My wife and I were talking about great funny lines in songs and landed on “The Perfect Country and Western Song” by David Allan Coe. After a glass of wine, we came up with the first line in this short story. The rest is my thriller mind at work!
The First Time I Saw Grandma Drunk
The first time I saw my grandmother drunk was the day I got out of prison. My wife wasn’t there, but that was expected, given her newly attained title of Ex. My father was somewhere more important. In his executive life that was anywhere but with me. As I made my way through the series of prison gates, I stared at the ground, like I had for the past three years, ashamed and alone, even though I knew I shouldn’t.
Clearing the last gate, I felt the warm sunshine on my face and my mother rushed to hug me. Overwhelmed by the shock of how good that felt, I cried in her arms. Grandma held her distance, wobbling in the hot sun. She stared at the ground, afraid that the truth would snatch her from the earth if she looked at me.
I’d done it for her.
Gathering the scraps of compassion that remained after three years in prison, I walked to her and silently hugged her. She smelled of bourbon and her flowery cologne. I knew her muffled wailing against my shoulder was her effort to expel her crippling guilt from her soul.
She’d been meticulous. Gloves, a mask, even a Wi-Fi jammer that had disabled her victim’s alarm and security cameras. The only mistake she’d made was not accounting for my security cameras.
Her target had emerged from her murky past when I unknowingly had moved into his neighborhood. She’d spotted him on her second visit. It was a crisp fall day when we were walking my yellow lab. When she’d spotted him, she’d dropped the leash and had stood frozen, her expression of someone who’d just witnessed the most gruesome scene in a horror movie. The man, about her age, eyed her then laughed and shook his head with distain. When I picked up the leash, I noticed the tears running down her cheeks. I gently led her back to my house.
Once at home, I asked her about the man. She stayed silent. But the terror in her eyes signaled to me that he’d done one of those things that can shatter a woman.
Two months later, on her last visit, she sat motionless in the darkness in my living room at three in the morning, a laptop and a tattered shoebox full of photographs wrapped in her arms as if they held the deepest secrets of her seventy years on this earth. Instantly, I knew what I had to do. I went to my office and immediately wiped all footage for that night from my security cameras. Returning to the living room, I grabbed the box of fireplace matches from the mantle. When I headed to the closet and retrieved my jacket, she stood and silently followed me to my jeep in the garage.
Together, we drove to the banks of the Allegheny River, upriver from the prying eyes of Pittsburgh. We never spoke on the drive and haven’t spoken since. Her secrets had gone up in flames and had been swallowed up by the deep rushing river.
The knock on my door came two days later. The detective, flanked by two police officers, confirmed my identity and then handcuffed my hands behind me. After a quick search of my person, they stuffed me in the back seat of their car. As we pulled away from my house, I spotted the man watching me from the sidewalk. His arm was in a fresh cast, and a bandage covered his forehead. I quickly learned that grandma had forgotten one more thing. The softball bat with my name and prints on it.
The rest of the legal process was a blur. I knew her secrets were safe with me.
Now, holding grandma in my arms, I realized I was proud to be an ex-con.
