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J. L. Lanaway
Swimming For My Grandfather

It's the night of my high school graduation. Even now, after the ceremony, after all the speeches are done, after walking to the front of the auditorium and getting my diploma from the principal, after all that it's still hard to believe I'm actually finished. Not because it took a long time or anything - because it really went by quite quickly - it's just that I can't imagine being anything besides a high school student.

I'm in the shower when Adam calls. He wants to know when I'll be over to pick him up. There's a bush party up on the range - with kegs and everything - and our entire class is going to be there. I ask my mom to tell him I'll be over in half an hour.

"You're not taking your car, are you?" she says loud enough so that I can hear her over the water.

"We're camping overnight, Mom. Don't worry. We'll drink up there."

"You just bought the car. Don't screw around with it. Your father didn't want you to buy it in the first place. Don't prove him right."

"Yeah, yeah. Go on - I'm getting out."

"What? You think I've never seen it before?"

"Mom!"

I'm heading out of the house when my dad calls me from the living room. I hear him folding the newspaper - he tends to do it quite loudly. He wants to know if I've checked the oil in my car lately.

"Those old Hondas burn a lot of oil," he says. "If you don't keep on top of it you'll blow the engine. I don't want the money Grandpa Joe left you to be completely wasted."

"I checked it yesterday when I filled up."

"There's a lot more to cars than just buying them."

"I know."

My mom hands me a sleeping bag. "I don't know if you want a pillow or not," she says.

"I don't need a sleeping bag. We won't be doing much sleeping tonight."

"Take it anyway," my dad says.

I toss the sleeping bag into the back of my car and climb behind the wheel and start the engine. My dad walks down the driveway in his socks - something he's always telling me not to do - and I back slowly onto the road. He looks like he's angry - but he's not. He's just not in a good mood. It seems like the older he gets the harder it is for him to be in a good mood. I don't really understand it. He never used to be like that though. I know that much.

"Your front tire looks a little low," he says. "And fasten your damn seatbelt."

"See you tomorrow."

When I get to the end of the street I look in the rearview mirror and see him lift his arm. I roll through the stop sign and head for Adam's house. It's on the way to the lake.

I must have been around six or seven years old when Grandpa Joe gave me my first fishing rod. It was lost somewhere a long time ago but I can still remember it perfectly. It was huge. A real monster. It was hard to keep steady in the boat. It was a beauty - a great big troller with a cork handle and high-tension adjustable reel. There was a lot of line on it - I never had to unwind even half of it. Not in Okanagan Lake. One hundred arm-lengths were all you needed, Grandpa Joe would say. Take hold of the line and pull out to the side as far as your arm goes - that's one. Now go to a hundred. I made sure to count carefully, one to nine and ten, one to nine and twenty, one to nine and thirty - like Grandpa Joe and my dad.

I caught a squaw fish the first day I used my new fishing rod. We were fishing the triangle on Okanagan Lake - Grandpa Joe, my dad, and I - and I was the first one to get a hit. It was still early. The lake was misty and calm. My dad was pretty excited. He kept saying it was a trout - a big trout. He could tell by the way it fought. Grandpa Joe didn't say too much about it. He was like that. He didn't get excited about things until the very last moment - if he got excited at all. And it always made him mad, getting excited, as if it were a huge inconvenience.

"Look at the bastard fight," my dad said. "Look at him go. Okay. Just reel it in nice and slow. Take your time, son, that's it." He sat behind me, holding his hands out on either side of the fishing rod like he was ready to help me if I needed it. But he never touched the rod. When the fish was close enough to the boat he leaned over with the net and scooped it from the lake.

"It's just a squaw," Grandpa Joe said, and spat over the side of the boat. He was mad all right. All the excitement over the trout had really gotten to him.

My dad looked at the fish for a moment. You could tell he was a bit disappointed. Finally he said, "But it's a big squaw." And he clubbed it over the head with a crescent wrench, spraying blood onto his legs and arms. The sight of it didn't bother me like it usually did.

