Willy’s hands started to shake. We bought him an electric razor.
He couldn’t make it down the block on his own anymore. His cane was replaced with a walker. I got him a phone with giant buttons to call us if he wanted to leave the basement, and taped this note to his wall: KENNY & MARA
924-5160 / 414-9674
I commuted to class three days a week. My twin sister, Minda, went to the same school, SUNY Purchase, but she lived up there like a normal student.
My twin sister had the first cell phone of us all. I wasn’t allowed to call it. She did a study abroad year in London, and the phone was only for an emergency. There was a landline in her dorm I could call with a calling card. I’d spend ten minutes dialing and then if I was lucky enough to reach her, we’d speak till the card ran out. This was hours, not minutes. It was the farthest I had ever been from her and it hurt.
Recently the Dollywood road trip came up. My sister remembered it differently than me.
In her version my dad pulled up to the gate and let Mom out of the car to check the ticket price for two adults and five kids.
Three hundred dollars was the cost. My parents debated this figure, while we kids held our breath.
It was decided the three hundred dollars was a good investment. We all cheered.
We are going to Dollywood!
Then came the parking lot in the middle of nowhere that cost ten dollars, the car full of crying kids, my mom humming “9 to 5” as we drove away forever.
Minda also recalls that after we had stopped crying and humming “9 to 5,” we passed a firework store.
“That is where we got the pagoda,” my sister said.
Me (left) and Minda in Washington Square Park
And just like that I realized her version was righter than mine; memories flooded in.
My dad made a U-turn. He and my mom didn’t even need to discuss it. It was just a fact. The earth rotates around the sun; the Shopsin family needed to buy three hundred dollars’ worth of fireworks.
Seven baskets were filled with blackjacks, roman candles, silver fountains, paper tanks, and more than a child can imagine. Then bottle rockets were added on top to round us up to exactly three hundred dollars.
That night we set them all off.
An octagon-shaped firework was lit. It spun, spitting out sparks in a coil. When the smoke cleared it had popped up into a five-story structure.
The firework was called the “Friendship Pagoda.” Me and Minda had picked it out together. It was the undisputed winner of the night.
I gave all the time I didn’t spend with my sister to Willy.
Willy spoke to me differently than he spoke to other people. It always had a sweet kiddo vibe to it, even if he was talking about Madonna’s thighs.
There was this big truck Filled with apples All that stood between me An them apples was a gate So I just loosened the gate A little
Gently
G e n t l y
G e n t l y
So all the fucking apples come out Spill out all over But nobody seen me So I hides behind a tree Just when I hear a man comin “God damn!
Look at
That
Can’t have anything”
So I go out like I just Come upon him
An help him pick up them big Red apples
An then to pay me back for picking up the apples he gives me a dollar an some apples Willy you’re bad Huh
But I picked em all up But he gave you a dollar Yeah
An the apples was so big An yummy, too
Almost good as this time I decided to steal some watermelons Willy
So I put em in my little wagon But they was too heavy I couldn’t pull it
So I only took threee
When I got home my aunt asked Where’d I get those watermelons I said, “The guy down the street there Well well why he gave em to me”
I told a big lie you know So I took em in the backyard I had a big butcher knife An I sliced em
Oh god
Oh god
They was good
They was good
Good
The juice red
An such a beautiful color red Oh man I ate em with seeds an everything Ahhh god all of it running an sweet
And my aunt asked again Don’t you know those days always somebody gave me something Willy you’re bad
Well
Shit
I had to live somehow my father never gave me nothing I was always in trouble
You know
Always always always
But one time
One time
I went to church
And the preacher was preaching Preaching preaching preaching preaching a sermon He was talking about going to hell an all these things I got real scared
An then I told a friend of mine He scared me bad
An my friend said I don’t think he’ll do anything to you You didn’t know any better Oh yeah I says
That’s right
I didn’t know any better
I didn’t know any better
The sweet kiddo vibe was double thick in the basement. He talked about his friend Mickey a lot. We’d play blackjack for nickels, but he’d get tired fast. Willy was losing weight. His limbs had become rigid like a paper skeleton with grommets for elbows.
Sometimes before I left he’d grab my hand and wouldn’t say anything. He would squeeze softly, and we would smile at each other.
I never squeezed back. I was afraid I would crush his fingers.
Now and again a story would go super blue, the kiddo voice would disappear, and a truckload of curses would be unleashed.
When this happened Willy felt like my grandpa.
Not my real grandpa, who wore a hat with a ferret painted on it. My dad’s dad, who seemed to hate us foul-mouthed dirtballs.
Willy liked it when I cursed. It was easy to make him smile. All I had to do was call something or someone “motherfucker.” And every time I said “motherfucker” I would wonder if my dad had come from Willy instead of the ferret.
We got Willy a part-time nurse named Sonia. Willy loved her; well, he loved that she had breasts and was fair game.
I was off-limits, not because I was young, but because I was Kenny’s kid and for all intents and purposes Willy’s granddaughter. It also helped that I looked and dressed like a 12-year-old boy.
I wish I could remember one of the thousand lines he used on Sonia. More often than not it was funny and harmless, with Willy winking as he said it. Sometimes it worked and Sonia would flirt back. But other times it was relentless and creepy. When she’d help him bathe he would be hard as a rock, smiling. So she quit. I didn’t blame her.
I didn’t blame Gladys either. Or Anya or Mary. I would have quit, too. Finally the service had to stop sending women.
And if I had realized what it meant, I wouldn’t have gone along with it, but it didn’t occur to me that pussy was what was keeping Willy present.
The thing I hated most was the pillbox. I was afraid I would mess up. There were so many pills, and each had specific instructions.
That’s not true. Dementia was what I hated most.
One day Willy hit on me as I was changing his diaper. He asked why we couldn’t have a quick fuck.
The nurse that lasted the longest was named Cardinal. He was from the West Indies, short with a thick accent. He had a beautiful Spenserian script handwriting that was sometimes impossible to understand.