My knocker rattles again. John pushes past me to open the door. It is David. This makes me upset.
“It is not nice to open other people’s doors,” I tell John.
“I can’t believe you won the lottery!” David smiles and tries to shake my hand, but John steps in front, blocking him.
“Don’t you mean
we?
” John smiles so wide his teeth and gums show. He pokes David’s shoulder.
“No, I mean Perry, you moron!” David pushes him away.
“Who are you calling a moron, you pipsqueak?” John says.
It is rude to call someone a moron.
It is also rude to call someone a pipsqueak.
They are both so loud Keith wakes up. “What the hell!” His eyes look like bottle caps, all round and white around the edges. Keith rolls off the couch onto the floor. That had to hurt. I do not have carpet on my floor, only brown speckled linoleum tile. I am afraid that David and John will fight with each other and I want them to go away.
Fighting is rude.
“Go away,” I say. When they do not listen, I sit down on the couch. There is more room now that Keith has fallen off.
“I’m surprised that wife of yours let you out of her sight. As long as you’re here, make yourself useful. Tell Perry he needs to come with me.”
“Why you? Just what are you planning?” David’s chin juts out. He pokes his brother in the chest.
John’s teeth are bared. He looks like his wife’s dog, Gigi, except he is bigger and does not have curly pink hair and a bow.
“We need to decide what to do. Take charge of this situation.” His chin wiggles and shakes like Jell-O or maybe Santa, I decide. He is frowning like a Halloween pumpkin.
“Ha! He’s got two holidays, Keith!” I laugh.
John scowls at me and David scowls at John. Keith is crawling around on the floor trying to wake up.
“What’s so funny, Perry?” John yells.
“He’s just nervous. He’s not responsible. Someone has to take care of him, watch out for him,” David says. “Elaine says he can stay with us.”
“Elaine says! Elaine says! Elaine says!”
John makes his voice high like a girl’s and pushes David’s shoulder. “Is that all you can say? Perry needs to stay with me and CeCe!”
I did not need to be taken care of or watched when Gram died. But now I do.
“I think you both have worn out your welcome.” Keith is not tall when he is on his hands and knees, but when he gets to his feet, he looks fierce. Just like the Hulk, only he is not green and his shirt is not ripped.
John and David end up going out the door very fast. Keith’s foot is right behind them. He is a good boxer even without his hands. Keith slams the door so hard the window shudders.
“I can sue you for assault! I can sue!” I hear John shout as his feet make loud tromps down the stairs. Sue means that you will get back at someone when they do something you do not like. Sue is also a girl’s name.
“Over my dead body, assholes! Over my dead body! You two don’t fool me!” Keith yells through the door. “No siree, Bob! I’m not fooled!”
Not being fooled is what everybody says when they are.
16
Gram started a baby book, my first book, when I was born. It had my picture from the hospital when I looked like a monkey.
“All babies look like monkeys, Perry, every single one,” Gram said.
“Do monkey babies look like humans to other monkeys?” It was something I wondered.
“Don’t be smart!” Gram said.
I learned to print my name with Gram’s help when I was six. Gram helped me write in my baby book. Inside we put pictures of me and Gram and Gramp. Each time we finished a page we would go on to the next. When I was seven my book was full and Gram bought another.
Now I have to buy my own books. I keep my words and ideas in them. I have lots of ideas and lots of books. Gram told me if I wrote smaller I would not need so many, but I like to write big. And pictures. I like to put pictures in. I have nineteen books. I am on book twenty.
With Gram gone I have to not forget. Not forgetting is hard. I have to work hard to not forget. Remembering is different than not forgetting. It is the opposite of. Remembering is like a little movie that comes back to you. It is something special and unexpected. Like when I remembered the first time Gramp took me sailing. A little movie.
Not forgetting is business. Like you have to not forget that your laundry is in the dryer or not forget to pay your bills. Remembering is fun. Not forgetting is hard. Writing helps me to not forget.
