Tom E. Solomon: My grandfather.

This is a snippet of something I might turn into an autobiography later on.

 

 
Tom E. Solomon: owner of Tom E. Solomon Furniture and Appliances in New Market, Tennessee. Ah, the bloodline is completely proven in the Indian blood that runs rampant in my mother's body. The skin that always simmered in the summertime burning with the dark complexion of a dehydrated Mexican, paid to work long shifts in the tobacco field. But they were family, half Irish, half Indian, yet wholly psychotic. The old man had the notorious, notarized "beer belly," and always smelled like summer sweat, evaporating in his skin lays the remedy of summer, the findings that he sought after in the plants he put out during the day.  His eyes always looked glassy; you could always see that something was festering into those two brown endless holes that were masked by the pinpoint of a pupil that was so out of focus that it'd widen and narrow, and fluctuate like a well worn camera lens, except one side had a little piece missing, and one was always bigger than the other; yet they were both magnified what seemed like a hundred times with those glasses. He did once know my name, I think. He knew that I was his grand-daughter, that I was the daughter of his daughter; and that I was more than a directionless child that he used to read books to; even though he could barely read himself, and sure as hell couldn't now. I held some sort of resentment to him, with heavy underlying pity, and sympathy. His tongue was so thick he couldn't get out any words without f*****g drool gathering in the corners of his mouth, and I saw my mother's beginning to do that, too. The cracked lips of a liar, and the indefinite sense of a faltering body. I would always tell her, "You're being a f*****g redneck, Mom." or in the crowded walls of the department of motor vehicles, "Why the hell do you have to talk to everyone? You're being a f*****g Solomon."  The informal casual mention of my grandfather's name sparked conversation all over the town. "Tom Solomon?" They'd suddenly smile as if a f*****g light-bulb flashed over their heads as they discovered my 'guilty by association' plea. "That's your grandfather? Ah, ha ha ha! I didn't know that! Boy, your pappaw's a good man, a real good man. You must get all the money in the world with him as your pappy!" With the thickest, darkest cigarette stained southern accent you could possibly imagine. These old men would haunt me, as I put on my biggest articulate voice to try to make something pretentious and knowledgeable of myself, to override his intelligence, even though it didn't take much. "Yes, that's my grandfather! Ha, he is a good man; I love him!" Later I will be informed that this same "admirer" had recently been turned over to the IRS for never paying my grandfather for furniture he purchased five years ago, and never returns monthly to pay the bills. My grandfather never slandered their names all over town; and no one ever did his, either. His name, rather than being dragged through mud was flown on a flagpole of goodness, a saint. They thought he was a fantastic businessman because they all got away with f*****g him over. That's what hurt me a lot, really. I used to believe them. The joking old men in a small southern town had that sense of humor that was indelible. Something I'll never forget, those confusing slurs they throw out at me that would usually sound excruciatingly degrading, yet there was always something about the tone that apparently made everything better. A man told me, "Boy, you are one of the 'purdyest' things I seen around here! She is, a beautiful girl, ain't she? You must've not taken after your pappaw then!" Laughing, and nudging whoever was surrounding.  Everyone here thinks they know everyone else,  because unfamiliarity is obviously not even something to joke about while referencing this small, dilapidated town. And the direct insult to my grandfather should've obviously been interpreted as a casual joke that each of them make to everyone they encounter; of which they know their relatives. They'd stand so close to me, and I could smell their tobacco stained tongues, as they'd stare down my shirt the entire time, and at my a*s as I walked away. Tom E. Solomon is a good man. With the reaching of a new summer; his dementia is something that I can't even place it's intensity. He isn't becoming senile; he's becoming a creepy old man. His seventy years are loading him up with the certainty of eventuality. He will die here; his body will harden underneath the Tennessee soil of a grave that he has already picked out. His spot will be that next to the rest of his family, and his furniture business will lie in the hands of my father...my father...my father,  Jesus f*****g Christ! ...will my father be the next Tom E. Solomon? The next slandered name, the next saint, the next one to be fucked over in a long assembly line of flowing bloodlines and broken washing machines?  When I come back to visit this town in two years, will the same old men come up to me, stare at my tits, and watch my a*s as I walk away saying, "That was Tom E. Solomon's granddaughter...and I still haven't paid for that furniture..." Laughing and high-fiving one another at the cruel misfortune as the grating steel on the bottoms of their Honda Accords kissed the road with a spark, and they nod at me as they ride off.

 

Author's Note

I know there is incorrect grammar; that's my writing.