by Chris Keane
“Mom and Dad took off to Europe for the summer. Didn’t Dad tell you?”
“He may have. My memory isn’t what it once was…” she sighed. “Well…come on in! I’ll whip up some dinner!” Gram pried herself out of her chair and led him toward the back door.
Gram moved through the kitchen deftly, grabbing ingredients as she simultaneously chopped fresh vegetables. She lit a match and the lonely burner flickered to life. With a smile plastered across her face, she put some water on to boil noodles. “You missed a doozy of a storm. Lots of flooded roads and mudslides. Plenty of folks without power. Took out the phone lines, too.”
Dante half-listened as he scrambled to find an outlet to charge his phone. He found an uncovered one installed haphazardly above a metal sink that brought his Samsung back to life. There was technically half a bar left but with a frozen screen, he was unable to surf the web. “Shit!”
“Dante, you know I don’t care for that sort of language.”
“Sorry, Gram. Hey, is there cell service out here?”
“Now that’s a good one!” she chuckled, strategically placing two tray tables between an old radiator and the fridge.
“Um…Gram. I’m not really hungry.”
“After that long drive? Are you feeling okay?
“Yeah. We sort of ate at a rest stop along the way.”
“You shouldn’t eat that garbage. That’s not real food, honey.”
“Mom lets us eat at those places all the time.”
Gram rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips, making her resemble a raw chicken. “Your mother has been on maternity leave for twenty-five years. So…how’s school?”
“I didn’t get in,” Dante mumbled.
“To high school?”
“College.”
Gram’s face turned red and she banged her fist on the counter. “With your brains? It’s rigged! The whole system is rigged!”
“It’s okay, Gram. No worries.”
“Well, I am worried. College is very critical. I could have gone, but I got married instead. Biggest blunder of my life.”
“Kurt and I are kind of in the same boat, chillin’ at home, trying to figure out what to do with our lives.”
“That’s ridiculous! Kurt…well, he’s not the sharpest to tool in the shed. But you’re going places.”
“Apparently not,” Dante grumbled.
“Hang on,” she called, scurrying out of the kitchen, “I’ve got to fetch something from the basement.”
Dante didn’t respond. He was done discussing his lame-ass life with Gram. He just sat hunched over his cell phone, hammering away at the phone keys, battling for a signal.
At first all he heard was a muffled scream, followed by a loud thud. He instinctively lunged forward, accidentally whipping the cell phone from his own hands. It crashed onto the yellow linoleum floor as Dante mouthed, “No-o-o!” He snatched it from the floor on his way out of the kitchen. There was a huge scratch across the screen.
Gram lay flat on her back in the middle of the living room next to his duffle bag. Her head was bleeding; it had clipped the wall on the way down, where she had landed only a few inches from a sharp corner of the coffee table. She lay motionless staring at the ceiling, moaning.
“Gram! You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. I just tripped,” she grumbled.
“Here, I’ll help you up,” Dante said, extending his hand.
“I think I’ll just take a minute.”
“Sure. I’m sorry I left that bag there...”
“Could you be a dear and get me some aspirin from the medicine cabinet?”
Dante tore open the mirrored door as stacks of orange-tinted vials poured into her faded pink sink. All that remained was some Pepto Bismol, Doan’s cream, and Anbesol. On the top shelf, there was a generic bottle of aspirin, but it was empty. He grabbed a Band-Aid and headed back to her side.
“No luck,” Dante reported.
“Could you run down the hill for me, dear?”
The road leading to Gram’s seemed a whole lot better from Kurt’s Camaro; through its tinted windows, he had barely noticed the human-sized pot holes filled with murky brown water, or the wildly inclined pitch. On the steepest parts, he just slid downwards, leaving a shit-colored trail from Gram’s to town. It was manageable until the rain started, so Dante picked up the pace. He fell a bunch of times, clinging to the overhanging foliage as he gingerly plodded down the hill. When he finally spotted town, a giant Ford pickup rumbled past, soaking his black jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt.
