 Hi, everybody, okay. I'm gonna keep it brief. I wrote a story basically about my grandmother before she wasn't around anymore, and my cousin was taken care of her. I just call it lemonade. Your grandmother is on her deathbed now. She made it a long time ago, which is to say it was made for her, which really means she doesn't want it, but she's gonna lie down anyway. You proper pillows for her. Lace her lemonade with demoral because she is dying and dying hurts you. She says so herself. She says, dying hurts you. Then she downs her lemon and painkiller cocktail. Two gulps in her eyes go gaga inside the tiny thing that you know is her head. It looks like an onion now. A piece of old fruit, a fermenting thing. She says it tastes funny sometimes, the lemonade. She makes a face like she is turning a thumbscrew, but the thumbscrew is her face, like this. The living room is a rest haven for white noise. The air dense, tart with the copper coin smell of your grandmother and TV dinners. Sitting in her dusty wing back, she stabs blindly chicken fried steak with an oyster fork. Watches TV. This time it isn't mash. Tonight is courtroom drama. A police procedural. Cigarette smoke in the interrogation room, good cop, bad cop. You sit next to your grandmother, finger their lace doilies and work the remote. She coughs pieces of herself onto the floor while you explain the nuances. He's the one who did it, ma. Nights like these you dissolve pieces of black tar in a viseen bottle, sniffed deeply to keep from nose diving into carpet fibers. The detective on the show plays the hand bone card, the perp wilting under the combination of palm strikes and police jargon. Where'd you hide the body, pervo? But mostly it was mash. Honeycut, Hawkeye, witty repartee. She likes to hold your hand while you watch. You don't really like that. Her hands are scary. A pair of liver spotted carcasses barely held by the skin that keeps him. The way twice boiled chicken slides groaning off the bone, only to plummet back into the soup, releasing itself from itself. Your grandmother is like that. A thing awaiting release. Your grandmother is like a chicken. Does it hurt? You say to her being a chicken. Only when I'm thirsty, she says, pointing to the cup. You need to renew her prescriptions soon. No traffic on the way to the pharmacy today. Bachman wrote his all pedestrians, kids playing ball, playing house, hooky. A sheriff and a blue charger follows you for a while, riding your tail before taking the filtering toward filtering lane toward Hayward and out of the village. San Lorenzo changed the way unincorporated towns are apt to one failed mom and pop at a time. You reconcile, assign events monumental to the shifting landscape. There's the strip mall, the shoulders, the clock tower. There's the corner where bumps converge, tweakers posing as vets and vice versa to ply their trade dumpster die for bottles for cans, a bit of copper if the cards are right. You know their trade well, were part of the same union once, paid dues. Outside the pharmacy, one of them, a man with a push cart and a tiny dog, terrier maybe, offers you a paper cup and a chance to fill it. Just 50 cents, man, he says, shaking the cup for the bus, man, the bus. Judging from judging from the shallow pool of coins in the cup, the bum will still be swimming in garbage long after the bus has stopped running. Maybe even a jump through the city dump for loose metal to fill the cart, cap off the night. That shit has some squeaky wheels, you say. He smiles, but I pushed this motherfucker, right? Point A, point B, he shakes the Dixie again. You toss him a grubby single, where are you gonna park it? The bum puts a finger over his lips like wouldn't you like to know? God bless you, boss, he says, panting and miming a priest crossing the air between you. He pushes the cart into the street. Point B is waiting, he says, to himself, but maybe not. Now it's the pharmacy guy with the white coat in the questions. Always asking after grandma because his is aphasia to expressive, receptive something. He's got bed sign manner, which means he smiles when he says stuff. How's our girl, he says, smiling. He also calls grandma our girl, like it's both of you holding her hand, explaining the nuances. Still going strong? Still going, you say, handing over the script. He reads it, demoral, arecept the works. But there's an issue with the numbers with dosage and incongruity, he says, showing his teeth. What? The pharmacist picks up the telephone cradles in his ear. Just one minute, he says. He talks into the mouthpiece, this is doses, liquids versus capsules, the possible ramifications of lockjaw. You try to keep up with the conversation, but you're whipped. Outside his voice, the pharmacy is so quiet, you can hear it. The silence. The pharmacist hangs up the phone. Everything is a okay, he says, congruent. He fills the prescription, puts bottles in a white bag, staples it. Before handing it to you, he says, my Lola, she recognized me this morning. Second time this week. Sounds like an uptick, you say. He smiles. You never know. But the thing is, you always know. It's like the point-be-thing waiting, always waiting. There are all kinds of possibilities out there. Roads bend, fork, become paths, well traveled sometimes and sometimes less and all leading to the same place. Like the five stages of grief all lead to acceptance, so what's the sense in grieving at all? Why not just accept? If two roads diverge in the woods, well, you can simply turn around, find a different set of woods. See that tree there? It doesn't grieve, just drops dead leaves in winter. Simple. Natural. Sitting in the driveway, you crack the medicine bottle open and swig it. You wipe your mouth across your sleeve, you swig some more. Grandma is still in the living room, wing back, TV dinner. Sitting forward in her chair, she jabs at the television with her cane, trying to change the channel. Each attempt, prompting dust from the cushions. Can't find the remote, she says. My mash. You get on all fours, sweep your hand under the chair and retrieve the remote. On the TV, two surgeons trade barbs back and forth, lunge, repost, repeat, while adressed with some sort of man inside, sachets around the room. You were named after him, your grandmother says, spitting flecks of food past her teeth. Hawkeye? John Kennedy, she says. That's Alan Aldama. It was right after he died, remember, and the flags flew half-mast. I was born in 73, ma. But your father didn't have a flag, so he named you after him. He never said anything. After Kennedy, grandma says, she probes the insides of her cheeks, tongues the crest of her lips, searching for crumbs. He had high hopes for you. It was true your father didn't say much. He came from a generation that spoke mostly with their hands and wore blue collars like millstones. He was buried on a Thursday. You spent the afternoon burning spoons, trying to collapse your veins. I said, your father had high hopes for you, she says. Could have been president, you say. Not that high, she says, staring miles into the television. And the two of you sit quietly for a while. She's squeezing your hand, you letting her. Even squeezing back a little. She clears her throat, absolutely scratches the patchwork of hair on her head. I'm thirsty, you, she says, pointing. Demoral, lemonade, gaga. Thank you.