A Figure of Speech

by Norma Fox Mazer

  “I wish you were so cooperative upstairs,” Mrs. Pennoyer said. She sat down at the metal table. “Grandpa, the rent is due on your plot. I’m going to pay it from your social security check. All right?”

  “Pay it or don’t pay it. I don’t want to hear about my own grave.”

  “Your grave,” Jenny said. “What do you mean, your grave?”

  “Ask your mother. This thing isn’t my idea.”

  Mrs. Pennoyer brushed some crumbs off the table. “Your grandfather’s being stubborn again. We bought him a beautiful burial plot, but every time we have to pay the rent, he makes a fuss.”

  “You bought him a burial plot,” Jenny said. “Why?” Her voice went high, and her mother gave her a look. “Grandpa’s living,” Jenny said. “He doesn’t need a burial plot.”

  “You are two of a kind,” Mrs. Pennoyer said. “At least at your age it’s understandable, but at your grandfather’s age, it’s plain undignified to act so thick. Facts are facts. Everybody needs a burial plot sooner or later. Maybe you don’t realize how expensive that kind of thing can be, and how the prices are going up all the time. It’s just good forward thinking to have a plot reserved and paid up beforehand.”

  “I think it’s horrible,” Jenny said.

  “That’s because you’re a child. When your father and I get to that age, we’ll do the same thing for ourselves, so as not to be a burden on our children when we go. The point is, we all have to go someday.”

  “Go?” Grandpa said blandly, tamping down his pipe with a thick thumb. “Go where?”

  Mrs. Pennoyer’s cheeks reddened. “Carl Pennoyer, you’re trying to make a fool of me, and I resent it.”

  “Now, Amelia,” Grandpa began.

  “No, I mean it! Everyone passes away. My parents, God rest them, passed away. When people get to be senior citizens, their time is coming closer every day, and there’s no use pretending it isn’t so. All your little tricks can’t change that. That’s the way things are!”

  Jenny put the last saucer in the drain and ran the cold water. Oh, stop it, she thought, please stop fighting with Grandpa. Slowly she drank a glass of cold water, feeling the ache of the cold all the way down to her stomach.

  Later that night, it was Mr. Pennoyer who noticed the brown paper bag pinned to the kitchen bulletin board. On it in Grandpa’s unmistakable wobbly handwriting was a penciled message:

  “I ain’t going to ‘pass away.’ I’m going to die.

  “My time ain’t going ‘to come.’ I’ll be dead.

  “I ain’t a ‘senior citizen.’ I’m an old codger of eighty-three.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” Mr. Pennoyer breathed, tearing down the bag and crumpling it. “What’s the matter with Pop? What is this, a war?”

  Chapter 11

  “Valerie worked all afternoon on this,” Mrs. Pennoyer said, setting the large serving bowl filled with food in the middle of the table. “Frankie, you start it around.”

  Frankie dipped several spoonfuls of the mixture onto his plate and passed the bowl to Vince. “What is it?” he said, sprinkling salt over the food without tasting it.

  “It’s called Spicy Steak Bits,” Valerie said. “It’s a Malaysian recipe from my Eating-Round-the-World cookbook. Here, take rice, Frankie, it’s supposed to be eaten with rice.”

  “Terrific, honey,” Vince said, making an ecstatic face. “Really great!”

  Grandpa passed the bowl of Spicy Steak Bits without taking any. “All I’d like is a well-done hamburger, Amelia,” he said.

  “A hamburger?” Jenny’s mother said. “Valerie went to a lot of trouble to make this meal. And it’s very nutritious.”

  “I wish you’d taste it, Grandpa Pennoyer,” Valerie said, “give it a chance. There are only good things in it.”

  “I never had a taste for spicy food,” he said.

  “I’ve found that old people can be very narrow-minded,” Valerie said. “They get into a rut and are afraid to try anything new, even when it’s good for them.”

  “I think this is yum yum delicious,” Gail said. “Try it, Grandpa, you’ll like it.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine,” Grandpa said, pushing away the bowl. “If I could have a hamburger, Amelia—”

  “I can’t cater to everyone’s individual tastes,” Mrs. Pennoyer said. “This is a home, not a restaurant. I’m sorry, Grandpa, but if you don’t care for what’s on the table tonight, you’ll just have to go without.”

  “I’ll make Grandpa a hamburger.” Jenny started to rise.

