| [1959] With his mouth open, slightly opened I | | | | kid, looking about, not at anything in |
| should say, grandpa’s mouth mumbled | | | | particular, perhaps making a peanut butter |
| (from long habit I expect, I | | | | sandwich, or drinking a glass of milk: |
| presupposed—back then, back in the late | | | | glancing at grandpa now and then, and pacing |
| 50s and early 60s (when we all lived in an | | | | about, around in the kitchen as if I was at |
| extended family type setting)) and I was but | | | | the Alamo looking here and there for the |
| ten years old, there about: take or give a | | | | incoming enemy: that in itself annoyed |
| year or two))—and I suppose from years | | | | grandpa: he’d always mumble to my |
| of practice) automatically opened (insulting | | | | mother: “…vay cant dat boy of yor |
| whomever at the moment, was by him, not | | | | play outside…goddam it?” |
| directing it to the: noun (or: person, place | | | | (he’d pause a moment, turn about and |
| or thing), just swearing away, swearing under | | | | swear): ‘…dam son of bitch, kick |
| his breath…in his broken English: | | | | his ass out…!”It was summer, |
| ‘…vat dam hell matter dhis | | | | mother was at work, Grandpa semi retired now, |
| fu…kn pepe, god…dam son na | | | | he paced the living room like a wounded |
| bitch…!” and when his mouth | | | | leopard, and it often reminded me of that |
| opened, things leaked out of his mouth like | | | | invisible rabbit, James Stewart the actor |
| molasses); he watched me move about in the | | | | portrayed in the movie “Harvey,” |
| kitchen, looking over his spectacles, or | | | | I mean who was he talking to, like James |
| glasses he seldom wore, except if he wanted | | | | Stewart, perhaps the invisible Harvey.Now |
| to read the paper, which he couldn’t | | | | grandpa was puffing away, and I got |
| read but every fifth word in English, the old | | | | thinking—that’s cool, the pipe |
| Russian Bear —then grandpa started to | | | | and all, but it takes a lot of work and |
| strike his match at the same time of his | | | | coordination. I can’t remember exactly, |
| mumbling and sucking off the stem of his | | | | but I do remember being fascinated with his |
| pipe, trying to ready himself to light his | | | | pipe, and I reason it came out when I got |
| tobacco inside this black framed hole that | | | | older, for as a young adult, I purchased a |
| held the tobacco: and brown bottom drum | | | | pipe, and became a copycat, not realizing I |
| called a pipe; stained from a decade’s | | | | was, but I was.As a result, when I see a man |
| use I expect; his mouth still moving, still | | | | with a pipe nowadays, I often think of |
| talking to the pipe or himself, not sure, he | | | | grandpa, but even more so, the quite life we |
| couldn’t have been talking to me, he | | | | had, the smoke of the pipe circulating the |
| seldom did, perhaps a half dozen times in | | | | living room, and then it fading into |
| ten-years, and today was not my lucky day, or | | | | nothingness it was all about an unforgettable |
| my unfortunate day: as I was saying or about | | | | decade for me, it would rest on magical air, |
| to say, he swept his hand backwards, the | | | | I’d think; it all seems so somber now, |
| match pulled away from the lit tobacco in the | | | | now that I’m getting to his age.Note: |
| furnace of the pipe, the steam of the pipe he | | | | Written at, ‘El Parquetito’ Cafe, |
| was still sucking onto make sure it stayed | | | | in Lima, Peru 4/22/2006, while having |
| hot and lit.Still talking to himself, I was | | | | spaghetti, and enjoying the sun. |
| as I said before a ten to twelve year old | | | | |