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Kudzu

A Short Story

By Matthew CulliferPublished 6 years ago 19 min read
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1.

“There are some things we gotta discuss,” I tell Walter Frank at breakfast. “About Grandpa. Some things you need to know before I leave.”

Walter Frank grunts.

“Shit. How hard can it be? All you gotta do is drive, right? Maybe I can toss Grandpa Gus into the back and pick up Sarah Jo Conrad. Hell, he might get so drunk and pass out that we could stop off at the lake and ball. He wouldn’t see a thing.”

“You would do something like that,” I say. “It’s bullshit, man. Pure-tee bullshit. I’ve had to keep his ass alive for ten years—by myself.”

Walter Franks winks at me across the table, and takes a long swallow from his glass of OJ. “You had the same opportunity, Bobby-boy. It wasn’t like Grandpa Gus was gonna get onto you. You could’ve been raising Hell all these years instead of being goody-goody. You ever stop and think that he took care of himself before we came here? Hell, he was sixty years old then. He doesn’t need you.”

“You son of a bitch,” I sneer though that same thought has ripped through my head like a bullet probably a hundred times before.

“Could be,” Walter Frank says, shoving a piece of bacon into his mouth. “I was three when she and Daddy died. I don’t even remember them. She may very well have been a bitch.”

I grab Walter Frank’s shirt collar and snatch him toward me, but Granny Evelyn drifts into the kitchen like a ghost. I turn him loose, and Walter Frank smacks his lips with a wide grin.

“What you two boys got planned today?” she asks, but she knows the answer. Granny Evelyn likes to hear the sound of her own voice, and most of the time, she chatters away whether anyone is listening to her or not. “I was thinkin’ I could get one of you to drive me to the grocery store. Grandpa Gus said last night that Uncle Shake was comin’ by when he closes the tire shop, and they want fried pork chops and mashed taters as usual. I hope Aunt Deana ain’t with him this time. She don’t keep ahold of Shake as good as his last wife did. Y’all boys remember Patsy? Wasn’t she a sight to see? Ugly as homemade sin, but she didn’t take nothing off Shake. He needs somebody to rein him in. You know what I mean? Aunt Deanna wears her britches too tight for my tastes—especially for a woman in her forties, but they say times are a-changin’. And another thing-"

“Well, it can’t be me,” Walter Frank says, standing up. “Me and some of the boys are gonna shag some balls behind the school. After that, we might go for a swim. What you say, Bobby? You wanna drive Granny to the store—unless you got a hot date or something.”

I scowl at Walter Frank, but don’t say anything. It upsets Granny when we argue. I learned a long time ago to hold my tongue when she’s around. It saves me the grief. Dirty looks are all the weapons I have at my disposal.

“Foot loose and fancy-free,” Granny Evelyn says with a hum. “That’s what summer-time and Saturdays are for.”

Not for me. I’ve never had what you’d call a proper summer—not since I was six—the year before Mama and Daddy died.

I toss my napkin onto my plate and check my watch.

8:14.

Grandpa might be awake any minute or it could be four hours from now. He sleeps ‘til lunchtime on Saturdays when his leg cramps let him. It’s also not uncommon for him to get up before day and watch TV at full volume until I roll out of bed and join him.

For better or worse, Grandpa enjoys my company, and he’s pissed as shit about me joining the service next month. He’s been trying to talk me out of it ever since I decided to enlist in May.

“Uncle Shake needs you at the tire shop” was a frequent refrain. “Them Gooks are gonna blow your head off,” was another. My favorite by far was “You gonna have to sleep side by side with colored boys.”

None of these arguments are convincing. I’ve done my time. Walter Frank can look after Grandpa now.

“Bobby, you sure you don’t mind?” Granny Evelyn says. “I don’t want to bother you if you got plans to gallivant.”

Walter Frank snorts. “Bobby doesn’t gallivant, Granny. He wouldn’t know how to even if you showed him.”