  “Sit down,” her father said. “Stay where you are.”

  “I was just going to help Grandpa—”

  “I know what you were going to do, and I’m telling you to sit down and shut up. For a change, I’d like to have one peaceful meal around here.”

  Jenny sat down and shut up, but she found it difficult to eat. Grandpa had left the table and gone downstairs. He could do that, but she had to sit there and pretend to love Valerie’s food and try not to look too mad, because her father was really on the warpath. When he got that way, stabbing into his meat and tearing apart the bread, he was capable of taking away her privileges for a month for nothing more than a cross-eyed look. She stuffed in another bite of the gluey mix and chewed hard.

  The next few nights Grandpa didn’t show up for supper. “How long is that man going to keep this up?” Mrs. Pennoyer said.

  “He’s making his own meals,” Jenny said.

  “Why is he doing that? There’s more than enough up here.”

  “You know Pop. Got his back up the other night, and now he’s letting us know.”

  “Well, I don’t know what to think,” Mrs. Pennoyer said. “I’m certainly willing for him to eat with us.”

  “Don’t blame yourself,” Mr. Pennoyer said. “Nothing to blame yourself for.”

  Thursday night Jenny went downstairs after supper. Grandpa was standing at his little stove, frying a piece of meat. On the table he’d set out a glass of tea and a plate of crackers. “Is that all you’re having for supper?” Jenny said.

  “Plenty, plenty,” Grandpa said. “I should have done this a long time ago. Your father always did eat too early for me.”

  “I wish you’d change your mind,” Jenny said. “It doesn’t feel right eating without you at the table.”

  “Eh?” he said. “One less person, that’s all. Let’s talk about something else.” He picked up one of his old newspapers. “Now listen to this, Jenny, here’s a father and son who were reunited after being separated for forty years. Now what do you think of that? Forty years.”

  Outside, a wind had sprung up and was rattling around the house. Hard drops of rain pelted against the windows. “Rain again,” Jenny said. “It’s rained nearly every day this fall so far.” Grandpa put the newspaper down on the shelf next to the stove and turned to check a window fastening. As he did—Jenny saw it happen so fast she couldn’t do more than cry out—grease from the meat splattered out of the pan and onto the gas flame, which flared up and caught the dry newspaper. In an instant, flames were licking at the grimy wall behind the stove and climbing rapidly toward the ceiling. “Grandpa!” Jenny cried. The old man turned, and his face went pale as clay.

  “A blanket,” he said hoarsely. “Quick, Jenny, a blanket.”

  Jenny ran into his bedroom and snatched the gray wool blanket from his bed. Grandpa took it and began beating at the flames. Jenny threw a glass of water at the wall, then ran to the door, flung it open, and yelled, “Fire! Fire, fire!”

  Within moments, most of the Pennoyer family was downstairs. The fire was out by then, but Frankie, armed with the fire extinguisher that had hung for years behind the cellar door, squirted happily away, throwing a cloud of white chemical foam over the kitchen walls, the stove, and the sink.

  Mr. Pennoyer opened windows and ordered everyone out. “I’ll stay,” Grandpa said thinly. His eyes were red, and he was coughing. “It was just a grease fire.” He waved his arms at the smoke.

/>   “Pop, we’re all going upstairs. You, too.”

  Mrs. Pennoyer took Grandpa’s arm. “This smoke is no good for you. It’ll irritate your lungs.”

  “I have to clean up,” Grandpa said, trying to free his arm. His voice shook.

  “I’ll help clean up,” Jenny said.

  “Nobody’s cleaning anything now,” Mr. Pennoyer said. “It’s too damn smoky to even stay down here. Pop, stop being so stubborn. You come upstairs with us. Everyone upstairs,” he ordered. “All out.” He took Grandpa’s other arm and between them, he and Mrs. Pennoyer easily steered the old man to the door and up the cellar stairs.

  “Grandpa’s still trembling,” Mrs. Pennoyer said as they mounted the cellar steps. “Poor old Grandpa. Thank goodness nothing worse happened. I’m so afraid of fire. It’s one of my worst nightmares that this house will catch fire. How could you have been so careless, Grandpa?”

  “It could have happened to anyone,” Jenny said.

  “Oh, really?” Mrs. Pennoyer said. “Well, it’s never happened before.”

