Grammy's Game

Geraldine’s eyes flew open as she whooshed upwards through the fading dream she’d been having. ‘A noise? Was it a noise that just roused me?’

She lived alone in the large Victorian though a waitstaff of three dwelled on the property in the large guest house over the four-car garage. Butler, Jameson, maid, Felina, and Maxxy the cook. Oh, and of course there was Jimmy, her best friend, an aging but spry Mastiff she’d adopted after the death of her husband.

She was sixty-six years old, but her hearing was like that of a cat’s. She heard a soft thump and called out, “Jimmy? Jimmy is that you?”

Silence was the reply. She began to be afraid.

The moonlight streaming into the bedroom caught the refracted light of the faceted crystal doorknob as it turned slowly.

Gerry rolled off the bed and crouched on her knees, at the same time opening the nightstand drawer above her. The cool reassuring feel of her Dan Wesson Special was absent. She began to panic. A large figure all in black rushed in like the grim reaper himself. As he leaned over her with his arms raised, he was suddenly yanked backwards. His retreat was accentuated by an escalating growling… he cried out and his voice mingled with the snarls of an enraged wolfpack. Geraldinne grabbed the heaviest thing she could find- the lamp, it had a heavy brass base- and rose to save her dog.

The howling of Anubis turned to a sharp shriek and quit. Gerry swung the lamp towards the black shadowed figure with all her strength…and encountered only airspace. A second later she felt a blow that felt like Thor’s mighty hammer, to the side of her head.

The last she heard was far away sirens and had the brain power left to silently thank Jameson…or Felina…or Maxxy…and most of all poor sweet Jimmy.

***

“But whyyyyeee do I have to gooo?” whined Phreesia in her sulky teenager voice that made Peter want to throw things at her. Sometimes he had.

Once, when he was nearly two and Phreesia was eleven, she’d moaned about having to feed him. “Ugh,” she’d said, “he’s so icky. Don’t touch me you little freak…you’ve got peanut butter all over.”

Peter had giggled and reached out for her again. The minute their mother left the kitchen, Phreesia knelt and popped up. “Peek-a-boo!”

Peter clapped his pudgy hands, and a gobbet of peanut butter flew to his sister’s cheek and clamped there like a limpet. A mean glint sparked in her eyes; they squinted as she ducked again. This time she grabbed the highchair’s wooden legs and yanked them out from under the seat. The chair crashed backwards, and Peter slid along the kitchen floor three feet. Then she jumped up again and said, “Ha! Pee-a-boo!” and expected a bout of wailing. The breath was knocked out of Peter. His cheeks turned purple as a cascade of silent tears waterfalled his fat baby cheeks…

“What was that!?” their mother called from down the hall.

Phreesia bent over to pick Peter up and was struck in the forehead, hard, by something fist sized and white. She cried out as the object fell to the floor where it shattered into ceramic pieces. A single piggy pepper shaker sat on the kitchen table and Phreesia, a stream of blood running down her forehead and dripping off her nose, realized she’d been hit by the salt.

Then all hell broke loose. Peter filled his lungs and let go, Phreesia backed away from him also screaming as their mother entered the kitchen, adding her own cries to the melee as she picked up her baby and inspected him for broken bones.

Father said, “because she’s your grandmother and she’s going to die soon. We---”

Phreesia cut him off, “---she’s a veg dad. She doesn’t even know when we’re there.”

“I can’t take that chance.” He turned away, tall, thin, balding and nervous.

Peter hated his father then. He knew he was only trying to make nice because she was dying and wanted her…well, everything.

Peter’s father bent and breathed deeply, placing his palms upon the sideboard table of his mother’s house, now his. Then he slowly turned around to his irritating daughter and growled, “You. Will. Go see your grandmother… and be happy. And cheerful.”

Phreesia’s eyes went wide, and she looked to their stepmother for a lifeline. But Marcie sat unperturbed in the big leather chair by the fireplace, casually filing her nails. Phreesia stormed up the stairs to her new luxuriously appointed bedroom, done up in a boatload of pink satin and boy band posters.

Martin turned to Peter next and smiled his crocodile grin. Peter said, “I’m cool. I love Grammy Gerry.”

Martin scoffed. Peter shuddered after his father’s weird dark eyes left his face and turned to his trophy wife. He loathed the simpering queen bee of a bitch. The Lalique cardinal figurine on the mantel above Marcie took a stuttering step towards the edge then stilled. She and his father were so perfect for each other. Had it always been destined to be this way? The couple ignored him as he left the grand living-room. To Peter it felt all wrong. He did not feel at home here but ill at ease and panicky all the time. He went to the sanctuary of the attic.

The attic had peaked ceilings and a single eight-foot round window facing out over the driveway and staff quarters. He saw that lights were on in over the garage and for some reason that made him feel better. Grammy’s staff had been more like family; he felt closer to them than his own.