“You be nice to your brother, Walter Frank.” She comes over and rests her hands on my shoulders. “He can’t help that he’s earnest. He’s got a natural bent towards.it. His daddy was the same way.”

“I don’t need you to take up for me, Granny. Soon as you leave, Walter Frank is gonna get a knuckle sandwich.”

Granny Evelyn squeezes my shoulders—closer to a pinch. “Don’t you hurt Walter Frank. He’s got a baseball career ahead of him. Might even play for the New York Yankees one day. I don’t think you could ever live with yourself, Bobby, if you took that away from him.”

Many nights I have dreamed of doing just that—smothering him with a pillow while he sleeps—shoving him out of the boat into the water moccasin bed at Ferguson Creek.

But of course I never did that—never would do that. Walter Frank is an annoying little shit, but he’s the only real family I’ve got left. Our other two brothers live in Alabama with Aunt Nellie— Mama’s folks—and we only see them once or twice a year.

Time does things to families. We’ve gone from being brothers to cousins to casual acquaintances. Truth be told, none of us feel that it’s a terrible tragedy.

Grandpa Gus is seventy and Granny Evelyn isn’t far behind. How much longer will it be before it’s just me and Walter Frank left?

“Of course not, Granny,” I say. “Bobby-boy always does what’s expected.”

“Yeah, he’s a regular George Bailey,” Walter Frank laughs.

Granny Evelyn stops clawing into my shoulders and gives me a pat. “Ain’t that the God and honest truth? Walter Frank, you be careful—I’m ready when you are, Bobby.”

2.

“Bobby?”

I hear Grandpa all right, but I don’t want to do what the old man needs me to do. And it is needs by this point—not wants. He crossed that brink a long time ago—before I was even born.

Grandpa Gus needs to drink because it hurts like Hell for him not to. I learned that when I first came to live with him. All it takes is five seconds of watching him quake and slobber, and anyone with half a heart knows the only humane thing to do is give him another drink. I could see that shit for myself when I was seven years old.

Back then, my most pressing responsibility was to watch Grandpa. I didn’t understand why I’d been given such a lousy job, and why I couldn’t play outside and swim in the irrigation pond like Walter Frank. Nobody asked me if he wanted to watch Grandpa. Granny Evelyn and Aunt Nellie just told me to do it and it wasn’t my nature—even then—to cause trouble. So that’s what I did.

It wasn’t a hard job at first. I just had to sit in the living room or outside the house under the Magnolia tree— wherever Grandpa Gus was— and if he tried to go anywhere else, I was supposed to “go get a grownup.”

Sometimes I did. Most times, I didn’t because Grandpa Gus would give me a dime if I kept my mouth shut. Of course, Granny Evelyn would have whipped me good if Grandpa Gus had slipped off and got into trouble, but those dimes added up. When we’d go to town on Saturday afternoons, I’d buy a Co-Cola and some Bazooka. I wouldn’t share it with Walter Frank either. It was some form of compensation at least.

Granny Evelyn never told me how long the job was going to last, and since I didn’t want to cause a stir in the new house, I didn’t ask. The watching part went on for seven years— until my fourteenth birthday— when the assignment became looking after Grandpa.

This job is much more involved. You were an adult at fourteen in Grandpa Gus’s eyes, and that meant I had to drive him from one beer joint, shot house, or moonshine still to the next. Sometimes, we’d be gone for days.

I couldn’t sleep during those trips.

Well, I could physically sleep because I’d be bone-tired—as they old folks say—but it wasn’t a good idea. Grandpa Gus might do something to hurt himself or somebody else if nobody was watching him.

There was one night in particular when I was fifteen that Grandpa Gus pulled out a pistol at Uncle Tommy’s place and started waving it around—screaming about how it wasn’t fair that his boy died and left him with two kids to look after at sixty-seven years old.

It wasn’t until I convinced him to trade his pistol for an old guitar Uncle Tommy had that he put the gun down and handed it over. That guitar has been stuck in the attic, untouched by him or anyone else for three years. I had to stay awake until Grandpa Gus was too sick from all the booze and ready to sleep it off for reasons like that.

