Paul G. Tremblay

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Compositions For The Young and Old

The Jar

My granddaughter is coming over today. She’s such a peach. Red hair tied in ponytails, never wearing dresses, but grass-stained jeans instead, freckles like cinnamon powder on her cheeks, and green cat-eyes just so full of wonder and mischief.

Just like her Grandma.

I’m still not used to being called that, especially since I still think about my Grandma every day.

I live in Hyannis, a once modest summer-spot on the Cape, and it’s where I inherited my Grandma’s house but not her fortune telling business. Too bad, hordes of tourists come here now with money burning holes in their pockets.

No matter. This drafty old house wasn’t the only thing I’d inherited from my Grandma.

When I was ten, I inherited the jar.

My little brothers, my Mom, and I spent most of our summers at Grandma’s house. She lived in one of the few two-family houses in downtown Hyannis, only steps from the Cape Historical Society and the Little Red House candy shop, saltwater taffy being their specialty. Grandma used to do her fortunes, or as she called it, tellin’, on the first floor and lived on the second. We grandkids weren’t allowed on the first floor while she was tellin’.

But Mom sure told me about it. She wouldn’t say anything to the other kids but she’d always talk to me. Funny, her face crinkled up like she smelled something bad whenever she talked about Grandma’s tellin’. Still, she told me how Grandma used cards with strange pictures on them, or made some tea and looked at the leaves after the person was done drinking, or looked over the lines in a person’s hand, or sometimes she didn’t need any of those things, she could sit and tell just by looking at the person.

I knew this morning’s tellin’ session had just ended because I heard her coming up the stairs. I always waited for Grandma to finish and wanted to be the first one to hug her when she came upstairs.

“Where’s my little Samantha?” Grandma said, beaming in a flowing black frock, speckled with roses. Her long, gray hair wrapped in black scarves that dripped onto her big shoulders and chest. Her face had almost no wrinkles, but she showed her age in her brown eyes. They way they fixed on you, it was like she was seeing everything.

And to me, she was beautiful. I ran into her arms.

Mom said, “Why do you dress like a gypsy even though it is plain to see that you are as Anglo as the Queen?” She laughed at her own joke, but I wasn’t sure what was so funny.

“Oh Deborah, mind your mother. Besides, it never hurts to advertise.”

“You mean, false advertise.” Mom was still joking, but I saw Grandma’s body tense a bit.

Grandma ignored her and just hugged me some more.

“My little Sam, will you help your Grandma carry some jars down cellar?”

She’d never invited me to the cellar. I was so excited and it was all I could do to nod my head. Grandma hugged me one more time and I followed her downstairs.

Mom yelled, her voice chasing us like a threat. “That’s no place for kids. You be careful down there, Sam.”

After a quick stop at the first floor kitchen, we walked down cellar with two jars in each of our hands. Down them creaky wooden stairs, watching my feet leave footprints in the dirt and dust. The stairs wound around a corner and spit us out onto a dirt floor. The walls were a mixture of rock and cement. It was cooler down here, and damp.

“Watch where you step,” Grandma said. She walked past the quiet furnace and hot water heater to the back of the cellar. Balancing the two jars in one hand, I brushed red bangs out of my eyes and ran to catch up.

A giant bookcase covered the entire back wall of the basement. And her jars filled it.

Grandma had already put back the jars she’d carried. She took mine, carefully eyed those rows and shelves, and sat them on the bottom shelf.

“Wow, Grandma.”

She chuckled. “Yeah, I’m an old woman that just can’t bear to throw things away.”

“Oh hey, there’s your fruit preserves other there,” I said and skipped to the far side of the case, finding two rows of glass jars filled with colorful fruit chunks.

Grandma smiled and pointed out the jars of herbs, tea leaves, seeds, roots, healing salves, home remedies, and even a section of nails, screws, and bolts. She’d named almost every jar.

But there was one she passed right over, and it was on the very top shelf.

“What’s in that old ugly one?”

“Never you mind, Sam.” She said and was grinning like I just told her a corny kid-joke.

“Huh? Oh, well it sure looks old.”

“Well, I will tell you a secret, Sam. That jar is a lot older than I am.”

I giggled. “No it’s not.”

I knew she was just joking me. The jar was nothing but a rusty, orange tin can with the label peeled off. Besides those fruit preserves, her jars were nothing but used tin cans. But to Grandma, they were all jars, and the rusty, orange one, the off-limits one, was just sitting alone on that top shelf. It really wasn’t all that different from the rest of them. But there was...

“Okay, if it’s so special, how come you don’t even have a cover on it?”

