I never meant to become a grandfather. I never meant to grow past my youth and into this decrepid state. Maybe, I thought to myself, that is why i can hardly bear this. I was constantly reminded of the smell in the bathroom of the old-folks home, or my grandmother's house, a mixture of Ivory soap, orthodic insoles and sweat slowly leaking from old pores. An intense claustrophobia struck me, etched its way down my spine as small mounds of tense flesh. I had to get away, I had to escape into some vague vortex to my own childhood. It was far too late for me to return to my life outside, a fact my old bones drove into my mind with aches like I had been struck with a railroad tie recently, and so my mind clung to that scent, no that stench that now gripped me.
I had never much liked the langorous car trips and lazy days that marked trips to my grandparents' house. The smell of dust, the old courderoy of the worn couches, the smell of dumplings in the steamer, the perception of slight decay; the monotone discussions of family, religion and life which had never struck my fancy, mostly because they always fell well short of meaning and squarely into the banality that characterized our lives.
And so, as a child I always retreated into the musty basement with the old Christmas tree that never seemed to come down. There my brother and I played at boredom and Tiddly-Winks, padding over the harsh outdoor carpeting that looked somewhat well placed against the faux wood paneling and water-stained acoustical tiling. There we played at hide-and-seek among pastel leisure suits, philosophy tracts and old sermons; it was there I remember the small shell nightlights that etched frightening lines of armoires, easy-chairs and beds into the walls. These were my nightmares in the ancient house, they were the ghouls that kept me from a sense of ease, a sense of comfort.
And yet, there was a deceptive warmth in this home. From the white lace curtains on the front door that my grandmother had sowed in her childhood to the way those worn couches broke around you like a swell of the ocean, comfortable in a way few things can ever be. It was the sort of warmth that slipped out of memory quickly as the impression of it faded and only the idea remained. I always reveled in that glow when I found it and likewise always forgot it by the next morning, only the etching of the smells and the drone of voices remaining firmly in my mind. Now I saw so many things I never had, ironic that this wisdom only comes when there is no way to use it. Nothing can be changed now, I will die alone here while my daughters and sons laugh at their dinner parties in houses with fine crystal chandelliers. There they forget about my very existence, the wrinkled fey who was never as warm as they'd like and was always a stern man. As fine wines slide down the long course of their throats they make sure to forget again, until the bill comes like it has every month for years. There is a certain despair in what I have said, I know that. But after years of sleeping on hard beds with hospital corners and seeing my friends die one by one I simply have given up on all hope of a better life.
There was a time a while back when i tried to be a happier man, when i tried to make myself see the best. I played poker, throwine small chips into a large pot, but as this was never what i really cared for in my youth so it was never quite what i expected then. When all of my friends were sitting around an Americana style table with blue and red plaid table-cloth and a Tabasco bottle dressed up in a knit sombero enjoying intently focused on each other and the cards in the flop i would sit and drink orange juice. I would be bored. I would wish my girlfriends would get out of work and call me. In short, even though they were some of my best friends, I wanted more and different experiences. What were those experiences, though? She was in Washington at school. Even if it cost fifty-thousand dollars a year she needed to connections to the families, needed to know the children of the political glitterati. She would always tell me that things would work out, that this was only temporary and she was lying through her teeth. We both knew that she would remain there and that the only way for me to be with her was to move. In the hours spent on the phone, the rampant text messaging and the over-arching loneliness we slowly grew apart. That winter she suggested we take a break to make sure we'd remain strong. I didn't hear from her again until five years later. She ended up dating a man she'd met there in the months preceding the break and they'd ended up really enjoying each other while i sat on the other end as the unwitting third wheel to our demise. I've never forgiven her, not really, and i will never again date someone i cannot run down the street to see. It was as though she had driven a single eyelash through my chest, it hurt so much worse than anything i'd ever known but i couldn't see any wound that would cause my internal atrophy.