Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt

I picked up my mother at the Orlando airport, and during the hour-long drive down to Melbourne, she went through a laundry list of warnings about Bob, her younger brother and my uncle.

"Whatever you do, don't sit in his chair," she said with a severity that seemed excessive. "Don't touch it, don't stand near it, don't even look at it. Just walk around it like it's a dead hobo in the street."

My mom has never had a flair for descriptive adjectives, but to listen to her talk about Bob's recliner, she sounded like Kafka riffing on insects. She told me about leather armrests caked with dried food, cigarette burns like tiny bullet holes, and a seat tattooed with the sweaty imprint of Bob's Brobdingnagian naked ass.

"He sits in his chair naked?" I asked.

"All the time," she said with a shudder. "He usually puts on a pair of pants if he knows guests are stopping by. But you never know when he's going to strip down and start watching TV, a plate of something fried balanced on his gut. That chair has become a biohazard."

I suspected that Mom was exaggerating, preparing me for the worst so I wouldn't be alarmed by the reality. She'd done the same thing to me countless times in my life, painting a picture of unimaginable horror to lower my expectations. When my grandfather had a stroke, she drove me to the hospital with grim predications of what awaited us.

"You won't recognize him anymore," she told me. "His skin is almost entirely translucent, and you can see all the veins and gooey stuff underneath. You'll want to stay away from his face because of the moaning and foamy discharge. Not that you'll be able to get that close. He's surrounded by IV tubes and wires and beeping monitors. He's more machine than man now."

When I finally walked into my grandfather's hospital room, trembling from the suspense, and saw that he didn't resemble a Lon Chaney character, I was so relieved that I almost burst into laughter.

"Oh, thank god," I said, smiling down at my grandfather's limp, ashen body.

KEEP ON READIN', IT DON'T COST NUTHIN'

But there was a part of me — a selfish part, I'll admit — that wanted my mom to be telling the truth this time. When I volunteered to drive down to Melbourne with her, it wasn't in the spirit of charity. I wasn't here because I wanted one last meaningful visit with my elderly grandmother, who was still living in the same rickety Florida house she'd called home for almost 40 years. It was to see my uncle Bob, who, at 50-something, was divorced, unemployed, morbidly obese, riddled with cancer, and living with his widowed mother. Like a rubbernecking driver who slows down while passing a car accident, I just wanted a glimpse of the wreckage.

Not that my mother was being totally altruistic. She'd only flown down to Florida out of obligation, as the sole sibling (her other brothers and sisters live near her in Michigan) to lose the annual "who's gonna check on Mom?" coin toss. Or at least that's the polite way to describe it. As my brother more accurately summed up our mission, we were "poking the bodies with a stick to make sure nobody's dead."

I agreed to join my mom for her unpleasant task, but I didn't make the trek down to Florida's taint because I'm a loyal son. I wanted a little something for my effort. I wanted to be entertained. I wanted a spectacle. I didn't just want Bob to be as comically quirky as my mother had described. I wanted him to be a thousand times worse. I wanted him to be like Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now; bald and sweaty, his face smeared with grime, crouched in the shadows of a mud hut and muttering "The horror, the horror."

When we pulled into the driveway, Bob was waiting for us on the front porch. He was rounder than I remembered, and he'd let his beard grow unchecked, which was now singed orange from nicotine. But otherwise, nothing about him was scream inducing. He didn't remind me of Colonel Kurtz or any other iconic fictional madman. At worst, he looked like Gandalf if the wizard had let himself go and given up on magic for competitive eating.

"Ear-Ache! There he is! Get over here, you ol' son of a gun!"

At first, I didn't realize he was talking to me. I'd forgotten all about that annoying pet name, which he'd started calling me when I was just a kid. Thirty-some years later, I still didn't understand it. My childhood hadn't been fraught with ear infections. Was it because my first name began with an "E" and ear-ache was the first similar-sounding-but-not-really word that occurred to him? Or did he think it was funny to make my name sound like it was being pronounced by a deaf-mute? Whatever the reason, he clung to "Ear-Ache" like it was something sacred; a private joke that only we understood.

After exchanging cordial nods with my mom, he pulled me close and gave me a bear hug, his belly thrusting against me like a medicine ball. "I'm glad you're here, Ear-Ache," he said. "It'll be nice to have some sanity around this place for awhile." And then, thoroughly winded, he released me and collapsed in his porch chair, sighing deeply and lighting up another cigarette.

It was the only meaningful conversation we would have all morning.

As Mom puttered around with my grandmother inside, I sat on the porch and watched Bob smoke. His brand was Winston Unfilters, and he had several cartons stacked on a table, piled high like grim pyramids, a testament to his bad decisions. There were so many pregnant pauses — interrupted only when Bob asked something innocuous like "How's your brother doin'? Still got those damn pugs?" — that I was able to study his smoking technique. He pinched his cigarette at the tip and jerked it towards his face with every puff, like he was holding a gecko's tail and it was trying to slither away. And he only smoked half of each cigarette before snuffing it out, which I guess was because that's when his lungs, already riddled with cancer and emphysema, started screaming at him, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

When he ran out of pointless questions and the silence started to make him uncomfortable, he filled the void by bursting into song. "Nobody's right if everybody's wrong," he warbled. I vaguely recognized it as a Buffalo Springfield song, but I wondered why he only sang the one verse. Surely he knew at least a few more lyrics. Was there some significance to that line, something that he was trying to convey to me? Or did he just stop singing because of the violent coughing fits?

