My grandfather’s posture looked like the pillows he was propped against. He had been hooked up to about three different machines that the nurse had temporarily disconnected so he could move and speak more freely for the visit, but even the remaining single oxygen tank feeding air to his nose unnerved me. He looked like he wasn’t supposed to be as small as he was.

“Emil. You’re going to college.” It wasn’t a question, but he said it like one.

“Uh, yeah, your alma mater! I’m going to do math.” I was trying to engage.

“I haven’t seen that school in decades. It doesn’t mean anything to me. Sheridan, would you get me some scalloped potatoes from the kitchen? Say they’re for me. They know.”

“Dad, you loved that school and the potatoes will take like 20 minutes. Plus, we brought you food.” My mom is patient always, forgetful never, unlike her father.

“I want scalloped potatoes. I saw my friends die in Vietnam, and now I want scalloped potatoes.” I didn’t know what the two things had to do with each other, but my mom laughed and quietly took my brother by the arm to leave.

“I can help!” I didn’t want to be alone.

“No, that’s okay, you drove us here!” She winked at me. My own mother.

“Emil, listen to me.” Here it comes. College, huh? Make the most of it, it’ll go by fast. Choose your major wisely, the economy’s in a downward spiral. But follow your passions, I wish I had picked a major that I loved. There’s a lot you haven’t experienced, keep an open mind. “I need you to help me leave.”

“Yeah, I’m excited for — what?”

“What does it sound like? I need you to help me get out of here.”

“Grandpa, I’m not going to do that.”

“Yes, you are. I’m dying.”

“Mom said you were doing well.”

“I know what dying is supposed to feel like. I thought I was dying before, but I’m actually dying now.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Get me out of here.”

“Logistically speaking, there’s no way I can get you out of here without getting in trouble or, like, someone stopping us. No offense, but have you even left your bed recently?”

He actually leaned forward, albeit infinitesimally, though it required an infinite amount of effort. But that effort meant nothing compared to the anticipation visible in his eyes, in spite of his bushy eyebrows.

“I have it planned. This is why I told your mother to leave, and why I told her to come today, at this time. My full-time nurse, Marnie, she’s on leave for her baby and there’s a temporary one. She’s at lunch right now because I’m on a visit; if you take me through the back ramp, behind the rec room, no one will see, just the cameras.”

“So I’ll still get in trouble.”

“You’ll get over it. And I’ll tell them I made you do it. I’ll say I guilted you by reminding you of Vietnam.”

“Is that something you’re known for?”

“Yes. Now lift me.”

“Where would we even go?”

“The pier. I want a hot dog.”

“We could have brought you one —”

“I’m not stupid. I know. Lift me.”

“Won’t mom worry?”

“Of course she will. So, you’ll leave a note.”

***
My grandfather knew exactly where he wanted to go on the pier. A baseball-toss game where you nail little bowling-pin-shaped beanbag clowns in the dome, which sat across from a cotton candy cart, which was next to a hotdog stand. A 1-2-3 punch of joy for the old man.

“Your mom ever tell you what I did before I retired?”

“Kind of, I know you were, like, high up in the military.” He always sat up straight outside of his bed, like it was his chance to have good posture, even now in his wheelchair. It always made me feel like he was giving me orders. It feels compulsive now.

“No, before that.”

“Before that?”

“I didn’t get drafted until I was 20. When I was your age, I was a professional juggler.” I couldn’t tell if this was some kind of weird bit he was doing.

“You can be a professional in juggling?”

“Damn straight. I was incredible.”

“If you were doing that at my age, when did you go to college? I didn’t even know you went there until after I applied, and my mom told me.”

“After I got back. I needed something to do even more than before. Your mom didn’t tell me you applied until you got in. Can we play that game? This cotton candy’s got me wired, I haven’t been allowed to eat something this sweet since 2009. And a loaded hot dog. Anything they can put on it. Even if it normally doesn’t go on a hot dog. I want this thing 3 feet tall.” He punctuated the last three words of his sentence with a layering motion of his hands, boom, boom, boom.

