“Grandpa’s Silent Game” By Eric Shapiro
The house was unusual, to say the least. It was located on a beautiful waterfront property in Great Neck, where the crash of ocean waves and the whine of seagulls served as a substitute for the blaring horns and screeching breaks of midtown Manhattan. I always figured that my grandparents had to be rich to afford living on a beach, but on the other hand, their house was, to my 10-year-old eyes, a complete dump. It was composed of ancient, dark brown wood that could have inflicted a nasty splinter through wool mittens. Its foundations creaked when it rained and shook during storms and the interior was devoid of most modern conveniences. The only electronic device within its rickety walls was an old transistor radio perpetually tuned in to a liberal station featuring an angry, nasally-voiced woman bellowing about politics (who, in response to one of my inquiries, Grandpa jokingly referred to as a left-wing, harpy-vixen). Wooden statues, watercolor paintings and African pottery lined the halls in the place of the usual frivolous trinkets of the rich. Its faucets issued a foul, cloudy liquid that tasted like sponge with a hint of toothpaste.
But Grandma and Grandpa only lived there a quarter of a year, anyway. They spent the rest of their time traveling the world, especially South America and Africa. Although Grandpa had retired from his job as a college professor after the deaths of many of his beloved old colleagues, he said it was his job to help teachers set up better science curricula for students in third world countries. Grandpa said a lot of things I didn’t understand, although I always pretended to. Yet somehow, he always knew to explain them anyway. He was an expert on pretty much everything.
We would often spend countless hours on the shore atop rickety purple beach chairs engaging in long question and answer sessions. I would ask him about everything from shadows to the details of his many excursions. Every so often, he would interrupt himself to point out something in the water; a boat in the distance or birds circling around a school of fish, nearly undetectable flecks of white that he called “biggies.”
One evening Grandpa interrupted my questioning and called attention to our surroundings. It was high tide and I was shocked to notice how much the waves had encroached on us over the course of our long conversation. The crescent moon, a glowing sideways smile in the sky, amplified the already mystical quality of the scene. I probably would not have noticed any of this if Grandpa had not called it to my attention. He seemed lost in the beauty of the sea. A particularly large school of bluefish hefted their massive frames out of the water off in the distance, landing in explosions of foam, colored gold by the setting sun. Grandpa abruptly rose and trudged toward the water and let it run through his toes, then up to his knees and chest. He told me to follow and I did, albeit more cautiously. It was not comfortable. My feet were cold from the water and I recoiled at the slimy caress of the seaweed. The ocean was so vast compared to the swimming pools I was accustomed to. But not particularly interesting. My reserves of attention officially depleted, I walked back up the beach and began the long ascent up the wooden steps leading to the house, which my grandfather had built himself a long time ago. When I did not hear his footsteps behind me, I glanced backward from the first landing. He was as still as the rocks beneath his feet with his eyes fixed on me. I met his stare for a few seconds, but my hunger compelled me to continue up the stairs, across Grandma’s carefully manicured lawn and into the house.
Grandma, who knew more Russian than English, was a nazi when it came to food. Then again, perhaps such a description is in poor taste given our family’s Jewish heritage, but it is nevertheless appropriate. Every day when Grandpa and I returned from the beach, we would find the dining room table lavishly adorned with all manner of Jewish soul foods that I never much liked. Everything was “dry” (cooked without oil) and the flavors were foreign. Don’t judge me too harshly, though. You see, I was used to TV dinners. Sure, on the rare occasions that my mother didn’t work late she would cook something basic, like burgers or chicken nuggets. But even when she was home, she preferred to order in. She had an extremely busy schedule. My father, meanwhile, usually ate on the way home from work. Sometimes he would bring me back fast food. Hence, I considered McDonalds the epitome of high quality; burgers were my fillet mignon and fries were my caviar. And I seldom sat at the dinner table for longer than it took to finish my solitary meal.