He rubbed my head and gave me a sip of his beer. It was warm but tasted good. He offered Grandpa Joe a beer. But Grandpa Joe just held up his glass, half-full with that dark stuff that smelled so bad, and said no thank you - he was good. It wasn't until high school that I heard the name Jack Daniel's. But I knew what the bottle looked like. Grandpa Joe hardly went anywhere without it.

A long line of cars is heading up the dirt road that leads to the range. Dust rises in a thick cloud and drifts downhill toward the lake. Adam is singing with the stereo. Every once in a while he sticks his head out the window and yells at the top of his lungs. He's always doing stuff like that. He really gets into partying. He has this water-belt that he wears to parties - like the ones hikers use. He runs the hose down his sleeve, holding the nozzle in the palm of his hand. He fills the belt with vodka. Nothing else - just vodka. He's a real drinker. He's pretty proud of it too. You should see him at parties. I wouldn't go to a party without him.

The drive to the range always takes a good twenty minutes. The road is narrow and steep, full of loose rocks and fine powdery dust. The lake is dark below us. I watch the running-lights from several boats as they make their way to shore. I finish my beer and put the empty can beneath my seat, and Adam hands me a new one. He opens it first. He has a rule about never handing someone an unopened beer.

"Cheers," he says. "To graduation."

"To graduation."

My car whines loudly in second gear as I try to keep up with the truck ahead of me. Pebbles ding off the windshield and hood. The dust is getting thick and it's difficult to see where I'm going. I take a swig of beer, keeping my eyes on the side of the road where the hillside falls steeply toward the dark water below.

I was eleven when Grandpa Joe gave me his bottle of quarters. It was a big green bottle, covered with a thick layer of dust, and it was filled to the neck with quarters. He kept it on top of his gun case. For as long as I could remember it had been up there.

I was staying at his house for the evening while my mom and dad went to their high school reunion. They always dropped me off at his house when they went out. I didn't mind it much - but I didn't like it either. I just tried to stay out of his way. I'd learned a long time ago that it was the best thing to do. Sometimes we didn't say more than two words to each other all night long. Hi and bye. It wasn't bad or anything. It was just easier that way.

The night of my parents' high school reunion Grandpa Joe was in the kitchen cleaning his rifles. The whole house smelled of gun oil. The table was covered with newspapers. His guns and cleaning supplies were spread out around him. He'd been drinking since I'd arrived after school and his glass was still at his elbow. It was never empty, that glass, but it was never full either.

There was nothing good on TV so I watched the news. My parents were late and I was getting tired of waiting. It was well after eleven when Grandpa Joe staggered into the living room, went to his gun case, and pulled down the big green bottle.

"Here," he said. "I don't know how much is in there but I'm sure you'll be able to buy yourself a few slushees or icees or whatever you call the goddamn things."

I stared at him, trying to determine if he was serious or not. He had one of those faces that made it difficult to tell. It was leathery. I know it's a bit of a generic description, but it's really the best way to describe it. His face reminded me of leather. I'm not kidding. It looked like an old catcher's mitt.

"Thanks, Grandpa Joe," I said finally. I still didn't know if he was serious or not. He'd never been one for kidding around. He had about as much sense of humour as a tree stump. I'm not exaggerating. But I still wasn't sure if he was serious.

He nodded slowly and disappeared into the kitchen.

Two days later my dad and I went to Grandpa Joe's house to return his hedge-clippers. When we pulled into the driveway he was sitting on the front steps smoking his pipe. I waved at him. But he just sat there watching my dad walk to the tool shed. I stood in the middle of the driveway and began to pick at something on the back of my hand. He waited until my dad came back before speaking to me.

"I'll expect the bottle back tomorrow, Elliot," he said. "Along with every last goddamn quarter." He took a long puff on his pipe. "Stealing from your family is the worst kind of crime." He didn't say another word. I could tell that he really believed I'd taken the bottle. He went back into his house and quietly closed the door.

