by Jack Gantos
“Are you saying if I tell her we’re friends, she’ll drop dead?” she asked.
“Well, that’s what she says,” I said, “but I don’t believe her.”
“Then let’s call her bluff,” Olivia said eagerly. “Maybe she’ll keel over at our feet. Now that would be something.”
“She’s not really going to die,” I said. “She’s just going to stop worrying about me and start feeling better.” But Olivia wasn’t listening.
“Do you think when I say the word friend that she’ll clutch her heart and hit the floor? Or fall backward? Or have a stroke and go down in a heap?”
“Stop it,” I said. “That’s really sick.”
“Okay,” she groaned. “I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll visit your grandma and tell her I am your blind-as-a-bat friend and send her to her grave, if you help me sneak out of my house and take me to the opera. How’s that?”
“Give me some time to think about it,” I said.
“I’ll check back with you in a minute,” she said. “But I’m warning you, I’m not going to wait all day.”
“Okay,” I said. “Okay!”
We walked silently all the way across St. James Street until we found the next house and scuffed through the fallen leaves in the yard as we headed for the front door. I rang the bell.
A very old lumpy person opened the door with something like a Christmas stocking on their head and I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman or one of my little gnome friends come to life. There were some long whiskers on the chin, but that didn’t mean anything because my grandma has whiskers on hers. The person wore pants, but my grandma wore pants. The person had short hair sticking out, but my grandma had short hair. “Can I help you?” the person asked, as if Olivia and I were lost.
“I’m returning Little Bit,” I said.
The person looked down at Little Bit and seemed very disappointed.
“Goodness,” the person said slowly. “I thought I’d never see LB again, and we already went out and got another dog—a German shepherd puppy—and I don’t think they’ll mix too well.”
“Well, Little Bit is yours,” I said.
“He was my son’s,” the person said. “But he moved out of the basement and left the dog with us. Maybe you can just take him to the pound?”
I felt bad for Little Bit, who looked up at the person and whimpered. Then the German shepherd puppy came to the door and began to bark, so we backed away. When I reached the sidewalk, I stooped down to scratch Little Bit’s ears. “Can you believe that,” I said to her. “She doesn’t want you anymore, which means you are mine.” And it occurred to me that I had just made a friend for Pablo. Even though he never told me he wanted a friend, I figured he must want someone his size in the house. After all, his neck must constantly be sore from always having to look way up at everything in the world.
The last dog didn’t have a collar but I figured it was Rita from the Dogs Missing section of the paper. We took it to the Lancaster Pet Center, and after I explained my story again about my dad, the animal nurse took a look at the Chihuahua and said she could probably figure out where it lived since they usually took care of most all the dogs in town or knew enough people, and some of them would know who was missing a Chihuahua.
When we got to my house, Olivia turned to me. “Time’s up,” she said. “What’s it going to be?”
“Are you sure you can pull the plug on the door guard?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said.
“Okay,” I said reluctantly. “I’ll swap. You come into my house now, and I’ll get you out of yours later.”
“Deal,” she said, and stuck out her hand.
I shook it. It was very soft, like shaking a velvet glove.
“Sit here for a minute,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
I grabbed Little Bit and ran up the steps and into the house. “Pablo!” I hollered. “Pablo! Come here.” When he arrived, he peered up at me and began sniffing. He seemed confused. “What do you think of this?” I said, bending down and standing the new Chihuahua on the floor.
“See, now you have a friend,” I said to Pablo, “and you won’t strain your neck. We’ll name her Pablita.”
While they were sniffing each other and getting reacquainted, I called out, “Grandma?”
“Still breathing,” she called back, as if she were stuck down a well.
“I got a surprise for you,” I sang out. “On the front steps.”
“Give me a minute to clean up,” she hollered.
I went back outside. “One more minute,” I said. “Then you can come in.”
“I don’t know,” she said, standing up. “Let me think about this some more.”
“Come on,” I said impatiently, and reached for her hand, “we made a deal.”
But she wasn’t fighting me too hard, otherwise she would have smacked me with her cane.
“Okay,” she said.
“Follow me,” I said. She tapped up the steps as I scampered in front of her and opened the door. “Watch out for the opening,” I said. “There’s a little half step.”
“Hush,” she whispered. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
“I just don’t want you to fall flat on your face.”
“That’ll be your grandma’s job,” she cracked with a wicked smile.
“You be nice,” I shot right back.
She grinned as she tapped her way across the living room until her stick hit the shower curtain. “What’s this?” she asked.
I didn’t say. I just went into my circus ringmaster voice. “Ladies and gentlemen,” I shouted, “I give you the one, the only, Granny Pigza! Tougher than whip leather. And true predictor of the future.” I yanked open the curtain.
Grandma was sitting there smoking a cigarette. She had on orange lipstick and an ironed Hawaiian shirt, which was good because her skin was so gray, she looked like frozen smoke. “Nice to meet you, young lady,” she rasped, and flicked the ashes into her hand.
