Fried Fish

Spirits visit Grandma Flossy Mae. Rows of the departed return to gather around her bed, gossip, and dance, waving their hands over her head. Someone looking in her window would think the ghosts were auditioning to be in a low-budget instructional film about casting spooky black people spells, but no one ever looks through the window because Grandma Flossy Mae’s curtains stay shut.  

She doesn’t have to roll over to know who’s visiting. She just sniffs for colognes that reek of stale moonshine and perfumes that are indistinguishable from dollar store hairspray. Both are dead giveaways that uninvited deceased family members are back. 

Often, Granddaddy Clifton floats in and sits on the beige La-Z-Boy recliner, to watch Jerry Springer reruns. Grandma hates that he doesn’t take his always shined shoes off in her house, especially since ghosts don’t have feet. She points down to the imprints of his butt cheeks and then up to make sure I see the little grease stain his hair leaves on the pillow. He’s not going to stop making messes or watching junk TV or being vain just because he’s dead.   

Another time, Aunt Marge throws herself a fashion show and tries on every single one of Grandma’s earrings, losing for good one of those tiny plastic backs that are so hard to keep up with. She doesn’t say sorry. Grandma suspects that Aunt Marge stole her only pearls. She tells Aunt Marge, if one more darned thing goes missing, she’s going to move to a new house. See you there, Flossy Mae, Aunt Marge spits back. When Aunt Marge leaves she takes Grandma’s bottle of Joy de Jean Patou with her. Grandma hopes Aunt Marge will be thoughtful enough to spray some before the next visit. Ghosts don’t shower and there’s not enough incense in this world to combat the explosions of funk they leave behind.

Grandma makes me promise to keep my mouth shut about our dead relatives who won’t stay away. I’m not supposed to discuss any of these chauffeured invitations to the afterlife with anybody. When B.B. King’s spirit comes to serenade her from the porch, completely offkey in his advanced age, she chuckles that that thrill most certainly is gone. It’s a good joke that she wants to tell other people. But she can’t because they’ll say her brain is broken and put her in a home. A home where she won’t be allowed to make her own coffee or watch so many channels anymore. A home where the spirits will still find her.

When the visitors are gone she sleeps real deep. One time, she dreams about hugging her mama, whom she hasn’t seen in seventy years. But Grandma doesn’t know if her mom smells the same. If you smell something when you’re asleep you wake up. If you don’t wake up, you die. 

Grandma is sitting in her armchair when the remote falls. Her body can’t reach it. She sits and hurts until Granddaddy drifts in. He’s still for a long time but finally presses the panic button on her necklace. He flips channels until he gets to ‘As the World Turns,’ then he puts the remote back in her chair, smooches her forehead, and exits. 

After Stroke #1: Grandma starts walking with a hot pink cane. When Granddaddy comes back, she knocks him over with it. He should have stayed until help arrived.

After Stroke #2: Grandma starts using a walker and her dreams go away. When Granddaddy comes back, he takes off his shoes and sits on the corner of the bed, so that she can stay in her La-Z-Boy.

After Stroke #3: Grandma sits at the kitchen table, hand jittery, knife wild. She has to cut the onions and set them out. If she doesn’t no one else in the family will use enough. 

After Stroke #4: Grandma stares and stabs at the air. Sometimes with the cane. Other times with the knife. She is protecting herself from something we cannot see. 

I start to wonder how Grandma will trouble me once she’s dead. If she’ll hover around with a stopwatch as I take a decade to clumsily debone a fish and cry over my pricked finger. If she’ll throw out all of my instant rice, because eating it is a sin. If she’ll anoint me in cocoa butter and Vaseline as I doze off.

The dead relatives come by less and less. Ghosts, it turns out, are no better equipped than the living to tolerate the sickness and unraveling of their beloveds. Grandma doesn’t miss picking up after the sloppy visitors. Instead, she sits in her armchair, buried in blanket, wondering how much longer she’ll sit in her armchair, buried in blanket. She watches cooking shows featuring dishes she’ll never try. 

Years pass. Stroke #5 doesn’t show up. Grandma turns eighty-three, eighty-four, and eighty-five and, with each passing year, makes a point to watch less and less news. Ain’t like they’d tell nobody if something good happened to happen, anyway. 

When I ring, she’s soaking her feet in a bucket of Meals on Wheels pudding. Even though they know she doesn’t want sweets, half of what gets dropped off is sugar. Her curtain is open so she can watch summer disappear. She’s dreaming again. This time about fish. That means somebody’s pregnant. It’s not me. It’s not my cousin Chariot, who has a thing in her arm that prevents her body from making babies. And Grandma promises to have a heart attack if Chariot’s brother Dante has knocked somebody else up. That boy don’t need no more goddamn kids.

If no one is having babies, it must be a craving. She has Uncle Ray come over to fry up some perch, more than usual. It’s the best perch she’s ever had. She eats it with her hands. 

Within the week she’s gone. 

After the funeral, I see the almost empty bottle of Joy de Jean Patou back on her dresser, and notice an oily fingerprint on the remote. I hope Aunt Marge and Granddaddy enjoyed that perch when they came to get Grandma.