Fighting Fate

Thick blood is pouring out the gashes in my face. I need to find somewhere safe to hide. I hear heavy footsteps and people shouting my name angrily. If they find me, I won’t have much time. Today is my predicted death. But I refuse for that to be my destiny. I have 10 hours left. I will survive. For her.

“Roger, come in here and help your granny” my grandmother shouts from the garage.

“Granny, I have food cookin’ on the stove.”

“You heard what I said, boy.”

I groan. Why do people always need you at the most inconvenient times? My poor risotto. I hope it doesn’t burn. I could just turn the burner off completely, but instead I turn it to the lowest heat setting. Maybe it should be simmering anyway. Maybe I’m trying to rush things.

I go to wipe my hands off on the hand towel by the refrigerator and stub my toe on the corner of the stove. “Jesus fu-” I grit my teeth on the word ‘fuck’. Even at the peak of physical pain, I’m not stupid enough to curse in my grandmother’s house. She’s not just Southern, she’s not just black and she’s not just Baptist. She is all three combined. She reminds me of household cleaners you’re not supposed to mix because they become corrosive or deadly. Yeah. That’s her.

“Roger, what in the world is takin’ you so long?”

“I’m comin’” I say, trying to ignore the throbbing of my toe. The stove has never forsaken me. I guess today is my unlucky day. I stand in the doorway of the garage and see her crouched over some boxes. It always smells like gasoline and cigar smoke in here. It’s oddly comforting.

“You need me to move those?”

“Yeah but you look here, don’t go breakin’ nothin’. I have valuables in there.”

“Valuables?”

“Yes sir.”

“Well, there must be pictures of me in these boxes then.”

“Gon’ head”, she smirks. Her dentures nearly falling out her mouth. I told her I’d take her to the dentist to get new ones that are properly fitted but she got offended and told me to mind my business. That God loves her just the way she is and maybe I should worry about fixing my gap before I talk about her dentures. My grandmother was a comedian in a past life. Had to have been. She’s the funniest 83-year-old I know, and I know a lot of them since I work in a nursing home.

“Granny, I got risotto on the stove. Can you make sure it don’t burn?”

“You got what now?”

“Risotto.”

She scoffs. “You visit LA once and you already bringin’ that uncultured food to my house.”

“Granny”, I chuckle, “It’s not uncultured. It’s basically just rice and broth. But can you check for me? I got this here. Don’t worry ‘bout these boxes. But where you want them?”

“Just bring ‘em to the living room. I wanna go through ‘em but it’s too hot in here. And sure, I’ll check on your fancy rice.” She grabs her cane by the door and heads toward the kitchen. Palmolive scented wind follows her as she walks past me.

There are two medium-sized boxes and one small one. I wonder what’s in here anyway. My grandmother is always “going through” something. I never understood why my family just couldn’t throw things away. It’s like they had to make sure they didn’t miss anything “valuable” the first hundred times they checked.

“Roger” my grandmother shouts from the kitchen.

“Yes Granny,” I say peeking my head out the garage door.

She sticks her neck around the wall that divides the kitchen and living room. “I don’t smell nothin’. No onions, no sage, no nothin’. Boy, I thought I taught you how to cook. If you can’t smell it, it ain’t right. This what you tryna feed me? Uh huh. Like I said, uncultured. Tryna feed me unseasoned broth-rice.”

I laugh. “Granny I-”

“Oh no, don’t Granny me. I’m gon’ have to season this now. Don’t even worry ‘bout it burnin’. I’m cookin’ it now,” she waves her wooden spoon at me with a shaky hand and disappears back into the kitchen.

I ignore the fact that she doesn’t know how to make risotto because apparently, I don’t either. I decided to stack the two medium-sized boxes and come back for the smaller one. They land with a thud as I drop them on the living room floor. I go back to grab the smaller box, but my curiosity can’t be contained. I need to know what’s so special about what’s in these boxes that my grandmother has held onto them for most of her life. I’m assuming it’s just pictures of my parents who passed away in a car crash when I was nine, and pictures of my grandpa who passed a few years ago. Maybe some old love letters from my grandpa I could take notes from. I decide to open it to see for myself. I know if I ask, I’d be called nosey and told to stay out of grown folks business even though I am indeed, a grown folk.

I take the lid off and set it down to the side. It’s exactly what I thought. A mountain of pictures of my parents and pictures of my grandpa. I grab one that stands out to me. It’s a photo of my mother in her bridal gown. She’s got bright red lipstick on, a perfect white smile and eyes that I’m sure by father couldn’t stop staring at. I put the photo down and am about to put the lid back on when I notice something. This isn’t a box with a mountain of pictures in it. There are at most ten photos but they are covering a thick calendar. I scoop up all the photos and put them into the lid. The calendar looks brand new. I could really use this. I’ve been all over the place lately. Maybe keeping to-do lists on my phone isn’t enough. I pull the calendar from the box.

It’s about 10x14 inches with a glossy photo of flowers on the front. It’s almost as thick as a textbook so I assume it’s for the next 10 years or so. The year “2020” looks almost imprinted into the flowers. I’m not a designer, but I’d say it’s pretty nifty. I flip up the cover to January and see that this is, indeed, not a new calendar. There is writing on every square. It doesn’t look like my grandmother’s handwriting though. Maybe a friend gave it to her and wrote out all the important events of this year and the next 10 years to come. “Ah well. Maybe this is a sign I have my life together more than I think,” I say into the emptiness of the garage. I peer down once more at the calendar, this time focusing on the handwriting. But instead of cracking the code, I notice something odd.

January 3rd Car accident.

I’m taken aback. I had a fender bender on January 3rd of this year. I was ok; my wallet, not so much. I’d been told to get full coverage insurance time and time again but I’m cheap and wasn’t going to spend extra money on something that may never happen. But then it happened and now I have full coverage and life insurance. Just in case. I scan the page of the calendar.

January 10th Lose job. January 18th start business. January 30th quit business to look for new job.

At this point the hairs on the back of my neck are starting to swell, sweat is starting to cascade down my palms. These are all things that have happened to me. Verbatim. Something in me tells me to close the calendar, shove it back in the box and take it in the living room. But curiosity gets the best of me again. It always does. I flip to February, then March, then April. Each day has written the events I experienced that day. Maybe I’m dreaming or psychotic and don’t know it. This has gotta be psychosis. Then I get to today’s date, May 1st 2020. My heartbeat sounds like a crowd of elephants. I gulp. My eyes widen, my lungs forget how to breathe and my whole body convulses as I see what is squeezed into the tiny square.