Excerpt from JoySorrow
Before Julian’s grandfather was given an expiration date and started to lose his understanding of how to fix a clogged drain and, on the bad days, inhale, he could be seen driving around the north side of Indianapolis in his ’56 Ford Sunliner convertible. The wind would fluff up the white hair that remained on the sides of Julie’s head and catch not only a few grey women’s eyes as he passed through the shopping and arts’ districts. He’d stop at a hat or shoe store and pick out a new pair of penny loafers or a fedora that asked for the Florida Keys or the Hamptons but had to settle for the flat, beachless part of the Midwest. Julie liked driving around the north side much better than down south because of the long stretch of corn fields and farms that didn’t need to acknowledge highways larger than two lanes or gasworks that burped death. It was clean up in the upper crust of Indianapolis, and it tasted sweet to Julie. Like coconut at night or peach ice cream during the day.
Julie’s role as “grandpa” suited him. His daughter was a wreck and nothing that he did or tried to do seemed to help her. She didn’t call him “dad” anymore but “Julie” and his grandson demonstrated a potential that Julie couldn’t help but compare to his own at that age. He would kid with Julian about going into the hardware business like him, but he made sure not to force anything on the boy. Julie’s father wanted his son to go into banking, even going so far as buying him a lot on which a bank was being constructed for his high school graduation present. When Julie become an apprentice to Mr. Jennings – a plumber, carpenter, and electrician who lived in one neighborhood over -Julie’s father didn’t talk to his son for two months. His father died of a heart attack before he could see his son earn a comfortable living off of his hardware business.
Cruising in his well-oiled and polished convertible, Julie’s pride was only a side-effect of the image he gave off. Sure, his car was flashy in its robin’s egg blue and cream, but the man was just that, a man. That’s why he attracted so many eyes. He was accessible. He had liver spots on his scalp, arms, and hands. His smile was genuine. He did not appraise everyone he saw according to their relative status, lowering his sunglasses onto the tip of his nose to peer and then scoff or tisk tisk. He beat that image and threw it out in the street, it being a hijacker that Julie just didn’t have time for and could easily out-struggle.
Now if Julie decided to take home any one of the women that he met and spent a wonderful evening of chatting and flirting with, she would be disappointed. She would see the car and wonder. She would meet the man and smile. She would talk with him and laugh. She would have a drink and maybe something to eat with him and she’d wonder again, and maybe she’d start to feel those vibrating pinpricks in her stomach and the pokes on her shoulders and around the sensitive areas of her ears that might every now and then announce the beginnings of love. She would be invited back to his house after telling him that her place was unavailable because of the mess. They would laugh at the idea of a messy room, like they were in college, remembering their messy dorm rooms. She would wear his leather jacket around her shoulders if the wind was too cold. Their bodies would be imbued with an excitement, again, like they were young. And then he would pull into his driveway and she would wonder, confused. It was a one-story house, and he lived with his daughter and her son. His daughter was insane with something, and his grandson, even though doing his best to give his grandfather his privacy, was there with his young opinions and ideas about older woman. She would think of the boy judging her, and she would leave, saying that she must have caught a cold from the evening wind. His gut and face would slacken, and he would drive her home to her messy apartment and say goodnight with maybe a kiss on the cheek, but most likely only a pat on her shoulder, bare because she had taken off his jacket at his house. She would not be at the same restaurant as him again and he would be at the same house for the rest of his life.
