My grandfather thinks I’m Theo Huxtable. I learn this at dinner when I visit him at his condominium in Asheville, North Carolina. He’s sitting in a rocking chair, giving me advice, and I’m not exactly sure if he’s been prescribed the correct prescription drug.
“It’s important that you study hard. What are your interests?” he asks.
I tell him I don’t know.
He says, “Well, you should figure that out.”
My grandmother clears her throat and smiles when we make eye contact.
I say, “This dinner was delicious.”
My grandfather says, “Theo, you sound just like your father.”
My grandmother hurries around the dining room table clearing plates, almost tipping over her glass of wine and her chair.
“It’s so nice of you to visit,” she says. “You should come more often.”
My grandfather says something about Jimmy Carter and my grandmother and I decide to ignore him. He is stuffing a pipe full of tobacco with a chip of loose skin hanging from his forehead and an old Band-Aid falling from his scalp. His face looks a little like a melting ski slope. “Remind me to show you the new car,” he says.
“Where is it?” I ask him.
“Where do you think? It’s a car. It’s in the garage,” he says.
He stares at me and I stare back.
Adam’s writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Underground Voices, Thieves Jargon, Storyglossia, and Pear Noir. He lives in Brooklyn and works in publishing. Visit him here: http://adamadamadamadamadam.blogspot.com