So, on that fateful night, after my grandparents had finished eating, my silverware lounged in uneaten scraps of chicken and some oddly spiced green vegetable. Grandma eyed the morsels like a street urchin would a coin. Her normally relaxed face contorted into a mask of stern importance. “You clean your plate, boy,” she said. She did not sound angry, but I knew her voice would brook no disobedience. I turned my fork over nervously and smiled, hoping to lighten her mood. No success. She was beginning to get angry. “You ask him questions and he answer,” she said, pointing to my grandfather, who was on his third serving. “You ask me for food and I give you food.” “But it smells funny, Grandma.” She permitted herself a shallow laugh that in no way meant she wasn’t serious. “Little boy want to know everything. But now he scared to eat new food. You eat now or no dessert.” Given Grandma’s history of less-than-appealing after-dinner treats, her threat did nothing to affect my resolve.
She was clearly angry now because her English was regressing to a fifth-grade level. Yet, as time passed, the vegetable began to seem more and more like a bitter enemy, something that needed to be triumphed over rather than chewed and tasted. Without another word I picked up my plate, walked into the kitchen, and dumped its contents into the garbage on top of a pile of newspapers. I braced myself for an angry reaction, but none came. My grandparents merely got up from the table and proceeded to their usual post-meal reading positions.
I awoke late the next morning and found Grandpa in his favorite chair, reading a book on South American ecology. “What’s ecology, Grandpa?” I asked. All I knew was that it sounded like biology, psychology and many of the other -ologies I’d heard of. To my surprise, he merely looked at me for a second, winked, and continued reading. Maybe he forgot to put in his hearing aides, I decided. “Hey Grandpa, why does some water look green from up high?” Still no answer. This wasn’t like Grandpa at all.
I went into the kitchen for “brunch” (it was 11:30), only to find, of all things, a TV dinner. Its bland taste was a comforting relief from my grandma’s exotic meals, but it worried me. I knew Grandma disapproved of such things. I was equally shocked by my grandfather’s refusal to answer any of my questions. When he went out to read on the beach, he didn’t even invite me. I wouldn’t have even noticed him leave if not for the squeaking backdoor that refused to allow anyone to exit unannounced.
The water was calm that day; perfect for skimming rocks. And so I did, for an hour straight, until finally I worked up the courage to confront Grandpa. I asked: “Grandpa, why won’t you answer any of my questions?” Silence. No use wasting my time. If he decided I wasn’t good enough to talk to, then it was his loss (indeed, how could he live without my life-sustaining questions?). I would make my own fun. I began walking.
I noticed many things I hadn’t before: the different kinds of shells, crabs (both alive and dead), rocks and even little pieces of glass that weren’t sharp. I found a green plastic pail that had been discarded by the sea and, since Grandpa refused to answer my questions, I began to search for things to fill it with. My initial thoughts on my new activity were that if Grandpa saw me having fun without him, he would become jealous, apologize and allow me to ask him questions for three hours straight to make up for his lapse in judgment. But soon, my only thoughts were of finding specimens to add to my new collection.
When my pail was full, I returned to the chairs, ignoring my grandfather in favor of poring over my treasures. Halfway through, I realized he was staring at me intently. I almost felt as if I were being studied. How annoyingly condescending. My anger gave way to relief when, for the first time all day, he smiled. Approval! But I couldn’t let him off that easy. So I set out to bolster my collection, this time walking along the beach until my legs could not longer carry me. When I got back to the purple chairs, Grandpa was in the water again. I figured that I had punished him enough already, and so I charitably saw fit to join him. The water was again unpleasant, but I quickly grew accustomed to its cold, salty embrace. “Why don’t we swim out to that rock?”
“I don’t know if I can make it that far. I’m not young anymore. Plus, I’m not feeling very well,” he responded. At last! He was speaking to me again. I must have done something right. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers. “We’ll take the boat. Only you have to help me carry it down to the water.” Without answering, I eagerly sprinted up the shore and clambered over the sea wall, an ancient wooden barrier reinforced by concrete cylinders, which I had spent many an hour shattering rocks against the summer Grandma got sick (a really bad headache, Grandma told me). I tried in vain to lift the heavy metal boat over the side. Grandpa laughed and offered “Perhaps I can help. We’ll see if my old bones hold out.” When the boat was floating on the water and both of us lay panting on the sand, he assured me that I had done all of the work.
