Unconventional

by J J Hebert

  I open my eyes and rub them with sideways fists. Meranda deserves a familiar face, one that isn’t soulless. I will be that presence for her. I will stay here for as long as it takes.

  * * *

  A nurse wakes me. I glance at my watch. I must have fallen asleep. I missed lunch and dinner. My stomach rumbles, and I feel slightly nauseous. I run a hand through my hair. Per Doctor Gillman’s go-ahead, the nurse tells me that I can visit my grandmother if I would like, and that Mrs. Erickson should be ready for release in about an hour.

  I stand, smiling. “She’s doing okay?”

  “Recovering nicely. Yes,” the nurse says.

  “Please, bring me to her.”

  “Right this way.”

  I follow her out of the waiting area and through several corridors and doors until we finally arrive at Meranda’s room, her temporary abode. We stand outside the door.

  The nurse says, “She’s been asking for you.”

  “She said my name?”

  “Jimmy. Yeah.” The nurse drifts away from the door. “I’ll leave you alone with her. Take your time.” She twists around and walks away.

  Hesitantly, I stride into the room.

  Meranda is sitting up in the bed. “There you are, Jimmy!” she shouts across the room.

  I approach the bedside. Color has returned to her cheeks. “How ya feeling?” I ask.

  “Embarrassed.” She speaks clearly. “You waited here all this time?” She looks up at my face.

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t have anywhere to be?”

  “I was supposed to spend time with my girlfriend but I decided to stay here.” I hope she doesn’t spot brown on my nose.

  “Why would you do that?”

  “You don’t want me here?”

  “I didn’t say that,” she says. “I’m asking—why did you stay?”

  “Because if I were you, I wouldn’t want to be alone in this hospital.”

  She looks down at the blanket covering her legs. Her tone hardens. “I don’t need your pity, Jimmy.”

  “I’m not pitying you.”

  “Then why’d you really stay?”

  “Like I said, I didn’t want you to be alone.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I don’t follow . . .”

  “You must want something.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “A twenty-something young man doesn’t forfeit time with his girlfriend for some old bag unless there’s something he wants in return.” She pauses, turns to the tray of food next to her bed. “Will you be driving me home, Grandson? You’re all I have.”

  “Uh . . . sure. Yeah. Not a problem.”

  She picks up a Snack Pack pudding from the tray, hands it to me. “Here. This is what you get. Your compensation.” She smiles impishly as I accept the pudding, then hands me a spoon. “Consider us even,” she says. “Now explain to me how it is that the staff here is under the impression that you’re my grandson?”

  I shrug, my face warm, pulsing. “I didn’t tell ’em so. Honest.”

  “That’s funny, seeing as how I never had children.”

  I smile, my attempt to soften the mood.

  She changes the subject. “Doctor Gillman said I had alcohol poisoning. I tried to tell him I didn’t drink much, but he wouldn’t buy that. I didn’t drink much, did I, Jimmy?”

  I rock my head, say nothing.

  “You think I’m a drunk, don’t you?” she asks.

  Yes. The Lord of all Drunks. “You passed out. You must’ve had too much to drink.”

  “Okay, so maybe I have a slight problem.”

  I make sure to wear a deadpan face. “I was worried about you. Everyone was worried. I’m glad you’re doing better.”

  Her eyes glisten. “Doc said I’ll have to stop drinking.”

  “That’s not a bad thing,” I say, but then I remember who I’m speaking to.

  “It is when you need relief.”

  “Relief from what?”

  “Thoughts. Life. Pain.”

  I surprise myself and tell her about my grandfather’s demise.

  “Good gravy, what are you insinuating?” she asks.

  “To stop drinking is probably a wise idea.” I’m the mascot for Team Sobriety.

  Doctor Gillman enters. Chalk-faced Data from Star Trek. “Hello.” He walks past me, looks her over with a critical eye, asks how she’s feeling. “Fine, Doc,” she says. He deems her ready to return home.

  “The next time I see you, Meranda, I want it to be for your annual physical, not because of getting carried away with the whiskey, all right?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Sure thing, Doc.”

