A First Time For Everything

So this past Sunday I met my grandfather, my father's father, for the first time. That's not exactly true, I met him once when I was 4, he gave me and my brother a bag of those old Zesty Pizzeria chips from Keebler that they don't make anymore. Anyway, at the time he seemed cool enough (anyone who gave me chips at 4 was cool), but I didn't know him and what's more I kinda forgot about him soon afterward. It wasn't until I was older that I began to question why I never interacted with the man. I would hear about other kids going fishing with their grandfather or just having a grandfather around. It wasn't until later that I learned the story surrounding my father's father and after learning about it I think that my father is justified in his dislike for the man.

The meeting itself was awkward at first, my uncle drove us down to the mixed black/puerto rican project where he lived. We originally thought about tricking him and not introducing me as his grandson until right before we were about to go although in the end, I look too much like my uncle and my father for that to work. When we arrived and I got out the car, he was standing outside the door, as short as he wanted to be (I know where I got it from), white skin, a few gold caps in his mouth. He had one of those six or seven o'clock shadows, he probably hadn't shaved in a few days, and he instantly knew that I was family, although he didn't know in what way. As we walked to the door, I didn't know how to react, whether or not I should just walk past him, give him a handshake, a hug. He solved the problem for me, reaching for a hug, not a particularly familial embrace, it felt like the kind you give your boy after you given him a pound. My uncle had already made his way into his place and I followed my grandfather in. His house was small, one bedroom, a small bathroom, a kitchen with a table filled with all kinds of papers, and a living room filled with pictures apparently of family members I had no clue existed. The couches were cloth but covered in plastic slip covers, implicitly saying that he couldn't ever afford to pay for another couch if anything happened to the current ones (Reminds me of the scene from I'm Gonna Get U Sucka: 5000 dollars, we don't have that kind of money.. heh heh.. no shit). Sitting on the couch was his girlfriend, also white, white as her thick billowy hair, it reminded me of the picture of Barbara Bush in my kindergarden class room. She got up to give me a hug- if anything it felt weirder than hugging a grandfather that I'd never met, at least he was related by blood.
We all sat down on the plastic couches and my grandfather's girlfriend offered us all beers. I'd gone out the night before and didn't have the mind or the stomach for a beer, I think she was perplexed by my refusal but my uncle and grandfather gladly had one. It reminded me of when I went to Puerto Rico and asked for juice/water instead of a beer, it felt like every guy there looked at my father and wondered if he was raising some kind of sissy. Anyway, after she got them their beers, she started talking to me in spanish, rapid fire spanish, believing that because I can refuse a beer and greet her in spanish that I can actually speak spanish. Unfortunately, that's not exactly the case- but I could read her mind after I told her the bad news- it was the same thoughts that every puerto rican from the island I ever met has when you tell them that you don't speak spanish. They take it as a personal affront, like you are so inconsiderate that you didn't learn a language that nobody bothered to teach you. After almost 22 years of living you'd think I would be use to it, but I'm not, their attitude always stings, makes me extremely self-conscious and I just hoped that I could somehow sink into her plastic slip covers until it was time to go.
Instead, I sat grunting and occasionaly speaking to my grandfather about a game show that was on, asking him about his beloved (according to my uncle) Mets and trying my best in 20 minutes to fill him in on some of the details he may have missed about my life, you know having never said a complete sentence to me before. I told him how my dad was doing, how my mother was, that my brother lived in Chicago, that my sister was about to graduate from college and that he was a great-grandfather (sidenote, we should change that terminology, because that can't possibly be right for someone like him). My uncle was busy talking to my grandfather's girlfriend the entire time, and then before I knew it, it was time to go. He walked me out to the car, gave me another hug and placed 40 dollars in my hand. 40 dollars I'm sure he didn't really have to give- maybe it was a way to make up for something, although he really owes that to my father- anyway it was a nice gesture and it bought me lunch for the week. I'm not sure when the next time I'll see him, maybe never again, probably not for a long time.

The reason is, deep down, I don't think I consider myself puerto rican, I know I don't. I never really spent time with my family from puerto rico, my dad didn't bother to teach us even rudimentary spanish. Now that I live in New York and I'm so close to my uncle, I think my father (and certainly my uncle) want me to be in Newark all the time, to get a chance to have interactions and build relationships I should have been building years ago. But I've moved on, or more accurately, I was never there. The thought of being puerto rican just brings to mind beer and my embarassment, and the ambivalence with which my family in puerto rico treated me, and however cowardly or silly it sounds, taking those steps to clarifying what it means for me to be puerto rican is not something I want to do right now. I know there's a lot more deep down that causes my anxiety around my father's family, things I rarely talk about. I had a great time with my uncle, he treats me incredibly well (in part, I think, because he never had any children). He'll be the only person who I develop the kind of relationship I have with the women on my mothers side of the family. I guess, seeing my grandfather just reminded me about the side of me that as a kid I always wanted to know but never got a chance to, and now that I am an adult I sometimes don't want to bother to care about.