Roxanne rubbed Grandma’s legs with cream. She had to work hard to roll up Grandma’s track suit pants. Grandma had her feet in a tub of hot water. I could tell she was so happy. She put her head back and closed her eyes. She told Roxanne to look at her twisted roots and Roxanne laughed. She said, Well you’re getting old, and Grandma said, I’m not getting old, I am old! Roxanne massaged Grandma’s feet. Grandma chose the colour You Couldn’t Handle Me Even If I Came With Instructions for her toes.
Then Grandma had her electrolysis and it was terrible to see. I couldn’t watch. Roxanne had a sharp needle she plugged in and then zapped Grandma’s chin and upper lip with it. I asked Grandma if it hurt and she said hardly! Everything made her laugh. Even if she’s not laughing Grandma’s head involuntarily bobs up and down. Roxanne had to take a break from zapping for Grandma’s head to stop. Roxanne was very patient. She put on music by a band called ABBA while we waited for Grandma. Grandma said she knew that band! I thought she was lying to make Roxanne feel good but then she started singing along to a song called “Chiquitita.” She sang in a serious, dramatic way, the way she helps Mom rehearse her lines. The first line of the song was about this girl being tied up with her own sorrow. Grandma sang all the verses, she was getting more and more dramatic with every verse. Then Roxanne started singing with her. She knew the words, too! They both looked at me while they sang like they were trying to tell me something urgent. They sang the final verse which was about being sad, but also about the sun. They were shouting at me!
Finally they stopped. I smiled. I was afraid that if I clapped or said encore they would sing another song that would end with them shouting messages at me. I slowly looked away so that Roxanne would get back to work on Grandma’s chin and we could go home. The guy upstairs kept stomping around. Roxanne said he drives her nuts. Roxanne waited for Grandma to catch her breath from singing and for her head to be still and then started zapping her again.
On the streetcar home nothing embarrassing happened except for Grandma asking me if I’d had a bowel movement that day. But she whispered it. She was making progress. There was hardly anybody on the streetcar except for a man who told us an alien had stuck a transmitter into his ass and was tracking him. Grandma said ouch and he said he can’t feel it anymore but he knows it’s there. Then Grandma and the man started talking about the Raptors and the man couldn’t believe how much Grandma knew about basketball. She showed off by telling him all sorts of stats. The man said there were some things that were easy to learn about just by watching TV, like the Raptors. And there were other things that were harder, like aliens having to learn about humans by implanting transmitters into their butts. Grandma told the man that was very true, she’d rather learn by watching TV than by putting devices into peoples’ rear ends. The man said, Well, true is true, it’s like unique, it can’t be very true or somewhat unique. It’s just true and it’s just unique. Then he said, You get me? I said I get you, I get you, like Zainab from the pharmacy. We all fist-bumped. The man sighed really hard after that like he’d just finished all his work for the day.
When we got home Mom was there making dinner and had her music blasting. She was singing along, with the wrong lyrics, to a song called “The Last Day of our Acquaintance.” She was in a good mood for some terrifying reason. Maybe because the stage manager at rehearsal had told her she wasn’t mad at Mom anymore for calling her illiterate—which she hadn’t but whatever—and they had a plan to have vegan brunch. Or maybe because me and Grandma were going away to Fresno for ten whole days. Mom told us that Willit Braun had phoned wanting to talk about salvation with her or Grandma and she’d said, Wrong number, this is Satan. She told Willit Braun that she’d heard he’d been shit-talking her and that was not on, he’d better cease and desist or she would see him in hell by which she meant small claims court on charges of harassment, stalking and intimidation. I could tell Mom thought that was like Olympic-gold-medal clever.
Mom told Grandma her haircut and fingernail and toenails looked beautiful and very SoCal, even though Fresno is in the exact centre of California, and Grandma rubbed her chin and said at least she didn’t look like James Harden anymore. Mom laughed too hard at all of Grandma’s stories from the day especially the For Your Eyes Only one. Oh man, Swiv, she said, that must have killed you! Then she said, Oh god, I think I’m gonna hurl. She ran to Grandma’s bathroom. It was a day of awful sights and sounds.