I came to live with Gram when I was just a baby. I do not remember when I was one year old, or two, or three, but Gram did. I like to read my first book again from the very beginning, whenever I miss Gram.
Sat up by himself—ten months.
Walked—two years.
First word Ga! for Gramp—two and a half years. George was so proud of him!
George was my Gramp. I like to know that he was proud of me.
I read silently but sometimes my lips move over the hard words. I can feel them.
Gram wrote chapters in my first book like this.
One year old.
Two ” ”
Three ” ”
Those little marks save time. They look like teeth. They are like words. That is so cool. They mean that things are all the same. Or they mean whatever you want them to. I do not remember much about when I was that little. It is fortunate that Gram wrote everything down in my baby book. That way I can read it over and over.
There are other things inside my book. Letters in Gram’s handwriting stamped with
Return to sender
on the envelope.
Dear Louise,
Gramp and I have no problem keeping Perry, but you have to be a part of his life. All boys need their mothers. . . .
G.J.,
We need to hear from you. We need to know why . . .
G.J. is my father. That is what Gram said. I think his name was George too. But he was called G.J. His name is only letters.
“He’s your father, but he’s no son of mine. No son of mine!” Gram would say.
Louise was a lawyer’s wife. That is different than a plain mother. They do not have to keep all of their children. Gram said she and Gramp needed me so Louise lent me to them. They liked me so much they kept me for good. That is cool.
There is a picture of me as a baby crawling. It is taped to one page. Gram’s handwriting is underneath.
Perry loves his Gramp and follows him around like a puppy.
I laugh. I like to think of myself as a puppy. There is another one of me in our boat. I have a red hat with matching mittens. Gram’s words are above.
Perry went sailing with Gramp. He’s picked it up real fast and is learning to work the tiller.
Gram wrote all the things I could do and how old I was.
Perry is reading words now. That teacher doesn’t know what she is talking about. He reads signs and we do the crossword together. I tell him to print the words and which square to put them in and he does a real good job.
Doing things faster, better, and bigger is important to people
.
“It’s like a contest for moms if a baby weighs more, is taller, or walks first. A goddamn contest!” Gram said this when I had trouble reading and writing in school. My teachers would invite all the parents to meetings and Gram would come. She would collect my papers and bring them home and we would work together to make them better. Her voice would get soft and low when she told me about how mad she got during those school meetings. The teachers would call me names. School meetings are called conferences. Conferences are when the teacher tells you how bad your kid is. The teachers would all say different things.
Maybe Downs, but he doesn’t look it.
He is borderline. Not developing normally.
You have to accept the fact that Perry is retarded . . . mildly retarded.
“It’s like they’re talking about a goddamn cheese, Perry! Mild shmild my ass!” Gram said.
They put me in Special Ed.
“There’s nothing special about it! It’s just a bunch of names! Perry, you’re just slow and that’s not a bad thing. You’ll still end up at the same place. People like names. It makes them feel superior,” Gram said.
Superior is when somebody thinks they are better than you, only they are not.
Gram always laughed when she read all the stuff about schools and teaching in the news, especially when I got older.
“Education shmeducation. Those politicians don’t know a goddamned thing! It’s them that needs educating.” And “Look, Perry, we could sue the sonsabitches if you were going to school now!” Then she would do her witch-cackle laugh. She made sure I knew all the new names. Each year they were different.
“Hey, Perry, you would be cognitively challenged now! Just like your brothers, only they’re morally challenged!” She pointed to the articles in magazines or newspapers.
Challenged. I liked that. We are all challenged. Challenged means you have obstacles to overcome. Gram read up on something called learning disabilities.
“Perry, I bet you had some of those and we never even knew it.”
I told her I did not think so. I was just slow. That was hard enough. I did not want her to give me anything else.
I keep looking through my book.