Olivia lifted her cane and tapped Grandma’s legs.
“Stop hitting me,” Grandma ordered. “Don’t you have any manners? I’m a person, not a street curb.”
Olivia’s shoulders slumped down.
“Joey,” Grandma asked, “does she talk?”
I turned to Olivia. “Tell her who you are,” I whispered. “You know.”
“I’m Olivia, Joey’s friend,” she spit out as if she were flinging a knife at a tree stump. Then she paused as if she were waiting for Grandma to gasp, keel over, and hit the floor with a thud.
“I’m his grandmother, and I’m really pleased to meet you,” Grandma said, and stuck out her hand to shake, but then thought better of it and pulled it back. Then she turned to me. “Well, Joey, you did the impossible. I have to give you credit. You made a friend who can’t possibly see what a certified nut you are.”
“I know,” I said proudly with my chest all pumped out. “Good choice, don’t you think?”
“She never saw you coming,” Grandma said, and then cracked herself up and fell into a coughing fit that nearly killed her.
“Can I sit down?” Olivia asked.
“Sure you can,” Grandma said, choking on her words. “Would you like a cigarette?”
“Yes,” Olivia replied, and smiled.
“Well, you can’t have one ’cause they’ll kill you,” Grandma said, and again fell into a laughing and coughing fit.
“Sometimes I think dying is not such a bad idea,” Olivia said.
“If being blind was any reason to kill myself,” Grandma replied, “I would have done so years ago when I was blinded.”
Blinded? I had never heard that before. Somehow just hearing Grandma say “blinded” got me moving around like I had ants in my pants. I didn’t want her to get Olivia all riled up and have her take back that she was my friend. I ran into the kitchen and put the teakettle on. I could still listen from there.
“What happened?” Olivia asked after a few moments.
“That’s an inspiring story,” Olivia said flatly as I swooped through the living room yelling “Can I fix anyone some tea?” as if I were a waiter on roller skates. Olivia and Grandma both ignored me.
“Too bad I wasn’t just kicked in the head,” Olivia said.
“That can be arranged,” Grandma replied. “When I got my sight back, I kicked that cow in the head and just about blinded her.” She laughed out and stomped her foot on the floor, and I about jumped up to the ceiling I was so nervous.
Olivia smiled.
“I got a lot of stories,” Grandma announced. “My daddy went blind once from drinking some homemade corn liquor. Took him a week to get his sight back. Then there was the time my aunt was on the house fixing the weathervane, and she was hit by lightning, which left her blind for the better part of a year. And Joey’s dad went blind once from cracking walnuts with his forehead. But his sight returned. His brain didn’t, but that’s a whole ’nother story.”
“You know how I went blind?” Olivia asked.
Her words were like a strong magnet. I leaned so far forward, I almost tipped over. I had always wanted to know but never had the guts to ask.
“Tell me, girl,” Grandma said.
“My mother was bit by a snake when she was pregnant with me. She and my father were at a church retreat, and one of her earrings fell off when they were walking over some rocks. It fell into a crack, and when she reached down, there was a rattlesnake coiled inside and it bit her. Her hand swelled up real bad, and they rushed her to the hospital, but because she was pregnant they couldn’t give her the anti-venom, and she had to wait it out. Then when I was born I was blind, and that’s why my mother is so upset all the time because she knows I was blinded by a snake—and to her that means I’ve been blinded by the devil, which makes me possessed.”
“Really?” Grandma remarked. “You mean to tell me that you are blaming your bad behavior on being possessed? Why, that’s a good one. Joey’s wired, but I can’t blame the devil for it.”
“Mom says Joey is possessed,” Olivia said. “Says the devil has a pitchfork to his backside all day long.”
Grandma looked at me. “Well, that might explain it,” she said, then slapped her knee and began to cough instead of laugh. “Why don’t you and your mom come over for dessert on Thanksgiving, and we can swap opinions about you two rascals?”
“Sounds good to me,” Olivia said, standing up. “My dad’s on the road but I’ll tell my mom. I think she’d like to hear some of your opinions. Probably peel her skin back.”
Grandma laughed. “I have a reputation for that,” she said, bragging.
“I just have one question,” Olivia asked. “Why do you want him to have a friend so badly?”
“Because it would have made a difference for me,” she said directly. “If I’d had a few friends around to help me out, I’d have done things differently in my life—done a few things better—like raise him right.” She pointed at me as if I were some kind of freak.
“But what if they are bad friends?” she asked.
“Then they are just bad people,” Grandma said. “Good friends will stick with you no matter what.”
Olivia didn’t say anything. She stood there for a minute thinking about what Grandma said. The tapping of her cane against the heel of her shoe sounded like an idling engine. Finally she said, “We’ll bake pies and bring them down on Thanksgiving.” Then she spun around and for a moment rotated her face back and forth like a radar antenna, then tapped her way directly toward the front door. I ran over and flung it open before she hit the glass panel. She went out to the porch, and I dashed back to Grandma. Just because I made a friend, I didn’t want her to think it was okay to drop dead.
