The Oldies Progression
Michael Canfield
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2012 Michael Canfield
Published by Vauk House Press
Cover background photo by Ics9
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A couple of days had passed since the laser beams danced across the sky. Grandpa, or Opah, or “Papa”, Cranberry stayed in a converted room off the attic, one-hundred and-one degrees in the summer without air conditioning, sometimes as low as forty degrees in the winter without the heat on. They gave him heat though, when they remembered, and air con in the summer, usually. However, the air con must have gone on the fritz, because it felt like up in the nineties already. Papa didn’t mind that type of heat. Any higher though, that might be a concern. When he got to feeling sorry for himself all he had to do was look out his little window. Over the tops of the lemon trees he could see the old folks home—retirement community, so-called nowadays.
Papa sometimes went over there and chatted with some of the other geezers, usually Mr. Greenburg and Mr. Culpepper, two fellahs that were allowed outside to sit on the benches in front, talking about the Gators or the Dolphins, depending on the season. They used to have a big outdoor fish fry over there every Sunday, until the resident nutritionist put a stop to it.
At least Papa had family to stay with—for now. The boy and the boy’s wife had discussed moving Papa. They might.
However, the boy’s wife had also given him a disc-player, some headphones and a nice stack of reissues. Blue Note, Verve, Impulse, all that sweet stuff. The boy’s family listened to all their music downstairs on their little pocket players, but Papa didn’t want to learn all that computer stuff. MP3 files that stripped away even more sound between the notes than even CD’s did. Where would that end?
They didn’t like him using his phonograph, because they didn’t like jazz or the blues. His phonograph didn’t have a needle anymore anyway. He became used to the CD’s and the headphones.
For several straight days he’d listened to Earl Klugh’s fingers slide over the frets, up and down the strings. Sometimes the chords were so close they faded away, and Mr. Klugh’s fingertips touching strings enveloped Papa.
When that happened Papa would look at the 3/4 -sized guitar in the corner of the attic room and see right through the case: see the lacquered wood, the clean un-frayed strings, the straight—and unused—neck. His own guitars, he’d no idea where he’d left them, any more that he knew where his ‘64 Thunderbird got to, or nine or ten heartbreaking ladies he’d happily recall the aroma of and the talking with, if only he could.
The 3/4 guitar he’d got for the boy. The boy’s boy—the grandson, that is—but it all turned into too much work, with soccer on Saturday leaving only six days for video games. What moments remained went into homework, and they don’t teach music in school any more.
Still, they ought to feed me, thought Papa. How long had it been? Sun up, and a sundown before that. Or two. That’s not right. Sometimes they got mad at him for staying in his room all day, and sometimes they got mad at him for coming downstairs and being underfoot. Which was it this time? Maybe I got no dinner yesterday and they are mad at me. Papa was pretty sure he’d had nothing in his stomach since the laser beams in the sky (and then there was that big blue light in the backyard last night). No, nothing to eat since any of that.
Mr. Klugh’s fingers began to tire. The chords slowed down like the brother’s fingers were melting. Then he stopped, like he fell over his guitar and was no more, dead. Papa tapped the earphones, tapped the disc player. Maybe he’d gone deaf.
No. The battery light was flashing, giving up the ghost, too weak to go on. Papa opened the little door in the player’s underside, gave the batteries a spin and tickle. Sometimes that worked, sometimes batteries didn’t know when they had a little juice left in them and needed a push.
Not this time though. Those two little soldiers had given their all, and there is nothing for it but to seek reinforcements; weeping won’t get the show on the road.
Bacon sizzled below. Must be Sunday, they never had breakfast any other day. They never had breakfast on Sunday either come to think of it. Still it might be a Sunday. Somebody was burning toast.
Hunger and lack of batteries forced him to his feet, and across the floor. Ought to shave, ought to dress up for Sunday, but sometimes he couldn’t be sure which door the bathroom was, or in which closet they kept his suits and furnishings for him. He straightened his bathrobe and started in on the drop-down stairs. It’s only breakfast and family after all.
The stairs were steep and numberless. Papa kicked off his slippers, because bare feet made better traction. He took the stairs one by one. Going down was worse than going up, and going up was bad enough.
His joints were about done in with arthritis, and besides that a doctor once told him his knees didn’t have enough cartilage left between the pair of them to fill out an earlobe, let alone carry him down a set of stairs in comfort.
That toast was really burning now, must be black, and the bacon was popping loud too; she sure must like it crisp. Farther off, the video-game box was going gleep glorp gloop. But Papa couldn’t rush the stairs, not matter what. He clung to the railing—but not too tightly—his hands were almost as bad as his knees, and sidestepped his way. Eventually he got there and made his way to the kitchen; the black smoke from the toast led him right there.
A little fellow stood about forehead-level with the counter, and frantically tried waving the smoke away from its face. What a face it was too. Little and cute and green, mostly eyes—Papa counted six—and hardly any nose or mouth at all. The ears were suction cups. The hands were different than he remembered on kids too. Longer then he remembered any child having, with additional knuckles, and suction cups on the fingertips and under the knuckles too.
The little green child was frantic to stop the burning toast. The slender suction-cup fingers tried touching the toaster and he shrieked and pulled back from the heat. That didn’t stop him though. He picked up a butter knife and warily probed at the toaster with it.
That wasn’t a good idea. Flames were bursting from the toaster, but still the little one advanced with the butter knife; he reached up and just about reached the slot with the blade, but Papa reached the plug and yanked it out just quickly enough.
The sink was full of gray dishwater and Papa swept the toaster into it with his arm. Only then did the little one notice him, jumping back, letting the knife clatter to the floor.
The little mouth didn’t appear to open hardly at all, but a big enough sound came out of it. It sounds like gleeps and glorps, and then Papa realized it wasn’t the sound of video games in the other room, because the others came running.
The room was pretty smoky now, and Papa’s eyes burned and watered. But he saw two more. A couple taller ones, but by no means tall. They wore silver footie-pajamas like the first one did—except one had a striped tie on over his footie PJ’s, and another had a Rays cap on.
There was too much smoke to be just from the toast, and then Papa remembered the bacon. Amid the gleeps and glorps of the creatures, Papa made for the stove, and yanked that pan off the stove. All that was left were six little black strips, and they sure did smoke.
Papa couldn’t breath, the black smoke seared his lungs, and the smartest thing to do seemed to get some air in. Leaning over the sink and managing to get the window up seemed a helluva task, so he shattered the glass by flinging the smoking toaster through it. It sure was thin glass.
That solved, Papa decided to clear out of the kitchen before the clean-up began, because it was going to be a big job, and nobody liked him in the way when there was a big job to be done. On the way out, however, he discovered that no one was looking to clean up, and he recalled that, of course, this was a new bunch, not his own family. He wasn’t a gleep-glorp, at least not as far as he could remember.