You Can Only Keep as Much as You Can Carry

Native American blood, hard and Kentuckian, has flushed his face for a lifetime of seventy-three years. Papaw rocks back and forth on the side of a bed draped in quilts, his face hollow and grey. The yellow skin around his eyes sags more today than it did even yesterday. Little John helps him remove his coat, and his big feet dangle in boots that haven’t worked in just over two months. When people deteriorate, it happens fast.

When I was sixteen, I would sneak behind my grandparents’ barn to smoke cigarettes. The grass was damp and the smoke blended smoothly into the soundless fog of an early, southern Indiana morning. Two birds chirped at each other, and the chickens squabbled over the last kernels of corn from the night before. I heard the soft hum of a golf-cart motor, and shoving my cigarette into the soil, I attempted to crouch — as naturally as no one ever did.

“I know you’re smoking those cigarettes, Ms. Abby.” Papaw cleared his throat.

“Ah, well…yeah — ”

“ — I made a lot of mistakes in my life. Used to treat your grandma pretty bad. Did you know your papaw here can’t read?”

“No.” But I did know, my mother had told me a few years ago.

“Yep, I tried learnin’ again when you was just a little girl.”

“Well, maybe if you — ”

“ — you was so little, Ms. Abby, and you just loved them books and you would sit on my lap and say, ‘read to me, Papaw, read to me.’ But, oh, Miss Abby, you was so smart and you had it figured out real quick that I wasn’t really readin’ them words to ya. And you’d say, ‘Papaw, that’s not what it says!’ And you’d just laugh and carry on!”

Though it is an innate and innocent thing, I pulled at the grass, shaking my head — embarrassed by the tactless ignorance of budding childhood.

“No, listen to me now. Your papaw’s a smart man, but I have to be because I can’t read a lick. But you know what, I’d give anything to write your grandma a letter. You got to be smarter with yourself, Ms. Abby. You got an advantage over folks like me, but you still gotta be careful.”

“I know, I’m going to. I’m just going through a rough spot.”

“Yeah? Well, that’s alright then, hon. Just make sure it don’t last a lifetime.”

Mamaw falls on her knees to untie his laces. She pulls up from the heels and steel-toed boots fly across the room while Papaw kicks his legs like a seventy-three-year-old child. His chest heaves and he labors for just one, good, deep breath. He wheezes in agony, gasping, doubling each intake of air only to exhale a small burst, a weak little hem. He doesn’t have the wind to cough. His eyes, bloodshot and murky, they sweep over our faces for a trace of promise. He searches beseechingly for any gesture that might indicate that he is not yet forsaken — and I pray he doesn’t interpret the helplessness in our expressions as foreboding omens.

I moved in with my grandparents at twenty-two-years-old. I wasn’t a recent college graduate, wasn’t having trouble finding work in my prestigious, specified field — I was just a heavy drinker, recently divorced from a short marriage. I drove home daily with a jug of Carlos Rossi between my legs, whipping around sharp country turns and singing Kris Kristofferson out the window at cows and men mowing their lawns.

Mamaw was a Christian woman who read her Bible between naps and trips to Wal-Mart. No matter the temperature, she sat with a blanket on her lap and dogs at her feet, journaling verses in notebooks that held revelations for herself and chosen family members. She didn’t force her religion or its prophesies on anyone, and she only asked me about my own salvation once. But Mamaw spoke of Jesus matter-of-factly. She would claim “the Lord says” as casually as “it’s supposed to rain tonight.” And we’d all just glance at each other, nodding respectfully, because we knew that for her, Jesus was real as the house in which we stood.

Papaw was a beer drinker in the garage and he liked zydeco and blues music. I once made a playlist for him and it didn’t take but two guitar rings before he said, “Oh, that’s that ol’ Muddy.” I don’t know if he actually liked Muddy Waters or if he were only noting the man’s popularity, as though Papaw were the first ever and oldest living hipster. I watched him whistle along, moving about old boxes and buckets, picking out unrecognizable tools and rusty car parts. Without purpose, he coolly examined each one before tossing them back into their crate. Most of the talking we did was full of his advice, which was funny and judgmental, but mostly correct, and painfully so.