He eventually fell asleep, and I wandered inside to find my mother and grandma. The house was strangely silent, so I went room to room looking for them. The place was a lot smaller than I remembered, and in a terrible state of disrepair, like a neglected dollhouse or a tree fort built by a well-meaning father with no discernable carpentry skills. But still, I had a lot of memories tied up in this house — some of them good and some of them... well...

It wasn't entirely my grandparents' fault. There was a lot of unfair competition. My other set of grandparents, on my dad's side, lived in Rochester, New York in a sprawling three story, five bedroom home. During my youth, our family visited them several times a year, and it was always like Santa's toy factory during a post-holiday overstock sale. My brother and I were literally showered with gifts from the moment we walked in to the moment our parents finally dragged us, kicking and screaming bloody murder, back into the holding cell of our family's car. If I so much as hinted that I enjoyed, say, the comedy stylings of Bill Cosby, there would be dozens of his records waiting for me the next time we visited. Our grandparents took such giddy delight in us, applauding even our least impressive accomplishments, like finishing our meals and dressing ourselves and bowel movements.

"Did you make a poo?" they'd ask when we emerged from the bathroom, their eyes wide as saucers, ready to celebrate another victory with us. We feigned surprise, but inside were thinking, "Why yes, we did have a successful doodle. Thank you for noticing." After too many of these visits, we became resentful towards our parents. "You never notice when I make a poo," we'd mutter under our breathes. But as much as this irritated them, they knew it was a passing fad. A grandparent's fascination with your colon is charming at four, but when you reach 10 it just gets creepy.

My other grandparents, on my mom's side, didn't make things quite so delightful for us. They treated our arrival like a tax audit, and my brother and I were IRS agents. From the moment we trespassed on their property, they eyed us suspiciously, somewhere between grudging indulgence and overt hostility. "I suppose you'll be wanting something to eat," my grandfather would growl long before he ever said hello, and we all bowed our heads with the shame of grifters caught in the act.

My brother and I tried to stay upbeat during those visits, but it was difficult not to daydream about our other grandparents, who made us feel like fat bureaucrats, pampered and overindulged. We missed the plastic Chinese-made crap toys we didn't need and having our backs tickled by wrinkled fingers as we drifted off to sleep. Even without the glaring lack of amenities, our family vacations in Florida were no picnic. Unless you enjoyed sleeping in a poorly ventilated and oppressively humid house (while mostly deaf, my grandparents had an uncanny ability to hear the slightest movement anywhere near their AC control, and they'd punish offenders with extreme prejudice), wrapped up in a ragged knit blanket that smelled like mold and hydrogen sulfide, lying on a stiff fold-out couch that any reasonable person would've set fire to and abandoned on the side of a highway long ago.

As I wandered through the house, giving myself a guided tour of my past, I saw that not much had changed. The house still had the same hardwood floors that looked and felt like aluminum. It was still filled with furniture that belonged in the back room of an antique store, arranged with a decorating scheme that could best be described as "I'll just put this here till I figure out where it goes."

All of their framed art looked like it'd been painted either by a serial killer or somebody taking an adult education painting class during or just after a bitter divorce (and possibly both). A sole bookshelf contained ornamental pinecones (they're art deco and they're free) and the occasional huddle of books, with the most popular titles faced out — like "Dr. Phil's Ultimate Weight Loss Solution" and "The House at Pooh Corner" — as if they were being promoted for quick sale.

The predominate color scheme, just as it had been in my muddy memories, was brown. The couch was brown, the rugs were brown, the walls were brown. Even the dog, sleeping peacefully on the kitchen floor, was a dark hue of shit-brown. I wondered if this was intentional, maybe as a form of camouflage. Did they think any color, even just a splash of yellow in the curtains, would attract all the evils of the world to their doorstep?

And then there was the chair. The chair. Bob's sanctuary from the outside world; his throne of diabetic entitlement, his death knell with padded cushions. This was the dreaded chair that my mother had warned me about, implored me to ignore like she'd once begged me not to look directly at a solar eclipse. I had no memory of it from my childhood, but it was too dilapidated and bedraggled to be a new addition. It was covered in stains equal parts plasma and Worcestershire sauce, and the material, at one time probably leather, was so weathered from age and overuse that it now resembled pudding skin. Even just looking at it made me feel dirty, like I needed a Silkwood shower and I needed it fast.

"There you are," my mom exclaimed, bursting into the room with a defiant stride. "I'm been looking everywhere for you. Don't just stand there staring at the walls. We have a lot to get done this weekend!"