My dad yelled at me the entire way home. He couldn't believe I'd done something like that. He kept saying how much I'd let him down, how I'd be lucky if Grandpa Joe ever spoke to me again. I sat there and listened to him yelling at me - I couldn't tell him the truth. I was too afraid of what might happen. It sounds stupid, I know, but it's true. I guess I just didn't want to be in the middle of it.

I spent the evening in my room listening to my parents talk about me in the kitchen. Actually my dad did most of the talking. I could hear his heavy footsteps as he walked around, shouting and whispering and then shouting again. I'd never heard his voice sound like that before. He seemed so uncertain - as if he didn't know what to say or do. I was afraid to go against my grandfather but what scared me even more was the thought of disappointing my dad - the guilt of hurting him so much. I knew I had to tell him the truth.

The road narrows. I wedge the beer between my legs and put both hands on the steering wheel. The front tires buck wildly on the loose rocks. The road steepens.

"Don't worry," I say. "We'll make it."

Dust pours in through the vents - I can feel it in my mouth and eyes. I slow down and swerve to miss a large rock sitting in the left hollow of the road. Suddenly the ground gives out. The front wheel slides down the hillside where the edge of the road had once been. There's a jolting thud as the bottom of the car hits the ground - the sound of bending metal. The car grinds to a stop. I turn off the engine. Neither of us says anything. Dust is pouring through the vents.

My dad and Grandpa Joe never forgave each other about the bottle of quarters. Grandpa Joe was angry that his own son could accuse him of being a liar. My dad told him that he was not only a liar but a drunk. He called him that several times. A drunk. It got pretty bad. My mom even had to step between them. I never stayed at Grandpa Joe's house again. It was a long time before I realized that it wasn't my fault. And even then I didn't blame Grandpa Joe.

I look at the car from the road and realize how close I came to rolling it. The left rear tire is completely off the ground - still turning slowly - and the entire bottom of the car is resting in the dirt. I don't know what to do. It looks like you could send the car barrelling down the hill with one light push. My eyes wander down the lake. It makes me think about Grandpa Joe - I don't know why exactly. I guess it reminds me of all the times we went fishing together.

I can almost hear the phone ringing last fall on the day he died. I remember my mom's voice on the other end telling me that they found him sitting on the patio. His heart had quit. That's what she told me. His heart had quit. It sounds so simple. One second a heart is beating and the next second it isn't. It isn't simple though. Not to me anyway. It's about as complicated as anything I can imagine.

I couldn't bring myself to cry. I wanted to cry - I knew I was supposed to cry - but I couldn't do it. I didn't understand it. I'd cried over things much less important. I'd cried when Grandpa Joe had accused me of stealing the bottle of quarters.

I remember being afraid of what my dad was going to be like when he met us in the waiting room at the hospital. I didn't know what he was going to be like and what scared me even more was that I didn't know what I should be like. It was the strangest thing. It really was. It was almost like a movie.

My dad was leaning against the wall with his hands behind his back. I noticed the mud all over his boots and on the floor around him - a hundred footprints going in circles. I couldn't stop staring at them. He tilted my face up to meet his and he stared at me. He didn't say anything. He just stared at me. His eyes were so red. I wanted my eyes to be red too. I wanted something to happen to me - something to remind me that my grandfather was dead.

My car, leaning on the edge of the hillside now, is part of the five thousand dollars he left me in his will. I can hear my dad's voice in my head telling me that I took the car for granted and now I'm going to lose it forever. I sit down on the edge of the bank and listen to the voices on the lake. I hear laughter and splashing. I scan the shore until I see an old man sitting on the end of a dock. His pants are rolled up and his feet dangle in the water. A child swims back and forth in front of him, arms and legs splashing wildly. The old man claps his hands together.

"You swim like a fish," he says.

The cars are still coming up the road. I can hear Adam talking to someone in a pickup - asking him if he has any rope. I know that I have to get my car off the edge of the hillside, but for now I sit perfectly still, listening to those distant sounds on the lake - the excited prattle of a young boy asking his grandfather to watch him swim. I sit there for a long time without moving.