When we’d get back home, Grandpa Gus would be laid up in his bed for close to a week—pale and puny, with the shakes so bad Granny Evelyn would have to sleep on the couch. I would use those times to get some rest myself.

There would be some times that I would sleep the whole day through, but as soon as Grandpa Gus felt better, the madness would start all over again.

Walter Frank didn’t see any of this—or if he did, he didn’t care. He played baseball with the other kids on Fountain Bridge Road. He fished at Ferguson Creek, and chased after Mary Jo Conrad.

I never had the chance to do any of that. I was a lousy ball player and wasn’t interested in getting any better. The only time I could fish was when Grandpa Gus was sleeping one off. There wasn’t any free time to find a girl—unless you count the time I told Betty McCook in the high school lunchroom that I was going to marry her one day.

Things were about to change though. They had to.

My eighteenth birthday was coming up in August and I’d already decided to enlist in the Army. I figured I’d be drafted anyway, so why not sign up? The recruiter who came to the school last spring told me that enlistees have more of a say of where they end up than draftees.

I don’t really care where I go as long as it is far away from Gavin, and that’s a real good possibility. Nixon was supposed to end the war in Vietnam—instead he spread it to Cambodia. Just last month, four college kids in Ohio got killed by the National Guard for protesting. Kids dodging the draft by going to school, and they get shot up anyway. It was a helluva mess.

Who am I to criticize the President of the United States though? He’s doing what he feels he has to do the same as me. There are burdens he probably never imagined when he was running. He does what needs to be done, and to Hell with those who don’t understand. I can relate to old Dick Nixon.

“BOBBY? I KNOW YOU HEAR ME!”

I heave myself from the bed of the pickup, where I’ve been resting in the summer sun. This is as close to relaxation as I can get. I cross the back yard in my bare feet, and climb the steps to the porch. There is a rusted refrigerator there full of what Grandma Evelyn used to call “Grandpa’s medicine” until I was old enough to realize it was something else—poison.

Grandpa Gus is in the hammock under the magnolia tree. On the grass beside him are at least fifteen red and white tin cans. Nothing unusual for a Saturday afternoon.

“And bring me my cigarettes too,” Grandpa calls.

It’s close to four and Uncle Shake and his new wife haven’t shown up yet. Supper-time is always at six no matter what’s going on. Otherwise Grandpa makes a huge commotion and everybody is miserable all night long. Granny knows this so she’s in the kitchen frying the pork chops in a pan when I come in to get the cigarettes from the counter.

“Having a good time,” she asks, flipping one of the chops over. “It’s such a pretty day, ain’t it? I love the summer-time. June is one fine month to be alive. Me and Grandpa were married in June. Did you know that? June 24th, 1920. Say, that’s less than a week away. Happy Anniversary to us.”

She giggles and bounces her shoulders. “We should celebrate next weekend. Invite the family over. Your brothers too. Lordy, fifty, wonderful years. Would you like that, honey? I bet Walter Frank would. Do you-"

“Sounds great, Granny,” I tell her, snatching up the pack of cigarettes and slipping through the screen door. I reckon Granny has lived with a distorted sense of reality her whole married life. If she thinks the fifty years with Grandpa are “wonderful,” she is as messed up as he is.

“What in the Hell took you so long,” Grandpa Gus asks me when I come back outside. “I thought you’d done passed on.”

I offer him a cigarette, but he shakes his head.

“Not yet,” he says. “Just leave ‘em here.”

“Sorry. Granny was talking.”

“Yeah, she’s always talking, ain’t she? Talks my damn head off. What about this time?”

“She says your anniversary is coming up next week. She wants to have the brothers and the rest of the family over.”

Grandpa laughs a little. “That damn woman. Where’s my beer?”

I pull the ring tab off and hand the can to him.