  In the kitchen Mrs. Pennoyer insisted that Grandpa drink a cup of hot milk. “You’re shaking,” she said. Then to Mr. Pennoyer, “Frank, Grandpa can sleep on the couch tonight, and we’ll take out the folding cot for Frankie. It’s not very comfortable, but one night won’t hurt him.”

  “No, no, don’t bother, I’m going downstairs in a little while,” Grandpa said querulously. He put down his cup and the hot milk sloshed over onto the table.

  “You’re staying up here, Pop,” Mr. Pennoyer said, “you’re not up to taking care of yourself tonight. Jenny, wipe up this mess here where Grandpa spilled. Pop, quit fighting, will you?”

  When Jenny came home from school the next day, Grandpa and Vince were both downstairs. Vince, on a ladder, was scrubbing the walls with a stiff, soapy brush, while Grandpa, broom in hand, made fitful stabs at the floor. The windows were open and the furniture pushed into the middle of the room to allow Vince to get at the walls. The smell of smoke was everywhere.

  “I told you not to try working, Grandpa,” Vince said, coming off the ladder. “Here, don’t tire yourself.” He took the broom from Grandpa. “Go upstairs with Jenny and leave the cleanup to me. Just leave it all to me.”

  Grandpa slept on the couch again that night while Frankie, grumbling about his rear end freezing, slept on the folding cot. The following night he moved back to his own room, taking the top bunk so Grandpa could have the bottom bunk, and Vince and Valerie went downstairs to the apartment to “rough it” (as Valerie said) until the apartment had been completely repainted and made livable again. The painting and cleaning went on all week.

  “When are they going to be finished fussing?” Grandpa asked, and at first went up and down the stairs to his apartment several times a day. But there was nothing for him to do and mostly he hung around the house chewing aspirin and getting in Mrs. Pennoyer’s way. He seemed to get more and more tired as the days went on and developed a heavy cough. Finally he lost his voice, was coughing up a thick mucousy phleghm, and took to his bed, submitting to Mrs. Pennoyer’s diet of fruit juice, thin cereal, and no tobacco.

  Jenny hung around Frankie’s bedroom, but Grandpa was too sick to be interested in anything. He became so weak and wobbly that Mrs. Pennoyer insisted on leading him to the bathroom. Day and night he wore one or the other of the two long blue and white striped nightshirts that she had bought for him, beneath which his legs looked white and frail. “Now don’t lock the door,” Mrs. Pennoyer said when she left him in the bathroom. “Just call if you need me for anything.”

  “Let go, I’ll be all right,” he whispered hoarsely, prying at her fingers. “Go on out.”

  “You’re not all right,” Mrs. Pennoyer said soothingly. “You’re weak and sick, dear.”

  Chapter 12

  Grandpa was sick for ten days, and all that time the smell of fresh paint and the sounds of hammering drifted through the house. Vince and Valerie worked on the apartment in every spare moment. “It’s coming along,” Vince said. “It’s going to be something when we’re done. Valerie’s a perfectionist—has to have everything just so.”

  Since the fire Jenny had hardly been downstairs. She was reluctant to see Grandpa’s apartment changed. But changed wasn’t the word. The night she finally decided to go down there she saw that it had been transformed. Everything was brighter and cleaner. Grandpa’s furniture was out of sight in the middle of the room under a paint-spattered plastic drop cloth. The floors had been stripped of the old scabby-looking linoleum; the walls were freshly painted cream with a sizzling blue on the woodwork. The cubicle for the toilet had been painted sunflower yellow, and there was a new bright yellow toilet seat. In the bedroom Valerie was painting the window frame blue. The window itself was different—it had been enlarged and new double glass set in. Jenny looked and looked, as if by looking long enough she would finally see Grandpa’s familiar apartment again.

  “Hi, there, that you, Jenny?” Valerie called. “Come to help the painting brigade?”

  “No,” Jenny said. “I’m looking for something of Grandpa’s.” She burrowed under the plastic drop cloth and found the deck of cards in the sideboard drawer.

  “Hey, Jen,” her brother said, “come on over here and see how things are progressing.” He was wearing a carpenter’s apron and, screwdriver in hand, was putting up new birchwood cabinets in the kitchen. Jenny looked at the brand-new glistening stainless steel sink, and the brick design asphalt floor tiles piled in a corner. “How do you like it?” her brother said. He took a silver-wrapped chocolate from his pocket and held it out to her. “Looks great, doesn’t it?”

