Travels with Ultra Blue (Part Granparents' Visit)

I pulled my bike onto the sidewalk. Took a moment to stretch and came to the grips of reality having reached the peak of my journey. I stepped to the porch and knocked on the metal screen door. The lights were off, it was still quiet. The knocks were deafening in contrast to the silence. I thought in complete horror, “What if this wasn’t even their house? What if they moved? What if I’m waking up an ex- convict? What if the bike croaked while being turned off? What if?” The living room lights came on, the door creaked open, “Marky, is that you?”

 “Yes, Grandma, I’m here.” She looked over my shoulder towards the bike and with a reluctant look asked if that was mine. I agreed. “Well, park it in our driveway around the back. There are people    out there who have stolen things.” I kick started it and it felt more alive – the bike. It was for some reason louder, touchier, and wilder. I parked the bike in their driveway then went inside through their backdoor. A dim faint light came from the hallway to a bedroom. There was a whisper, “Perez, its Mark, he’s here.” Grandma came back out to welcome me in.

“Here’s Grandpa,” she kindly whispered. Entering the room was a small glow from the nightstand alighting his small bedside table littered with rows of clear orange medication bottles, their labels foreign to my uneducated eye. My grandfather looked so worn and used. His eyes half open yet still glowing at me with kind humor. Much like a favorite shirt, worn over and over again, he portrayed that same faded wrinkled mortality. I reverently approached his bedside. He greeted me with a smile and a hug.

             “So good to see you.”

  “You too Grandpa.” I embraced the moment and felt I had reached the boon of the journey' until he asked,

“How did you get here?” Grandma jumped on the response,

           “He took his motorcycle Perez!” 

           “A WHAT?!” he then sputtered,

“I thought you took the bus, had I known you came on a bike I would’ve said ‘forget it, just send me a postcard.’” Now that that was out of the way we conversed about what was new with my parents, school, and life. In the middle of our conversations he would cough violently almost as if his inner facilities were mustering hard to clear all the excess saliva, mucus, and anything else that was clogging the pipes upward against the current through his throat and then his mouth and then into a Tupperware bowl. The whole process was painful to watch. He had lost all of his hair and was dying very quickly. His voice was gentle and weak. You’d have to lean forward to listen and speak up to talk. He eventually grew tired and Grandma excused us.