“Son of a bitch!” he cried, angered by the intent, or at least the carelessness, of the driver.
The general store was sparsely stocked and totally void of customers; even the check-out counter was vacant. Dante instinctually headed toward the magazine section, desperate for a splash of civilization. He had never had the guts to purchase a Playboy, but he sure didn’t mind sneaking a peek at a convenience store or in his brother’s enormous smut collection. Most millennials had moved from print media to digital but not Kurt. His collection was diverse and positively monumental. The general store was the polar opposite. Not only were there no Playboys or Maxims to be found, but they didn’t even carry Cosmo, with its spicy articles on how to please a woman in bed. He frantically flipped through a People magazine looking for some shots of scantily-clad women laying poolside when a booming male voice broke the silence, “Are you going to buy something or just mess everything up?”
It sounded deep and grizzled, the kind typically attached to a burly truck driver. But Dante turned to find only a slim teenage sales clerk. “Oh, sorry, sir — I mean, man,” Dante replied, setting the magazine back on the shelf.
“What are you looking for?”
“Nothing,” Dante replied, his face turning bright red.
“We don’t carry dirty magazines,” he said, with a judgmental tone.
“I’m just here buying some things for my grandmother,” Dante replied, noticeably flustered. He fled the magazine rack for the grocery aisle, looking to grab what he needed and bolt as soon as possible. The store was obviously empty, but Dante paused for a good minute, before finally grabbing a pink carton of Depends. Next, he scoured the fridge for energy drinks, since he was nearly out. There was nothing but old Santa-decorated Coke cans and a couple of quarts of milk. He snagged a bottle of Tylenol and some Twix bars on the way to the register where the young clerk was reading the town paper.
The clerk snickered at the sight of the adult diapers but managed to bite his tongue. “They had the Olympics up here you know.”
“They did?” Dante replied.
“Back in the eighties, The Miracle on Ice! We beat up on the Russians.”
“Oh yeah. That’s right.”
“You know who lives here? The guy from Iron Eagle.”
“Who?”
“Remember that black dude zipping around in an F16? Older fella.”
“Um…Lou Gossett, Jr.?”
“That’s him! You know he loves to fish?”
“Wow. That’s incredible,” Dante said flatly as he whipped a twenty-dollar bill from his shiny leather wallet.
The clerk’s eyes widened at the sight of the cash. “Hold on! Can I interest you in some beef jerky? Or some homemade cheese dip?”
“No thanks. Do you have e-cigarettes?” Dante asked.
“Huh?”
“Electronic cigarettes.”
“Yeah right. Now I know your messing with me.”
Making it back up the hill proved more difficult. He crept along the side of the road, clutching a wet paper back of groceries until, in an instant, it tore open. The milk bottle’s cap flew off, spilling milk onto the road. The Coke cans went rolling back down the hill, while the thin cardboard box holding Gram’s thick plastic undies sat floating in a mud puddle.
Dante plopped his wet butt down facing the woods, partially shielded by the trees to protect himself against rain and random pick-up trucks. The woods loo
ked empty as if every other creature had the sense to avoid being out in the storm. He found a big rock and hurled it at a large pine, screaming, “FUCK MY LIFE!”
By the time he made it back to the house, he was drenched, covered in mud, and his hands were bleeding from various falls. His grandmother, who seemed to have forgotten that she had sent him out, kept asking him, “What were you doing out in all that rain? You’ll catch a cold!”
Dante shook his head and walked to the bathroom for a much-needed shower. The water was icy cold. He scrubbed his body vigorously with tiny bars of Dove soap. There was no shampoo at all, so he just held his head under the spray from the shower and hoped it would get rid of the biohazards from the rest stop and the murky mud bath outside Gram’s home.
He pulled out the Maxim magazine that Kurt had given him earlier in the day. The girl on front lay there like a mirage in the desert of his life. Long red hair flowed over her perfect hourglass figure; she almost seemed too good to be true. He clicked off the light, hoping she would visit him again in his dreams.