To make the attic his room, he needed to get rid of some of the boxes and crates. “Holy crap.” ‘There really is a lot of stuff up here. Hmmm, get them out and I might have room for a ping pong table…not that I’d have anyone to play with. Maybe a big ole train set!’

As Peter pulled out the crates first, he fell into sort of a trance. He would open one, root through it, and set in next to the door. He kept items he found cool- an old calvary sword in one he thought must have been his grandfather’s, an old iron beartrap he thought might look cool on his pine board wall. By midnight he’d gotten to the last remaining trunk. It was wood and leather and full of his grandmother’s nightdresses. They reminded him of Little House on the Prairie. He felt sort of weird- like he was peeping (ew) or something- but it was just old stuff. There were old porcelain dolls in there, an old chess set made of real ivory and maybe onyx. His heart was jerked, and tears stung his eyes, he’d always wanted to learn but Grammy wouldn’t be playing anymore. At the very bottom was the strangest thing yet…

***

Peter was the only one in the family who actually wanted to visit his dying Grammy in the place she was in. He was only nine but had read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and seen the awesome but depressingly sad movie. This was that place. Phreesia was slumped over and plodding to show her defiance. Marcie and Martin held hands and led the way. Peter followed, like a hindsight.

The halls were dimly lit, as if bright lights would reveal what dwelled under the hems of the curtains of bedlam. A man ran past them through the hall, stark naked and slashed all over with what looked like oozing razorblade cuts. A small Asian woman in an old-fashioned jumper dress shuffled past them hitting the top of her head and saying, boink, boink, boink…an orderly on the staff walked past and patted her bum.

Peter looked at his father and stared daggers into his back. ‘How could you?’

They reached the rec room where the crazies gathered, and Peter half expected to see the old giant Indian that helped the Nickolson character escape…or maybe it was the Indian who escaped. His mind drifted off as he listened to his father blah blah blah about how much they cared for her. Phreesia did a fine acting job as well as Marcie who cooed and smiled and tried to take Grammy’s hand…

Grammy’s white poof of thin hair fluttered like baby chicken fluff as she yanked her hand back as if she’d been about to touch a rattlesnake. ‘Leech is more like it.’

Martin pretended not to notice and said, “Ok kids, let’s get goin. Grammy’s tired and needs her rest.”

The family filed towards the door, Peter lingered behind, wanting to say something but felt he had a lump of coal wedged in his throat. He stared at the baseball sized dent he could see through her thin hair and the curtain in the window behind them fluttered briefly though the window was closed.

Grammy turned and looked at Peter. Her rheumily blueish eyes were now clear and deep hazel, she smiled and held up a finger pointed to Peter and wiggled it. Peter didn’t even look at his retreating family; he didn’t want them to be his retreating family. He looked at his Grammy as he sat on the chair next to hers. She looked not like the starved, wasted, mind-blown woman with the crazy Einstein white wispy hair…as she had just a minute ago, but warm and pink and…there. She nodded at the boy and then looked to the backpack he carried.

Peter said, “I’m not sure why I brought this here, but I’ve never seen anything like it. I was wondering if you knew how it worked and what it did.”

Peter had not heard his Grammy’s voice since the attack but heard it now clearly in his head. ‘Atari…it’s a game. Did you bring all of it?’

Peter, mesmerized, brought out a square box console about 18 inches wide, six inches deep, and maybe twelve inches across. It had fake wood grain and old black plastic. And a slot like for a smaller version of an 8track tape like his Grampy used to play in his old blue Cadillac.

‘You have the controllers?’

“Yes, I’ll bring them along next time. And the little cartridges.”

Grammy nodded. Her smile was like it used to be.

“Peter!” gruffed his father.

Peter brushed tears from his cheeks as he followed them out.

***

Peter was able to escape the giant house easily because no one paid attention to him. He brought the rest of the games and the controllers, what his grammy called ‘joysticks’, to the asylum where she was expected to die. She had an old school tv in her room which was awesome because Peter didn’t think he’d know how a modern flatscreen would be able to accommodate a relic such as Atari.

The first game Grammy showed Peter was Space Invaders. They played for hours, and Peter loved the playing as much as he did the being with his Grammy. He was amazed that her old, gnarled fingers could yank that joystick as much as his could. He brought a new game each time he came to visit her. Next was Pacman. The old game controllers had a joystick and a button. Easy-Peasy…and so fun.

Peter came one day with a River Patrol game and Grammy waved her hand- a hand less shaky and skeletal he was sure of- and pointed to the Space Invaders cartridge. He looked into her face and saw also that he could no longer see her scalp…it was as though she’d discovered some new miracle hair tonic. ‘That must be why I don’t see the dent anymore either.’

