My parents live on the right-hand side of a duplex in the Burg, an area of Trenton, New Jersey, that was characterized by cheap houses, large trees and hard-working Americans. There was a rhythm to the Burg. Saturdays were spent cleaning the house, tending the gardens and washing the cars. Sundays were spent at church and with family, and the weekdays were spent working hard and dreaming about the weekends.
My mother was a stay-at-home mother who had supported her husband by doing the housework, the shopping and the laundry. She had raised Val and me and tried to ensure that we didn't bother our father overly much. No matter how much my mother made my father think otherwise, there was no doubt that my mother was the person ruling the house.
My father did his part by working at the post office and bringing home a paycheck. There was a rhythm to his life as well. He went to work, after work puttered on whatever household repair that my mother asked him to make, ate dinner, then watched sports until it was time to go to bed. After I had moved out of the house, he retired from the post office. He did his part in pretending to believe that he was the king of the castle, although he too knew that my mother was the true household leader.
My grandmother was a more recent addition to the household. When Grandpa Mazur had driven his car to the eternal car show in the sky, Grandma moved in. She wanted to run the household, and there were frequent skirmishes with my mother as they settled out the household leadership. She spiced up my parents' bland life, much to my mother's chagrin. Grandma had an irreverent way of looking at things, got into trouble as much as I did, and was dedicated to her gun Elsie despite the fact that she couldn't shoot. She was stoop-shouldered and shrinking over the years, had short white curly hair that showed an expanse of pink scalp underneath, and a lot of retired muscle that hung down from her arms. Despite her physical appearance, she preferred to dress in skin-tight clothes and believe herself to be a cougar. She had a zest for life unusual in most people, and an interest in everything. While Grandma was elderly, she would never be old.
My father and my grandmother politely put up with each other, but when my father retired he quickly realized that he would have to do something that got him out of the house and away from my grandmother. Alternatively, he could off her in her sleep. Since it was touch-and-go for a while as to what he'd do, my mother quietly got rid of his gun and hid the mouse poison. My father eventually decided that killing my grandmother would upset my mother, and started to drive a taxi. He had a few regular fares, but mostly he spent time in his social club. He was happy that he was out of the house, my mother was happy that my father wasn't in danger of going to jail, and my grandmother was happy continuing to push the boundaries.
When we arrived at the house and walked in, my father was in his usual position of watching sports on the television. I gave my father a kiss on the top of his head, and he patted my back awkwardly. He smiled at me. "How are you?" he said.
"Good, thanks. You?"
"Good."
"How's the taxi business?"'
"Good. How's your job?"
"Good."
That was the extent of the conversation with my dad. I knew that he cared about the family and us kids just as much as I cared about him, but our conversation was typically shallow. My father didn't share much of himself, nor did he appear overly interested in our lives. Anything important he could count of my mother telling him. As I saw his eyes stray to the football game on the television, I said, "I'll go say hi to Mom."
"Good", said my father.
Ranger and I walked into the kitchen. Grandma and Mom were cooking, and I walked over to each of them and gave them a hug. Ranger did as well, and I could see him step out of my grandmother's arms as her hands strayed south and she copped a feel. He looked at me, shook his head and sighed, but I could tell that he was thinking about smiling. Like me, he found my grandmother to be refreshing.
"What's new?" I said.
"There's a new establishment opening next to Giovichinni's", said Grandma. "It's called Tips and Clips."
"Is it a porn shop?" I said.
"It's with a 'p', not a 't'", said Grandma. "It will be a hair and nail salon. It's not a reference to one's love bud."
"I think they will have a lot of people confused by their name."
"I was thinking I'd apply", said Grandma.
"Why's that?" said Ranger.
"I'd like to have a job working at a store called 'Tips and Clips'. Although, you'd have to say it very slowly on the phone to make sure you got it right."
"That's true", I said. "The owner might not like it if you got it wrong."
"I wonder how many people would go to it thinking that it's a porn shop", said Ranger. "Even if you get the pronunciation right, it still sounds like a porn shop name."
"If I worked there, I could call myself Mistress Edna", said Grandma. "That would add some class to the establishment."
"Yes, it would", I said with a smile, "although it wouldn't help the anti-porn shop reputation."
Grandma looked disappointed. "There is that. I would like to work in a porn shop." My mother crossed herself as her eyes strayed to the cabinet that held her whiskey. "I figure that I have experience, and I find people talk to me easily."
"They might not want to talk to you about sex", I said.
