Granddad Al    by Jason G. Snyder

    She stood in the doorway, hands pressed against widening hips, lips drawn firmly together in a single white line of aggression. I could feel the burn of her cool, blue eyes, the eyes that had at one time drawn me to her, as she glared at me. My insides curdled, cringing at the argument that she and I both knew had arrived.

    The year had come full circle yet again and my thirty-fourth year slowly limped unremarkably from me, while my thirty-fifth year could be seen at a short distance. Thirty-five careened towards me like a locomotive, shooting a steady plume of dust skyward, which would lazily resettle along the path of my life until thirty-six rounded the bend and tore through my life 365 days later. This was the endless cycle of existence.

    And for the past ten years that my wife and I had been married, yet another cycle had emerged in my life, coinciding with my birthday. The wife, Maude, starting around one week prior to my birthday, constantly confronted me with the same exhausted argument. The topic of the argument had been the same for the past ten years and will probably remain the same, unbeknownst to Maude, until I grow too weary to stand my ground against her constant nagging, or until I die. The argument concerned my grandfather’s office chair; were we going to keep it or were we going to pitch it?

    My grandfather sat in this chair everyday of the four long decades that he worked at his accounting firm. The swivel chair was not a study in appealing fabrics and eye-pleasing hues. The towering, arched back of the chair was layered with a dull, burnt orange slab of vinyl, as were the armrests. The actual seat, in contrast to the sturdy, firm back of the chair, was like a large, dense marshmallow trapped beneath a layer of brown cloth. Four black legs radiated outwards from the wooden trunk-like base of the chair. The wheels on the legs of the chair whined a stubborn protest at every movement forced upon them. But the ugliness of the orange and brown did not diminish the comfort, which the chair provided.

    A dark greasy smudge ran across the headrest of the chair; a reminder of the 1950s when men wore wax in their hair to appear smart, sleek, and one hundred percent business. The armrests were worn and cracked from use. I could picture my grandfather on a typical workday; the diligent business man leaning back, elbows resting on the powerful arms of the chair, fingers laced across a softening stomach, eyes looking through the bifocals perched atop his nose, but not seeing what was before him at his desk. Seeing something farther off. Escaping from his hectic workday for a moment, reminiscing of the days when he wore no bifocals. Remembering old friends from the Second World War. I can recall exactly how his eyes looked when he was daydreaming: distant, but at the same time, clear and aware. That is how they looked until the day he died.

    When my grandfather passed away twenty-two years ago, I became the proud owner of one old, orange and brown, worn-out office chair. I took it with me to college. It went with me to my first apartment. And in my house after I married Maude, it occupied the extra bedroom that I had transformed into an office, much to her disappointment. She had tried since the day we moved in to convince me to sell the chair or to give it to charity, even though she couldn’t imagine anybody wanting it. And, thus, the ritual began.

    "Jason...Jason," Maude called as she tried to pull me through the deep pools of my memories back to the present. "Jason, are you ever going to get rid of that chair?"

    "Not again," I groaned.

    "You know how much I hate it. It is ugly, a horrible beast of a chair." She continued her argument with softened eyes and a pleading voice. "Jason, please. It doesn’t match any of our other furniture. I have a perfect chair picked out for you if you would just..."

    "You’ve had the perfect chair picked out for me for the past ten years," I interrupted. "Listen, Maude, I’m sorry that it’s not the prettiest thing. But I don’t want another chair. You know this chair holds a lot of memories. Sort of like your mother’s hutch."

    I was hoping that she would see things from my perspective. This chair was the gateway to many memories that I had of my grandfather, just like her mother’s hutch reminded her of her mother. It didn’t work though. The hutch was beautiful, and the chair was a "horrible beast." I could see her eyes hardening into the heated, piercing, blue icicles once again, and I knew what I had to do. It was a low blow but it was my trump card. I had to play it.

    "Maude, Jacob likes the chair." Jacob was our five-year-old son. "He likes to sit in it with me and ask about my Granddad. Don’t ask us give that up just because you think the chair is ugly. Please. This chair holds so many memories for me, and even though I want to make you happy, I can’t give it away."

    Bringing up our son did soften her up but all I had said was true and I meant every single word of it. I think that Maude finally began to understand. She gazed at me with an apologetic smile. She wished that I would give up the chair, but at the same time she realized the importance of the bonding process that my son and I shared. Maude agreed to let me keep the chair and the decision was considered final. We never spoke of it again.

    The crisp wind whistled between the freshly budding magnolia trees stretching their arms protectively over the thick lawn of our house on the night of my birthday. Maude gave me a plastic chair mat to set atop our thick, jungle of light blue carpet. The mat increased the rolling ability of my granddad’s chair ten fold. That was the best gift that Maude could have given me; it showed me that she truly understood the importance of the chair.

    As Jacob and I sat in my grandfather’s chair that night, we heard the occasional car approach and travel on past our cozy house. The light faded from the sky rapidly, and as grasshoppers began telling stories to their young, I did the same. These conversations always began with Jacob asking questions about his great grandfather, John Allison Snyder.

    "Well, Jacob," I would begin, "he was a great man, and an even better Granddad. One of the things that I remember was the way he would wake every morning at about 6:30. While he, my sister, your Aunt Jessica, and I sat at the kitchen table waiting for Grandma Nita to come downstairs, he shaved his lined face with an electric razor. He never was able to remove all of the stubble."

    I paused remembering giving my grandfather hugs and feeling his rough whiskers on my cheek, itching and irritating but comfortable and reassuring all at the same time. I recalled how he smelled faintly of stale cologne and how if I concentrated hard enough I could still smell him.

