Contact With Grandpa

The next day, Al woke up at 7:35 A.M as his dad left for school. Frank Arbuckle’s job as an English teacher made it so that he had to leave early in the morning for the summer school. He hated to be late, and woe to he who stood in his way in the mornings.

Thus, when Al awoke from his troubled sleep, he was not surprised to find that his father had left. Al shuffled downstairs to find the kitchen empty and a note tacked to the refrigerator.

Dear Alphonse,

Slept late again, kiddo? Well I guess you snooze you lose! I’m gone and here’s what I want you to do. The yard out back needs to be watered and the basement can be swept. After that, you can do whatever you want. DO NOT TALK TO DR. BRIGHTMAN!! I told you all the reasons why. I expect my wishes to be obeyed on this score. Besides, there is nothing for the two of you to talk about.

Love,

Dad.

Well, there it was, in black and white. His dad had expressly forbidden him to talk to Dr. Brightman. He sighed. It was hard to go against his father’s orders, but he had to speak with the old man. He just had to. If he didn’t then it would be like torture, wondering day in and day out about his mother’s lost childhood. Her missing father turned up at last.

He put the note down and poured himself some Captain Crunch from the pantry. As he sat munching his cereal, he thought about his mother. Michelle Brightman was a misty figure in his mind, lost before he had really gotten a chance to know her.

He got up and went up to his room without cleaning up his space. He had all day to do that, and he would most likely have done it by the time his dad came home from work. He looked at the Hanchett house which had now become the Brightman house.

He was surprised to see that all the shades had been pulled down and the lights were off in the house. That’s weird he thought. Across the street, people were washing their cars, Mr. and Mrs. Pinder were yelling at one another, and dogs were barking.

The neighborhood (which was now devoid of kids because of summer break) was in full swing. And yet this silent and almost empty-seeming house was an anomaly. He went downstairs to the living room and flipped channels. Being inside the house was boring and he hated it.

He could not find anything that interested him much, and after sitting through half an episode of Rugrats, he decided that he could not take it anymore. He had to do something or he would go insane. Al grabbed the one scraggly, dust-choked broom that they had and headed down to the basement. He went into the furnace room and swept around for a little while. “Well, that was a waste of time” he sighed. He went back upstairs and looked at Brightman’s house. The time was now 9:55 in the morning and still the house appeared dead. In fact, if it were not for the U-Haul van in the front driveway, he would think it was deserted.

Finally, he could stand it no longer.

Alphonse Brightman tugged on his Chuck Tailors and opened the front door. Frank had an extra set of keys in case he ever lost his pair and so Al took them from where they lay inside of the wooden basket on the hall table. Al ran down the stairs and went across to where he and his father had greeted Dr. Brightman yesterday. Then he stopped. He could not make his feet step over the thin line of asphalt that divided their lawns apart. It was stupid, but true; it was as if someone had set a dead-line around the house that had so recently been abandoned before the strange new neighbor took up there.

“It’s just a house, and it’s just an old man” Al whispered to himself. “An old man who happens to be my Mom’s dad” he added as an afterthought. Despite the hot morning air, he felt cold. A trickle of sweat dropped from beneath his black hair and he blinked it out of one eye. Then, sucking in his breath to make himself feel braver, he placed his foot on Dr. Brightman’s lawn. He hesitated a minute, but when lightning did not strike him out of the blue sky, and he did not burst into flames, he relaxed. What an idiot he had been!

Al walked across the lawn and into the driveway. His hands were beginning to sweat as they did when he was very nervous. He found that he was beginning to become afraid again. But this was not the stupid fear he had felt before when he had first beheld the house. Now he was only nervous of what he would say to this old man.

He went up the steps to the porch. There was no light on in the front hallway either. Alphonse began to wonder if Dr. Brightman was still asleep…or maybe he was dead. That happened with old people sometimes, they just died in their sleep and maybe that’s what his long-lost grandfather was like right now, yes, he was lying in bed with his eyes open and not breathing, the only movement the breeze as it blew that black and white hair…

“Stop it” Al said to himself, “I said stop it and I mean it.” He raised his hand to knock on the door, but before he did, the door was opened. It opened a small crack.

“Hello?” asked a voice from inside. “Who is it?” it was certainly the voice of Dr. Brightman, Al thought, but it was very different this time. Yesterday, the man had sounded calm and sure of himself. Now he sounded weak and frail…and most of all afraid.

“Uh…It’s me, um…Al Brightman from next-door” Al said, a bit hesitantly himself. He did not know what to expect, if Dr. Brightman would slam the door in his face or not. Maybe he would. Or maybe he would just tell Al to get lost.

“Oh, the boy from yesterday…” Brightman said. Then he asked a question that Al found exceedingly strange. “Is there anyone with you?”

