Candy for Breakfast, Salad for Supper
Grampaw Sycamore patted the sweat from his forehead with a rag. It was a hot and humid day. The occasional breeze seemed to lose motivation and sag in the air, rustling leaves briefly and then sinking down into the heat shimmers glowing off the grass. Insects buzzed. “Got-damn,” said Grampaw, folding his rag to find dry squares “Might have to start cutting my whiskey with lemonade if this heat don’t break.”
He slowly bobbed in a rocking chair on his front porch. His grandson, Portugal Sycamore, was on the other side of the house, finishing up mowing the backyard. The distant mechanical buzz of the mower cut out and descended, leaving the rising buzz of the insects in contrast.
Grampaw heard Portugal huffing and puffing as he came around the corner of the house, pushing the old mower. He smiled at his grandson and shifted in the rocker, reaching into his pants pocket for his checkbook. “All done?” Portugal, a heavyset boy of twelve years old, nodded. He was short of breath. His t-shirt was soaked through with sweat.
Flipping the checkbook open, Grampaw produced a pen from his shirtpocket. As he dated the check, he asked his grandson “You did a good job? You got close around all the trees this time?” Portugal nodded emphatically. “Good,” Grampaw smiled, “Now how much do I owe you?”
Portugal was standing with his hands balled into fists on his hips. He spit onto the grass. “Last time you gave me forty dollars,” he answered.
Grampaw turned his head and raised his eyebrow. “Really?”
“I think so. Pretty sure. Maybe thirty.”
Grampaw whistled sharply, said “Damn, boy! Your rates went up?!”
“I dunno,”
Finished writing the check, Grampaw tore the perforation and held it out. “Well, I don’t mind paying more if you got up next to the trees this time.”
“Yes Grampaw,” Portugal walked up the porch steps and extended a hand to take the check.
Grampaw teased the check to Portugal’s fingertips, then took it back suddenly. “Right up by the tree trunks, right?”
Nod.
“Good boy,” Grampaw leaned back in the chair now, taking the check with him. It lazed into his lap. Portugal involuntarily started toward his grandfather to grab it, but caught himself and stood straight with his hands behind his back.
Grampaw grabbed the bottle of whiskey from the wicker stand next to his rocking chair and took a mighty pull. Gulped to swallow. He and his grandson were silent and still for a moment while nature thrummed. Then, “Why did your rate go up, my boy?”
“It can just be thirty or whatever. Sorry.”
“Sorry!? No. Getting a new video game?”
“Well, um. Yeah.”
“Okay,” nodded Grampaw, then belched into his own lips a bit. “How much is it?”
“Eighty dollars.”
“What? Eighty?! Damn!”
“No, sorry. It’s okay. I don’t want you to-“
“Oh stop it. It’s just fine. I can afford to buy a video game for a hardworkin’ man like you.”
“Thank you so much Grampaw,”
Grampaw drew a big X over the check in his hand. Balled it up and stuck it in his pocket. He wrote a new one for twice as much and again teased it out to his grandson, only to pull it back at the last moment.
“You know how to cash a check?”
“Mom helps me do it.”
Smiling, Grampaw leaned forward, causing his wooden rocking chair to groan. “Why does this check get you a video game?”
Portugal frowned “What?”
“I’m giving you this piece of paper, and if everything goes according to plan, it’s gonna mean you’re having fun playing your game later, right?”
“Yeah, I guess?”
“Okay then.”
Grasshoppers flicked themselves from the tops of dandelion stalks.
“See, this, this right here is the MICR line,” Grampaw explained, gesturing toward the computer typeface digits on the bottom of the check, “See that?”
“…yeah?”
“Now, the MICR line tells the routing number, the account number, and the check number to the Federal Reserve. This is how your bank verifies where the money is coming from. You got that, grandson?”
“…yeah?”
“Routing number tells them the bank, okay? That’s the Georgia Stonecutters’ Credit Union. Okay? Then, the next batch of numbers means it’s me. Grampaw Sycamore. That’s my account. Right? So then this next bit,” he pointed, “That’s which check I’m writing to you for your video game. Understand?”
“Grampaw, I’m tired,”
“Okay,” the old man replied, ” Now we understand that this is basically a ticket. This is a written record to verify that I am transferring some amount of resources from myself to you, right little dog?”
“Can I have some of that lemonade, Grampaw?”
“No. Anyway-” Grampaw cracked a big smile, “Of course, grandson. Of course. Come take a sit next to me. Let me pour you a big glass.” Grampaw continued as Portugal sat in the other rocking chair, dead tired and just trying to humor the situation.
“These little symbols. It’s stains on pieces of paper. The shapes the ink makes, that’s a level of abstraction. Within your own mind, they become representational for something else. It happens so quickly and automatically, that you don’t even consider it. But written language is a technology that we haven’t always had. Animals certainly don’t have anything close to it. The contrast of the dark parts against the light parts on this little slip of paper imbue meaning to it somehow,”
“Grampaw…please,” Portugal pleaded. Now Grampaw was drunk. This could take hours.
“So the symbols create a code. You need an architecture of learned experience to make sense of it. It’s not innate. The code is also representational of other things. The symbols become a designation. It’s a kind of true-name for an institution. And institution that is not tied to any one person, it’s a malleable thing that shifts over time,” Grampaw burped up a bit of whiskey here, then continued, “So you have many layers of abstraction. So, so, sooooo….many junctions for loss. Latency.”
“Grampaw, I mowed your lawn really good. Can I have-“
“Don’t get too worked up over bullshit, grandson. That’s really what I’m trying to tell you,” Grampaw half snorted as he wiped his whiskey lips on his shirt sleeve. “So much stress is imaginary. It’s built upon the brittle lattice of social bullshit.” Crows on the roadside stood with their beaks wide open, dissipating the heat. “The more ‘official’ something seems, the more pretend bullshit it is. We’re animals. Don’t get too bummed out about anything that doesn’t involve eating, shitting, fucking,”
“Jesus, Gramps,”
“Abstract thought causes so much misery, my son. My grandson. It’s a fun place to play in. If it causes you misery, just remember: you’re alive. That’s gonna end soon. Why worry?”
“I mowed your grass-“
“When I was your age, I always wanted candy for breakfast. I wanted to eat a Crunch Bar as soon as I woke up in the morning. Sometimes, I’d get one. The last twenty years or so of my life, I thought it was somehow more repsonsible or something to eschew that. I thought it was more ‘adult’ to reject that. Now that I can do it, now that I’m the decision-maker for my own life? I want salad. I want that. I want salad for supper. The spinach and the cherry tomatoes. A little dressing,”
The sun began turning into a royal blue haze below the horizon line. Portugal held out his hand. “Can I have the check, Grampaw?”
“Here you go, grandson. Go get your game.”
Hours passed and the house creaked with the changing temperature as dusk chilled the landscape.
