Drunk Grandma, Part II

My Dad had not talked to his mostly absent mother for about 12 years. He had married a German Fraulein, and adopted her Kind (me). Then it happened he got stationed in California, a couple hours drive from his mother's home in Torrance. My mother would not stop with the nagging about going to see her Mother in Law. My Dad said he had no family, but finally she won out.

Grandma was 44, and married to husband #5, who was 28. Her house was small, messy, and filled with stuff. Stuff on the floor, stuff on the walls, stuff on the tables, chairs, and beds. I was 6 years old, but I knew something was wrong here.

Grandma spoke not a word to me the week end. She was not interested in her new daughter-in-law either. Other than asking my Dad for money, she didn't talk much. She sat at a Formica table in a cramped kitchen and smoked and drank, smoked and drank. I was bewildered, for I had another Grandma, and she was not like this one.

But the memory that I will always and forever associate with this Grandma, was the object that sat smack in the middle of the Formica table:

She was quite proud of a rattlesnake she claimed to have killed in the California dessert years before. When Dad told her I was afraid of it, she sucked deeply on a Camel, pulled on her bottle of Schlitz, and stared into space.

We spent one night there, and I lay awake in terror. I was sure the snake could unscrew the lid, slither off the table, straight to the bed with all the stuff on it I was lying in. It would kill me, scurry back to its' jar, screw the lid back on, and in the morning Grandma would wink at it knowingly.

At the time I did not understand Grandma was an alcoholic. But on the drive home, I sensed we would not be visiting again.