Grandmother

The last thing he wanted was to reek of weed. That’s why he’d smoked before he left the house and not right before going into the building. Also, his one year old son was in the car with him. He guessed that his wife wouldn’t approve of his puffing in the same car as his infant child, or even within the supposed range of his limited, one-year-old sight, probably. Erin, as a rule, didn’t approve of much, but at the top of her “things Jeff might do to piss me off" list had to be getting high in the presence of his kids, followed, he’d assume, by smoking weed in the house. With any weed smoking at all trailing, but still very much in the race. His wife had limitless problems with him, but the most important ones always seemed to involve getting stoned. And that fact - in turn - just about guaran-damn-teed that he’d have to smoke weed four times a day just to deal with her actively not wanting him to smoke it. Her disapproval also forced him to be shady and sneaky about it, smoking at times and places that would ordinarily be considered, at best, unsuited to the task, and at worst, foolishly risky. The irony wasn’t lost on Jeff that somewhere on that same list was lying and that it was her very disapproval that forced him to lie about certain things. And so: The sneaky puffing in the basement while his son lie squirming in his crib, the vigorous scrubbing and re-scrubbing of hands, the application of fragrant hand-sanitizer, the application of Visine. All this just to get stoned enough to be mentally limber enough to spend the better part of two hours visiting with his grandmother at Autumn Pines - the uber-expensive and exclusive “Senior Citizen’s Community” to which Jeff’s mom (and her daughter) Judy had had her exiled. He breathed into his hand and quick-sniffed at it: nothing but Altoid. He was ready.

He got out of the car in a hurry, as if any hesitation at all might somehow pollute his mission. He was only half-way across the ocean of asphalt that was the A&P parking lot before he realized that he’d forgotten his son in the car. He reared up, snapped his finger’s and said, “ahhp!” and did a sort of pirouette, as if to convey his error (and it’s lack of import) to unseen, but very important observers. Along the way he started patting at his pockets looking for his keys.

Of course, the keys were in the car. He’d left them there in the ignition in the kind of frustrating casual fuck up reserved for only the most faithful daily weed smoker. Rather than guide his body through the simple steps of key-retainment, his brain had merely ignored the keys altogether, assuming that they’d be all right wherever they were. This was - sadly - not the case. As he surveyed the scene: the car, the child, the long, twilight shadows of a New England November, he became mired in a sort of profound THC-assisted stasis. He stared and stared at what he’d wrought for minute upon frozen minute. He thought about how definite it all was, how concrete and irrevocable, and how wrong. He considered various solutions: the calling of the wife, the calling of AAA, the talking-to of his son (who had fallen asleep), and finally, the smashing of a window in hopes of gaining entrance.

But which window, and how to smash it? The parking lots were oceanic in size, but surrounding each one was nothing but well-manicured lawn. Rocks and sticks were - presumably - shipped out by a grounds-crew well-suited to the work. He saw nothing anywhere that would help him. The boy, over this long period of mental trail and error, had started to stir and finally opened his eyes in what was now very much half-light.

Jeff was starting to feel desperate. His virtual freezing-up had lead to a real-life freezing and he could see the boy wasn’t layered up enough to be comfortable. In a few minutes he’d realize that he was freezing as well, and then the crying would begin. It was only after he’d made up his mind to call AAA that he realized his cell phone was sitting on the center console of the car, locked up tight. He broke for the A&P entrance-vestibule at a dead run.