“Oh, I could never put a cover on that. The jar simply wouldn’t stand for it, my sweet Sam.”

I got to thinking on that jar. Maybe it held coffee grinds at one time, or them salty peanuts my Daddy loved so much. But when I tried to guess what was in it right then, my mind went blank. I stood quietly next to Grandma for a bit, just trying to imagine anything, anything that might be in there. Nothing. Even though I was always making up stories for my little brothers and wrote down daydreams in my diary, my head was empty of ideas for the jar.

I stomped my feet on the dirt floor and said, “No fair.”

“Now, now, Sam. I know it doesn’t seem fair. And it isn’t. But that’s just it, honey. That jar, like life, isn’t fair.” Grandma smiled crooked, just like my friend Jenny did when she dared me to do something bad.

“Come on, let’s go back upstairs. I’ve got another tellin’ to do at three.”

“Samantha, do you want to come to the store with us?”

I’d been upstairs for half an hour, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the jar. The rusty tin can colored like dead leaves.

“No, Mom. I’ll stay here and listen to the radio.” My two younger brothers darted around and between my Mom’s legs, playing tag.

“Hey, knock it off, you two. Okay, Grandma is downstairs if you need anything. We’ll only be gone a little while.”

She left with my squirming brothers, holding their hands and barking orders at them.

As soon as the Studebaker pulled out of the driveway, I was off the couch and creeping down the stairs. Grandma was only halfway through her tellin’ session so she’d never know I was down cellar if I was careful.

I took off my shoes so they wouldn’t clap on the stairs.

Shuffling down in my socks, I listened to Grandma’s muffled voice, but didn’t make out what she was saying. In no time, I was in front of the doors, the heavy oak one for the first floor and the beat-up, green cellar door on the right. Standing on my tiptoes to reach the latch, I unlocked the cellar door, barely keeping the jingling metal hook quiet. But opening the door was going to be tricky.

Now it sounded like Grandma was standing right behind me. Holding my breath, I turned the brass knob and pulled, real slow. I opened the door and it screeched like my old bike’s back tire. And Grandma kept on talking.

She didn’t hear it.

Not daring to open the door any farther, I snaked my arm into the cellar and felt for the light switch. Finding it, I flicked it on and shimmied through the partially opened door. Standing at the top stair, that old basement looked darker than it did earlier. I was scardy-cat nervous and felt the prickly hairs shoot up on my neck, but the jar led me down those stairs.

I still heard Grandma doing her tellin’ but her voice was coming from farther away. The wooden stairs groaned under me, but it didn’t matter. I was sure she didn’t hear me.

Sneaking past the furnace, I stopped in front of the bookcase of jars and eyed the rows just like Grandma had. The light bulb dangling from the cobwebby ceiling put everything in a dream-like yellow.

Testing out a foot on the thickest part of the lowest shelf, I then stretched as far as my little body could, toward that rusty jar. I just about wanted to shout I was so excited, and the jar was only part of it. I’d done stuff that little girls weren’t supposed to according to Mom, but mostly because a friend dared me. But this was my first time going against Grandma, so I felt kinda bad too, ashamed even, and it all made my head swim and fingers tingle as I clutched at the jar with my right hand.

I thought I had a good grip on it, but as soon as it slid off the top shelf, it fell to the dirt floor with a clang and rolled up against the wall.

I stopped breathing, expecting to hear my Grandma rumbling down the cellar stairs, and the worst part would be seeing the hurt on her sweet face.

I waited but nothing happened.

She hadn’t heard it.

I let out some held-in air and went after the jar, walking over to the shadowy area where it landed. The thing had no cover, so I figured that whatever was in it must have spilled out. But I didn’t see anything, only that rusty tin can lying in the corner.

Was Grandma fooling me? The jar had to be empty.

That jar, like life, isn’t fair.

Grandma’s warnings rolled around my head and I went to the corner, the jar’s open end up against the wall. Crouching just above it, I wiped my hands on my jeans and grabbed the thing with both hands. Rougher than sandpaper and colder than the freezer handle, rust flaked off onto my fingers.

I tipped the jar upside down and shook it. Nothing.

“What a gyp.” I wasn’t as disappointed when Mom told me there was no Santa Claus.

I turned the jar over and had a peek inside, and its black mouth stared back. I didn’t see the sides or the jar’s bottom. I let out a giggle, the kind that doesn’t sound like you’re having all that much fun. What I was seeing didn’t seem right, it didn’t fit. I craned my neck for a closer look...

