I did love those grapes

                                       STILL AROUND 

 

The 5 gallon cans are arranged neatly in three rows on the long clothless table. Three men that I hardly know, more or less work for my grandfather. They keep busy or he fires them fast. Fat grandpa dyes his hair orangey red or is it reddish orange? It changes in the summer time. If anybody laughs at his hair, he gets very angry, huffs and puffs and shakes his fist at them.

 

Mokie, his chief worker, orders three men to shake a leg. 'We have a lot of deliveries to do this afternoon. Move it!'  They start pouring smelly stuff into big tin funnels that squishes into big five gallon cans.
Each big can is sealed closed and one by one carried to Mokie's car, some go into a truck that has fruit painted on each side and some into Grandpa's special car. When I look in, I don't see the cans. They have magically disappeared. 

 

My father can always tell when I have visited Grandpa because my clothes smell bad and he hollers at me. I just don't know why he doesn't like his own daddy–and I don't care. Grandpa grows grapes on vines in his large back yard. Once a year I go over and pull them from the vines. Each grape is bigger than my favorite marble shooter. It is always the same dark purple, so sour it tastes sweet. Sometimes the grapes are so sweet, I think they are sour.  I never bother to wash them either. Mother lets me visit Grandpa if I promise to bring her a big bag of Concord grapes. She gives me a cloth bag she uses when she goes to the corner A & P and tells me to try to fill it without mashing the grapes. I eat so many that I get sores in my mouth and have to have it swabbed with awful tasting medicine. Since then, I don't pick them any more and Mama buys sweet green ones up to a pound and a half. They never make it to dessert time.

 

One day I asked her for grapes and she just stared at me, finally screamed, 'Who do you think I am, a millionaire? Do you think grapes grow on trees?' 'No, Mama,' I answer. 'They grow on vines.' Mama got red in the face and called me a smarty pants and never bought grapes again.

 

Fall came back and so did the Concord grapes. Grandpa was home, said 'hello' to me and left me in the kitchen with the smelly cans. I stuck my finger in one that was not yet sealed and tasted what was inside. Oh, Lord, it was terrible, worse than Castor Oil. While I was wiping it off my lips, somebody knocked loudly on the back door, turned the knob and walked in. He saw me at the cans, pulled a gun, a real gun for sure, and yelled, 'Joe, get in here Now!' Joe was Grandpa's name but mostly he was called, 'the Old Man'. As soon as the stranger saw Grandpa, he put his gun back in his waist band and shook hands with him. The policeman was very angry, called my Grandpa bad names and was going to take him to jail for letting me drink mash. 'Mr. Policeman,' I asked, 'What is mash? Please don't take grandpa to jail. I didn't drink any of that stuff. All I did was taste it and won't do it again.' But he wouldn't stop yelling. His face got redder and redder until Grandpa put his hand in his pocket, pulled out a bunch of money that had a silver clip keeping the bills straight and handed it to him. 'Thanks, Joe. Just get the kid out of here and keep her out. And you come with me.'

 

Grandpa hugged me, kissed my cheek and said, 'Goodbye, Little One,' and handed me two quarters. I never saw Grandpa again. Daddy told me his father went away. I didn't spend the quarters. Instead I pasted them in my memory book next to the page with dried Concord grapes on it.