The rest of the day was a flurry of activity, and most of it seemed like pointless busywork. Floors were scrubbed, kitchen cabinets were rearranged, random boxes were taken out of closets and put into different closets, electrical cords were examined like we were looking for fingerprints. I tried to make myself useful. I volunteered to mow the back yard, until I realized that it'd been ignored for too many years and was now a dense thicket of tropical vegetation. A lawn mower would be useless against this monstrous flora, some of which had leaves large and sturdy enough to scoop up a baby. I needed one of those machetes that jungle guides use, and the best my grandmother had was a dull bread knife.

Our big mission of the day was getting the kitchen stocked with groceries. Food was in shocking short supply. By the state of their fridge, you'd think they lived in the Warsaw Ghetto and expected to be herded onto a train at any moment. In keeping with the Holocaust theme, my grandmother was alarmingly thin and frail. Even for a woman of her advanced age — my best guess was somewhere in the 90s (she guarded her exact age like a TV actress auditioning for a high school drama) — it still isn't healthy to resemble a scarecrow made out of wax paper. You should not be able to disappear simply by turning sideways, unless you're a shapeshifter or Karen Carpenter's ghost. She was so emaciated, a strong breeze could've carried her away. Bob, on the other hand, was the size of Buddha. Whatever food had actually made it into the house over the past few years, it was pretty obvious who was getting first dibs.

We went through a list of supplies, and Grandma dismissed all of it as extravagant. Bread? Not in this economy. A few cans of soup? Not unless you've won the lottery. Meat or poultry? The neighbors will smell it and think we're a bunch of high rollers. Toilet paper? Either FDR or Jesus, she forgot which, advised her that splurging on toiletries was a sign of moral corruption.

"What about cat food?" Mom asked. "It looks like you're out."

"Cat food?" my grandmother sniffed. "For who?"

As if on cue, my mom and I both turned and looked directly at the cat, which was perched on the kitchen table just a few feet away from Grandma.

In some distant part of her brain, she must've been aware that she had a pet. There were six industrial-size bags of kitty litter in the garage. Why she thought food was a wasteful expense but feces control was a financial priority was perplexing. It's simple biology. Before something comes out, you have to put something in.

"The cat looks hungry," I mentioned. "The Cat", including the definite article, was the cat's full name. When my grandmother had rescued it from an elderly neighbor who died suddenly, she christened it "the cat" and that was that.

My grandmother turned and glared at the cat like she thought it had snuck up on her and was making condescending "I'm with stupid" gestures behind her. "Oh, he takes care of himself," she said.

The cat, I swear to you, did a perfect double-take, and gave us an expression that seemed to say, "I know, I know. And she really believes it too, that's what makes it so funny."

We eventually ran out of chores and settled in for the evening. It was, for somebody accustomed to a certain amount of technology, an adjustment. There was no wireless internet connection, no cellphone reception, not even a cable signal. The television (black and white, of course, and big as a steamer trunk) was equipped with rodent ears, so jagged you needed a tetanus shot just to touch it. And for some reason, it was only capable of finding stations that played repeats of Gilligan's Island on a constant loop. For the first time in my 30s, I was sequestered from the outside world, forced into a total information blackout.

I was panicky at first, but it's amazing how easily the shackles of the modern world slip away. "A guy could get some serious thinking done in this place," I thought, as I stretched out on their rayon chenille couch and listened to the wonderful sounds of nothing.

"Nobody's right if everybody's wrong!"

Bob was singing again. But it didn't grate on my nerves, like it'd done in the past. When I closed my eyes, I could almost imagine he was a bluebird — an extremely corpulent, sickly bluebird, but still — hovering just outside the living room window and serenading us with Vietnam protest songs. As long as you convinced yourself that all bluebirds native to Florida are a little phlegmy, the ruse was easy to believe.

Bob was in his chair by 4pm, and he remained there for the rest of the night. At some point, his shirt came off, just as my mom had predicted. A few minutes later, his shoes were gone. It was like he was stripping in slow motion.

"Nobody's right if everybody's wrong!" he sang, shouting out the words at odd intervals. I wondered if he had some rare form of Tourette's, but only for the lyrics to "For What It's Worth".

He shoveled his dinner into his mouth from a chipped blue bowl. Bits of mucousy food fluttered from his chin and sprinkled his chest hair, like a fresh snowfall on an Illinois farmland. He made no attempt to wipe it off, and I wasn't going to be the one to mention his bad hygiene and ruin what was otherwise a perfectly civil family potluck.

Bob slouched in his chair, his belly fighting to be the highest point of his body. I watched as one of his feet slid down his blue calves, slowly peeling away a sock with his toe, like a burlesque stripper removing her fishnets. It wasn't even dark outside yet, but I knew if I didn't make my escape soon, I would be witnessing something that would scar me irrevocably.

"Nobody's right if everybody's wrong," he mumbled. And then I heard the unmistakable "snap" of his pants being unbuckled.

"Goodnight everybody," I said, slipping into the guest room like I thought I was being chased.

(To read part two, go here.)