...stick legs and twitching black bodies exploded out of the jar and onto my hands and arms and then falling to the floor.

The jar was full of icky, yucky bugs, and all of them black. Beetles clicked and clacked against the rusty metal and floor. Fat roaches and ants with twitchy legs and feelers crawled up my arms. Flies and wasps buzzed my head. Hairy spiders with arms bigger than my fingers landed on the floor and crawled toward my feet.

The ceiling light bulb flickered on and off. Bug shadows crawled on the wall ahead of me. I jumped backwards and felt the crunch and squish of all those bugs under my stocking feet. The little monsters covered the floor and worked their way up my legs. A large lump, as big as a nightmare, was under my jeans, just below my left knee. And it kept moving up.

I screamed and I screamed as loud and long as I could, and dropped the jar. Then everything around me flickered like the light bulb had, and kinda hitched, then shifted...

...and the bugs were gone. The jar was on the ground at my feet, its top facing away. My head was all sweaty and my heart pounded like it wanted to leave my chest.

I might have reacted differently to the jar if I was older, probably would’ve just run screaming from the cellar. But I was only ten. And that ten-year-old world revolved around thumbing her nose at the grown-ups without getting caught. Staring at the rusty can, still recovering from the shock of my life, I knew I had to put the jar back. As much as the thought of touching that thing again just made me want to cry, I had to put it back.

I bent down and stretched out my right hand like I was sticking it into a bear trap. Flicking it with a finger, I jumped back expecting another swarm of bugs. But the jar only swayed side to side.

Okay, I just had to grab it and put it back. Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the jar with both hands, holding it as far away from my body as I could, and turning it so it wasn’t upside down, then two quick steps to the shelf. But I caught a flash of color inside the jar.

I knew I shouldn’t, but I had to look.

Don’t look. Just put it back.

I brought the jar closer, holding it just below my chin, and stared at two egg-shaped green eyes peering back at me in the darkness. I blinked...

...and I was sitting on my bed, in my room, and in the dark. So dark, I only saw outlines of stuff in my room.

“Mom? Dad?” I called out. No answer, just my wind-up Mickey Mouse clock ticking away on my nightstand, and my heavy breathing. I fumbled for the lamp but didn’t find it.

CREAK. Across from the foot of my bed, my closet door was moving. My eyes rolled, searching for any sign of light to latch onto. Metal coat hangers jingle-jangled and the door opened, thudding against the wall. I whimpered like a puppy and just stared into the dark.

Two green eyes and a set of huge white teeth appeared, and glowed. Growls and snorts and low, gut-dragging laughter drowned out the clock next to my bed. I tried to scream but nothing came out.

The bogeyman cackled and jumped out of the closet, landing on the foot of my bed. I still could only see those eyes, and its teeth.

I buried my head under the sheets like I did most every night, but the bogeyman ripped them off me and stuffed them into its mouth, and there was chewing and tearing and swallowing.

“Sam.” A soft voice right next to my bed.

I turned and faced Grandma. I didn’t see her face, just her outline in the dark, and she didn’t sound afraid at all.

“Drop the jar, sweetie.”

At first, I didn’t understand. But I looked down and I was still holding the jar with both hands, resting its bottom on my lap.

The bogeyman screeched and then crawled up the bed.

Grandma grabbed the jar out of my hands and threw it against...

...the cellar wall.

I was sitting with my back against the shelves and Grandma stood next to me. She reached out a hand and helped me up. So tired and scared, I looked around the cellar and saw the jar leaning against the cement bulkhead-stairs. While thinking about what just happened with the bogeyman, I shivered, but I wasn’t all afraid.

“Sort of like that coaster down at the Willows. You tell everyone that you hate it and it’s too scary, but you still keep riding it.”

That wasn’t what I had expected her to say. I was waiting for her to yell at me, tell me how bad I was for disobeying her, tell me how disappointed she was. Something Mom would say if she caught me.

But Grandma was right. Looking into that jar was just like the Hyannis Willows coaster. While riding, I would be on the verge of tears rocketing around that creaky wooden frame, screaming through the sharp turns and sudden drops, imagining my car flying off the track and into the people below. But as soon as the ride was over, I’d laugh and get right back in line.

I nodded my head. And I wanted to look in the jar again.

Grandma smiled, but seemed sad. “Oh, Sam. Part of me was hoping you’d come and take a look, but another part of me was hoping you wouldn’t.”

“I’m sorry, Grandma. I just had to, you know?”

“Yeah, well. Now you’ve seen.” She still held my sweaty hand and led me out of the cellar.

“Grandma, the jar.”