  He points to the clothing—a folded pile on a chair, near the end of her bed—she was wearing when she came to the ER. “Get yourself dressed and we’ll send you on your way.”

  “About time.” She dispenses attitude.

  Data and I leave the room. He shuts the door behind us, and we start walking down the corridor.

  “You’ll need to take care of your grandmother. She needs your help . . .”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  We approach the red covered bridge, headlights shedding light on the road, then the bridge itself, the MOOSE ACRES, N.H. sign posted to the top of its entrance. I pass through the bridge.

  From the passenger’s seat, Meranda says, “A couple miles from here.”

  I nod, randomly think of the parking lot at Perk Up Café. “What are you gonna do about your car?”

  “You’ll help me pick it up tomorrow.”

  Two miles later, she has me take a left into a lengthy gravel driveway; a mailbox at the entrance reads ERICKSON. Trees line either side of the drive. The tires crunch over the gravel. My body jiggles slightly from the bumps in the road. At the end of the driveway, it opens to a spacious lot, about the size of half a football field. There are no cars parked here. To the lot’s north sits a two-story scarlet Colonial on three or four acres of grass, six windows on each story facing us, a screened-in porch, a four-car garage flanking the house. She orders me to park in front of the garage. As I obey her command, motion lights beam down on us from the top of the garage, and I prepare myself for an alien abduction.

  I step out of the car, shut the door, walk around the tail of the car, and open Meranda’s door. I hold out my hand to her. She takes hold and says, “Well, aren’t you a gentleman.” I help her out of the car, close the door, and I put my arm around her waist. She smiles at me. We slowly hike her cobblestone walkway, our eyes squinting through faint light. We come to her porch and another motion light powers on, this time from a lamp over the screen door. She takes the lead, walks up the steps, unlatches the door and opens it. I walk in behind her. The door snaps shut. I glance at my wristwatch—9:02.

  Inside her house, standing in the entrance, I see the place hasn’t been vacuumed or dusted in a long while; dust bunnies float all over, and the carpeting is covered with dirt. I guess this is the sort of stuff people who clean for a living notice.

  She says, “I need to use the little girl’s room. Make yourself at home. There should be something to eat in the fridge.”

  She scurries away, up a set of stairs to our left, and calls down, “Just don’t go stealing anything!”

  I let out a laugh. “Don’t worry. I won’t!” I walk out of the entranceway, to her living room—a blue couch, a recliner, a nineteen-inch TV next to a picture window. I step to her couch, linger at its base, gazing at the framed photographs ornamenting the wall above the sofa—a younger version of Meranda shaking hands with President Kennedy, a fellow Pulitzer Prize winner; locking hands with Reagan; posing with Entangled on The Johnny Carson Show; walking onto David Letterman’s set; her headshot on the front of Time Magazine, People, and Newsweek.

  I sit on the blue fabric, prop my right arm on the rest, thinking: What hasn’t this woman done? I sink in the puffy couch, and suddenly become ravenous. The refrigerator. She said it would be all r
ight if I get myself some food. I stand, mosey into the kitchen, open the refrigerator, and spot a couple packaged cheese sticks. I remove them both from the fridge, devour the first and second, remaining hungry. With my hand holding the door ajar, I scope out the rest of the refrigerator. The top shelf holds nothing but milk and fruit juices and colas. The second shelf is empty. The third level contains an expired carton of eggs. The door is packed with condiments—two bottles of mayonnaise, a bottle of ketchup, mustard. My stomach screams at me.

  I insert the cheese stick wrappers in a front pocket, close the door, and notice an antique piece of furniture—a stained oak cabinet with detailed carvings—tucked next to the refrigerator. I pull open the cabinet’s doors. I lean in toward the cabinet, see bottles of whiskey and wine, one of each. This is no ordinary cabinet meant for dishes. Doctor Gillman’s words rush through my mind: You’ll need to take care of your grandmother. She needs your help.

