First Words
My Grandfather was Cajun. He was probably the only one in all of New Mexico. Sometimes I could make out him saying, “Catfish,” or “Louisiana.” I wasn’t sure what any of it meant, but when he mentioned the war, he’d say, “Damné par Dieu –I never want to see the ocean again!”
Mostly though, I remember my mom telling me to leave him alone. The rules were to never trip on his hose or touch his oxygen cart. If she was mad, she’d add, not to learn nothin from him.
“Don’t touch that, Stephan Marc LeDoux, your grandpa’s cart aint’ no wagon for your stage coach. If he don’t make no noise breathing, leave him-hell alone. And don’t be learnin’ none of that dirty talk he blabbers.”
When she left for work, she’d get outside, stop, lean over, and then run back into the house, “Pick up your damned hat when you come inside. No respectful Cowboy leaves their Stetson out on the desert.”
She’d toss my cowboy hat on the counter, next to where Grandpa rolled his cigarettes. Then be gone. Mom worked nights and slept most of the day at the truck stop. Mostly it was just Grandpa and me at the trailer. In the afternoons she would come home, sometimes bring groceries, change clothes then leave again.
Once, with a cigarette hanging from his lip, Grandpa got up close to me and said, “Ah Boy, always look for da back door when ya walk into a bar...”
I pictured walking into a bar like in a western movie. I’d likely be the sheriff since I didn’t ever want to hurt anyone unless they first hurt someone else or a horse or something. I’d remember to look for the back door in case the bad guy went for it. I’d shoot him down with my pistol if I had to.
“…Sit with-a-path to each door on eitha side-o-ya. Sit with da back of da chair in front so if ya gotta get-up ya grab da chair and ya swing it at ya ad-va-saree to bust his face wide open. Then get-da-hell-outta-there b’cause ya don’t never know how many ol’friends a-man’s got.”
That wasn’t what I thought would go down when I walked into a bar, but then again, I was 6 and hadn’t ever been in a bar.
Each morning he’d start a pot of coffee on the stove, and sit at the counter rolling cigarettes while waiting for the coffee to boil. About the time the coffee made that dull popping sound in the glass bubble on the top of the lid, his coughing would have woken me up. I slept down the hall in the bedroom at the other end of the trailer.
By the time I got up, put my jeans, boots, holster, shirt and vest on, he would have poured his coffee and wheeled his oxygen cart outside and propped it up against the old, red truck. On the counter I’d find the little white tobacco bag with the yellow, pull-string, a half opened box of cigarette papers and tobacco scraps strewn about. I’d eat Cracker Jacks or popcorn or sometimes cereal straight from the box and stare at him from across the counter, through the screen-door.
He’d lean against the hood of the truck, gaze across the desert towards Las Cruces, sip his coffee, smoke his cigarettes and fiddle with the oxygen tube that went in his nose. Alternating a sip of coffee from the tin cup in his right hand, then a drag of cigarette from his left, He’d cough a few times; take a deep wheezing breath then repeat the whole process. He’d turn around toward the trailer and catch me staring at him and yell, “Ah Boy, bring me dat pot-o-hot coffee and fill-da-ol-Pa up!”
His white undershirt would be coated across the over-stretched front with oxidized red paint powder. Some spots of the trucks’ hood, where his boobs and belly leaned against every day, had no red paint left at all. All his shirts were stained yellowish grey under the arms and had three big red spots on the front. I always thought he looked how Santa must dress in summer.
I would scamper to the door, teeter on the wiggly, rusty, metal step then lunge to the ground and run across the dirt with the pot of coffee that seemed almost too heavy. My spurs rattled and the screen door slammed in an awkward rhythm. As quick as I got the empty pot back from him, I’d sit on the step of the trailer expecting the piercing crackle of a gunfight to break out any second.