    "Why didn’t he get a new razor?" Jacob asked.

    "That is a good question. I don’t know why he didn’t get a new razor. Anyhow, on these mornings Granddad Al, Grandma Nita, Jessica and I would all go walking at the mall before we began our day. When we finished walking, we went and ate breakfast at McDonalds with my grandparents’ friends. After Granddad drank his coffee out of his Styrofoam cup, Grandma Nita would drive us all to his office. Since he was blind in his left eye, Grandma Nita had to drive him everywhere. The sign on the door of Granddad Al’s office said Snyder & Snyder, CPA. Jacob, do you know who was the other Snyder on the sign was?"

    "Your dad! My Granddad Mark!" Jacob exclaimed proudly with a gap-filled grin spreading over his face.

    "Yup. My dad, your Granddad Mark, became an accountant and worked with Granddad Al. This was great for me because I could see my grandfather and my dad at the same time. Once, when I was about seven years old, my grandfather had me on his lap in this very chair. We would talk about all sorts of things, like you and I do. I asked him if I should get a rat-tail haircut. Of course, my grandfather was a wise man and he advised me against it."

    "What’s a rat-tail haircut?" Jacob giggled.

    "You know, short hair on the top with a thin long tail at the back. It’s an ugly haircut Jacob, you don’t want one," I replied, cringing at the thought of Jacob with a rat-tail haircut.

    "But the time I remember the best," I continued, "was when I spotted a calendar on his wall. On the month of November was perhaps one of the most beautiful women I have ever had the pleasure of seeing. In awe, I asked my grandfather who she was. He said to me, "Jason, that is Christie Brinkley. Now take a good, long look at those legs, because you will never see a nicer pair on any other woman!" He was right, but don’t tell your mother I told you that. I wish I had the calendar so I could show you what I had seen. Then you would recognize the wisdom John Alison Snyder obtained in his long life."

    Jacob smiled up at me. "Dad?"

    "Yeah?"

    "Granddad Mark is smart too. One time he showed me the pretty legs of some girl in a calendar that he had on his wall."

    I couldn’t help grinning. "Oh, I see. So you already know about pretty legs then? Well why don’t you run along to bed and get some rest and we’ll finish this conversation when you are older."

    My son smiled at me with his bright, blue eyes that he got from his mother. My heart swelled and I knew the love that ties fathers and sons together completely, in all its fullness and wonder.

    "Dad?" Jacob stared at me with an uncertain look in the bright, blue eyes that he got for, as a new thought burrowed its way into his fresh, young mind. "Dad, how long do you think it will be before I get Granddad Mark’s office chair?"

    The question made my heart ache with love and pain at the thought of my son’s granddad, my father, passing away and his office chair being passed onto my son.

    "Hopefully not for a long time, Jacob," I said with a sad smile on my face. I glanced at my watch. "Whoa, look at the time. Why don’t you head on to bed, big guy, I’ve got some work to do."

    "All right Dad," Jacob said craning his neck upward to give me a kiss on the cheek. "I love you, Dad."

    "I love you too, Son." I engulfed Jacob in my arms and let my love flow to him through my embrace. I held on forever. When I finally released my son, he hopped off of my lap and trotted out of the office to his bedroom.

    I sat there in my study for a long time after Jacob left. I could hear Maude breathing the heavy breath of sleep in the room adjacent to the study. My eyes were looking out the window but I did not see the dark night occasionally broken by a stark, white street light. They saw twenty years into the past, where two young brothers and their younger sister sat silently around their grandfather’s hospital bed, watching him wither away, his body taken over by cancer. When he had the strength to talk to us he would and we would listen and make conversation. When he didn’t have the strength we all sat in silence, wishing there were no such thing as cancer. The room was clean, and white, thanks to the hospital’s janitorial staff. I didn’t understand why they couldn’t clean the cancer out of my Granddad Al, making him spotless and fresh like the hospital room. There was no one who could explain that to me though.

    We did not know it at the time, but that visit was the last time we would ever see Granddad Al alive. When my grandfather had become too exhausted to speak anymore we left him. Before I left though, I walked slowly over to his bedside and gave him a long, gentle hug. I felt his whiskers on my cheeks, and smelled his faintly pleasant smell for the last time. We told him we loved him and walked out of the room looking back at the old man who had been a stern, strong fighter throughout his life. He had finally accepted a battle with an unbeatable foe. As I pulled the heavy, oak door closed, I peeked around the corner for a final look at my Granddad Al. "I’ll see you later on, Granddad," I told him. He looked at me with a painful smile, which I returned. I then closed the door and left my grandfather for the last time.

    My brother, sister and I went on with our lives as usual. For the next week, everyday before we would go to school, our Granddad Al would call us and talk to each of us for a few minutes. For the last five mornings of his life we talked to him and listened as his voice became weaker as the cancer consumed him.

    I can still recall the Saturday morning that our parents called my siblings and I into the living room. As they told us that our grandfather had passed away, I felt my face turn to stone, a blank expression had taking place of my constant smile. I slowly turned to look at my brother and sister. I saw my reaction and feelings mirrored in their faces. I remember that the death of my Granddad Al did not truly hit home until I attended his funeral, where I broke down crying as my mother embraced me.

    It was a week later that I was given the chair that I sat in that night, on my thirty-fifth birthday. I stood up out of my chair coming back to the present, and turned in a half circle to gaze at it. My eyes brimmed with tears. I grabbed a Kleenex and dabbed at my eyes so I could more clearly see my only physical memory of my grandfather. I miss him with all my heart. I wish I could feel his whiskers on my cheek one last time.