  I glance over my shoulder. Meranda is nowhere to be seen. Must still be in the bathroom. Is she okay? Long bathroom trip. Should I check on her? I remove the bottle of merlot from the cabinet, get rid of the cork with a corkscrew I find in the cabinet, and walk with the wine to the sink. I pour the dumb-juice down the drain of the dish-cluttered sink. This is for your own good, Meranda. This is me helping you . . . I toss the bottle in a trash can next to the sink, enjoy the sound of shattering glass but worry that she may have heard, fret over how she will react.

  Take care of your grandmother. She needs your help.

  As in a trance, I go to the cabinet and grab the whiskey, unscrew the cap, and deposit it into the sink, smiling. I can’t have her passing out at a café again, staggering down the street like that guy I saw, dying like Gramps, unaccompanied, with exception of her bottles. I don’t wish for her to show her face to Doctor Gillman before her annual physical. I don’t want to read her obituary in the newspaper, to read about her untimely death on the Internet.

  “What in the—what is this?”

  I whirl around, catching Meranda’s horrified face, a look reminiscent of when she learned about my non-drinking philosophy. “You can’t drink this stuff anymore, Meranda.” I hold up the whiskey bottle, gutsy.

  She steps to me, hand flailing in the air. “I leave you alone and this is what you do?” She grabs the bottle from my grip, looks in through the top, and begins sobbing. “Where’d it go? What did you do with it?”

  I give a fleeting look at the sink.

  She pushes me aside, leans over the sink, stares at the drain. “Why’d you do it, Jimmy?” She marches to the cabinet, stands in front of the open doors, her back to me. “What’d you do with the merlot, Jimmy? Where’s my merlot?” She faces me.

  I nod at the sink.

  “You little—”

  “What happened to you?” I ask softly.

  “Eddy happened to me. That’s what happened, you ignorant jerk!” She lunges at me, trips over her own feet before I can move, and falls to the tile. She sits herself up, crying. “He wasn’t supposed to die. We were supposed to grow old together. He left me, Jimmy. Got shot in the head!”

  I kneel next to her, preparing to comfort.

  She speaks through the pain. “He wasn’t supposed to go down that alleyway. He wasn’t even supposed to be in the city . . . Give me a drink. I need a bloody drink!” She grabs my collar, pulls me close, sniveling.

  “No! Don’t you see what you’re doing to yourself? Don’t you understand where you’re headed?” I picture the man stumbling down the road in his cowboy boots.

  “Why do you care?” she asks, letting go of my collar.

  I focus on her sodden eyes. “You’re my grandmother.”

  She wipes her face with a hand. “I don’t have a grandson.”

  “You do now,” I say, “and I don’t want my grandmother to die.” I stand and present a helping hand to her. She latches on, and I pull her to her feet.

  Her eyelids look heavy behind her glasses. “I need to sleep. I want to sleep. I need to shut down, Jimmy.”

  “I get it, Meranda. That’s fine.”

  She folds her arms. “Be here tomorrow morning at ten. I want my car back.”

  “You got it.”

  On my ride home, I flip open my cell and call Leigh. I have a lot to tell her.

  * * *

  9:49 am. I knock on Meranda’s door and she lets me in. We talk in the entranceway.

  “You came.” Her eyes appear refreshed.

  “Of course.”

  “I didn’t think you’d show.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m a complete embarrassment. After yesterday, who would want to help me?”

  “Your grandson would.” I smile.

  She looks like she’s going to grin, but she holds back. “Let’s get going. I want some coffee,” she says.

  “Wait.” I look at the pocketbook slung over her shoulder. “The flask?” I hold out my hand.

  She rummages through her bag, and hands it to me. I say, “Thank you,” and walk past her, to her kitchen. I dump the remaining whiskey, and set the flask on the counter.

  She cringes. “Throw that abhorrent obsession away . . .”

  I pick up the flask, walk with it to the wastebasket, and glance at her for confirmation. She gives a nod. I drop it into the basket. She takes a profound breath.

  * * *

  At Perk Up Café, we sit at the same table as yesterday. She orders a coffee and I order milk. Chad, the acne wonder, is nowhere to be seen. Maybe he took the day off to buy some Neutrogena.

