Driving Blind

“Nope. Nor supper. I won’t come down till you throw that damned machine out of the kitchen.” Her flinty eye jittered in the keyhole, staring out at her granddaughter.

“You mean the Garburator?” Liddy smiled.

“I heard the postman. He’s right. I won’t have a lion in my house! Listen! There’s your husband now, using it.”

Below stairs, the Garburator roared, swallowing garbage, bones and all.

“Liddy!” her husband called. “Liddy, come on down. See it work!”

Liddy spoke to Grandma’s keyhole. “Don’t you want to watch, Grandma?”

“Nope!”

Footsteps arose behind Liddy. Turning, she found Tom on the top stairs. “Go down and try, Liddy. I got some extra bones from the butcher. It really chews them.”

She descended toward the kitchen. “It’s grisly, but heck, why not?”

Thomas Barton stood neat and alone at Grandma’s door and waited a full minute, motionless, a prim smile on his lips. He knocked softly, delicately. “Grandma?” he whispered. No reply. He patted the knob tenderly. “I know you’re there, you old ruin. Grandma, you hear? Down below. You hear? How come your door’s locked? Something wrong? What could bother you on such a nice summer day?”

Silence. He moved into the bathroom.

The hall stood empty. From the bath came sounds of water running. Then, Thomas Barton’s voice, full and resonant in the tile room, sang:

“Fee fie foe fum

I smell the blood of an Englishmum;

Be she alive or be she dead,

I’ll gurrrr-innnnnnd her bones to make my bread!”

In the kitchen, the lion roared.

Grandma smelled like attic furniture, smelled like dust, smelled like a lemon, and resembled a withered flower. Her firm jaw sagged and her pale gold eyes were flinty bright as she sat in her chair like a hatchet, cleaving the hot noon air, rocking.

She heard Thomas Barton’s song.

Her heart grew an ice crystal.

She had heard her grandson-in-law rip open the crate this morning, like a child with an evil Christmas toy. The fierce cracklings and tearings, the cry of triumph, the eager fumbling of his hands over the toothy machine. He had caught Grandma’s yellow eagle eye in the hall entry and given her a mighty wink. Bang! She had run to slam her door!

Grandma shivered in her room all day.

Liddy knocked again, concerning lunch, but was scolded away.

Through the simmering afternoon, the Garburator lived gloriously in the kitchen sink. It fed, it ate, it made grinding, smacking noises with hungry mouth and vicious hidden teeth. It whirled, it groaned. It ate pig knuckles, coffee grounds, eggshells, drumsticks. It was an ancient hunger which, unfed, waited, crouched, metal entrail upon metal entrail, little flailing propellers of razor-screw all bright with lust.

Liddy carried supper up on a tray.

“Slide it under the door,” shouted Grandma.

“Heavens!” said Liddy. “Open the door long enough for me to poke it in at you.”

“Look over your shoulder; anyone lurking in the hall?”

“No.”

“So!” The door flew wide. Half the corn was spilled being yanked in. She gave Liddy a shove and slammed the door. “That was close!” she cried, holding the rabbit-run in her bosom.