“Don’t worry,” she replied, as if reading my thoughts. She took a long pull on her oxygen tube and cracked her knuckles. “I feel better than I have in years.”
Suddenly Olivia screamed, and I heard her tumble down the stairs. When I got there, she was spread out on the sidewalk like a crumpled X.
“Don’t say a word,” she warned me.
I didn’t. I just helped her up and put her cane in her hands. Now she had hurt her other leg.
“You know,” she said as I guided her back to the steps, “you are bad luck!”
“Well, I don’t know what you are,” I said, “except that you’re mean as a snake to me and I wish I knew why.”
Suddenly the teakettle whistled. I had forgotten all about it.
“Hold on,” I said, and jumped up. I went inside and turned off the heat, and when I came back out, I sat beside her. Olivia had an expression on her face that I’d never seen before.
She reached out and held my arm. “Joey, you’re so blind you can’t see this has nothing to do with you. It’s all about me. You are the umpteenth kid my mom has lured in to be my homeschooling partner, but I’ve chased them all off. Last year we went through all the homeschool kids from church. Mom said you are my last chance, and after you go, they’ll send me to a Christian boarding school for blind kids, which will be great for me because I’ll finally be treated like a regular kid instead of some invalid.”
I just stared at her. I felt so dumb. I thought people were mean because they couldn’t help it. I never would have guessed being mean to me was some kind of sneaky plan.
“Joey, I want you to tell my mom you’re giving up on me,” she said. “That you won’t be her ‘secret helper’ anymore.”
I stood there looking down at my feet.
“I’m asking you to help me with my problem. Will you or won’t you?” she asked.
“But I already told your mom I would help you be nice.”
“Well, I am nice,” she said. “Don’t you agree?”
“Can I get back to you on that?” I whispered.
“Take your time, Einstein,” she whispered back, then reached around for her cane, which was bent up like a lightning bolt.
When we got to her house, I was exhausted. It wasn’t that the walk was long. But it seemed that I was thinking ten times harder than I ever had, which made the walk feel ten times longer.
“Is your leg okay?” I asked before she limped inside and I had to tell Mrs. Lapp what had happened.
She nodded. “By the way,” she said, “you were right. Your grandmother is like me. She tells it like it is.”
“I said you two had a lot in common.”
“I hope I didn’t kill her,” she replied. “I mean that.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, and patted her on the shoulder. “She’s tough as nails. If she was going to die, I would have done her in years ago.”
9
HAIRCUT
After school Grandma was waiting for me. She was sorting out her bits and pieces of plastic jewelry, which she kept in her old cigar box. “I can’t believe you did it,” she rasped. “You made a friend.”
“I hardly did anything,” I replied. “You did all the talking. That blind story you told really won her over. Especially the praying part.”
“I made that whole thing up,” she said, and grinned. “When it comes to making a friend, you use what the good Lord gave you. And the good Lord gave me a lot.”
“Well, don’t lie to me,” I said.
“Don’t have to,” she replied. “You been my buddy since the day you were born. Besides, I don’t need to lie around here. The truth is more crazy than anything I could make up.”
That was a fact.
“Okay,” Grandma said, and closed the top on the cigar box. “My jewelry’s in order for you.
I’m going to die tonight, and that’s no lie.”
“No, you aren’t!” I said. “You’ve been crying wolf for so long that you don’t even scare me anymore.”
“Well, I don’t mean to scare you,” she said. “I’m just giving you the facts in advance.”
“Grandma, you are fine. You are the picture of health.”
She coughed. “I am going to die. You got me what I asked for, and now it’s time to shove off. As long as you can make friends, you’ll be fine in the world.”
“Please don’t talk this way,” I begged. “It really hurts me.”
“Well, think what it does to me,” she shot back with a laugh that became another coughing fit. I patted her on the back until she settled down, then I got her hooked up to her oxygen tank.
“Oh,” she said, over the hissing sound from the hose, “your mom called. She wants you to come by the salon after school tomorrow. Said she misses you—if you can believe that!”
“I believe it,” I said, feeling a bit hurt. “I’m missable.”
“Don’t get all sensitive on me,” Grandma said. “I was just fooling. Of course she misses you. Who wouldn’t miss the best helper the world has ever known. I think you even beat out Gunga Din.”
“Well, there is nothing wrong with being helpful,” I replied.
“And there is everything wrong with being a doormat,” she said, poking at the air with her cigarette. “It’s a fine line. Think about it.”
That night I tried to think about it because when Grandma said something strongly enough, it usually came true. But I was only thinking in circles. Couldn’t I just help someone without thinking they were treating me like a doormat? And even if they thought I was a doormat, wasn’t I helping them anyway? Jesus was treated like a doormat but still got to do what he wanted.
When I woke up, Grandma was coughing again. I made her tea and got ready for school. “Are you going to be okay?” I asked, tapping on her curtain.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said from the other side. “I still have a few packs of cigarettes, and I’m so cheap, I won’t die till I smoke them all.”