Long Island Sound was a treasure trove of potential information, but I was content to listen to the ocean rather than ask questions about it. My grandpa and I quickly forgot our initial objective of reaching the rock. Time became a non-issue for me as my mind was drawn in to the eternity of the ocean. It took the loud urging of several male voices to pull me back into reality. They were yelling something about a sandbar. Confused, I turned to Grandpa to ask him what the men in the much larger boat a way behind us were talking about. I was surprised to find him slumped over the edge of the boat gazing down at the sea. Had he fallen asleep with his eyes open? Grandpa used to do that a lot, but usually when he was reading. After he refused to respond to my calls and a subsequent barrage of raps on the head, it dawned on me that something was seriously wrong with him. I proceeded to shut off the motor as he had taught me on a similar outing the previous summer.
Luckily, the strangers on the nearby boat had enough decency to check on us. I was completely silent as they hefted me and then my grandfather’s body on board, leaving our boat slowly spinning in our wake. Somehow, they managed to coax the location of my grandparents’ beach out of me, despite the state of shock that had seized me. The reality of what had occurred hit as they laid Grandpa’s lifeless body on the purple beach chair where I had spent so much time interviewing him and I began to cry. Not hysterically, like a child throwing a tantrum, but in a mature way that anyone would after losing a relative. The men simply instructed me to go get help.
Grandma did not seem shocked when she heard the news of her husband’s death. I found out later that she had been anticipating this day for a long time, ever since Grandpa had suffered his first stroke that miserable summer a few years back. Nevertheless, my own outpouring of grief managed to coax a few precious drops from her tear ducts, which had been rendered quite conservative after having seen her family murdered in the pogroms back in “the old country.” From then until Grandma died a couple of decades later, I always ate her food without complaint.
All these years later, Grandpa’s boat is still anchored at the dock in Great Neck, not far from where he and Grandma lived. Every so often I will drive my two sons there to take it out for a spin around the Sound. It has become something of a family tradition. As long as we are on the water, no one is permitted to speak. I tell my wife that these outings are for the kids’ benefit, because it’s healthy to get out of the city every once and a while and I suppose that is part of the reason. But on some level, I hope it teaches them the same lesson Grandpa imparted to me when he decided to play that silent game. Although all of those hours I spent interrogating the poor old man were educational, I truly think that last day we spent together, in almost complete silence, was worth a great deal more.
But Grandma and Grandpa only lived there a quarter of a year, anyway. They spent the rest of their time traveling the world, especially South America and Africa. Although Grandpa had retired from his job as a college professor after the deaths of many of his beloved old colleagues, he said it was his job to help teachers set up better science curricula for students in third world countries. Grandpa said a lot of things I didn’t understand, although I always pretended to. Yet somehow, he always knew to explain them anyway. He was an expert on pretty much everything.
We would often spend countless hours on the shore atop rickety purple beach chairs engaging in long question and answer sessions. I would ask him about everything from shadows to the details of his many excursions. Every so often, he would interrupt himself to point out something in the water; a boat in the distance or birds circling around a school of fish, nearly undetectable flecks of white that he called “biggies.”
One evening Grandpa interrupted my questioning and called attention to our surroundings. It was high tide and I was shocked to notice how much the waves had encroached on us over the course of our long conversation. The crescent moon, a glowing sideways smile in the sky, amplified the already mystical quality of the scene. I probably would not have noticed any of this if Grandpa had not called it to my attention. He seemed lost in the beauty of the sea. A particularly large school of bluefish hefted their massive frames out of the water off in the distance, landing in explosions of foam, colored gold by the setting sun. Grandpa abruptly rose and trudged toward the water and let it run through his toes, then up to his knees and chest. He told me to follow and I did, albeit more cautiously. It was not comfortable. My feet were cold from the water and I recoiled at the slimy caress of the seaweed. The ocean was so vast compared to the swimming pools I was accustomed to. But not particularly interesting. My reserves of attention officially depleted, I walked back up the beach and began the long ascent up the wooden steps leading to the house, which my grandfather had built himself a long time ago. When I did not hear his footsteps behind me, I glanced backward from the first landing. He was as still as the rocks beneath his feet with his eyes fixed on me. I met his stare for a few seconds, but my hunger compelled me to continue up the stairs, across Grandma’s carefully manicured lawn and into the house.