“I can’t say I’d be too excited about that,” Grandpa says, taking a sip. “I don’t much care for your Mama’s folks—rest her soul. Especially that bull dyke what raises your brothers. Stole that insurance money without blinkin’. They ain’t nothing special theirselves. Hell, when your Mama and Daddy died and they said we had to pick two of y’all and let the other two live with your Aunt Nellie, there wasn’t much of a choice. You and Walter Frank was the two in the middle. That older one could help watch the baby, I figured. We got the pick of the litter. What are their names?”

“Roy and Henry. We call him Hank.”

Grandpa takes a long swallow from the beer. “Yeah, that’s them. Neither one of them look like they got much sense. You know what I mean? Sometimes you can look at somebody in the eye and know there ain’t nothin’ going on in their heads. I bet them two won’t ‘mount to nothin’. That younger one ‘specially. I think he’s a retard.”

“I don’t know them that well,” Bobby says. “We don’t really see them enough.”

“Well, count your damn blessings.” He takes another big gulp. “It’s mighty hot this evening. Hotter than a four dollar whore on a Saturday night. Say—when you gonna drink a beer with me, boy? You too good to drink a cold beer with your Grandpa?”

I shrug. “No sir, but you know I can’t do that. Somebody’s gotta keep you straight.”

“That’s a damn lie,” he grins. “Can’t nobody make me do what I don’t wanna do myself. I don’t need nobody to do shit for me. You hear me?”

“Sure thing, Grandpa.”

Grandpa finishes off the can. He crushes it and tosses it onto the ground with the others. "‘Sure thing, Grandpa.’ Good for nothin’ little bast—‘fore you take off and get yourself killed by them Gooks—if you still plannin’ to do that stupid ass shit—me and you is gonna get rip roarin’ drunk the night before. You understand what I’m sayin’, boy? Don’t gimme no lip neither. I’m talkin’ the biggest damn toot you ever seen."

There’s no reason to protest or argue. Just go along like always. Keep the peace.

“If you say so, Grandpa.”

Grandpa smiles and shuts his eyes. “I do say so. Now leave me the hell alone a few minutes. I’ll holler when I need you, boy.”

3.

I must have drifted off because the shadows are longer in the backyard and there’s a breeze that wasn’t there before. It carries the smell of beer and cigarettes—neither unfamiliar—but there’s another odor mixed with it. The new smell is warm, and it stings my nostrils a little.

“Grandpa?” I call, still lying in the bed of the truck—my feet dangling off the tailgate.

No response. The old bastard is probably passed out.

“Grandpa?” A little louder.

Nothing.

I sit up and glance towards the hammock. Grandpa Gus is still there. His forearm rests across his eyes, and now there are close to twenty empty cans scattered around him. I check my watch.

5:30.

Passed out already. I laugh to myself.

“Why can’t you do that all the time?” I say out loud.

I ease off the tailgate and walk across the grass toward him. The new smell gets stronger, and I wrinkle up my nose.

“Grandpa? You OK?”

Still nothing.

I pause at the foot of the hammock. My shadow falls over him, but Grandpa Gus doesn’t stir.

“Grandpa?”

I reach out and shake his leg a little and his arm falls limply to his side. That’s when I notice the trail of grayish slime oozing from his mouth, and his puffy cheeks. My stomach somersaults. Oh Christ, he’s dead!

“GRANDPA!”

I grab the net of the hammock and snatch it up. Grandpa flips onto the ground—face first—with a sickening splat. I slip under the hammock and drop to my knees beside him. The vomit has spilled from his mouth, and I lift his face out of it.

He can’t die—not like this. I was supposed to be looking after him. Granny Evelyn is gonna be mad. What’s Walter Frank gonna say? He’ll make a joke probably—tell me I’m a goof for letting the old man die.

“Grandpa? Grandpa? You OK? Wake up. Wake up.”

I snap my head towards the house. Granny Evelyn passes by the open window, but she doesn’t look out. She’s been married to this old fool for fifty years. Fifty years and now it’s—

I raise my fist and pound on Grandpa Gus’s back.

WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!

