Grand-Dad

Grand Dad was born in the time where men of honor were never too far when danger arose, like the phlegm and fevers of an oncoming plague.

The oversized house felt stagnate and angry as he closed the heavy solid wooden front door behind him. There was an echo that made everything sound much closer than what was. Large windows requiring days and days to clean had become covered with the cataract of grime, dirt, and negligence. He hadn't seen Grand-Dad since the wedding to his fifth wife.

The last marriage lasted as long as it took for his fourth wife to to find Grand-Dad taking his business between the legs of a woman who was 15 years younger than him at the time.

'Can't a doomed man get himself a good taste of ass before he steps off the chair with the noose around his neck...?, he supposedly informed the shocked onlookers and witnesses there for comfort her disbelief and rage.

'Any man willing to look another man in his eyes better as damn know his own true nature, or that man is as stupid as they come....', Grand-Dad once told an errant son of his at the time.

He wanted to call out 'Hello' but became too concerned that the oversized house would somehow swallow his word, and then swallow him if he wasn't too careful. The tone of the house made him think about one of those James Bond films where Bomd finds himself in another tough situation that would require his wits about him, if not the awareness of his own unique abilities (both in bed and out of bed  But that was the James Bond code of standards, wasn't it?).

But that was the affect that Grand-Dad had on many people around him, or had had crossed paths with him, or who had tried to go up against him.

Hardly anyone could actually remember his birth-name.Seemed as if he was Grand-Dad forever..... All that was remembered about Grand-Dad's entrance into this living world of events and forces unshaping to re-shape to unthink history was how he had one eye that was hugely larger than the other when he came from between his Mother's spread legs....

One of the attending nurses to the birth, according to lore, was so startled by this sight that she promptly crossed herself  many times more.and handed her resignation to the hospital's administrator as soon as was humanly possible. 

A very wild, lapsed Catholic, she saw the birth of Grand-Dad as a direct intervention from God for her to rejoin the flock she had chosen to abandon in her pursuit of earthly pleasures of her senses....

The oversized house was infliltrated by the humidity levels found in many greenhouses, he thought to himself as hereached and ascended up along the wide rise of stairs and banister, carefully crafted out of the best lumber Grand-Dad's money could buy.

His second wife was an interesting woman. A so-called 'Soothsayer',who fancied herself filled with 'The Gift of Second Sight', she failed to see the writings on the wall when Grand-Dad once mentioned to her:

'When you have reached the 'Other Side', his voice would deepen to portray the grand voice of the Almighty, 'please do not bother me with things I should be and shouldn't be doing, yer hear me..?'

Now a lot of people couldn't understand what Grand-Dad saw in his second wife, who was always talking about Tarot cards, Astral Projection, the Eighth Parallel Gates to the Eleventh Heavens, the Spiritual necessity of Yoga and pre-dawn meditations, and the Universal virtures of never needing to ever eat meat.

'I am going to nail the first skirt I can get my hands on when you are gone..'

She smiled that smile that Grand-Dad could never fully trust.

'She smiles like the cat that got what it wanted...' he once said about her. 'But damn me if she knows how to make a man's cock stand up proud and willing.'

The so-called 'Soothesayer', returning home after giving one of her clients (a well connected doctor) a private reading follwed by a handjob to seal the deal, didn't feel a thing when her dar was driven into an unyielding utility pole at 80 mph, tossing her lifeless body through the back windows of her car.

The stroke was a thorough Master assassin, and made sure she was dead a quarter of the mile outside of impact, and human body toss from a car moving at a considerable rate of positive acceleration.....

Approximately two weeks later, Grand-Dad was nailing the Hostess to one of his favorite restuarants. The Hostess was ten years younger than Grand-Dad, but on her behalf was taught the ways of sex from an older neighbor from the gated community of Cherished Meadows when she was 14.

Upstairs, and oddly observed by him, the temperature felt like the Autumn when he was lost in the woods during his Junior year at University. The hours were an unknown commodity to him as the Sun and available daylight were eagerly consumed by the Autumn foilage of burnt oranges into red; burnt reds into brown....

'..hello...'.

His voice was meager and insufficient but a cough was heard shuffling behind the door to his immediate left once he stepped past the enormous dimensions of the grandfather clock custom made for Grand-Dad's third wife.

'..hello..', his meager voice vaguely offered again for a response.

This time, the strong scent of urine and burnt toast greet his attention immediately as his hand and fingers instinctively opened the door...

Where sunlight had thrown odd and corrupted shadows downstairs through the impaired vision of the large windows, this room was obscured by the talons' thirst for darkness and dense shadows that brought a shudder to his jaw and teeth.

'You got my letter...?'

Grand-Dad's voice spoke everywhere and somewhere all at once.

'...yes... but....i have come.....'

'I don't need any time for questions. The will clearly states that my estate will go to you and that girlfriend of yours....what's her name..? Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter at all anymore....'

His tone of voice was almost jovial .....

'You never asked for anything. You walked your own path; you never looked back, and you showed up. You get everything'.

His voice had to ask.

'...you mean....you wrote letters to others...?'

'Others being over 100 people .....  One-hundred and eleven people to be exact..'

'...but why...'

'Why you..? Why did you come here....is that what you want me to answer for you..?'

In the dark, silent room that contained these two men, Grand-Dad coughed once, coughed again, and then said  to him:

'Every man not worth his own salts will never amount to much of anything, and will never touch anyonelse. You might think I am not different, right? But mark my words, I have always understood who I was with my ugly eye and all...'

The coughing returned, and didn't let up until there was nothing left but the cold darkness and the smell of urine, burnt toast, and silence.