Grandma, who knew more Russian than English, was a nazi when it came to food. Then again, perhaps such a description is in poor taste given our family’s Jewish heritage, but it is nevertheless appropriate. Every day when Grandpa and I returned from the beach, we would find the dining room table lavishly adorned with all manner of Jewish soul foods that I never much liked. Everything was “dry” (cooked without oil) and the flavors were foreign. Don’t judge me too harshly, though. You see, I was used to TV dinners. Sure, on the rare occasions that my mother didn’t work late she would cook something basic, like burgers or chicken nuggets. But even when she was home, she preferred to order in. She had an extremely busy schedule. My father, meanwhile, usually ate on the way home from work. Sometimes he would bring me back fast food. Hence, I considered McDonalds the epitome of high quality; burgers were my fillet mignon and fries were my caviar. And I seldom sat at the dinner table for longer than it took to finish my solitary meal.
So, on that fateful night, after my grandparents had finished eating, my silverware lounged in uneaten scraps of chicken and some oddly spiced green vegetable. Grandma eyed the morsels like a street urchin would a coin. Her normally relaxed face contorted into a mask of stern importance. “You clean your plate, boy,” she said. She did not sound angry, but I knew her voice would brook no disobedience. I turned my fork over nervously and smiled, hoping to lighten her mood. No success. She was beginning to get angry. “You ask him questions and he answer,” she said, pointing to my grandfather, who was on his third serving. “You ask me for food and I give you food.” “But it smells funny, Grandma.” She permitted herself a shallow laugh that in no way meant she wasn’t serious. “Little boy want to know everything. But now he scared to eat new food. You eat now or no dessert.” Given Grandma’s history of less-than-appealing after-dinner treats, her threat did nothing to affect my resolve.
She was clearly angry now because her English was regressing to a fifth-grade level. Yet, as time passed, the vegetable began to seem more and more like a bitter enemy, something that needed to be triumphed over rather than chewed and tasted. Without another word I picked up my plate, walked into the kitchen, and dumped its contents into the garbage on top of a pile of newspapers. I braced myself for an angry reaction, but none came. My grandparents merely got up from the table and proceeded to their usual post-meal reading positions.
I awoke late the next morning and found Grandpa in his favorite chair, reading a book on South American ecology. “What’s ecology, Grandpa?” I asked. All I knew was that it sounded like biology, psychology and many of the other -ologies I’d heard of. To my surprise, he merely looked at me for a second, winked, and continued reading. Maybe he forgot to put in his hearing aides, I decided. “Hey Grandpa, why does some water look green from up high?” Still no answer. This wasn’t like Grandpa at all.
I went into the kitchen for “brunch” (it was 11:30), only to find, of all things, a TV dinner. Its bland taste was a comforting relief from my grandma’s exotic meals, but it worried me. I knew Grandma disapproved of such things. I was equally shocked by my grandfather’s refusal to answer any of my questions. When he went out to read on the beach, he didn’t even invite me. I wouldn’t have even noticed him leave if not for the squeaking backdoor that refused to allow anyone to exit unannounced.
The water was calm that day; perfect for skimming rocks. And so I did, for an hour straight, until finally I worked up the courage to confront Grandpa. I asked: “Grandpa, why won’t you answer any of my questions?” Silence. No use wasting my time. If he decided I wasn’t good enough to talk to, then it was his loss (indeed, how could he live without my life-sustaining questions?). I would make my own fun. I began walking.