“Now, Ms. Abby, you just stay in school.”

“I know, I know. I am. I’m going to go back and finish this time, I have to.”

“And tell you what. You stay away from anyone wearing those silly-ass tennis shoes.”

“Which shoes?” I smiled.

“If they got them silly shoes on, you just leave ’em alone.”

Papaw associated failure and immaturity with Chuck Taylors. To him, there was a strong correlation between my young, broke generation, and this shoe. Every friend I knew wore them. Every boyfriend I brought home wore them. My ex-husband wore them. I owned several pairs in black, navy blue, and bubblegum pink. And each and every one of us — impoverished and under-accomplished, just as he saw in those shoes.

For four-months I lived with my grandparents, and every day they reminded me they loved having me, encouraging me to stay as long as I liked. Although a temporary arrangement, I just couldn’t bring myself to disappoint them and tell them I found a place and was moving out. A coward, guilty and artless, I waited until they fell asleep to silently pack my belongings into my Jeep.

I left my key on the coffee table next to a bowl of M&Ms, and from the end of the couch, I watched Papaw as he slept and snored. The television — its volume loud — flickered lights on the walls and furniture, and I stood there in the blue light of True Grit. I shrank, my face becoming hot — imagining my awful stutter if he were to wake and asked what I was doing, but he never turned or flinched. And through the television screen, John Wayne’s dusty, orange face grinned at the two of us there in that living room scene that would go on to live infinitely in my memory. Even then, I knew someday I would have to answer for these things.

Splayed across her cheeks, Mamaw’s silver and white curls are sodden with sweat and tears. She howls at Jesus through the ceiling before she turns to me. “Ms. Abby, get us some help! Oh, get us some help!”

Out the room, I run madly and scramble the house for a phone. I am too afraid to dial 911, and so I think instead to call my mother and kill two birds with one stone. I can inform her of her father’s state, and I can get help because she is a nurse.

“He can’t breathe, Mom!”

“Lay him down!” She shrieks into the phone. “Lay him down and get his Niacin!”

Dashing back to Papaw, I hold the doorframe and swing hastily into the room and into a scene that has changed terribly. Nearly losing my balance as I freeze in place, the jarring sight gives me whiplash. Papaw is sitting upright with his arms and legs stiff as planks and outstretched like some sort of Frankenstein. His eyes are fixed in my direction — yet they are not on me but they are looking right through me in such terror and in such a way I have never seen a person stare into space. Into the very space I stand, he stares — out of his mind and into the abyss.

“What do you see, Garnet? What is it? Do you see Jesus?” Mamaw raises her hands above her head. “Praise you, Father! Praise you!”

I went to visit my grandparents one cold, Sunday afternoon in March. Twenty-five-years-old and broke, Papaw still handed me a one-hundred-dollar bill each and every time he saw me. If he didn’t have a hundred, he would give me all the miscellaneous bills in his wallet. It would seem that at the height of my selfishness I would seize every opportunity to spend time with him, and subsequently, spend his money. But I preferred my grandma, she supported almost everything, even things that went against her Christian beliefs. An easy-going woman, Mamaw adopted her judgments complementary to whatever I wanted or determined I needed at any given time. Papaw was difficult, often argumentative against things he didn’t understand, and the older I grew, the more reluctant I became to tolerate his opinions and suffer his advices.

That afternoon, Papaw fixed a hodgepodge of foods for lunch. He brought everything out on three trays, setting a tray on my lap, a tray on Mamaw’s lap, and one on his own. We ate biscuits and gravy, hotdogs, fried tomatoes, and some kind of chili he had concocted days before. The three of us feasted and watched old western films, laughing at the absurdity of the outdated plots and dramatic, bad acting.

“When your Mamaw goes to church tonight, you ought to ride with me to the sale-barn, Ms. Abby, and take a look at these little chickens they got down there.”

“Sure, yeah.” I cringed. “Sounds fun.”

