks down, then at audience]

Down in front.

[Act IV]

“Mmmm-mmmm,” I said as I wrapped my arms around Stephanie and pulled her closer…

At this Stephanie sighed…

… whether from boredom or from love I’ll never know… for her father caught us kissing and boy, did he give me a chewing out!

[Slight pause]

“Go to your room, young lady!” he ordered Stephanie.

“Stay right where you are, buster!” he ordered me.

Stephanie started crying and ran upstairs.

Then her dad gave me a piece of his mind, you might call it, about Stephanie and her chastity, while I thought of Stephanie crying in her bedroom where we’d been laughing just an hour before.

“Keep away from my daughter!” he said.

Then he phoned my mother.

[Act V]

“You’re too young to be kissing anybody that way,” said my mom, driving me home. 

“That comes later, honey, with love.”

[To audience]

Love! That was my mother’s cornball idea. 

I wanted romance and adventure! 

[Confidentially]

And let’s not forget the tingling sensation in my lower front, but I didn't mention that to my mom.

[Sincerely]

“We weren’t doing nothing wrong,” I said.

“You weren’t doing anything wrong,” corrected my mother.

“That’s what I said, mom! We weren’t doing anything wrong,” I repeated, hoping in my heart it wasn’t completely true.

[Epilogue]

Stephanie seemed to lose interest in me after that.

For which I mostly blame her father. 

Although for a while I tortured myself wondering if maybe I was a faulty kisser or something…

[Slight Pause]

As you can imagine Music class wasn’t as much fun anymore. All I could do was sigh and watch Stephanie from my place in the brass section, an impossible chasm yawning between us. 

Geez, I thought, it was just like Romeo and Julie …

“Rusty!” barked Mr Olinski. He was the music teacher. “Wake up! Please pay attention.”

“I wasn’t asleep, sir,” I objected.

“You were giving a pretty good imitation of it,” quipped Mr O.  

The class laughed. Everybody liked Mr Olinski. 

“Now, young man,” he commanded. “Give me an f sharp!”

[Wistfully]

Alas, my tootling lips went wanting for warm human contact that semester and I had to make do with the cold, indifferent mouthpiece of my St Louis Brand b flat King Cleveland student trumpet.

I gave Mr Olinski an f sharp.

[Pause] 

We moved to New Zealand at the end of the year and I never saw Stephanie again.

[Applause?]

Thank You!

You made it fun!

I’m Rusty Pliers!

Goodnight!

Hurling Napoleons

“Is there anything you guys don’t fight about?”

I was having coffee with my friend John. We have coffee together sometimes, usually at a trendy cafe where the guy behind the counter gets our orders all wrong. 

I can’t blame him, the guy behind the counter I mean, because it must be difficult trying to remember how to make the three-dozen different types of coffees they have on offer. 

So he doesn’t try, but makes the same thing, whatever you order. 

I fooled him today, though, I asked for tea. Hot tea. And a muffin.

“Hot tea?” he repeated, like I had two heads. He shrugged his shoulders, took my money and returned his attention to his personal device. He seemed preoccupied, texting as he was and talking at the same time to a pretty girl who stood off to one side waiting for her sandwich, also texting. 

So the joke was on me. Instead of tea I got, as near as I can tell, a double tall espresso with frothy goat’s milk and cardamon drizzle. 

I don’t know why, but I’m always too intimidated to complain when he gets it wrong. Maybe I’m getting old and with the wisdom of maturity have come to realize that it wouldn’t do any good. That in a moment of cosmic clarity I understand that coffee or tea, what’s the difference? 

Or maybe it was the fearsome tattoo he wore of a large, fire breathing dragon wrapped menacingly around his neck that I found inhibiting.

It wasn’t a very friendly tattoo. 

So I sipped my espresso and smiled like it was just what I wanted, saying thanks a lot. 

“Remind me to leave that guy a big tip,” I said to John.

That’s when John had asked me about all the fighting I did with my wife. John’s a good friend, and even though he’s met me for coffee and heard it all a million times before, he knows that sometimes I’ve just got to get it off my chest. 

He’s also married, so he knows that every marriage has its ups and downs. 

Perhaps you’ve found it so?

“Geez, Rusty,” he asked me with a laugh. “Is there anything you guys don’t fight about?”

I was unsure how to answer his question. My wife and I have been married a long time and, being married to me as you can imagine she’s had the opportunity for plenty of fighting. But we’ve also had plenty of good loving too, let’s not forget that. 

That’s the way it is with my wife and me… no holds barred!

John took a bite of his muffin, and seeing this, I had an inspiration. 

“Well,” I began. “We’ve fought about every type of muffin or pastry that I know of, that’s for sure! Cake too, especially wedding cake. That’s one of her favorites. She likes to bite the head off the little groom and growl at me menacingly.” 

John laughed, but I continued. “You know that painting Goya did,” I asked, “during his Black Period, of Saturn devouring his own son?”

John looked up in horror, recalling Goya’s famous painting. Goya was 75-years-old when he completed this terrible masterpiece, alone and in mental despair. 