I noticed many things I hadn’t before: the different kinds of shells, crabs (both alive and dead), rocks and even little pieces of glass that weren’t sharp. I found a green plastic pail that had been discarded by the sea and, since Grandpa refused to answer my questions, I began to search for things to fill it with. My initial thoughts on my new activity were that if Grandpa saw me having fun without him, he would become jealous, apologize and allow me to ask him questions for three hours straight to make up for his lapse in judgment. But soon, my only thoughts were of finding specimens to add to my new collection.
When my pail was full, I returned to the chairs, ignoring my grandfather in favor of poring over my treasures. Halfway through, I realized he was staring at me intently. I almost felt as if I were being studied. How annoyingly condescending. My anger gave way to relief when, for the first time all day, he smiled. Approval! But I couldn’t let him off that easy. So I set out to bolster my collection, this time walking along the beach until my legs could not longer carry me. When I got back to the purple chairs, Grandpa was in the water again. I figured that I had punished him enough already, and so I charitably saw fit to join him. The water was again unpleasant, but I quickly grew accustomed to its cold, salty embrace. “Why don’t we swim out to that rock?”
“I don’t know if I can make it that far. I’m not young anymore. Plus, I’m not feeling very well,” he responded. At last! He was speaking to me again. I must have done something right. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers. “We’ll take the boat. Only you have to help me carry it down to the water.” Without answering, I eagerly sprinted up the shore and clambered over the sea wall, an ancient wooden barrier reinforced by concrete cylinders, which I had spent many an hour shattering rocks against the summer Grandma got sick (a really bad headache, Grandma told me). I tried in vain to lift the heavy metal boat over the side. Grandpa laughed and offered “Perhaps I can help. We’ll see if my old bones hold out.” When the boat was floating on the water and both of us lay panting on the sand, he assured me that I had done all of the work.
Long Island Sound was a treasure trove of potential information, but I was content to listen to the ocean rather than ask questions about it. My grandpa and I quickly forgot our initial objective of reaching the rock. Time became a non-issue for me as my mind was drawn in to the eternity of the ocean. It took the loud urging of several male voices to pull me back into reality. They were yelling something about a sandbar. Confused, I turned to Grandpa to ask him what the men in the much larger boat a way behind us were talking about. I was surprised to find him slumped over the edge of the boat gazing down at the sea. Had he fallen asleep with his eyes open? Grandpa used to do that a lot, but usually when he was reading. After he refused to respond to my calls and a subsequent barrage of raps on the head, it dawned on me that something was seriously wrong with him. I proceeded to shut off the motor as he had taught me on a similar outing the previous summer.
Luckily, the strangers on the nearby boat had enough decency to check on us. I was completely silent as they hefted me and then my grandfather’s body on board, leaving our boat slowly spinning in our wake. Somehow, they managed to coax the location of my grandparents’ beach out of me, despite the state of shock that had seized me. The reality of what had occurred hit as they laid Grandpa’s lifeless body on the purple beach chair where I had spent so much time interviewing him and I began to cry. Not hysterically, like a child throwing a tantrum, but in a mature way that anyone would after losing a relative. The men simply instructed me to go get help.
Grandma did not seem shocked when she heard the news of her husband’s death. I found out later that she had been anticipating this day for a long time, ever since Grandpa had suffered his first stroke that miserable summer a few years back. Nevertheless, my own outpouring of grief managed to coax a few precious drops from her tear ducts, which had been rendered quite conservative after having seen her family murdered in the pogroms back in “the old country.” From then until Grandma died a couple of decades later, I always ate her food without complaint.
All these years later, Grandpa’s boat is still anchored at the dock in Great Neck, not far from where he and Grandma lived. Every so often I will drive my two sons there to take it out for a spin around the Sound. It has become something of a family tradition. As long as we are on the water, no one is permitted to speak. I tell my wife that these outings are for the kids’ benefit, because it’s healthy to get out of the city every once and a while and I suppose that is part of the reason. But on some level, I hope it teaches them the same lesson Grandpa imparted to me when he decided to play that silent game. Although all of those hours I spent interrogating the poor old man were educational, I truly think that last day we spent together, in almost complete silence, was worth a great deal more.