“I didn’t know you even knew I got in until right now. Fine with the cotton candy, maybe later with the hot dog. But don’t tell Mom.” I thought I might as well clear some things off his bucket list, or else what are all those machines for — the cotton candy was $5? It’s like 90% air, can we be for real— OH MY GOD. “Grandpa? Grandpa! GRANDPA, WAKE UP, OH GOD, PLEASE NO —”

“Got you.” He opened his eyes and grinned. I hadn’t realized that I’d never really seen him laugh — and I mean really laugh — until right then. Too bad I was still mad at him for scaring me to really drink it in.

“GRANDPA, THAT’S NOT FUNNY. Oh my god, that was so deeply unfunny, holy Christ, I think I’m having a heart attack.” I was even more mad that it was funny. I didn’t know he was funny; I just thought he was old.

“They’re not that bad.”

“Here’s your goddamn cotton candy. God, you think you’re so funny, don’t you?” I grabbed my chest, feeling it expand and contract like a water bottle being squeezed until both ends of the plastic on the inside touched each other. But I couldn’t help but smile. He was funny, and he knew it.

“Yes.” He laughed several times without showing his teeth, and I threw my hands up, amused but still deeply unsettled.

“Well, now we’re not gonna play this freaking baseball-toss-whatever game.”

“Don’t be rash. Don’t deprive me.”

“Why shouldn’t I? You just scared me to death.”

“Imagine if it were the real thing. I would have scared you with death. Heh.”

“Fine. You see those clowns? On the beanbags? That’s what you look like right now. And these games are all rigged.” I smiled and paid the worker, handing the baseballs to my grandpa’s trembling hands.

“I’ll hold my breath until I pass out if you insult me one more time. And I’ll call that school of yours and tell them I’m an alumnus and tell them to kick you out. And those games are only rigged if you’re a bad shot.”

“Just throw the damn ball, Grandpa — holy shit, you hit it.”

“Of course I hit it, what did you think would happen?”

“I’ve seen you outside of your bed twice before today, and you just headshotted that clown.”

“You haven’t seen most of my life. A master juggler knows how to land a toss.”

“Not to be disrespectful, but I think this is the most I’ve ever talked to you. Definitely the most I’ve ever talked to you. I don’t know, I just —”

“None of you kids see me as a person.” I frowned and started to speak, but he wouldn’t let me. “No, no, it’s not your fault. You’re in different times in your lives than me, you always have been. Always becoming something new, every day I’ve known you. I’m realizing that I’ve been something old the whole time you knew me. And it’s not your fault. It’s not mine either. Which prize do you want?”

“Well, don’t you want it?”

“I have no use for memories now. You certainly do, you’re open wide for them. You know, I really am glad that you’re going to my school. I don’t know why I said that earlier. It was my home, and now it’s yours. We share blood and a home now.” I smiled.

“I’ll take the 4-foot Garfield stuffed animal. It’ll be hard to forget.”

***
We sat on a bench behind the hot dog stand, right next to the Ferris wheel. It was still midday, the wheel only partially blocking the sun.

“Was the hot dog everything you dreamed of, Grandpa?”

“Goddamn miracle. We’ve never made anything better as a nation than a hot dog. And everything on it? Incredible. Makes me think of your grandmother. I always wondered what you kids thought of her.”

“I never really knew her. I remember her funeral, sort of.” I remember feeling bad that I wasn’t crying, but I didn’t know if I could say that.

“Like you said, you didn’t know her. I think it’s a crime that everyone in the world couldn’t know her. She loved baseball. She filled out the scoresheets during the games, and I would go get her a hot dog. I’d surprise her every time, try to put something on the hot dog she wouldn’t predict. Popcorn. Pepper. Lettuce. Licorice. Ice cream. Anything to make her laugh.” I never knew anything beyond her name, and that she was my grandmother, and that she had died. How sad, for the only thing you know about a person to be that they’re dead.

“Did she eat them?”

“Every time. Anything to make me laugh.”

“Even the ice cream?”

“It was her favorite. She said the chocolate tasted good with the sausage, but I think she was just trying to get me to try it.”

“Did you?”

“No. Should have.”

“Grandpa, can I ask you about something you said earlier?”

“You should have just asked instead of asking to ask.”