  “Vince—all this fixing up, you’re doing it for Grandpa, aren’t you?”

  “For Grandpa?” Vince repeated.

  “Yes. For when he gets better and wants to come back to his own home. Oh, I think it’s nice of you and Valerie to—”

  “Hey, Jenny, wait, wait.” A queer look had come over Vince’s face, as if his features had somehow slipped sideways.

  “Listen, Jen—” He came down the ladder and put his arm around her. “Try to understand our side of it, honey. Val and I need a place of our own. We’re just starting out, but Grandpa, he’s finished. No, wait, I don’t mean it that way. What I mean is, he doesn’t need it as much as we do. He can’t take care of himself alone anymore. You know what I mean. He’s a sick old guy. Listen, Jen, I have feelings about him, just as much as you—”

  “I know what you mean,” Jenny said, flinging off his arm. “I know what you mean, you creep!” The candy she’d swallowed stuck like a lump in her stomach as she ran out, slamming the door.

  She found her mother sorting through Grandpa’s clothes the next day. “Hello, Jenny, come to help?” Mrs. Pennoyer said, strangely echoing what Valerie had said the night before.

  Jenny shook her head. “No—I just—” She didn’t finish. She didn’t know why she’d come downstairs. She felt miserable and unhappy. Her mother held up Grandpa’s black coat. “This old thing,” she said, “look at it. It’s incredible.” The pockets, collar, and cuffs were frayed to a fare-thee-well, and every button was mismatched and hanging by a thread. Mrs. Pennoyer had already filled several cardboard boxes with an accumulation of clothes and other things from Grandpa’s cupboards, bureau drawers, and closet. “I’ll buy him a new coat with a fur collar and decent warm cuffs,” she said, throwing the shapeless black coat into a half-filled carton. “This can go, too.” She added Grandpa’s brown wool sweater with the sagging pockets.

  “That’s Grandpa’s favorite sweater,” Jenny said.

  “I’ll buy him a better one. This one actually smells.”

  Did Grandpa know what they were doing? Did he care? Jenny went slowly upstairs and into Frankie’s room. Grandpa was lying on his back on the bottom bunk, covered with a mound of blankets, eyes closed, hands twitching. There was a tray on the floor with a half emptied bowl of soup and a glass that had held fruit juice. “Grandpa,”
Jenny said. “Grandpa, how do you feel?” His eyelids fluttered, but he didn’t say anything. “Grandpa, you’re awake. Do you feel any better?”

  “No.”

  “Does your chest still hurt?”

  He nodded. Jenny sat down by his side and touched the back of his hand. Why didn’t he sit up? Why didn’t he do something? She wanted to hug him and then she wanted to shake him. “Grandpa, do you want me to write a note for you?”

  A spasm of coughing shook him. His eyes watered. “Note?” he said harshly.

  “You know! To put on the bulletin board. Don’t you want to say anything? Tell them some things?”

  His hands plucked at the blanket cover. “I have to sleep. Go away.”

  That night Jenny dreamed that she was running down a dark, shiny street, shiny as patent leather. Grandpa was running with her, holding her hand. People on yellow bicycles were honking at them and screaming with laughter. Run, Grandpa, she wanted to scream, run, run, hurry! Hurry! HURRY!

  Jenny woke, her heart pounding fearfully. Everything in the house was quiet and dark. She heard the baby stirring in her crib and sucking her lips. The floor creaked. Outside, a car raced past. Leaves were falling on the roof and on the sidewalk with a papery whispering sound. There was a tight band around Jenny’s chest. She wanted to get out of bed, tiptoe into Frankie’s room, shake Grandpa’s bony shoulder, and say urgently, “Grandpa, wake up! You must wake up!” Oh, how crazy. Nobody did a thing like that in the middle of the night—and to a sick man. She didn’t move, and in a few moments she fell asleep again.

  In the morning, still dazed with sleep, feeling troubled and depressed, she was sent downstairs to fetch Valerie. “Jenny, quickly now! It’s a long distance phone call,” Mrs. Pennoyer said, covering the mouthpiece of the phone with her hand. Vince and Valerie were eating breakfast, sitting at the table under the window. “There’s a phone call for you,” Jenny said. The sight of them so at home there produced a lump in her throat.

  “For me?” Vince pushed back his chair.

  “No. For Valerie. Long distance.”