3
The girl from the woods
The morning sun poured through a set of thin white curtains painting Gram’s guest bedroom. Dante woke to birds chirping just outside his window. He had slept for a very long time and felt somewhat refreshed. At a minimum, he wouldn’t have to hear his mom’s daily nagging nor endure any physical abuse at the hands of Kurt.
He threw on some clothes, rolled on deodorant, and splashed some cold water on his face. His cell phone was fully charged now but still had no service. From the living room, he could see his grandmother cooking a huge brunch for the two of them. He paused in the doorway a moment before slipping out of the house undetected. He had considered walking to town. But instead of dealing with the pothole-riddled road back down the hill, Dante decided to take a hike through the woods behind Gram’s house.
He was surprised how unaffected the woods appeared from the onslaught of rain. The type of high-magnitude storm that had just blown through would have easily sent the industry-heavy area of his home into chaos. But here the trees’ thick roots had withstood superstorm-level winds, funneling water to plant life below. All sorts of strange things that Dante couldn’t identify were popping from the ground. Either they were not indigenous to New Jersey or he had spent way too much time indoors playing video games — probably both.
Dante felt woefully unprepared to be hiking through the woods. His shoes were brown leather Vans, about as ruggedized as bowling shoes, and nearly as uncomfortable. In red jeans and a long-sleeved Aerospatiale t-shirt, he looked like he belonged poaching free Wi-Fi at Starbucks. Besides, it was really difficult to commune with nature when he was obsessively checking for cell phone service.
Across a lake, Dante spotted a red-headed girl sunbathing on a towel by the side of a lake. From behind a nearby pine, he leered, drooling at the sight of the gorgeous twenty-something girl wearing a faded bikini a couple sizes too small. Her large breasts were bursting from a floral bikini top. Her curvy hips stretched a thin pair of peach bottoms. She looked exactly like the girl from his dream. To be sure, he needed to move in for a closer look.
The trail weaved a circuitous path back and forth around the perimeter of the lake. Steep slopes and moist soil made for fragile terrain, sending Dante sliding backwards on his hands and knees a few times. In parts the trail was barely visible or even non-existent. But Dante kept going. He was a man on a mission.
When he finally saw the water again, he was directly behind the girl. He just stood there open-mouthed and breathless as she stretched her arms to the sky, smiling brightly. It was her. It was definitely her. He couldn’t help but stare at her voluptuous, perfectly-tanned body glistening in the sun. Occasionally, she glanced over her shoulder, sending Dante diving for cover. Then, without hesitation, she rolled up her towel, slipped on a pair of sandals, and disappeared into the woods.
The mental image of his dream girl clouded his brain the whole walk back. He stepped in big holes dug by some random animal. He nearly poked his eye with a stray branch. He tripped on a giant log blocking his path. Earlier in the day, he had a vague agenda in his head: something about helping Gram with something. Now his mind was effectively Jell-O.
The trip back to the ranch flew by and before he knew it he was standing at the doorway, trying to change gears. His grandmother lay on the couch holding her head. She looked frail and tiny, her legs curled up to her chest.
“Dante! You’re home. Did you get those pain killers I asked for?”
Dante froze as he pictured the grocery items floating in the water from the night before. He didn’t recall seeing the Tylenol. He assumed it had been washed away in the flood of rain and self-pity.
“Gram. Ugh…I lost it. I’ll run to get some more right now, okay?”
“That’s alright, dear. I’m afraid I need something a bit stronger than Tylenol now.”
Dante twisted the rusty handle to Gram’s detached garage that housed her pale blue Chevy Nova. Back in Jersey he had seen perfectly restored versions of the same car on Cruise Night, where enthusiasts showed off their shiny antique cars, but this thing clearly belonged up on blocks —permanently. He glanced over at Gram’s ashen face, and then back at her old jalopy. “Does this thing still work?”
“It had better,” Gram murmured.
