The Acolytes of Crane (Theodore Crane, #1)(14)

Life at my grandparents’ house wasn’t at all peaches and cream. They followed a highly structured daily regimen, thanks to my grandpa Marv’s army training.

The fridge was over-flowing with food, and I ate so much during mealtime that my grandmother called me, ‘Ted, the human garbage disposal.’

I ate almost every meal that my grandmother served, but I hated liver. Liver to me was awful. It was like placing a dog’s feces in a pan, flattening it out with a burger spatula, and covering it in onions to give evidence to the fact that some people try to make unappetizing food taste good.

I poured almost an entire bottle of ketchup on the feces every time I had to eat it. Something good came out of eating liver. Every time we did so, my grandpa Marv always told me a story or one like it.

With the three servings of liver whimpering in agony on the table, the stage for the tale was set. He said, ‘Theodore, when I was about twenty-five and I was finally home from the Korean War, I went into this fine restaurant downtown. The restaurant was one of the best in the Twin Cities. I cannot remember what the name of it was.’ He hollered, ‘Laverne! Do you remember the name of that restaurant?’

My grandmother was in the bathroom, and she didn’t answer.

‘Anyway, I ordered a T-bone steak, and it was absolutely dreadful. There was too much fat on it, not enough meat, and you know I like my fat crispy. So what did I do?’ he asked, pausing for a moment to see if I would respond. ‘I poured a half a bottle of ketchup on it. I figured it would take too long to send it back to get spit on, so I may as well get my money’s worth right?’ he asked, and I nodded my head rather than say anything because I was choking down some dry liver.

Chuckling, Marv continued his story and told me the chef stormed out and yelled at him for pouring ketchup on his steaks. That tale sometimes tailed off into a rant about how pineapple slices should never be cooked on pizzas, because that is such an abomination.

Then the real wisdom kicked in.

‘The point is, son…’ he said. He called me son a lot. I wasn’t sure if that was by error or intention. ‘…if you don’t like something, you don’t have to eat it. If you keep eating that liver, your lips are going to fall off, and liver will grow in their place.’ Marv chuckled.

‘People will call you liver lips,’ my grandma would add.

My grandpa Marv dragged his liver tale out even further, and my grandma said his name in a long Minnesota-nice voice, to encourage him to stop, ‘Marv!’

‘Well, I guess what I am saying, Ted, is that if you keep eating the liver, we will keep feeding it to you,’ he said.

What an amazing concept it was. If I led people to believe I enjoyed liver, they would keep serving it to me.


My grandpa was a non-filtered cigarette smoker. He picked up the habit from when they issued packs in food rations during his tour overseas. Laverne so hated the filthy habit; she ordered him to go down into the basement, windows wide open, if he wanted to smoke during wintertime. Stubbornly refusing to break his connection with me, he always asked me to come down with him whenever he wanted to light up. I loved him so much, I always agreed, although it always reeked in the basement and made me feel like gagging. The stacks of cigarette butts, piled precariously on top of old-fashioned glass ashtrays, made me dizzy even to just look at them.

Despite his faults, I always laughed when I thought about my grandpa. My grandpa was a racist. Not that being a racist is funny. The era of racism was so ridiculous at the time, that it made me laugh. I am entirely disgusted by it now. It was his one apparent flaw.

When we watched pro basketball on TV, Marv pointed to a towering black man, all decked out in team colors, graceful as he expertly dribbled around the court. He asked me, ‘Ted, do you know why those basketball players’ eyes are really big?’ Most of the time I didn’t have a clue what my grandpa was talking about. He continued and said, ‘Because, when they came over to the United States, we had to pull off their tails, and their eyes popped out of their heads!’

Afterwards, he tallied a couple of chuckles and released a scattered hiss that was almost never ending. If I didn’t get the joke, it didn’t matter, because his versatile tone of voice and quirky mannerisms alone drove me into a guffawing frenzy.

My laugh sounded like that of a hyena lying on its back, being tickled in its most sensitive spots. The idea of anyone having a tail pulled off is hilarious regardless of the color being referenced.

My grandpa always told the same stories and jokes throughout the years—including those periods before I joined his home. I don’t think he ever recalled previously sharing them with me. If I kept laughing at his jokes, he kept telling them.

My grandparent’s house was covered floor to ceiling in interesting trinkets, which were grouped into different categories from one room to another. For example, Laverne made sure to exhibit her prized porcelain doll collection in the living room.

As for their furniture, it was suitable back in its time, but I thought it was ugly. They had gaudy wood paneling both on the main floor and in the basement.

A grandfather clock chimed at the top of each hour. I sat by that clock and played solitaire for hours. Whenever the bells chimed, I ding-donged along with them. The kitchen had a shelf spanned the entire perimeter of the room, strategically placed ten inches down from the ceiling. It was home to fifty-three miniature rocking horses. I counted and named each of them. I had trouble remembering all the names, so upon the third attempt, I wrote them all down on a list, meticulously folded the paper, and hid it in a slot in the grandfather clock.