Connie’s Motor Home

The minute I light up my cigarette, the cell phone rings. It’s mom.

“How are you?” she says.

“Not good, as usual.”

“When do you work again?”

“Friday night is my door man job.”

“Do you have enough money for you two to make it until then?”

“It’s two days. I have forty bucks. We’ll get by.”

“Did you get the money I transferred to you yesterday?”

“Yes, mom.”

“Did you use it toward the back rent you owe?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m working on an idea for you,” she says. “Did you know your grandfather is dying?”

I had not laid eyes on my maternal grandfather, Conrad “Connie” Holloway, in fifteen years. He divorced my grandmother when I was still an infant, yet I had a warm relationship with him throughout my teen years, despite the fact that he moved on, remarried, and had other children and grandchildren.

“He’s 89 years old, he’s dying and he’s on a morphine drip,” mom said. “I really think you ought to take the BART train across the bay and go see him before he dies. He’d really love to see you.”

“Mom, the prodigal grandson coming home after fifteen years. You don’t think that would freak him out in a ‘Oh God, I really am dying’ kind of way?”

“Well, here’s what I’m thinking …”

I begin strolling the length of Jack Kerouac Alley as mom unfolded her latest plot.

“Does Shirley drive?”

“Yes.”

“Well, your grandfather has a fully equipped motor home. If you get in his good graces before he dies, you guys might be able to get your hands on that motor home and just park it somewhere every night and not have to pay rent.”

“Parking is not free in San Francisco,” I tell her.

“Oh. Never mind. You ought to still give him a call, though.”