Grandy Devil
MAHLON begat Timothy, and Timothy begat Nathan, and Nathan begat Roger, and the days of their years were long on the Earth. But then Roger begat Orville, and Orville was a heller. He begat Augustus, Wayne, Walter, Benjamin and Carl, who was my father, and I guess that was going too far, because that was when Gideon Upshur stepped in to take a hand.
I was kissing Lucille in the parlor when the doorbell rang and she didn't take kindly to the interruption. He was a big old man with a burned-brown face. He stamped the snow off his feet and stared at me out of crackling blue eyes and demanded, "Orvie?"
I said, "My name is George."
"Wipe the lipstick off your face, George," he said, and walked right in.
Lucille sat up in a hurry and began tucking the ends of her hair in place. He looked at her once and calmly took off his coat and hung it over the back of a chair by the fire and sat down.
"My name is Upshur," he said. "Gideon Upshur. Where's Orville Dexter?"
I had been thinking about throwing him out up until then, but that made me stop thinking about it. It was the first time anybody had come around looking for Orville Dexter in almost a year and we had just begun breathing easily again.
I said, "That's my grandfather, Mr. Upshur. What's he done now?"
He looked at me. "You're his grandson? And you ask me what he's done?" He shook his head. "Where is he?"
I told him the truth: "We haven't seen Grandy Orville in five years."
"And you don't know where he is?"
"No, I don't, Mr. Upshur. He never tells anybody where he's going. Sometimes he doesn't even tell us after he comes back."
The old man pursed his lips. He leaned forward, across Lucille, and poured himself a drink from the Scotch on the side table.
"I swear," he said, in a high, shrill, old voice, "these Dexters are a caution. Go home."
He was talking to Lucille. She looked at him sulkily and opened her mouth, but I cut in.
"This is my fiancee," I said.
"Hah," he said. "No doubt. Well, there's nothing to do but have it out with Orvie. Is the bed made up in the guest room?"
I protested, "Mr. Upshur, it isn't that we aren't glad to see any friend of Grandy's, but Lord knows when he'll be home. It might be tomorrow, it might be six months from now or years."
"I'll wait," he said over his shoulder, climbing the stairs.
Having him there wasn't so bad after the first couple of weeks. I phoned Uncle Wayne about it, and he sounded quite excited.
"Tall, heavy-set old man?" he asked. "Very dark complexion?"
"That's the one," I said. "He seemed to know his way around the house pretty well, too."
"Well, why wouldn't he?" Uncle Wayne didn't say anything for a second. "Tell you what, George. You get your brothers together and--"
"I can't, Uncle Wayne," I said. "Harold's in the Army. I don't know where William's got to."
He didn't say anything for another second. "Well, don't worry. I'll give you a call as soon as I get back."
"Are you going somewhere, Uncle Wayne?" I wanted to know.
"I certainly am, George," he said, and hung up.
So there I was, alone in the house with Mr. Upshur. That's the trouble with being the youngest.
Lucille wouldn't come to the house any more, either. I went out to her place a couple of times, but it was too cold to drive the Jaguar and William had taken the big sedan with him when he left, and Lucille refused to go anywhere with me in the jeep. So all we could do was sit in her parlor, and her mother sat right there with us, knitting and making little remarks about Grandy Orvie and that girl in Eatontown.
So, all in all, I was pretty glad when the kitchen door opened and Grandy Orvie walked in.
"Grandy!" I cried. "I'm glad to see you! There's a man--"
"Hush, George," he said. "Where is he?"
"Upstairs. He usually takes a nap after I bring him his dinner on a tray."
"You take his dinner up? What's the matter with the servants?"
I coughed. "Well, Grandy, after that trouble in Eatontown, they-"
"Never mind," he said hastily. "Go ahead with what you're doing."
I finished scraping the dishes into the garbage-disposer and stacked them in the washer, while he sat there in his overcoat watching me.
"George," he said at last, "I'm an old man. A very old man."
"Yes, Grandy," I answered.
"My grandfather's older than I am. And his grandfather is older than that."
"Well, sure," I said reasonably. "I never met them, did I, Grandy?"
"No, George. At least, I don't believe they've been home much these last few years. Grandy Timothy was here in '86, but I don't believe you were born yet. Come to think of it, even your dad wasn't born by then."
"Dad's sixty," I told him. "I'm twenty-one."
"Certainly you are, George. And your dad thinks a lot of you. He mentioned you just a couple of months ago. He said that you were getting to an age where you ought to be told about us Dexters."
"Told what, Grandy Orville?" I asked.
