Preface: The following is a work of short fiction. While the description of my grandfather is fairly accurate, the story you are about to read never happened.

The idea for the story came to me a few days ago and, for some reason I’ve yet to resolve, I could not forget it. So, I decided to write it out, and this is the result.

I’d appreciate any comments or critiques.

I hope you enjoy the story.

Grandpa

My grandpa was an enigmatic entity who had a “good job” working for the B&O Railroad. In what capacity, I never knew, but back then there were few jobs for Black men that wasn’t in the service sector. I assumed he was a conductor. He was always dressed in a black suit over a dark blue vest, which was over a starched white collared shirt, fastened to the top and completed with a dark blue necktie. He was an imposing figure, at least to my very young eyes, stern of countenance, dark-skinned, and clean-shaven. 

Whenever I visited my grandparents’ house in South Baltimore on evenings and weekends, I would usually see Grandpa sitting in a large winged-backed chair next to the window in the living room of my grandparents’ row house. He didn’t say much, at least not to me or any of his many grandkids that I ever recall, but then, he didn’t have to. If us kids got too rambunctious, he would just give us a look, and we’d immediately get quiet and move our activities elsewhere. Hearing his voice, the rumble after the initial boom of thunder, was as rare as lightning in a snowstorm.

But there was one time when grandpa spoke to me, directly.

I was sitting on the marble steps of Grandpa’s house late one spring evening, staring up at what I thought were strange clouds. 

“What are you looking at, boy?” My Grandpa had come home from work, and I hadn’t noticed his approach, so entrance I was with those clouds. He startled me speechless. I sat, eyes bugging up at him, mouth gapping like a fish out of water. He stood there, dark and as imposing as a thunderhead. A newspaper wedged into his right armpit. His stare was intense but unreadable.

To this day, I don’t know if he ever knew my name.

“You hear me, boy? I asked you a question!”

“Um…, I,… um, I was just looking up at those clouds,” I stammered, pointing.

Grandpa turned to glance up in the direction I had indicated. The peculiar cloud formations were straight lines crisscrossing the deepening blue sky. Grandpa returned his gaze to me. “You know what kind of clouds they are?”

“Nno, sir. I’ve seen them before, but I thought they were just strange clouds.”

Grandpa studied me for a moment, looked up at the door of the house as if trying to decide whether to climb the steps and take up his position in his chair beside the window, or do something else. What else? I had no clue.

“Run up and fetch me my pipe and tobacco. They’re on the table next to my chair,” he commanded.

“Yes, sir!” Without hesitation, I sprung up from the stoop to get his pipe. I was relieved and, oddly, the errand felt like a privilege. It was the first time Grandpa had ever asked me to do something for him. I’ve seen him ask some of my older cousins to do things like running down to the corner store to buy a Coke or a pack of tobacco, but I guess, at least until now, he must have thought I was too young for such tasks.

As I opened the door to return with his pipe and tobacco, I saw that he had planted himself on the step that I had been sitting on. 

This was new. Grandpa always sat by the window, even on balmy summer days. I immediately started to wonder if I’d done something wrong. Had I taken too long to get his pipe? Maybe he’d changed his mind about me being old enough to do stuff for him. 

I softly closed the door and gingerly, but with cat-like silence, descended the stairs and presented him with his pipe and tobacco. He took them, glancing up at the clouds, then at me while he packed his pipe. He had sat on his newspaper, something I’ve seen other grownups do when they thought the steps were too dirty to sit on directly. Maybe that was the problem; he was going to tell me to scrub the steps.

I hated scrubbing those marble steps. I don’t know of anyone who enjoyed it, but everyone on the block did it. It was a point of pride. Dirt from so much foot traffic was easy to see on white marble, and no one wanted their house to be singled out as being dirty. Scrubbing, with a wooden scrub brush and Ajax, was usually a Saturday morning ritual often assigned to younger family members, which often meant that my Saturday mornings were booked. I had to admit, that row of gleaming white marble steps was a sight to see, especially in the evening light where they seemed to have taken a bit of fire from the sun to shine from within.

Grandpa lit his pipe, pulling air through red glowing embers in the bowl and puffing out small billows of white smoke. He glanced at me, then patted the step beside him, indicating that I should sit. 

Next to him!

This was definitely new.

Bewildered, speechless, I sat.

He pulled at his pipe a few more times, releasing small clouds of fragrant smoke that hung before him like a gathering fog. He then pointed up at the clouds and said, “Those are clouds there, those are angel farts.”

What? Angel farts??? Really? I started to laugh, but I could see that he was serious, and you just didn’t laugh at Grandpa. Period.

He glanced at me, a twinkle in his eye, but in a solemn tone, he then explained, “When people die, sometimes they are so full of sin that their souls are like great big balloons, just bulging with all the bad things they had done in life. As their soul leaves the body, all that sin is heavy and it pulls them down towards Hell. But sometimes, just like when you eat too much, you have to pass some gas to feel better. That’s what those souls do. They pass their sinful, foul-smelling gas, and it makes them lighter and they rise up. And if they can pass enough of it before the Pearly Gates close, they can get into Heaven.”

He pointed at the line of clouds, “That’s the gas they pass as they rise up to heaven.”

He became silent and continued to stare up at the clouds and puffing on his pipe, and I continued to stare up at him. I didn’t know what to say or do, what to even think. Was he pulling my leg? Was he telling me the truth?

We sat there in silence for what seemed like an hour, him with his eyes on the clouds through a haze of pipe smoke, me looking down at the sidewalk in front of me, lost in thought.

Then a noise pierced the quiet, sounding like a series of coughs or maybe blasts from a poorly blown trumpet. The newspaper Grandpa sat on rattled, then went still. I looked up at my grandpa as he stood. I believe he was smiling when he said, “It’s never too early to start relieving yourself of sin, boy.” 

He tooted again as he climbed the steps and chuckled, “That one was for the cookies I stole from my momma’s jar and lying about it when I was your age.” 

Grandpa stepped through the door, closing it behind him, then I saw him take up his spot in his chair by the window. He was laughing.

I started to laughed too. Angel farts! 

I later learned the lines of clouds I saw in the sky were not souls in route to Heaven, but contrails from jet aircraft. But I prefer my Grandpa’s explanation. 

Stay tuned.

Vern