A small, gurgling sound escapes from him. I hammer his back again.

WHAP! WHAP! WHAP!

He jerks suddenly—a convulsion almost—and flops onto his back like a fish.

“GRANDPA!”

His eyes flutter then stare wildly at the sky.

“Grandpa? Are you OK?”

He coughs. It’s a harsh, wet sound that rattles in his chest. He raises his head, spits onto the grass beside him, and glares at me.

“What the hell you doing to me, boy?”

I drop my head to his chest—laughing, crying—not really sure which it is.

“You scared me,” I mutter against his coveralls.

Grandpa Gus grunts. “Don’t be a ‘Fraidy cat. Get me a beer.”

4.

Granny Evelyn has sent me and Walter Frank to Barney’s Meats to get ten rib-eyes and a sack of potatoes Friday evening for the anniversary cookout. Walter Frank tried to get out of it, claiming he had to go to the batting cages, but I wasn’t having that this time.

Besides, I needed some time to talk to him about looking after Grandpa.

“It ain’t the gravy job you think,” I tell him. We’re on 82 EAST—just after seven o’clock. Barney’s is open to dark during the summer.

Walter Frank looks out the passenger window. “I didn’t say it was gravy. I said it was a bullshit job. You should’ve told Granny Evelyn and Aunt Nellie to take a flying f—

“I was seven years old, for Christ sakes. Our damn Mama and Daddy had been dead less than a week. What’s the matter with you, man? You think I wanted this job? I didn’t have a choice.”

“We all got choices,” Walter Frank says.

“Easy for you to say. You haven’t had to hit a lick at a snake your whole life.”

He chuckles a little and looks over at me. “Is this whole charade for you or me, man? If you really minded it, you wouldn’t have done it. You like looking after that old, drunk fool. It gives you—I don’t know—purpose. I would’ve told them to kiss my ass.”

“Oh, big shot,” I say, disgusted. “I don’t have to remind you that if Grandpa and Granny hadn’t taken us in, there’s a good chance we would’ve been wards of state—sent off to a boy’s home. They did us a favor.”

Walter grants groans. “Some big favor. I can’t wait to get outta this crummy town. You won’t ever leave, Bobby. Not as long as Grandpa Gus is living—probably not after that either. You’re kidding yourself if you think you’re gonna go into the service with him alive. That’s why I ain’t shown any interest in hearing what you’ve got to say. You’re chained to him. It’s a life sentence.”

I’d like to punch Walter Frank square in the face, but there’s a lot of truth in what he says. Looking after Grandpa is what I do—what I’ve done for years. I don’t know any other way. Maybe I could’ve complained and pitched a fit when I was younger, but they needed me to do something, so I did it. It was that simple then. It’s simple now. Walter Frank just doesn’t understand.

“He almost died last Saturday,” I tell him. “I feel asleep and he choked on his own vomit. If I hadn’t woken up, he’d-"

“You should’ve let him die,” Walter Frank says.

“I can’t do that.”

He laughs again. “You can. You should have. I’ve been watching my older brother for ten years now, and every year those shoulders of yours slouch a little more. He’s smothering the life out of you—like kudzu. And I be damn if I’m gonna let him do that to me.”

There’s nothing I can say. Walter Frank—at fourteen—can see a whole lot clearer than I can. "He’s smothering the life out of you—like kudzu," he’d said. I know then that Walter Frank will never look after Grandpa. The realization washes over me like a wave.

Kudzu chokes the life from everything underneath it—that’s true. But is Grandpa really kudzu or is it me?

My knuckles are white on the steering wheel. Walter Frank notices them and laughs.

“You don’t understand,” I tell him.

“I don’t care,” he says.

Ahead, the sun glares angrily on the highway. I press the gas pedal and drive straight towards it.

grandparents
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About the Creator

Matthew Cullifer

I'm the married father of four children. Since 2000, I've been an educator in southwest Georgia.

My debut novel, Dixieland, was published in September 2017.

Follow me on Twitter @MatthewCullifer

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