Big Dumb Baby
I was raised by my maternal grandmother who—among teaching me the finer
points of smoking non-filter cigarettes and ironing a perfect crease into
polyester slacks—made sure I grew up understanding the one true pillar of
friendship: “Most friends,” she’d say, the word oozing from her mouth like some
fine poison, “wouldn’t piss in your ass if your guts were on fire.” So many
times was this phrase repeated that it should have been etched into our family
crest and set above the front door to keep out would-be friends.
I knew Grandma to have only two friends. The first, a woman named Linda
who was several years Grandma’s junior, seemed to come around only when the two
of them were going on cruises to Mexico. Linda owned a pizzeria and as a kid I
spent afternoons inside the small restaurant feeding quarters into the pinball
machines in the back while the two of them sat at one of the small tables and
smoked and laughed over pictures of their latest trip. The last time Grandma
saw Linda I was nearly an adult. We were both invited to her wedding—she was on
her fifth or sixth husband by then—and while we were welcome at the ceremony I
remember feeling as if we’d crashed the reception. Grandma didn’t know anyone
at our table and spent much of the afternoon trying to make her way to the one
with Linda’s adult children. By the time she got there, sitting down next to a
tanned young man who looked just like his mother, he seemed to not know who she
was. Taking her place in the receiving line, ready for a warm response from the
woman who’d accompanied her on so many vacations, all she got was a short hug,
a brief introduction to the groom, and a complicit smile.
The only other friend Grandma had was a German immigrant named Gretta who
called our house three or four times a day. Each time Grandma picked up the
phone, perhaps hoping to hear from Linda, she’d cheerfully say, “Hello,” and
then roll her eyes. “Hi Gretta.” For the next hour she’d be roped into
listening to the thick accent, the woman recounting her most recent complaint
about her daughter or her newest physical ailment. When she hung up she’d say,
“God I hate that damned woman.” But she still picked up the phone every day.
Eventually, one of Gretta’s many ailments proved fatal and the day after her funeral—where
Grandma was the only friend in attendance—the phone rang and Grandma joked,
“That’s probably Gretta calling me from beyond the grave.” She picked up the
receiver only to find dead air. This happened more than a dozen times over the
next month, and I came to believe that when friends died their spirits were
haunting.