the father of my grandmother's son's son
I used to play music. I wasn’t very good at it.
Instruments always felt unwieldy in my hands, digging uncomfortably into my neck, armpits, and other tender parts of the body. I found the constant drilling of the same clunky chord progressions grueling. Singing was enjoyable, but I can’t say it was for anyone else within earshot.
My family isn't very musically inclined, though, save my grandmother who passed when I was very young.
Her saxophone has always been tucked away in the garage. Sometimes my father would pull it out and stare at it in a solemn, showy kind of way as to elicit the attention of his children. On a slow weekend I might buy into the melodrama, and we’d stand with it between us like a stage barrier.
He’d spin grand tales of smoky San Francisco jazz clubs.
Her time in the Arizona State University marching band.
“She hung with the original Beats.”
“Played a set with Charles Mingus.”
He regaled histories
wrung and wrung again
ginning them to myth.
But, the cloth of his memory is a tattered thing.
Stories thin enough for light to shine through.
On the surface of the dulled brass, we’d search for a glimmer of its former luster.
My father, brushing his fingers over the instrument, like a rune.
Working to evoke a sign, an energy.
A song we haven’t heard before.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My sole memory of a living Elanor Wardlaw Wilkins is tucked away in a nearly wordless, nearly formless place.
Sat on a mustard colored carpet, I begin to squeal, as it dawns on me that the large woman approaching has a vanilla cookie and that the vanilla cookie is for me.
This vision then shifts to the third-person as memories often do.
Watching us, watching her watching me devour it whole.
Cheerily imploring, “Slow down!”
She wears a plain denim dress, wide as the sky,
her downcast smile, enveloping me in a warm glow.
However, it is the photo that was presented to the mourners at her funeral, balding and glassy eyed, that fills in for the grand majority of stories relayed to me about her. And so, it was one day, while watching my dad hopelessly heave and huff into the saxophone, that I had a vision of my cancer-ridden, 400 pound grandmother marching across Sun Devils stadium, laughing at her son mercilessly with me.
Our matriarch,
Guiding the troop to form a human “LOL”
They’re playing the Imperial March, too.
It was my favorite from a brief period of my time when I went to football games with my father.
And I see that I am tearful, like he always was
from exertion or exaltation or something else I can’t put a finger on
outside of the first-person.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
later now
realizing
the version of my dad in this story is the september 2021 dad of his last visit.
i wonder which version of his mom he sees
and what he’ll see of me if he reads this.
i’ll have him know that he was with a 10 year old version of myself.
a 23 year old 10 year old version.
but, yeah, i played music.
it’s true.
i just went to youtube to verify the statement.
my fingers feel like worms now and i’m uncertain if i should continue writing.
it doesn’t feel 23 to be embarrassed of yourself at 15.
that feels
16 to me.
i shouldn’t care.
right?
lord save me from the day i come across this piece again.
i envy elanor’s luck
to have never existed in 720p or google docs
never having been caught at 23
being earnest.
anyways
what you were going to write about today
another nearly wordless
nearly formless place
many years ago
in your father’s car
backing out of the garage
he was giving you lyric advice
“avoid writing songs that start with
i and my.”
“avoid me’s and mine’s.”
even then
you felt there was something wrong with this
nevertheless
it is a memory
that has captured you
one you’re uncertain
who to give.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Hm,” my dad grunts in response, staring down an empty I-8.
We are driving home from a brief and largely uneventful weekend trip together, just him and I. The wind is howling over acres and acres of barren plotland. Bales of hay wall us in on both sides.
“What do you think?”
“I like it. I’m struggling to figure out what it’s about, though.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s about the way we experience the lives of others. How we remember them.”
“Yeah. It seems to be about a lot of different things.”
“I guess I also wrote it at a time when I was feeling pretty weird about being 23. I was writing a lot about that. I didn’t feel very 23.”
“Didn’t feel 23? Older?”
“No, but not younger either.”
“What does that mean?”
“Um. I’m not entirely sure.”
HIs questions and my responses are beginning to bother me.
“Also, what’s this about Charles Mingus? She never played music with Charles Mingus. I don’t know where that came from.”
“Oh,” I say, a bit taken aback, “I guess I thought it came from you.”
Regret finds its way into my tone as I recall myself this morning privately pulling up the document I had written last year, editing and cutting out sentences I thought he would not like or have a hard time understanding.
I reminded myself mid-paragraph to read slowly, thoughtfully.
Careful not to stumble on my own words.
“I’ll change it.”
“Yeah. Well, good job, son,” gentle indifference splat out like hundreds of bugs on a windshield.
Hot with a childish embarrassment I did not know I was still capable of feeling, I strain to place my laptop in the back seat.
Sentimentality crusts over me like drool.
Time passes moodily and detached
until I hear,
“It’s a shame you didn’t know my mother.”
“Why is that?” I reply, guardedly.
“Things would have been different.”
“How so?”
“Um. I’m not entirely sure.”
“No?”
“They just would be. You didn’t know her, though, and that makes me sad.”
“What’s strange is that I feel like I do.”
Silence.
“How do you feel like you know her?” I hear.
“I feel her warmth in our family. In the way you talk about her.”
Silence.
“Do you feel like you knew her?”
“What?”
“Do you feel like you knew her?” I ask again, clumsily.
“Of course I do.”
“You do or you did?”
“... Both. Yes.”
Silence.
“Do you feel like I know you?”
“Sometimes,” responding slowly, eyes catching in the rearview mirror. “Do you feel like you know me?”
“Sometimes. But, when I do, it’s when I feel that I just am you, if that makes sense.”
“It does. That’s how I know you, too.”
“You feel like you know me?”
“Yes,” turning to myself, “Don’t I feel like you to you, too?”
The road stretches onward.
Music plays softly overhead.
Theodore Wilkins is a writer based in New York City. His work can be found in SOFT QTRLY, Thought Catalog, Tabletop, and on his website theodore-wilkins.com