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Individually Wrapped -- With Love
By Greg Downs
I was 5 years old -- no fast worker -- and by the time I scouted out the Reese's, my grandfather and my mother were drinking coffee in the living room, watching television and talking. My grandfather was full of stories about his garden and his experiences at the grocery store and his co-workers -- and he seemed to take pride in them -- but as soon as I announced I had found the Reese's and the Chee-Tos, he would cut himself off in mid-sentence, push himself up from his couch with a groan and leave my mother -- his only daughter -- alone on the couch.
His refrigerator was always full of 10-ounce glass bottles of Coca-Cola. Before he joined me outside, he popped the top from one of those bottles and carried it out to me. We sat down on the top step of his little cement porch, looking out at the rows of driveways and small, boxy houses.
With a quick, brusque tear he opened the Chee-Tos first. They were snacks. The Reese's were much more fragile, so he was childishly careful about peeling back the plastic shrink wrap.
"Dessert," he'd say and pass me peanut butter cup.
Sometimes he brought out his transistor radio, and we listened to Cincinnati Reds baseball games. Sometimes he would talk about his neighbors or ask about the work I was doing in kindergarten. Sometimes we said nothing at all.
I do not know how long we stayed out on his porch. To my mind it was forever. I felt guilty over abandoning my mother inside, but I also knew I was receiving something undeserved, something rare, an adult's undivided, unhurried attention for as long as I wanted it.
Were we there an hour? Or 10 minutes? Or less? I can't honestly say. But I do know that we sat there until my grandfather turned the bag of Chee-Tos upside down and let the last orange crumbs fall into his palm. He poured half the crumbs into his other hand and offered it to me. Sometimes I bent down and nibbled the crumbs fromhis palm like a hummingbird over a feeder.
