The Porch

The Porch
[St. Paul, Minnesota; 1960]

“I cleaned under the porch, grandpa, as you said; you said yu’d pay me four-dollars…z? I cleaned it all this morning.”

“Yu dats god dn aldedy yaw…!”

He stood looking at me, kind of staring, not sure, as usually if (the Old Russian) if he should believe me.

“…vat you gwin do ef dat rat comes git out, dis crap al-here?”

“You dont think its clean, grandpa?”

He looked at me with that annoyed gaze, kind of a wanting to eat me up, I was thirteen then, and I think he liked my older brother Mike much more than I, but then I could annoy people I suppose; or so he had me believe.

“I guess I better clean it again!” I said to Grandpa, watching him check under the porch as if it was the Taj Mahal. Then, as he pulled his body out and up, from under the porch he said,

“noa..noa, No! I clen my self…” and he murmured something else, I couldn’t make it out, a mumble that is; as usual. He stood up looked at me (a serious face),

“dat no good—loks…vike…sit!”

So I left him alone for the afternoon, he’d pay me later I told myself, he was a complainer—moody at times, and this was one of the times; but his word was like gold, if he said he’d pay, he’d pay. I found a softball game going on and joined in, in the empty lot next to our house.

[4:30 PM] Mom had called Mike and I for supper; her voice would echo across the large empty lot, and down Cayuga Street:

“OHHHH…Mi…cooo clll—Oh…Leeeee…time for dinner,” and she’d do the same when twilight came about. It got to the point, we boys felt a little embarrassed that the whole neighborhood heard her calling us; that is as we got older and deep into our teens.

And when I got in for dinner, that evening, we had pork chops on the table, and brownies. She cooked pork chops a lot; hamburgers with crushed onions in the hamburger a lot also, with apple crisp pie.

Grandpa saw me eating, and mom was walking back and forth from the kitchen to her bedroom, and crossing through the dinning room, and Grandpa was in the living room by the T.V. pacing to and from the porch.

[Mumbling] “Vat I got to pay, hit I clen the crp out misef…” he looked at mom, said, ‘…her, gie to Lee,” it was four dollars, then he went back to his not so good language,

“Gd dmn, sn bith, do evy ding myslf…” on and on and on he went with such language.

Then he went out to the screened in porch, fixed his pillows and put his pipe in a standup ashtray, and lay down on the coach, as he did often, in the heat of the summer, and fell to sleep.

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