“Why did you have me break you out? Why not my brother?” It was the first time that day that he took more than a split second to answer a question or offer a comment. He pursed his lips, watching the grey-blue mini waves off the pier that would later become foamy white if they just waited.

“You’ve always reminded me a bit of your grandmother. You look so much like her. You like your numbers like her; you’re a funny kid. But that scared me. Because if I got to know you, you might leave me behind as you got older, which would be fair. Like I said, it’s a different time for you. But it would be like losing her again. I met her at that school, you know? Your new home. Our home.” I watched the waves turn white.

I was blinking back tears and turned sharply to him. “What? No one ever told me that.”

“It’s not a very interesting story. She didn’t go there, she lived nearby and went to the baseball games with her friends because they were free. I went once, at the beginning of the season, because my friends dragged me there to get hot dogs and we smuggled beers in our jackets. And I went to every game until I could work up the courage to ask her out. Our first date was the last game of the season. And I still don’t know how that damn game works. Can I get a napkin?”

The corners of his mouth were still quirked; I think even talking about the scar was like seeing it. I think talking about his friend was like being with him again. I was thoroughly sad and deeply content, knowing I was with him during this moment of resurrection, catharsis. His grandson in blood, his witness in the moment.

“Sure. Stay put, alright?”

“Funny. Like me.”

“Like you.”

“Like him. You’re a lot like him, you know?” He paused, collecting himself. “I wish we’d all known each other a lot longer.”

“Me, too, Grandpa. I wish I’d spent my life so far knowing both of you.” I got up without saying anything else. It didn’t feel right to follow up the most vulnerable moment of my grandfather’s elderly life by saying I was grabbing him a napkin.

They only had the shitty, half-ply napkins lodged into the dispenser like they were clogging an open wound. I grabbed maybe a thousand before losing half of them to the wind. Maybe they’ll get shredded into some seagull’s nest and I won’t have to feel as bad about how much I just littered. I turned back to the hot dog stand and ordered some ice cream.

As I approached, my grandpa was slumped over with his eyes closed yet again. “Alright, Grandpa, they didn’t have chocolate ice cream, but strawberry is like pink chocolate, kind of, except not really — Grandpa, it’s not a funny bit if you do the same exact thing twice, this isn’t like landing a toss. Grandpa. Grandpa? Oh my god.”

***
“Now, son, I want to be honest with you … in this single, specific case, no one is looking to press charges; your mother said she had your location and chose to let you guys leave, and she filled out an excursion request this morning online before you got here, so she was planning for him to leave the home no matter what — that being said, I want to remind you that you are 18 years old … in the eyes of the law, you are an adult. And, had this been a slightly different situation, you could have been liable for criminal negligence and endangerment as well as elder abuse — now, I am sorry for your loss — truly — it seems like you gave him an incredible day, and you could do nothing about his passing, alright? It was his time, and he asked not to be resuscitated, but I need you to know that, going forward, you need to be careful of your impulses, alright, son? Okay. I’m going to send you back out to your mother, okay? Okay. You’re going to be okay. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Okay. Okay, son, let’s get you back out there.”

***
“I just got him and then I lost him, Mom.”

“Honey, you always had him, always, he loved you.”

“But it’s my fault —”

“Emil, he was old, that wasn’t your fault. I think that was the best day he’s had in years, maybe decades. He wouldn’t want you to cry.”

“…He liked to make people smile.”

“Yes, he did.”

“But I want to cry, I don’t know what else to do.”

“Then do that until something else occurs to you, hon. We’re all going to be sad for a long time, we’ll always be sad that he’s not here. But you have him in a different way now, in a way that maybe matters more than it did before. I’m so —” She had to pause, the tears finding their way down her cheeks despite her efforts. “I’m so glad you got that day together. You have a way to remember him.”

Her composure collapsed completely, and we fell into one another across the front seats of her car, holding on to each other with two plastic eyes watching us from the back seat.

“And a giant Garfield stuffed animal. That’s something, too.” We both laughed through our tears, feeling them leave our eyes and run across our smiling cheeks, different things altogether now that they’d crossed that threshold and let the air change them completely.