Snipet # 19

Later that night, after his mother had gone to bed, Percy took the box of unopened grape leaves out of the garbage and took them to the sun porch. He sat there in the dark, considering what they might taste like, should he be brave enough to eat one. He sat there with the box on his lap for a few minutes and just as he was going to put the box aside and go back to bed, he heard a noise. It was a quiet rumbling at first, then a growl, low and steady. It seemed to be coming from outside, yet it seemed to be emanating from within Percy himself. It was then that he recognized what were hunger pains, pure and simple, yet deep and heady. It was plain hunger for food, yet a longing for distant lands, for different sights and smells, for other ways of seeing those things his eyes rested upon everyday. He thought he would die if he didn't devour every last grape leaf in the box.

He tore the box open and picked one up. The oil dripped down his fingers and would eventually stain his favorite jeans, but he didn't care. He slipped it deftly into his mouth and savoured the taste of another world. His mother was wrong, he was sure of it. What could be so bad about trying new things, of thinking of other places? How could his mother ignore what went on around her? Percy was confused. Wasn't she ever young? Was she born into the world, full grown, as a matronly woman with a stained apron and pin curlers in her hair?

As Percy contemplated his mother's errors and flaws in judgement, his father cleared his throat from the sun porch doorway.

What ya got there son, he asked.

Grape leaves, Percy replied. Mom was throwing them out. I just wanted to taste them. She didn't think it was such a good idea.

Your mother is a simple woman, Percy. Don't be too hard on her, his father replied, as if he could read Percy's thoughts.

I just don't understand, Percy said as his father sat down beside him.

What's not to understand, he asked. She takes good care of us. She is a kind woman. She is comfortable with her life just the way it is. Anything different spooks her, that's all. She just worries about you Percy.

I'm not so sure about that, Dad. I mean, she seems so unhappy sometimes. Aren't we enough to make her happy?

She doesn't always know how to show it Percy, but if she didn't care, she would have gone ahead and let you eat that whole box of thingamabobs without even giving it a second thought. In her mind, she was saving you from something. That's not the action of woman who doesn't love her son. Judge not, lest ye be judged, his father said in his mock minister voice.

But she put them out for me to eat in the first place. Then she took them away because she thought they would hurt me. It doesn't make sense.

Just take the jam, Percy. Just take the jam.

Jam, Percy asked.

My mother was very much like your mother is. She rarely had time for play, or for children getting in the way. She cleaned her house, fed her family, took care of business quite well, actually. She used to make this jam, Percy. It could dissolve the finish off a wood floor just like acid It was that horrible. But she made this jam every year, and every year, even after I up and married your mother, she would send us a jar of that jam. Not so much as an I love you on a note. Just the jam. Your mother used to get so angry. She said she was angry for me, but I wasn't bothered by it in the least. It was your grandma's way of saying she loved me. It was all she had to give. That damn jam. Ya know, I used it to strip the paint off the walls in the bathroom some years back, he chuckled.

Very funny Dad, Percy laughed.

So, just take the jam, Percy. It's how she loves you and how she needs to love you. She don't know any other way. Just when you find you're feeling sorry for yourself, think of her, and how hard it is for her. Think about what may have made her that way.

The conversation that had transpired that night was the longest one Percy could recall having with his father in years. He decided not to question why it happened, he was just glad it did.

Are you hungry, Dad? Do you want one, Percy asked, reaching out to give his father one of the plump, stuffed leaves.

His father shrugged his shoulders. I'm just tired, Percy. Just tired, he said. Then he got up slowly as if he were pondering if he should go back into the house or go out the front door. With a soft sigh, he turned toward the living room and left Percy alone on the porch. That was the end of their father and son bonding moment. It was odd, but it was nice, and it was enough.

Percy thought of what his father had said long after the grape leaves were eaten and the box hidden in the dumpster behind the store. He might never understand his mother, and that would have to be fine. She may never understand him either, and she would have to find a way to deal with that herself.

Isn't that just the way of it, Percy thought to himself. We're all going around day by day, just coping, just trying to figure things out, trying to negotiate the many moods and ways of those around us. What is it we all truly desire but to be respected for who we are? If that is what we desire, then we can do no less than to offer that same courtesy to everyone around us.

Percy decided to take the jam, sprinkle some sugar on it, spread it on some fresh bread, and share it with Evelyn.