SCHOOL. MY FIRST memories of school. I was six years old. I know this because Gram wrote pages about it in my book. This is one of my first memories, but it was not a good one. I cried. You cannot go into school if you do not poop and pee in the toilet. I was scared. The teacher did not tell me where the potty room was and my poop went into my pants. I laughed because I was scared. It was all warm and runny. I laugh when I am scared or nervous. I do not know why it just comes out. Gram said I get anxious easily. Anxious is when you are not sure what other people will do. My teacher, Miss Kathy, called Gram on the phone. I went home with Gram and she cleaned me up. For a while I went to school only in the morning. Gram would meet me at the door of my class.
School was scary and fun. There were some kids who were fun to play with. I thought that was neat. But then there were other kids. Other kids who laughed and pushed me down in the dirt. I got a bloody nose once. No. Three times. Three times, I got my nose all bloody. Most of the kids in our neighborhood stopped playing with me when they went to school. Like Kenny. He lived down the street. After he made me eat dog biscuits, Gram would not let me go over to his house anymore.
I turn five pages in my book and I am eight years old.
Eight. Gram said eight is great. That was a poem. It sounded the same. Eight is great. I remember Gram gave me a card to celebrate. I still have it tucked inside my book as a marker. Celebrate. That is another word. It means good fun. Eight-is-great-we-celebrate. I went poop and pee in the toilet all the time. I could stay dry all day in school and not have an accident.
Gram said, “Goddamned that’s amazing.” I know this because of my card and Gram would tell me.
There is a picture of me standing on the sidewalk in front of our house. I am holding up my bike. It is way too big for me. Our house was on a long straight road with bushes and it was made of brick on the bottom and wood painted white on top. I helped paint the wood twice. The first time was when I helped Gramp. I was fourteen. The second time I was twenty-nine. Gramp was dead and our ladder broke. I was too heavy for it I think. We would have had to paint again when I turned forty-four. Gram would have been ninety-nine. But Gram is dead and our house is sold. Gone. It is torn down now. There was a big sign that said something else would be built. I forgot what. A computer store I think.
Thinking about these things reminds me of Gram and Gramp’s boxes. They are still stacked in a corner of my bedroom. I go in, pick one up, and put it on the bed. It is heavy and the cardboard is all bent. I have to get a knife from the kitchen and cut the tape that holds it closed. Papers are on top. I lift them off. There is a scrapbook. I open it. Sailboat pictures. A man holding a trophy in the air and smiling. I look on the back.
George Crandall.
Gramp.
Gram always said I looked like him except my ears stuck out. I go into the bathroom to check. My eyes are dark brown like Gram’s were. Gramp had blue eyes. My hair is the same color as Gramp’s except his was gray too. He was taller than me when he was alive, but I have grown. Maybe we are the same tallness now, but I do not know. I put the picture up against the mirror and stare at both faces. My face is fatter. I turn sideways. Gramp’s belly stuck out, but mine does not. My legs are okay, but my arms look thinner. Am I skinny? I will have to ask Keith about that.
I walk back into the bedroom and set the picture on the bed. There are many pictures of boats. Yellow ones. Blue ones. Old newspaper clippings.
YOUNG COUPLE SAILS TO SOUTH PACIFIC ON 32-FT CRAFT
The newspaper stories are cut out and pasted in order in a scrapbook.
LOCAL RACER VICTORIOUS
Victorious means you win stuff. There are plans of sailboats and drawings. The box is full of other things. A small flag.
Waikiki Yacht Club
, it says. That is in Hawaii. Keith told me. The logbooks are full of writing. I set them aside to read later. I start out sad, but now am happy. These were Gram and Gramp’s things.
One carton is too heavy for me to carry. Keith dragged it from the back of Yo when he helped me move from the house.
“Keith is strong as a bull,” Gram said. “You can always depend on Keith.”
I cut it open. On top is a stack of envelopes with my name written on the outside. My school papers. I set these aside and lift out another box underneath. It is latched and feels soft like leather or plastic. I cannot tell the difference. Plastic is fake and leather comes from cows. They have to kill them to get their skin. This makes me sad again. I open the box. For a moment, I do not know what it is, then I remember. It is Gramp’s record player. I unwind the cord and look at it closely.