He pried open the heavy car door with one hand and eased Gram into the shotgun seat with the other. She was light, and he could trace the bones that ran up her back. He felt a churning in his stomach as he crawled behind the wheel. He turned the key, but the engine didn’t turn over. He closed his eyes, saying a tiny prayer for a huge miracle. The engine let out a guttural roar, like a prehistoric animal, before sputtering to a stop.
He punched the steering wheel setting off the horn, then floored the gas as he twisted the key again. “Hang on, you’ll flood it for sure,” Gram growled, wincing in pain. Dante took a calming breath, thinking of his parents drinking pints as they devoured fish and chips in some cozy pub. They totally sucked and should have never been allowed to be parents to anyone. They obviously could not be counted on when he needed them. Bastards!
“Gram, I think we need to call an Ambo.”
“Huh?”
“An ambulance!”
“I told you the phones were out.”
“Where’s this doctor at anyway?”
“Up the hill a ways.”
“How far by foot?”
“Half hour about. I used to walk until I broke my second hip.”
“Don’t you have any friends you can call?”
“Not nearby.”
“Ugh...I can’t deal with this…”
Dante popped out of the car and doubled over, dry-heaving on the lawn. His eyes welled with tears and bile burned his throat. Until Gram rumbled out of the garage, nearly running him over. “Get in!” she yelled.
It was a rocky ride up the hill. The shocks were obviously long gone and power steering had never been an option during the early Nova vehicles; it barely had lap belts. Dante sat mortified in the passenger’s seat as his grandmother clung to the steering wheel gritting her teeth. Being shown up by your sick Gram wasn’t exactly a self-esteem booster. He wondered how many new lows he was capable of reaching before dinner time.
At the top of the hill, they came upon a meticulously maintained colonial. Its bright red color clashed with the green backdrop of the woods. A large gray satellite dish was mounted on the roof, looking out of place. A white porch, lined with comfortable rocking chairs, wrapped around the perimeter. Gram pulled herself out of the driver’s seat and headed up the steps unassisted, like an old cowboy.
Dante spotted a rolled up towel and a pair of pink sandals by the door. They were the same ones the girl from woods had at the lake. His heart leapt, and his mouth was suddenly bone dry. In a futile attempt to calm down, he told himself it had to be some crazy coincidence. The hottest girl ever could not reside at Gram’s geriatric doctor. There was just no
way.
Wearing white scrubs, she sat casually on a stool behind a wood counter — the girl from the woods. Her hair was pulled back and she was wearing glasses. She made eye contact with Gram, accompanied by a huge smile.
“Hello, Mrs. Elton. Nice to see you!”
“Hello, dear. How’s your mother?”
The girl’s face fell. “The doctor should be with you in a moment.”
Dante was practically hyperventilating in his seat. His hands had a thick film of sweat. He could literally smell his own body odor. His mind swirled with wild hopes and fears. He figured chances of making a good impression on the girl in his condition were slim to none.
“Here,” his grandmother murmured, handing him a Highlights magazine. The stories were for kids; it only made Dante feel worse that his grandmother was still taking care of him, even in an injured state. He was still a child in her eyes.
“Thanks,” Dante said, wedging it between his cushion and the chair, out of the girl’s line-of-sight. Instead of reading, or continually checking his cell phone for service, he racked his brain for something to say to her. The opportunity would probably not come along again.
“Hey! Are you ready for my grandma yet?” Dante blurted out, immediately regretting it.
“Doctor Sewall will be with her in a few minutes,” she replied coolly.
Dante popped out of his seat and galloped over to the desk like a wild buck.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to be rude. I was just asking, you know. I just wanted to know. I’m not saying you’re slow or anything like that.”
She looked up from her notepad, raising her eyebrows, and studied him with her big green eyes. “Hey, I recognize you.”
“You do?” Dante replied, his voice had risen at least three octaves. Could she remember their dreamy kiss?
The girl paused. “Yeah. I saw you pervin’ on me down at the lake this morning.”
Dante’s face turned beet red. He rocked side to side as he gnawed on his fingernails. He glanced over to his grandmother, who was staring at a photo on the wall blankly, then back at the girl. He whispered, “That? That was just an accident…”
