We arrived at their trailer in their senior living center around 7:46 PM. A couple of different kinds of bugs were already out and trying to make a meal out of me. I remember being doused in mosquito spray before being able to do anything outside once the sun had gone down. I take the last of my bags into their pale green trailer. Grandma Enid shuts the hatch behind me and locks her old minivan. I walk in and I am immediately greeted by the smell of her cats Dumptruck and Richard. Dumptruck runs over to greet me and to see if I have any food on me. I gave her a pat on the head instead of her preferred offering of salami. She rebuffs my affection and runs off to one of her cat trees. Their place had not changed much from when I last saw it, it just looks a little dustier is all. She still has shelves upon shelves that are full of pictures of me and my mom and a few of my dad throughout the years. I am their only grandson so I was a bit spoiled whenever I would come down here. I always had my own T.V. and as many gummies and pizza as I could stomach to eat. My mom would always get frustrated with Grandma Enid and Grandma Enid would say that you only have so much time to spoil them before they get too old and I guess she was right I got to a point where I would refuse the pizza, ice cream, and even soda because I wasn't in the mood. My birthday is in August so I would always pull to stay until then so I could go to Disney on my birthday and wear the special button they give you around the parks.
My Grandpa Jack is a man of few words he met my Grandma in High School and cheated on a bunch of tests so they could go to college together. He eventually got found out and took up wood carving and crafting as a hobby/job and started selling a bunch of those wooden pelicans and fish at the local flea market. All the snowbirds would eat them up and commission him to make all kinds of stuff like wooden sculptures of people's dead pets. This and Grandma Enid's job as a Child Psychiatrist helped them to save up enough money to buy their own trailer and live in a park so they could spend their money on their daughter's family. My grandpa comes out of the hallway and gives me a bear hug.
"How are you, Mason? Was the flight alright?" he asks patting my back and letting me go.
"it was alright, a little bumpy," I said scratching my head
" I think I got everything figured out in there, go ahead and make yourself comfortable in there we will call you when dinner is done, and you can eat if you feel up for it"
I nodded my head walking down the hallway to my new temporary room. It's simple, with wood paneling on the walls and gross green carpets it looks like the most average thing you could think of there are a few posters hanging on the walls that are going to be taken off shortly. The bed has been upgraded from a twin to a full since the last time I saw it. The bed set is light green with no designs on any of it and the dresser and nightstand drawers have no flare to the knobs. If I didn't know any better, I would think this was a hotel room made for preteen boys. I had an empty bookshelf with a poster advertising a discount bookstore, a place my grandma undoubtedly frequents far too much. She has two whole sheds filled with books she's read and loved too much to let go of. The ones she reads and feels indifferent towards either end up at a yard sale or right back at wherever she bought it from originally. She has an unnatural ability to read super-fast, so she burns through books like crazy. She used to read to me when I was younger and if I didn't like the book then she would come up with her own story with me as the main character. I would be a pirate on the run from mercenaries or a T Rex fighting off raptors.
I place my suitcase on my bed just like how my mom told me not to and I start to put my clothes away in the dresser, after that I work my way around the room and take all my decorations off the wall that have been there since I thought the tooth fairy and the Ninja Turtles were real. As I start to take down some of it, I realize that this will most likely not all fit into the small wastebasket I have been gifted into the corner of my room. Which means I will have to throw it all away in the kitchen or outside trashcan and I really want to avoid talking to my grandparents a little bit more. Which leaves the option of sneaking out of my room in the middle of the night to throw it all away.
I start making sure my Xbox and TV are all hooked up accordingly so I can have something to do while I wait for them to fall asleep. I assume they must fall asleep super early as most elderly do but, I have no clue the exact time they go to bed. I look at my watch and the time says 8:59 PM. I double check everything once more then I start to flip through what games I have downloaded so I don't have to look in my bag for a game to play. So far all I have are the trash games that Microsoft gives out for free each month. I keep flipping through wondering whatever possessed me to download these games, is the idea of something being free that appetizing that I had to jump online to download this hot, wet, garbage. I start playing a game called Zheros that's mildly brain numbing, as I am playing, I listen out for signs that my grandparents are getting ready for bed. I hear no running water and I can still hear the soft mumble of the T.V. in the living room. For a moment I consider trying to sneak out my window to throw it away but, the idea of how embarrassing it would be to be caught in the act prevents from me from executing the plan. I remember the time my mom caught me sneaking out of the house to go to a concert I didn't even want to go to, a girl I was trying to seduce said she loved underground music so I bought us tickets to a late night basement show and snuck out. Made it almost all the way down to the ground before my mom poked her out my window and looked down and saw me trying to rock climb off the brick of our house.
I snap out of the memory and hear my grandma calling my name. I remember now Grandpa Jack saying they would call me when dinner was done. The mere thought of the word dinner makes my stomach rumble so I decide to pause my garbage game and go have what may be my first home-cooked meal in three years. I get up and head out of my room, down the hall to the kitchen. I see where my mom gets it from as I see a huge KFC bucket sitting in the middle of the table.
"Have a seat Mason, we got all the sides because we didn't know which ones you like best." Grandma Enid says picking up a drumstick and taking a bite out of it. She then hands me a paper plate from beside her with a plastic fork on it. I take it and then start loading up the plate with all the greasy fixings.
"We were going to cook for you tonight but, we got back too late from Tampa, so I did one of those food deliveries services type deals. I hope that's okay." She says getting a huge scoop of mashed potatoes on her plate.
"Yeah, that's fine I don't mind." I say sitting down and digging into my mess of a plate. "I think a home-made meal on my first night might send my body into shock."
She smiles at this and returns to her plate. Grandpa Jack digs into his mashed potato bowl. It's been awhile since my mother and I had had a moment even close to this, just sitting in silence and enjoying being near each other. My mom was either in bed or at work while I was eating. She always knew what I wanted or maybe I just didn't care about what I ate. Not too brag but, I never felt the need to go on a diet. I was by no means a vacuum cleaner but, if it were placed in front of me, I would not be shy about eating it. We continue the rest of our meal in silence listening to the cicadas scream.