"Why not? I like sex, and I might find some honeys if I worked in a sex shop. You know, people who are interested in trying different things. Think of the free samples I could get." I smiled as my mother gave in to the call of the whiskey and poured herself a snort. She knocked it back like a pro, and poured herself another shot. "Seriously", said my grandmother, "what I may not have in body I have in experience. That would make me attractive to men, wouldn't it? What do you think, Ranger? Isn't experience important?"
Ranger looked at me and smiled. "I think that an emotional connection is the most important thing", he said. "Take Joyce Barnhardt, for example." I hissed. Joyce was my childhood nemesis. She had been pudgy and spotty, with an overbite that made her look like Nelson on The Simpsons, and was the kind of person her peers secretly hated. She bullied her schoolmates and made kids cry. She spat in your dessert at lunch and stole your new crayons in school. But by the time she was eighteen that pudginess had gone all to her chest, her skin had cleared up, her braces had straightened her teeth, and she had discovered the opposite sex. While she still tried to torment you, instead of stealing your crayons she'd steal your boyfriend. She was the person I had found my ex-husband boinking three months after we'd gotten married. She earned her money by marrying well and divorcing better. She had been married four times and had done well on the transactions. The men were all willing to give up a significant portion of their fortune for the chance to be free of her. She would do anybody and anything with two or four legs. Saying she was active sexually was an understatement. "Joyce is experienced sexually, but I would never want to have sex with her. Not only would I not be interested in the potential to contract hoof and mouth disease, I wouldn't want to ride a bike that had been ridden by half of Trenton already."
Grandma thought about that for a moment. "I'm surprised that she hasn't asked you to ride her bike yet", said Grandma.
"She has. I declined", said Ranger. "I was saving myself for someone special."
"Who?" said Grandma.
I laughed. "I moved in with Ranger today", I said. I grabbed the scratchpad and a pen from the side of the table and wrote the address. "This is the place where I am staying. The apartment number isn't important. Because I work in the same building, anything you address to my name will come to me."
"Why can't you live in a house?" said my mother. "Houses are good. You have the potential of growing a garden by living in a house." I knew it wasn't the potential of having a garden that would attract my mother to the idea of us owning a house. It was the idea that houses were much more family-friendly than apartments. Strollers were hard to maneuver in apartments, and there was nowhere to store the outdoor toys. It was harder for a child to have a bicycle in an apartment than it was in a house.
"Ranger owns the whole building", I said. "It just makes sense that Ranger lives in the building as well."
"You own the whole building?" said my mother. She smiled, and I could see that Ranger had gone up in her estimation.
"It's just easier to live there", said Ranger. "Everything is at hand. I can go down to the gym and work out before breakfast, shower in my own apartment, and eat breakfast with Stephanie before going down to my office for the day. I spend less than five minutes commuting from my home to the office and back again, less if I take the stairs."
"However, if I take the stairs it takes more than five minutes", I said with a laugh. "Stairs and I don't do well, and I'm glad that Ranger has an elevator in the building." Grandma laughed.
"You're doing better, babe." He looked like he was thinking about smiling. "You took the stairs up with me from the fifth floor to the seventh last week, and you only had to stop three times to catch your breath."
I stuck my tongue out at him.
"You look like you've lost weight", said my mother.
"I don't know if I have lost weight as much as toned up some", I said. "Ranger and I work out almost every day for an hour, and I'm eating better. I generally am eating at Rangeman rather than eating out with Lula. It's cheaper. And while Lula prefers Cluck-in-a-Bucket for lunch, at Ranger's I'm eating soups and sandwiches and salads. Dinner with Morelli was often pizza. With Ranger it is meat and lots of vegetables. Breakfast in my place was a worthless, tastes-good cereal and, since I often forgot to buy more milk, I mostly ate it dry. At Ranger's it's often some sort of egg dish. If I feel like a snack in the evening, I'm eating raw carrots with dip or celery with peanut butter or a piece of fruit rather than a bag of chips. I'm getting far more nutrients and am eating far more healthily than I formerly was. I can't even remember the last time I ate an olive and peanut butter sandwich."
"No olive and peanut butter sandwiches?" said Grandma. She sounded scandalized.
"Funny enough, they aren't a big hit in the break room", said Ranger, totally straight-faced.
"Ugh. I don't know how you can eat those", said my mother. "Peanut butter and lettuce or peanut butter and relish, sure, even cheese and jam. But peanut butter and olives? No way."