John is a very accomplished artist whose work I truly admire. He has a better outlook on life than Goya did, too, which makes him fun to be around. He has a way of making other people feel good, of always adding and never taking away. We had worked together for Walt Disney on movies like Mulan, Lilo and Stitch, and Brother Bear, drawing cute little critters until our hands bled, and this had made us kin.

“But it’s not just cakes and pies,” I continued. “We’ve fought about pastries, too. And every cookie there ever was! She likes cookies. She likes to throw ‘em at me. She’s a good shot, too! I’m surprised she never pitched for the damned Yankees, with an arm like hers.” 

John was chewing his muffin. Which makes me laugh because it sounds so dirty. Chewing some muffin. Don’t worry though, it’s safe to chew your muffin in a cafe where one is surrounded by many chewable muffins for sale.

It’s when you’re chewing someone else’s muffin that the trouble sometimes starts.

“She could’ve pitched for the damned Yankees!” I repeated, then added with undisguised admiration, “You should see her hurl a custard-filled Napoleon!”

“Who?” asked John lazily, still chewing his muffin. “Your wife?”

“Sure, my wife!” I answered. “Who else? 

“It was in Paris. She’d been in this pastry shop on the rue Saint-Honoré for over an hour, while I stood outside waiting in the rain. You know how it can rain in Paris?

“Well, like a fool I had to go in and ask when she thought she might be finished so we could go get some lunch and wham! She let me have it! Right in the kisser!”

John looked up from his muffin. “She got you in the face?” he asked. “With a custard-filled Napoleon?”

“Not me!” I laughed. “The guy behind me! I’ve had plenty of experience, mate, and as she went into her windup I saw it coming and whoosh! I ducked down just in time! Haha! Luckily, it wasn’t a Parisian, but a German.”

“Who? The guy behind you?”

“No. The pastry! It was a strudel! She’d picked it up by mistake! She meant to grab a Mont Blanc!”

“What about Napoleon?” asked John.

“That wasn’t at Mont Blanc,” I answered. “He got his at Waterloo, didn’t he?”

“What about the guy behind you,” insisted John. “The guy who got it in the face?”

“Oh, him! He wasn’t from Mont Blanc either, but was a Dane.”

“You mean he was Danish?” asked John.

“No, no, no!” I replied, somewhat exasperated. 

“It was a strudel!”

Slow Train Going

   Last week I met my friend John at the usual place for coffee. 

   We used to work together at Walt Disney Feature Animation, John and I, animating cute little characters loved the world over, until the executives came out from California and casually laid us all off, closing the Florida studio and throwing over three-hundred people out of work. 

   You know what they say: Managers go on forever, but artists only last a short time. 

   That was years ago, in 2004. 

   We’ve all passed a lot of water under the bridge since then. 

   Now John and I like to meet once a week or so, to stay in touch and encourage each other in our various artistic endeavors. I should say John’s various artistic endeavors, because artistically he is far-ranging, up to date, and never at rest. He’s always trying something new. Sculpting, drawing, painting, animating, teaching, he can do it all.

   Me? I’ve been doing the same thing for the last four years; trying to write a 100,000 word novel filled with humanity and humor and maybe some cosmic truth.

   Who knew it would be so difficult to write a book? 

   Not me.

   John and I went to the counter to order our coffees. To my surprise, there was a different person behind the counter today. The disinterested guy who was always texting and getting our orders wrong, with the tattoo of a cartoon superhero on his neck, was gone. In his place stood a smiling young woman.

  “Hi,” she said. “What will you have?”

   Her cheerful efficiency threw me for a loop. I wasn’t expecting that. “Uh,” I said, “I don’t know. Hmm. A flat white, please.”

   To my surprise, that’s what I got. Usually I got whatever the disinterested young man gave me, whether I’d ordered it or not. Now, for a change, I had got what I ordered.

   You can’t rely on anything in this world. 

   We sat down at our usual table. “What are you and your wife fighting about these days?” asked John with a smile. He knew fighting with the missus was one of my favorite subjects. Had been for years. 

   “Bob Dylan,” I answered.

   “You’re fighting about Bob Dylan? How’s that?”

   “We’d been fighting for a few days, I don’t remember what about. I think it was about her potted begonia plants. They’re everywhere, and sometimes it gets on my nerves. Plus she keeps moving them around, you never know where they’ll pop up. So I kinda feel like they’re always sneaking up on me. Anyway, to get out of the house and away from the fighting, I was going to visit my pals Tim and Aileen down in Kissimmee and have a few beers.”

   “Yeah?” says John. “What happened next?”

   “Well,” I answered. “Hearing this, she insists she’s going too. ‘What?’ says I, ‘if you think I’m going to sit in a car with you for forty-five minutes when we’re fighting like cats and dogs, forget it! Someone could get killed!’”

    “Meaning you could get killed,” laughed John. 

    “Yeah,” I agreed. “So she jumps in my car and slammed the door. ‘I’m going!’ she says, folding her arms and adding a few oaths. ‘And you can’t stop me!’ 

   “‘Oh yeah?’ I said. ‘What about me being such a grandpa driver? You hate the way I drive. Now you can’t wait to go with me!’ So I get out of my car. I just left her there. I needed to cool off. What else was I going to do?”

