What PopPop wants to move against: the way Benjamin dawdles a pawn between thumb and forefinger, padding it around, rolling as if snot, pickypaddyrolly, juvenile habits with His tush poorly wiped, though PopPop’s replaced the toilet tissue after each meal already, and there’ve been many; He’ll pottytrain on His own, don’t expect an old mensch who needs changing himself to change Him. The stick, though, isn’t from the tush, or the incontinent nose, rather from the mouth, muncharrheac, His uninhibited snacking during play, eating from the endtable opposite the table of beginnings, of openings, feints, the defense of offense, laden with all sorts of treats, goodies left untouched for maybe three decades, through no less than six moves in residence, sweet-meats, even those sorry kisses they’ve got infused with liqueur, all trayed there treyf probably and only once in an early spontaneous fit of the domestic by PopPop’s late wife, His MomMom: white piece fructified with wishniak candied brilliant, schmeared in nutty fudge, Shoreside saltwater taffy, glopped with grease mandelbrot macaroon; Him swallowing between thoughts as they PopPop says, Kibitz, kvell, kvetch, and schmooze through their game giving way to games, midmove accusations, recants, recounts, and recriminations, though as if suddenly scrupled PopPop throughout avoids talk of His parents, reserving that, thoughtfully, for the breaks between.
When I first met your MomMom, it was only two weeks before her own father would pass—could’ve been Affiliated for what I knew of him, never met him, I wouldn’t have wanted to, even she’d said it was her meeting me and wanting to marry me that killed him…MomMom Israelien, then, as Unaffiliated as it gets, ScotsIrish Assembly of God trash come down with a bad case of the Christ, infected with the Ozark gene, milked on the water of the Arkansas River, had herself died last year on the first night of Hanukah, of cancer of the heart, angiosarcoma and from there, Israel’s concern — not that any of this saddened PopPop, even mattered to him who’d only married her for her to marry not only him but his hidden self, too, as a front for his true sexual orient, which was that he liked people like him (he would’ve married himself or his mirror were that legal, if that would’ve taxwise made sense); and her, she’d married him only because no one else would, or so she had thought, marry her, what with her hunch and the scrunch of her nose and the balding head and the crows that nested under her eyes that loosed their turds to her tongue, which always hung from her mouth, and panted and reeked. Her, she’d never done chess with him, couldn’t, was too dumb or just said she was, thought the pawns just other sampler yummies in attractive presentation, noshables she’d forgotten she’d put out when and for whom, and so this, so enjoyed — the first game PopPop Israelien’s played against anyone other than himself since the advent of his marriage, not even Arschstrong.
