Page 13 of The Life of Chuck

“Victorian,” Chuck said.

“That’s right, and not pretend Victorian, either.It was built in 1885, been remodeled half a dozen times since, but the cupola was there from the start. Your bubbie and I bought it when the shoe business really took off, and we got it for a song. Been here since 1971, and in all those years I haven’t been up to that damn cupola half a dozen times.”

“Because the floor’s rotted?” Chuck asked, with what he hoped was appealing innocence.

“Because it’s full of ghosts,” Grandpa said, and Chuck felt that chill again. Not so pleasurable this time. Although Grandpa might be joking. Hedidjoke from time to time these days. Jokes were to Grandpa what dancing was to Grandma. He tipped his beer. Belched. His eyes were red. “Christmas Yet to Come. Do you remember that one, Chucky?”

Chuck did, they watchedA Christmas Carolevery year on Christmas Eve even though they didn’t “do” Christmas otherwise, but that didn’t mean he knew what his grandpa was talking about.

“The Jefferies boy was only a short time later,” Grandpa said. He was looking at the TV, but Chuck didn’t think he was actually seeing it. “What happened to Henry Peterson… that took longer. It wasfour, maybe five years on. By then I’d almost forgotten what I saw up there.” He jerked a thumb at the ceiling. “I said I’d never go up there again after that, and I wish I hadn’t. Because of Sarah—your bubbie—and the bread. It’s the waiting, Chucky, that’s the hard part. You’ll find that out when you’re—”

The kitchen door opened. It was Grandma, back from Mrs. Stanley’s across the street. Grandma had taken her chicken soup because Mrs. Stanley was feeling poorly. So Grandma said anyway, but even at not quite eleven, Chuck had a good idea there was another reason. Mrs. Stanley knew all the neighborhood gossip (“She’s ayente, that one,” Grandpa said), and was always willing to share. Grandma poured all the news out to Grandpa, usually after inviting Chuck out of the room. But out of the room didn’t mean out of earshot.

“Who was Henry Peterson, Grandpa?” Chuck asked.

But Grandpa had heard his wife come in. He straightened up in his chair and put his can of Bud aside. “Look at that!” he cried in a passable imitation of sobriety (not that Grandma would be fooled). “The Sox have got the bases loaded!”

3

In the top of the eighth, Grandma sent Grandpa down to the Zoney’s Go-Mart at the bottom of the block to get milk for Chuck’s Apple Jacks in the morning. “And don’t even think of driving. The walk will sober you up.”

Grandpa didn’t argue. With Grandma he rarely did, and when he gave it a try, the results weren’t good. When he was gone, Grandma—Bubbie—sat down next to Chuck on the couch and put an arm around him. Chuck put his head on her comfortably padded shoulder. “Was he blabbing to you about his ghosts? The ones that live in the cupola?”

“Um, yeah.” There was no point in telling a lie; Grandma saw right through those. “Are there? Have you seen them?”

Grandma snorted. “What do you think,hantel?” Later it would occur to Chuck that this wasn’t an answer. “I wouldn’t pay too much attention to Zaydee. He’s a good man, but sometimes he drinks a little too much. Then he rides his hobby horses. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.”

Chuck did. Nixon should have gone to jail; thefaygelehswere taking over American culture and turning it pink; the Miss America pageant (which Grandma loved) was your basic meat-show. But he had never said anything about ghosts in the cupola before that night. At least to Chuck.

“Bubbie, who was the Jefferies boy?”

She sighed. “That was a very sad thing, boychuck.” (This was her little joke.) “He lived on the next block over and got hit by a drunk driver when he chased a ball into the street. It happened a long time ago. If your grandpa told you he saw it before it happened, he was mistaken. Or making it up for one of his jokes.”

Grandma knew when Chuck was lying; on that night Chuck discovered that was a talent that could go both ways. It was all in the way she stopped looking at him and shifted her eyes to the television, as if what was going on there was interesting, when Chuck knew Grandma didn’t give a hang for baseball, not even the World Series.

“He just drinks too much,” Grandma said, and that was the end of it.

Maybe true.Probablytrue. But after that, Chuck was frightened of the cupola, with its locked door at the top of a short (six steps) flight of narrow stairs lit by a single bare bulb hanging on a black cord. But fascination is fear’s twin brother, and sometimes after that night, if both of his grandparents were out, he dared himself to climb them. He would touch the Yale padlock, wincing if it rattled (a sound that might disturb the ghosts pent up inside), then hurry back down the stairs, looking over his shoulder as he went. It was easy to imagine the lock popping open and dropping to the floor. The door creaking open on its unused hinges. If that happened, he guessed he might die of fright.

4

The cellar, on the other hand, wasn’t a bit scary. It was brightly lighted by fluorescents. After selling his shoe stores and retiring, Grandpa spent a lot of time down there doing woodwork. It always smelled sweetly of sawdust. In one corner, far from the planersand sanders and the bandsaw he was forbidden to touch, Chuck found a box of Grandpa’s Hardy Boys books. They were old-timey but pretty good. He was readingThe Sinister Signpostone day in the kitchen, waiting for Grandma to remove a batch of cookies from the oven, when she grabbed the book out of his hands.

“You can do better than that,” she said. “Time to step up your game, boychuck. Wait right there.”

“I was just getting to the good part,” Chuck said.

She snorted, a sound to which only Jewish bubbies do true justice. “There are no good parts in these,” she said, and took the book away.

What she came back with wasThe Murder of Roger Ackroyd. “Nowthisis a good mystery story,” she said. “No dummocks teenagers running around in jalopies. Consider this your introduction to actual writing.” She considered. “Okay, so not Saul Bellow, but not bad.”

Chuck started the book just to please Grandma, and was soon lost. In his eleventh year he read almost two dozen Agatha Christies. He tried a couple about Miss Marple, but he was much fonder of HerculePoirot with his fussy mustache and little gray cells. Poirot was one thinking cat. One day, during his summer vacation, Chuck was readingMurder on the Orient Expressin the backyard hammock and happened to glance up at the window of the cupola far above. He wondered how Monsieur Poirot would go about investigating it.

Aha, he thought. And thenVoilà, which was better.

The next time Grandma made blueberry muffins, Chuck asked if he could take some to Mrs. Stanley.

“That’s very thoughtful of you,” Grandma said. “Why don’t you do that? Just remember to look both ways when you cross the street.” She always told him that when he was going somewhere. Now, with his little gray cells engaged, he wondered if she was thinking of the Jefferies boy.

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