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Loxley

My grandfather was a strong, smart man. He loved to touch my hair in strange places. Underneath, at the nape of the neck, he would roll his only thumb back and forth like a Monopoly board thimble. Then up the spine of it, behind my earlobes. He told me if I ever cut it he would make me sleep under the bed for weeks with nothing for cover but newspaper. Of course, I cut it, and slept under the bed for weeks with nothing for cover but newspaper. “Get that hair in the bath, young lady!” my grandmother would scream. Of course, the water was yellow. I don’t know who to blame for this. It’s hard because, in the South, everyone believes in self-reliance. Cancer killed my grandfather from the bottom up. It’s no easy thing to feel life’s got you by the anus. The worst thing about it is everyone holds you responsible. “The red meat he ate,” my mother said grimly. “All the shit he sprayed on our string beans.” After that, my grandfather grew quiet in my life. There was a strange thing that dripped into him as he lay. “Open the door,” he said finally. Then he died.