“Okay Grammy, Let’s play.”

They were both masters by this point, though Peter didn’t get how his Grammy, who was supposedly braindead, could play at all, and near the end the screen changed a little.

Peter said, “Woah! Never seen that level before…faces on the invaders?”

Grammy just stared at the screen and might have nodded.

The face on the last little creep invading downwards looked like Phreesia’s.

Peter blew it away and his Grammy in her bed suddenly started croaking. Peter thought she was choking then realized she was laughing.

Peter pulled up on his bicycle in the driveway of the big old Victorian in the Presidio. Lights were on in the dining room, and he heard Marcie’s simpering drawl, so he avoided that entryway and took the back stairs to the second story hall. There was no light from under Phreesia’s door, and no loud bass beat of dumbass pop music. He tried the knob, and peeked in. Dark and empty.

In his attic sanctuary, he sat at the window and thought he should be freaking out, he thought there might be something wrong with him cuz he wasn’t... worse than wasn’t…he felt calm and…’hopeful?’

The next day after school he raced to Grammy’s asylum, and she indicated that they should play PacMan. As he and his Grammy played, one little white ghosty, the last one, looked more and more like his father. Tufts of hair over the ears, little bowtie, squinty eyes. Grammy whispered, “This is for Jimmy.” As she gobbled up the little ghosty. She turned and locked eyes with Peter. And he knew (but he’d known all along really, hadn’t he?) that Martin had been behind the attack. Her voice was weak but her entire being seemed strong now. She even had a wisp of pale auburn over where the dent had been.

A tear leaked from her face, down a pale cheek that now held a spot of rosy in it, as she said softly, “I want to go home. Tomorrow, I think. After the mess is all cleaned up.” Then she winked at him.

Peter said, “What about Marcie?”

“No need to worry about her my dear one. She’s packing her belongings---”

“Along with the silverware and Royal Doulton figurines.”

“Heh heh heh. So be it.” Grammy raised her thin but elegant fingers in a poise like Greta Garbo’s…one that said, ‘meh.’

***

Jameson drove the big silver Rolls up to the asylum gates and Maxxy barreled inside with her big badass self. The nurse at the desk stood and began frantically pushing a button.

The small Asian woman stomped past them but her “boink boink boink turned to woah woah woah” as she passed, quickening her steps.

An orderly built like The Rock appeared in front of them and said, “No one leaves here,” as he crossed his watermelon-sized biceps over his Stonehenge chest. Two more were rushing out of the dim corridor, a skinny tall pale kid, tweaky as hell, and an older, slower cowboy type with his taser drawn. Tweaky saw his companion and shakily unholstered his own taser.

Jameson and Maxxy halted. And waited one…two…the distant screams filtered through the bedlam, mutterings and whisperings and just plain crazy…three.

Peter and Geraldine came down the hall and stood behind the two uncertain jailkeepers. Papers flew from the nurse’s desk like a blizzard, the telephone’s receiver rose and fell against its cradle, threatening to shatter it, the pens from the desk flew into the air like a flock of starlings in a storm.

The Rock turned towards Peter and whiplash fast, backhanded him across the room. A black fountain pen broke from the swirling flock and pierced The Rock in the neck. Blood geysered from it like in a Taratino film. The tweaker came at Jameson, the cowboy went for Maxxy.  Felina came through her companions, a pure black mastiff-newfie mix at her side- a young pup, but huge and snarling and loyal. She released him and he tore the tweaker’s throat out and turned and leapt upon the cowboy’s back.

“I give! I give!” the cowboy cried, his hands covering his head and neck. The dog halted, sniffed him, then peed all over his prone form.

The six family members headed out the door. Geraldine bent by The Rock’s slumped mountain of a form and plucked the pen from his throat. She wiped the gore off on her old granny house coat and pocketed it.

***

Peter went out to the garden and to the very edge that looked out over San Francisco’s Presidio. He knelt by the grave of Jimmy who had fresh flowers and treats and toys replenished every day. Norman bounded up the path and sniffed the grave. He whined softly and looked at the newest toy there, a tough-body ducky with squeakers in its wings. Peter scratched the good pup’s ears and the ducky’s wings flapped and the squeakers squeaked. Norman’s big black fluffy Chewbacca ears perked up, but he was a good dog…Peter said, “Ducky,” and Norman took his prize and happily jounced away like happy pups do, in a flurry of wafting black fur.

In the dennish library, Grammy was watching Wheel of Fortune. Peter came in bearing his gift. Grammy turned and smiled as her grandson unloaded a brand-new Xbox into the living room. She clapped her hands like a child as Peter set the whole thing up. It would take days to figure out the intense graphically realistic video, and the controller was way more complicated…but…figure it out they would together. Ah…fun times ahead.