“Thought you was sleepin’. Here, let me button you up.” And though he struggled, she held him and buttoned his underwear and his shirt and his fly. “You go aroun’ a sight,” she said, and let him go.
And he spluttered angrily, “Fella’s come to a nice—to a nicewhen somebody buttons ’em. I want ta be let be to button my own pants.”
Ma said playfully, “They don’t let people run aroun’ with their clothes unbutton’ in California.”
“They don’t, hey! Well, I’ll show ’em. They think they’re gonna show me how to act out there? Why, I’ll go aroun’ a-hangin’ out if I wanta!”
Ma said, “Seems like his language gets worse ever’ year. Showin’ off, I guess.”
The old man thrust out his bristly chin, and he regarded Ma with his shrewd, mean, merry eyes. “Well, sir,” he said, “we’ll be a-startin’ ’fore long now. An’, by God, they’s grapes out there, just a-hangin’ over inta the road. Know what I’m a-gonna do? I’m gonna pick me a wash tub full a grapes, an’ I’m gonna set in ’em, an’ scrooge aroun’, an’ let the juice run down my pants.”
Tom laughed. “By God, if he lives to be two hundred you never will get Grampa house broke,” he said. “You’re all set on goin’, ain’t you, Grampa?”
The old man pulled out a box and sat down heavily on it. “Yes, sir,” he said. “An’ goddamn near time, too. My brother went on out there forty years ago. Never did hear nothin’ about him. Sneaky son-of-a-bitch, he was. Nobody loved him. Run off with a single-action Colt of mine. If I ever run across him or his kids, if he got any out in California, I’ll ask ’em for that Colt. But if I know ’im, an’ he got any kids, he cuckoo’d ’em, an’ somebody else is a-raisin’ ’em. I sure will be glad to get out there. Got a feelin’ it’ll make a new fella outa me. Go right to work in the fruit.”
Ma nodded. “He means it, too,” she said. “Worked right up to three months ago, when he throwed his hip out the last time.”
“Damn right,” said Grampa.