With and Without Class by David Fleming Read Free Book Online Page A

scowled as he watched her walk away.
    Our tower was narrow and tall, almost as tall as us, and the three of us munched white salty pretzels.
    â€œWhat kind of subjects ya got?” Grandpa asked and drank his iced beer.
    I looked up, “What?”
    Grandpa looked at me, insulted. He set down his glass and shook outstretched palms, “If you build a tower that tall, you got to have subjects. That’s a lot of bricks. Not every man’s meant to carry bricks.”
    This was the first time I really remember Grandpa talking to me and I was intrigued.
    I pondered. Then smiled, flexing thin arms, “They’ll be strong.”
    Grandpa harrumphed and settled back into his easy-chair, disgusted. “Big mistake.” He finished his beer and chewed his ice, looking at the glass with furrowed brow, mumbling, “Just one good drink.” He settled further back into his chair and dozed-off.
    When we ran out of Legos our attention focused on Grandpa. He muttered things occasionally, eyes rolling beneath lids, but we couldn’t understand him. Maybe another language, maybe old-fashioned words. We threw our white pretzels onto him, watching them bounce on his stomach and settle in folds of his coat. He stirred and the pelting pretzels accelerated his dreaming.
    He cried softly, “Helena!” and we giggled and hushed each other. Helena was his wife, she died in an apartment fire, I think.
    Benson taunted, “You won’t hit him in the face!”
    â€œOh yes I will,” I said. “Watch. Just watch. Watch.” I ate the frosting off a pretzel, licking the bare brown coating to moisten it. I sighted Grandpa’s head with one eye and with pretzel drawn and waiting behind my ear. Then flung it and it sailed in an arch, ending in a patting sound as the small brown pretzel held fast to Grandpa’s white wrinkled forehead. His head flinched but he simmered. Jack and Benson leaned forward, mouths gaping. Grandpa’s eyes opened.
    â€œRUN!” Jack and Benson cried, pulling at my elbows but I stayed seated on the carpet and let them flee.
    Grandpa got his bearings, looking into the corners of the room like he’d never been there before. Then his eyes moved up a little to his forehead. He peeled the pretzel off and gave a grin of discovery before popping it in his mouth. He chewed. “Where’s the frosting?”
    â€œI ate it.”
    â€œHmmph, stingy.” He leaned forward, digging into this back pocket to get out the thick brown wallet and slap it on the simulated-wood TV-tray which his empty drink also rested atop. “Have you heard about my Magic-Fiver?”
    I shook my head side-to-side.
    Grandpa scooted to his left in the easy-chair. “Come on up here then, my boy. Let’s handle this business of ours.”
    I wedged myself into the available space of the easy-chair, which was weird because his legs were very warm and soft, even for an old man.
    Grandpa tapped the wallet. “I always keep the Magic-Fiver right in here. Before I show it to you, you gotta know some things.”
    I looked up at hairy folds in his neck. “What?”
    â€œI’m not from where people say I’m from. I mean, wasn’t born where people say I was. Do you know where I was born?”
    â€œWhere?”
    Grandpa smirked big. “Outer space!”
    â€œLike Mork and Mindy?”
    He shook his head and looked away, wistfully, “Robin Williams.” He adjusted in the easy-chair. “Not like Mork and Mindy, but, sort of. The real me is very small. Smaller than a spec of dust. I sucked my mind out of my first body and put it inside a tiny, tiny bug. Then I flew a long way in a tiny ship to Earth. That was before I met your Grandmother and the fella I stole this body you see here from, he wasn’t doing much with it, so; no bother.”
    I knew people were always lying to young kids, thinking they were being clever and that it was funny. But I