“I’ll put it back later, it’s not going anywhere.”

I stopped walking. “Well...um...can I look in it, again, Grandma?”

That same kinda sad smile on Grandma’s wide face. “Yes, but not today. The jar, the fears it holds, takes a lot out of you, and you’re exhausted.”

“I saw bugs the first time.”

“I know, I was watching.” Grandma laughed when she saw my jaw drop. “Sam my sweet, you need to work on your sneaking skills!”

Grandma led me up to her apartment, laughing all the way. I fell asleep on her lap, thinking about the jar and what I would see the next time.

About once every month, Grandma invited me down cellar with her and gave me another peek at the jar.

In a year I saw more bugs, a thing made out of shadow, the Wicked Witch of the West, the roller coaster collapsing with me riding on it, my best friend Jenny turned into a big-toothed demon along with my little brothers, and a bunch of other monsters right out of my nightmares.

And Grandma watched, taught me how to keep from being afraid, and when to drop the jar.

The last time Grandma watched me look into the jar, I...

...was standing, alone, in a graveyard. A forever-sea of green, with granite markers spreading as far as I could see. A cold wind passed, chilling my hands and icing the tears on my face. I fell to my knees next to a gravestone. It read:

I always knew that I was named after my Grandma, and that brought home the power of the image before me more than the endless graveyard. I let out a moan and then there was a tidal wave of loneliness and loss and it was too much.

A whisper, “Don’t forget to drop the jar, sweetie...

...it’s okay, Sam. We’re back.”

Grandma let me cry against her shoulder for a time.

She tried to joke. “Jeez, I’m glad to know that I will be missed.”

“Grandma,” I wailed.

“I know, not funny. But when I do die, Sam, I want you to keep this jar, and do as you see fit.”

“Don’t say stuff like that, Grandma.” I turned my head to the dirt floor. For some reason, I didn’t want her to seeing me crying then.

“Will you keep it, Sam?”

Looking into that rust-bucket was about the last thing I wanted to do right then, but I answered, “Yes.” I picked the jar off the floor, careful not to look inside, and then put it on the shelf.

“Grandma, I’ve never seen you look in it.”

“You don’t want to see what I see.” Serious tone in her voice. She wasn’t joking anymore.

“Yes I do!”

“I simply don’t look anymore.” She folded her arms over her chest. Her sweet face was set and stern.

“That’s not fair.”

“Nothing is, Sam,” she said, but tousled my hair and led me up the stairs. “You’ll see what I see soon enough.”

I tried to ask more questions but Grandma just held up her stop-hand and clammed right up.

Grandma had a heart attack and died a week later.

I still have the jar. I never entertained the idea of getting rid of it, until yesterday afternoon.

I saw what my Grandma saw.

In the many but short years since she passed, I still used the jar. Although, it was never as thrilling as that first year in Grandma’s cellar. The fears that played out before me became too realistic. The rush of the carefree fantasies of monsters and demons gave way to visions of death for my loved ones, atomic detonations, a stranger in a dark hallway with weapons of steel and flesh concealed, scenes of academic and employment failure and embarrassment, infidelity on the part of my lovers and my eventual husband, miscarriages, strangers kidnapping, molesting, and killing my children, the violent or sudden loss of my new family, and the repetition of those awful themes when my children had children.

I can’t explain exactly why I kept looking. But I did. I suppose it satisfied a need to confront or imagine myself in the worst possible scenarios. The same dark urge that slows us down and cranes our necks at the scene of a car accident, even though we know actually seeing any of the gory results would haunt us for the rest of our lives. The same sadistic twinge that imagines our spouses are cheating, or our kids are doing drugs or having sex.

It’s like continually licking a canker-sore even though it hurts. Because the hurt is proof that we care, proof that we’re still alive.

But yesterday afternoon I looked into the jar and...

...despite the complete darkness, my eyes adjusted to see a slab of dark oak just inches from my face. A coffin lid. And then there was nothing. Total and complete blackness beyond any shade of black I’d ever seen. There was no sound, not even the manic hum leftover in my ears that usually accompanied silence. I tried to scream. Nothing...

...I dropped the jar and clutched my thudding chest. I knew I’d seen what my Grandma had seen.

I understand why Grandma stopped looking.

And I understand why she wanted to see what I saw. Her coaster had grown too big and she just wanted another trip around the kiddie-track.

My granddaughter, named after me of course, is coming over for a visit in a few hours. Did I mention that she is ten-years-old? Just about old enough for the jar.

And old enough to take me on one more ride.

©2009 Paul G. Tremblay