Drinking buddies

[jack_babalon]

Grandma used to get real drunk while watching Spencer: For Hire reruns. This was long after Grandpa went to bed (he left work before dawn in a white apron splattered with stains that would not wash out) and Grandma was well into her third, fourth ("Whaddya… countin’ now?") cocktail of Satan’s Whiskers. During the commercials, without fail, she would bolt into the kitchen with a speed that made mockery of her age (know that she has been in her sixties for some twenty years now). Grandma would measure and mix the shots of gin, vermouth, liqueur and orange juice with a calculated fury, she was a mad scientist in that kitchen, giggling and mumbling to herself… or her last husband… or my long passed grand-aunt. By the time Hawk and Spence were back on she was planted in a recliner that sat not more than two yards from the screen with a fresh round to keep her going. I truly believe that given enough time and gin she could have come up with a cure for cancer. Make that "given enough time, gin and Robert Urich."

When the credits would start to roll, she would allow herself a faint smile before clicking off the TV with a remote not much smaller than my keyboard. We sit there in the dark of the living room for a few minutes. She would then drain the last of the Whiskers and set the drink down and look over at me with a stare that said not only had she forgotten that I was sitting there, but that she had had for a moment forgotten who I was. She would then come to and squint into a narrow suspicious appraisal through lenses that could double for magnifying glasses.

"You’ve grown!" she says as if I’ve sprouted a few inches during the course of the show.

"So they tell me."

"You’re a what… Senior now?"

"Sophomore"

"Heh" she just lets the information marinate for a minute before lifting her empty glass and rattling it at me like a bell. This meant I was now on refill duty.

I hit her up strong. If I didn’t she’d just mutter a ’faggot’ at me and make her way to the kitchen, pour the drink down the drain and fix herself up a ’real drink… none of that pussy shit’. God help me if I used up the last of any of the ingredients making pussy shit. Last time woke poor Grandpa right out of bed and the neighbors threatened to call the cops and well… you get the picture.

I hand her the drink.

She sips.

She lets the Whiskers sit in her cheek a second. She gives a satisfied smack of the lips and a nod of the head so faint only a particle physicist could argue that it ever existed. I take a seat on the couch to her left.

Grandma gets a few more sips in before she turns to look over at me with the uniquely belligerent curiosity of drunks.

"Why’d you do, it?"

"Do what?"

"That!" she waves the palm of her hand over her head.

This was the universal sign my family had adopted to signify my mohawk.

I had just gotten it recently. A hunchbacked skinhead named Gator hooked me up right before we left for the Pink Lincolns show at the Death Club. I remember sitting on a toilet that hadn’t been cleaned since the day Gator signed the lease, kneeling over while he sat on the edge of the tub and mowed down my hair into one single strip. When he was done he gave me a shot off his Jack and gave me a slap to the back of the head. That night I went home drunk with a black-eye and three different phone numbers crumbled in a wad of cocktail napkins. Oh and to an ass-beating I’d never forget. Not for the mohawk… but for coming home drunk through the window of my room and taking out the window of my room with a misplaced combat boot and waking our dogs into a barking frenzy… and nothing sobers you up like Mom at four in the morning!

"To be honest Grandma… I think it really brings out my eyes."

"Pffffttt" she does a spit-take and shakes her head, "You got yer father’s sense of humor y’know that?"

"Maybe…" I’m an angry young man. I got an Oedipus Wrecking Crew working overtime on the foundations of my carefully groomed identity.

"Seriously… why’d you do it!" no scorn, no judgment… just a simple question.

"I was drunk" sheer embarrassment.

"Drunk?"

"Yeah… that and well it’s kinda fun, y’know… I just figure why not?"

"…and the girls like it" you can see her wrinkled smile glow clear through the dark.

"and the girls like it" I admit.

"So… whaddya drink, then?"

"I don’t know what it was… some kind of whiskey I think?"

She nods sagely.

"Well your Grandfather keeps a little bourbon under the sink… I’m sure he wouldn’t mind you having a drink."

"Really?"

"You’re a Senior, now!"

"Sophomore, Grandma."

"Whatevah…" she waves her glass at me dismissively, "You want a drink or not?"

"Sure…. Why not!"

That night we stayed up until Grandpa got up. She played me old Rat Pack 45’s on a 1970’s era record player. We talked about a lot of things really. The family. The war. The mohawk. What the hell was punk rock anyway? Why Spencer and not say Magnum or Remington Steele? Nothing I can remember exactly to be honest. Just her telling me she loved me before Grandpa carried her off to bed.