He never drank the whole pot of coffee. He’d pour it, murmur something, sip on it a bit, then reach into the cab of the truck and pull out his rifle. He’d draw in deep breaths of oxygen through his nose, load the gun and cough in a rehearsed unison. Dropping his cigarette butt to the ground, he’d pull the rifle to his shoulder and shoot the heads off rabbits for an hour or so. When he was done, he’d toss the last of the coffee from the cup to the ground where it would bead up in the red dust before disappearing into the clay. He’d drag the oxygen cart up the steps and into the trailer.
In the heat of the day he sat on the couch where he dozed between coughing fits, amid bottles of oxygen that looked like torpedoes. I’d play outside until I could see the waves of heat rising from the ground and the buzzards circling over the rabbit carcasses. Once inside, I’d sit with him watching John Wayne movies or Phil Donahue on TV. Behind us was the air conditioner that would sometimes blow drops of chilled water onto my head. Mostly I would stare at the tattoos on his arms and shoulders. Naked ladies disappeared into creases of fat and skeletons and ships rode waves of flesh rolls under grey hair. Words were scrolled around his shoulders in bluish black ink but I couldn’t read them. I wondered which came first, the naked ladies or sailing ships? Were the skeletons what happened to the naked ladies? I never asked, but wondered while I switched my focus to my own boots, imagining the stitching to be tattoos on my legs. I kicked at the oxygen tanks until a flash or noise on the TV caught my attention. Sometimes a string of quiet breaths coming from Grandpa followed by a cough or snort would wake him up. Sometimes I dozed too. He’d wrestle around; cuss a little, before fading back to sleep.
The last night Mom was there she and grandpa yelled quite a bit. When he was really mad he talked Cajun. The more he talked like that the louder she yelled. Finally, she yelled so loud that I was awake. He said she was a “No good lot-lizard whore.”
“All that’s keeping me here is you.” she screamed. “You scare that boy and hold me back from doing better than this damned place.”
“That boy’s yo re-sponsi-bility, don’t yo go-get-no-ideas and leave with some-damned-trucka’. No self-re-spectun-trucka’ gonna take a whore an-her boy. I ain’t holdin’ no-body back, you go if yo so un-happ-y here. Yo go, I give you da-whole-kingdom-come just take that boy with-ya. Soyez une mère comme Dieu vous a eu l'intention pour être. -Be a mother like God intended.”
In the morning I woke to silence. I put on my jeans and fussed to get my holster cinched. As I tucked my shirt into my pants I could see Grandpa sleeping on the couch, the TV glare reflecting off his pale face. His mouth was open and the oxygen hose slightly away from his nose. He was quiet, not even moving. I did like Mom said and left him be. I went outside clinking my spurs with each step toward the truck. I stared across the desert seeing only shrub brush breaking the horizon in the distance. Squinting, I could make out rabbits hopping from shrub to shrub and disappearing into holes, then jumping back out. I looked to the sky and saw no birds. The air was already getting warm; it had to be well after the usual time Grandpa normally came out. I decided while he slept, I’d shoot the rabbits to feed the birds on my own.
I reached into the truck and got the rifle. I didn’t realize it was quite so heavy. I stepped backwards, pivoting on my left boot heel trying to both kick the bottom of the door with my right boot and push it closed with the butt of the gun, when I pulled the trigger. For a split-second, I felt as if I was reaching forward with my own hand through the expulsion of the shot. The recoil quickly landed me square on my back, knocking the wind out of me as I hit the ground. The door of the truck swung back open. Everything started happening in slow motion, the trailer; the part where Grandpa was, instantly exploded into a giant ball of flames. A second later, the rest of the trailer burst into flames. I sat back up on the ground, protected by the open door of the old truck but still feeling the heat of the sudden inferno. As quickly as it lit up in yellow and red and orange, the air turned black with smoke and for the first time in my life I swore like an old sailor.
* I submitted this into a loosely organized, morale building writing contest at a previous job. No one else entered so instead of giving me the win, the contest was cancelled. Later I quit.
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