Ralph Famularo (3.26.06)

"The Crying Trapeze Artists"



My Aunt Joan
would whisper hysterically
on every Birthday Eve.

"Oh my God, I'm no longer 27"
was her HUSHing yearly Mantra.

27 was her favorite number.
She said it had once shouted out to her
from a wall emblazoned in florescent orange-pink
in the "most exquisite parking garage I have ever seen."

With the wispy dew of fond memory
welling in her eyes,
She quavered, "I was with Grandpa -- for the last time.
He shuffled up the rectangular concrete staircase
looking like a tired Leonid Brezhnev. But Grandpa,
dear Grandpa", she would add with pride, "had 2
good eyebrows."

"I always judge a man by his eyebrows"
concluded the Spinstress.

"Funny", I said. I always remember Grandpa
as looking something like Bing Crosby on dope.
Every Yuletide, the frosty air outside our house
would thunder with the jolly tones of
"I'm dreaming of a (*sniff*) white Christmas."

He would enter the warm, cozy living room
wiping the numbing snow from his
red, Santa-like nose.

My brother, Janik, would greet him with,
"What didn't you bring us THIS year, Grandpa?"

"Bad boys don't get nuthin' -- except maybe a little
Budweiser from time to time."

Grandpa was referring to the often not-spoken of
family scandal. Janik had been dishonorably discharged
from the Jamaican Army. We all knew it was political,
though.
Besides Janik not being a Jamaican citizen, Jamaica was
merely
looking for a scapegoat in retaliation for the Canadian
Press's
treatment of Ben Johnson during the 1988 Seoul Steroid
Olympics.

So, Janik was sent packing and came home to Pennsylvania.

I've never understood why my brother and I have different
passports.

I've never bothered to ask.

We have a TV.

At sundown we would all take our seats around the round
table
in anticipation of another Xmas-TV dinner. Consuming it
with glee,
we eagerly awaited desert. Aunt Joan could defrost a Sara
Lee Cherry Cheesecake
like Nobody's Business.
I preferred Boston Cream Pie but she insisted that THAT
would be a slap in the face to the Keystone State -- not
to mention Canada.

Then the phone would ring -- as it did every
Xmas night around 7PM. My mother & father
would emotionally voice their Holiday Greetings to the
family.

You see, my parents are rarely home. They are understudy
trapeze artists
traveling w/ the Ringling Brothers Circus. At least,
that's what I've been told.

After completion of the heartfelt and tearful collect
call, we'd sit back down
and intently listen to Grandpa tell us memorable stories
about how he heroically
crossed the Delaware and built a house with his own 2 bare
bank accounts.
Or, perhaps he would engage us with the tale of how he had
come up with
an idea for an incandescent device. Of course, Edison had
already invented it but Grandpa proudly explained that HE
had thought of it independently,
and without the help of "a fancy workshop and Big Money
backing me. It came to me in a Flash! It was as if a
lightbulb went on over my head."

We'd all retire and at mid-morning on the 26th, Aunt Joan
and Grandpa would go out to the mall just over the hills
and through the Woods Retirement Village
to stock-up on Xmas week provisions
Janik and I would be up after noon and commence the
arduous task of repacking the Xmas presents so we could
celebrate Boxing Day.

But, on this particular Boxing Day, as we labored at
affixing the green and red bows back on the partially torn
wrapping paper, the sun dissolving into the cold, hazy
horizon, the front door opened and in-walked Aunt Joan. .
.without Grandpa.

Pale-faced, tongue-tied, the wispy dew
of painful memory welling-up in her eyes,
She said, "Grandpa has passed-on."

"He's not alive!?" blurted Janik.

"Worse than that. He's gone to Columbus, Ohio.

He's forsaken the Keystone State -- not to mention Canada.

He said he was tired of entertaining
a family of gullible liars.

He left me standing at the station wagon with a 6-pack in
my hand and boarded the bus to Ohio."

"Well I'll be damned", I said, dumbfounded. "The Xmas
snow has finally
destroyed Grandpa's mind. The chemicals have eaten away
his roots."

And Aunt Joan, 2 sad eyebrows, has been unable to stop
Whispering Wildly
on Birthday Eves.




Ralph Famularo