  “Tell me about your girlfriend,” Meranda says.

  I explain about MySpace.com, how it works, and tell her about our first date, the same day as my rejection, tell her that I love Leigh, would do anything for her, that she is a great woman. I tell her about Leigh’s parents, the dislike they have for me but that Leigh, after drama with Tim (I explain the back-story), decided against her parents’ wishes and chose me. I tell her that I’m a new member of Christianity, the religion of unconventionality.

  “Your girlfriend is a lucky woman,” Meranda says.

  “How so?” I ask.

  “She has you.”

  “Thanks,” I say, stunned by her sudden warmth, sentimentality.

  “So you believe in Jesus?”

  An unflinching, “Yes. What about you? What do you think?”

  She takes a drink from her cup. “I’m thinking where was Jesus when Eddy died, huh? Was he sleeping?”

  I grimace.

  “No offense,” she says, “but I can’t believe in a deity who overlooked my husband’s murder.”

  “But what about living forever? Don’t you want that?”

  “Not like this.”

  “How about if things were perfect?” I ask.

  “Perfect in comparison to what?”

  “No death, no murder, none of that junk. What would you say to that?”

  “I’d say you’re fulla fecal matter, Jimmy.” She takes another drink.

  Silence falls over us for a minute; I hear the chatter of others around us.

  “I’m sorry if I offended you,” she says. “You probably think I’m a horrible person, huh?”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  More silence comes forth, then she says, “Hey, would you be interested in earning some money? I need my lawn mowed sometime this week.”

  Servant mode kicks in. “Sure,” I say.

  “Don’t you want to know your pay first?”

  “Nah, that’s not important.”

  She tilts her head. “Forty dollars for the whole shot.”

  I shrug. “Okay.”

  “What do you do for work otherwise?”

  “You won’t judge me, right?”

  “No, Jimmy.”

  “I work for my dad’s janitorial company.”

  “That’s nothing to be ashamed of, young man. My mother was a maid.”

  “Like that chick on the Brady Bunch?”

  Meranda nods and cracks a
smile. “Mother was stinkin’ proud of it, too.” She finishes her coffee. “Are you in college?”

  I explain how I spent my time after high school, and that college isn’t for me.

  “That’s all right,” she says. “Most kids go to college to figure out what they want to do with their lives. But if you already know what you want to do, then disregard college.”

  I smile.

  “Do you work forty hours?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  “And you write?”

  “Yes.”

  “You must really love it then,” she says; I nod. She continues, “What does your work schedule look like?”

  “Normally, I start at four o’clock, end at midnight.”

  “All right. Then an evening is out of the picture. How’s Tuesday morning at, say, ten?”

  “That’ll work,” I say, preparing myself to become Meranda’s maid. Without the blue outfit, of course.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Tuesday.

  I took one of Dad’s AA brochures this morning, the one regarding the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions, and I plan on giving it to Meranda today. I arrive at her house at ten o’clock. With the brochure in my left hand, I knock on her door with my right. A Mormon preparing to preach. She does not answer. I call out her name. Knock again. She does not appear. I wait on the porch for five minutes, sitting on a white chair, the brochure on my lap. I open the brochure to the note I left inside the pages, read it to myself. The note ultimately says that I believe AA could help with her drinking problem, and I encourage her to explore the brochure, to read it once, twice, as many times as it takes, that the hardest step is the first, admitting that she’s powerless over alcohol and her life is unmanageable . . .

  I nod, close the brochure on the note, step to the door, and this time pound on the wood. I press my ear against the door, hear nothing, then push the door open. I walk through, close the door, and I call her name again. I scan the kitchen, the living room, sit down on the couch, set the brochure on the middle cushion, stand, walk to the stairs, peer up the flight, wonder if she’s asleep, if she’s okay, if I should go upstairs to check on her; I think that’s where her room is. I’m unnerved by the silence of this house. I hope she’s here. She could have forgotten about today. My eyes dart along the ceiling, along the walls. I hope I don’t sound an alarm.