   “I don’t know,” answered John. “You’re telling the story.”

   “I thought it over for a minute and decided maybe we can do it. Maybe we can manage to sit next to each other for three-quarters of an hour without fighting. Who knows? Miracles can happen, can’t they? So I take a few deep breaths to relax and then I get back into my car. Looking at her though, I see it’s useless. She’s good and angry by now!

   “‘Ha! Ha!’ she laughs. ‘So you changed your mind, did you? You’re such a weak bastard! And if you think I’m going to listen to Bob Dylan on the way, you can forget it!’ Then she pulled the CD out of the player and threw it out the freaking car window!

   “Man, was I pissed off!” I added. “And we hadn’t even left the garage!”

   “Well,” says John. “It’s better to be pissed off than pissed upon, isn’t it?”

   “Sure,” I agreed. “I know that. Only she was trying to piss me off, you know? What’s the good of that?”

   John just nodded. He’s married too, so he would probably know.

   “It was okay, though,” I conceded. “She threw out Slow Train Coming*, So the joke was on her!”

* Columbia Records (1979)

Flying Salmon

   “Why don’t you write a blog about it?” asked my friend John. 

   That was his polite way of suggesting that I shut up for awhile, drink my coffee and stop complaining about my marriage. By now, after an hour at the coffee shop, he was bored silly. And our five-dollar coffees were cold. Five dollars each, and for that price you have the dubious honor of being served by a rather disinterested young man who, because he was also texting and talking to his friend (who stood beside me, also texting) got our orders completely wrong. 

   I shouldn’t be surprised. 

   After all, it’s impossible to do two things at once. 

   Perhaps you’ve found it so?

   Even if you’ve got a cartoon superhero tattooed on your neck.

  John vigorously stirred his coffee, hoping to generate a little heat in his cup from the friction. John and I have been friends for years, both of us having worked for Walt Disney Feature Animation together. We’d animated, among other things, Khan the horse, Koda the bear, and Stitch the experiment*. He’s a gifted artist and good friend. 

   John I mean, not Stitch. 

   Although, after working with Stitch for close to two years before the movie was released, he and I had become good friends, too. You work so hard with your character and share so much together, then the movie is released and your animated offspring goes out into the world. You’re sad when it’s finished and really miss them when they leave the nest.  

   John had been showing me some drawings he’d posted on his Facebook page. Then I’d started talking about my often quarrelsome marriage. He stirred his coffee and listened, unable to hide the bored expression on his face. To be honest with you, I was bored too, but I couldn’t help myself. What else was there for me to talk about? Fighting with my wife was all I ever did lately. That, and try to write the heartwarming, insightful yet humorous novel I’ve been writing for the last four years. 

   “Maybe you need a hobby,” suggested John. “You don’t get out much anymore.”

   Yes, I thought to myself as I jabbered uncontrollably on, maybe I did need a hobby. Nothing was going right, everything around me seemed to be failing. My marriage, my writing, my friendships. Maybe I was becoming a failure as a person, too. Or maybe I already was a failure, and just didn’t know it yet, for how does one know when they’ve crossed that line? I hardly had a friend left, they were so sick and tired of hearing about my never-to-be-finished book or my combative marriage. Only the most robust of them could take it.  

   I suppose, even among one’s dearest friends, that other people’s problems aren’t nearly as interesting as one’s own, are they?

   “You want to be a writer,” said John. “Well, write!”

   “Yeah, but who’d want to hear about it?” I asked.

   “Not me anymore!” answered John with a laugh. “C’mon, let’s talk of something else. How about a muffin to go with your double tall upside-down espresso caramel macchiato latte with crosshatch drizzle?”

   “My what?” I said. I’d ordered a flat white, but wasn’t quite sure what it was I’d got.

   “Your coffee. How about a muffin to go with it?”

   “When did coffee stop being coffee?” I wondered aloud, feeling a little out of touch.

   “I don’t know,” answered John. “About thirty years ago, I guess.” 

   “Thirty years?” I asked incredulously. “Are you kidding?” Great, I thought, I’m not just a failure, now I’m an old failure. There goes another line I hadn’t noticed I’d crossed. 

   “You want a muffin, or not?” asked John.

   “Muffins!” I exclaimed. “That reminds me of the time my wife threw a plate of bagels at me. Complete with cream cheese and smoked salmon! Got me right in the kisser, mate! You ever had lox in your eye? It really stings! 

   “She’s always been a good shot,” I continued. “I’ll say that much for her! I remember it like it was yesterday. It was Sunday brunch at that big hotel down by the…”

   “Yeah, sure. But we weren’t talking about bagels,” interrupted John. He’d already heard the bagel throwing story, complete with flying salmon and stinging eyes. That was old news. 

   “Huh? said I, lost in my story and confused for a moment by John’s interruption.

   “We were talking about muffins, remember?” insisted John. “You want one?”

   “The hotel was out of muffins,“ I replied. “That’s what my wife and I were fighting about!”

*From, respectively, Mulan (1998) Brother Bear (2003) and Lilo and Stitch (2002).