Mamaw’s heels clicked against the hardwood floor as she bustled back and forth between the bedrooms and bathrooms getting ready for her Sunday night service. She ironed a decadent pantsuit, changed purses and earrings, and sprayed perfume all over herself.

“How’s it look?” She hurried before Papaw, cocking her fuzzy head to the side.

“Looks real nice, Mom. Awfully purdy.”

Papaw stood from his recliner, and I closed my eyes promptly. I heard his keys jingle as he threw on his oversized, Carhart coat. “Well, Ms. Abby, I’m going to start the truck. We’ll be ready to take off here in a few.”

Remaining silent, I pretended to sleep as he left the room and went outside. I listened to the garage door open and shut, and his truck engine click and blaze. The door opened and shut again, and his heavy boots clumped slow and steady down the hallway — towards me, faking some deep coma on the couch.

“Ms. Abby?”

I kept my eyes sealed and monitored the sounds of his feet. He shifted his weight back and forth, lingering and delaying.

“Alright, hon,” he said, before he left alone without me.

The phone shivers in my hand at the volume of my mother’s cries. “Get his Niacin, Goddamnit! Abby?”

“He is laying down now, he’s on his side. Should he lay on his back?”

“Yes, yes, get him on his back.”

“Papaw? Mom says you have to lay on your back. Just lay flat and try to breathe, okay?”

“I’m on my way.” My mother’s voice wails between sentences. “Keep him with us, I’ll call an ambulance.” She hangs up, I drop the phone on the floor.

“Get him on his back.” I point to Little John, my giant cousin, who stands with a wet face in the closet. Gently turning him, the two of us lay him down flat, and he chokes on his short breath.

“I’m leaving.”

“No, you’re not. It’s going to be okay. Mom is on her way. The ambulance is on its way.”

“I’m going home,” he says. And liquid gurgles through his voice.

“Stop it.” I place my hand on his heart. “You stop talking like that.”

From her hushed prayers in the corner, Mamaw reaches out to confess, “Garnet, I have loved you since the day I knew you.”

“I know, Mom, I know.”

Wiping his forehead, I slide a few stray hairs back into place. “Papaw, look at me.”

“I’m ready, Lord, take me — please.”

And I croak, “no,” pleading with Jesus, “don’t you do it.”

A white foam froths from the corners of his mouth and submerges his prayers, silencing them with a soft power. For what seems like hours, but is at most a few seconds, Mamaw, Little John and I are sucked into a vacuum and all is still, except the muted rise and fall of Papaw’s chest and the phone that rings and rings from its place on the floor.

Mamaw breaks first and picks up the phone, leaving the room to answer it. Little John slumps down and sits on his knees — down on the floor with his face in his hands. I kiss the top of his head, and move to stand at the end of the bed. I take Papaw’s feet into my hands and I rub them, looking into his face that is propped up on a pillow, I smile at him. He looks into my face, and I swear he smiles back at me until his eyes lose their focus, resolving into a gaze of sheer wonder. And I go on rubbing his feet like that — long after I feel their warmth leave his socks.

A legitimate pot of gold to a four-year-old girl, Papaw had this giant kettle filled to the brim with coins. He said I spent hours, my little hands filthy, playing in the pennies, nickels, quarters and dimes. My parents insisting it time to go home, that I must leave the treasure behind, Papaw said I would become hysterical. He would hand me a plastic grocery sack and tell me I could take some coins with me. He said I’d stuff it so full and heavy I couldn’t lift it. Dumping the coins back into the kettle, he’d tell me to try again.

“You can only keep as much as you can carry, Ms. Abby.”

Again, I would fill the sack far too full for my own weight, and again he’d tell me, “You can only keep as much as you can carry.”

And again and again he’d dump the coins back into the kettle. And again and again I ignored the lesson, trying to fill the sack and take them all.

He loved telling me this story. He smiled kindly — so benevolently — when he got to the part where he said, “And you’d just cry and cry, Ms. Abby, and you’d say, ‘why Papaw, why?”