Today was a long day.
Went to my grandfather's house at 9 to help him move items into the backyard for auction. The auction company was already there, setting up tables and unloading items from another estate being auctioned at the same time as my great grandmother's. Most of the morning involved moving box after box of junk - and I know these things at one time may have had some sentimental value, but now they were viewed as junk.
We emptied my great Grandmother's closet of all of her church clothes, fur coats, and other dusty possessions and began hanging them on the clothes line strung between the outbuilding and the house. After most of the items were up, the clothesline which had been there as long as I can remember, broke. All of the clothes toppled to the ground in a heap of bright periwinkle and fuchsia.
Undaunted, we hung a new clothesline of rope. We hung the clothes once more, confident that the new rope would hold. But, alack, it broke again, sending great Grandmother's absurdly petite clothes to the ground. This time, I and a family friend created a rope-wire hybrid clothesline and propped it up with a tree branch trimmer. It held for the rest of the day, but only by three cords of stripped wire. Which, I think, was a metaphor for the whole day.
Around noon I was standing in the kitchen with my grandfather, taking a break from box moving. I was drinking some iced tea from a small glass and eating a chocolate-covered caramel. He was seated on a smallish yellow stool, a converted highchair that always seemed to be in great grandmother's kitchen for some reason. He was, as usual, smoking one of his Carlton cigarettes. He'd been complaining all morning about his brother, about his sister, and about nearly everyone who didn't offer to help him set up this auction - but who saw fit to pick over his mother's earthly possessions like carrion. To be honest, it had begun to wear on me. His attitude can be very abrasive, and today was the most abrasive I'd seen him in years. Then, out of the blue he asked:
"Did I ever tell you about the time I cut a man?"
This is not something you ever expect to hear from a family member, let alone your grandfather.
"Ummm, no."
"Yeaaaah, boy. Sure, did."
He took a pull from his cigarette and exhaled.
"It was when I was away from home. I was about 14 or 15, down in New Orleans. Big black man accosted me."
"What did he do?"
"Well, he meant to do me harm. And I had this knife called a
hawk bill knife. And I took it out and went
skrrkkk."He slashed his forefinger through the air in front of him.
"Left him there on the curb with his guts hanging out."
He indicated with his hands how the man looked sitting there with his intestines dangling out. My eyes widened.
"What happened then?"
"Well, I don't know what happened to him. I took off runnin'. I don't know if he lived or died."
I sat there in silence trying to take it all in.
"Yessir," he repeated, "cut him open."
I realized then that there was so much I didn't know about my grandfather. The man I called "Poppy" for years had a strange, dark past. I knew he'd always been the black sheep of the family. Apparently, he'd run away at 14 or 15 and either killed or nearly killed a man in New Orleans. I felt like he was confessing it to me, as if no one else knew this.
But most of all I felt a renewed sense of the sort of fear he was capable of inspiring. Poppy is a scary man. As a boy, I feared him more than my father. If I did something I wasn't supposed to do at home, I might get a scolding or get sent to my room; at Poppy's house I got not only a physical whuppin' but a good verbal whuppin' as well. He ruled his domain like an autocrat. When he was roused to anger, Nana and his daughters would scamper about like terrified servants. I felt like that all weekend, when he stood in the hallway overseeing the packing of boxes. He'd indicate some task to be carried out and I'd jump to it like a private responding to the order of a commanding officer.
Behind that clay-red, cigarette-cured face are two very contradictory aspects. Poppy is an angry, dark, and vaguely Mifune-esque tyrant - but at the same time he is the prototypical grandfather. I don't call him "Poppy" for nothing (nor does my sister, who absolutely loves him). He's mellowed somewhat since Nana died, but the intense anger and disaffection are still there.
The auction went off well I suppose. So many of the nice things I remember from great Grandmother's house and Poppy's house were auctioned off for next to nothing. The net profit was pathetic if you ask me, but Poppy seemed pleased. It as almost as if he only wanted to get rid of these things once and for all. Scores of items that were sold as part of large lots were left behind in the yard by buyers. Since no one wanted them, I picked through the boxes for items to keep. I made off with a few unopened disposable cameras, one that has yet to be developed (which should be interesting), and a Villeroy & Boch decorative plate from 1889 that belonged to my great-great grandmother.
Although cracked and glued back together, it had family value.
I'm so glad this week is over.