“With me? No, no not at all. Why?”

The door opened and Dr. Brightman peered out. He was wearing the same tweed jacket as before, except that this time it was worn over a large blue work-shirt that was untucked. Dr. Brightman was wearing old trousers that looked like they had come from a third-hand clothes store. Al was surprised. He had expected him to be asleep or something like that, not dressed, and certainly not looking the way he did.

The look on Eric Brightman’s face was hard and watchful, full of carefully controlled fear. It was the look of an animal that is being hunted, and is willing itself not to panic in the face of the hunters. Then the look passed and he was once again the man they had met yesterday. He smiled in that way of his that seemed to light up his whole face. “Well, good to see you. What brings you here this Saturday morning?”

“I…” Al found that he could not talk. “Well, I just…I just wanted to see if you were…well, if you were…” he couldn’t bring himself to say it, no matter how hard he tried. It was infuriating, but there was no help for it. He wanted to know if Eric really was his grandfather, but finding out would mean talking heavily to the old doctor and then…that would surely involve breaking his father’s wishes.

Dr. Brightman gestured with his hand inside the house. “Well, come on in Al, quickly now, there’s a good boy” Eric Brightman looked back and forth at the street with its lazy activities and shook his head. “We all live our little lives, in little spaces” Al heard him mutter. “Ah, what a world.”

Al hurried inside the house and looked around. The lights were off and the dim sunlight drifted inside. The house had not really been furnished and the rooms were mostly empty. He looked at the kitchen and saw the remains of a meal on the counter. It looked as if Dr. Brightman had eaten standing up. Al quickly looked away from the half-eaten breakfast.

“So, what brings you here?” Dr. Brightman asked. He sat on a folding chair that was in the kitchen and sat down on it. “I’m sorry that I don’t have better furniture to offer you…what was your name again?”

“Alphonse Brightman” Al said. “But my friends just call me Al.” Unsure of what else to say, he waited for the old man to continue what he was saying. Dr. Brightman nodded.

“Well, Al, I was saying that I’m sorry I don’t have better furniture. There’s another chair upstairs that you can get if you wish to stay for a little while…although I can’t see why you would do that.” He leaned back in his chair. “Where are your friends—if you don’t mind me asking. I would think that a young boy like you would have a great many friends.”

“I do” Al said, his blue eyes narrowing with annoyance. “It’s just that everyone went on summer break, and I don’t have anyone to do anything with anymore.” He smiled sheepishly at his Chuck Tailors. “I just wind up getting up and biking around town, going to the candy store which is crowded with little kids, and then just wandering. I can’t really go past Chasse Avenue, so I kind of live a boring life.”

Dr. Brightman nodded, his blue eyes focused on Al. The boy was once again aware of how those eyes seemed almost lit from the inside by some mystic light. But that was a ridiculous of course to even be thinking about such things, just as it had been stupid to think that there was some kind of force-field around the house.

“Well, I am very sorry to hear about that” he said kindly. “Well, that’s certainly a problem. Perhaps there are other things you can do to keep yourself occupied. Why, when I was a child, we never went anywhere for summer vacation.”

Thinking about family finally made Al ask the question he anticipated and dreaded asking. “Dr. Brightman…” he made himself say. “I have to ask you something. That’s why I came. I just--” he foundered; what would happen if he asked this old man what was burning in his mind. He could not even think of what—

“Yes. I am your grandfather, Alphonse” Dr. Brightman said in a dry, quiet voice. He ran a hand through his black and white hair. “I know that you have a lot of questions, Alphonse…and I will try and answer them as best as I can.”

Al was shocked. He stared at the old man in his tweed jacket blue work-shirt and old trousers. Did he…did he just read my mind? Al thought wildly. But Dr. Brightman continued talking and Al soon forgot about what he was thinking. His grandfather was looking at him in a funny way.

“Al” said Dr. Brightman. “I know how hard this must be for you to experience. You have no idea who I am and what and why I am here…just as I truly did not have any idea of who you or your father where when I arrived. It was only when your father began to yell at me that I understood what was going on…”

But that was a lie. Alphonse knew it immediately. He didn’t know how he knew this, but he did. Anyway, it didn’t matter. “It is really confusing. I just want to know why Dad hates you and about…about Mom.” He looked down at the dusty linoleum. “She’s dead, you know” he said, almost guiltily, as if he had been the one responsible for her death. “She died a while ago. I barely remember her.”

Dr. Brightman glanced at the black-and-white picture on the refrigerator. One of his hands rose and brushed something from the corner of his eye. “It’s every parent’s worst nightmare to outlive their children” he whispered harshly. Then he shook his head. “But sit down Al” he said. “I have some things to tell you.”