I'll Give You Something to Cry About by Jennifer Finney Boylan

Author:Jennifer Finney Boylan [Boylan, Jennifer Finney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2014-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

4.

Otis was surprised, the next afternoon, to learn how fast his grandmother could go on a Segway scooter. The streets of Washington were filled with long black limos with diplomatic plates. A dozen kites drifted in the air above the National Mall.

“The race is to the swift,” shouted Gammie. Riley and Alex were off at Arlington Cemetery. June was back at the Embassy Suites, writing, she said. It made no sense to Otis. Hadn’t she just spent the last nine months writing?

“What race?”

Gammie laughed. “What race,” she muttered.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was off to their right now as they cut northeast across the Mall toward Constitution Avenue. “What race,” she muttered bitterly. Otis pulled back on the handles of his Segway. It felt weird to be on one, sort of like a combination of riding a bicycle and being on an elevator. He hoped riding one wouldn’t make him dizzy later when he played the Rimsky-Korsakov.

This little adventure on the Segways—set up by the helpful concierge at the Embassy Suites—was supposed to be a chance for Otis to unwind, to get his mind off of that night’s performance. So far, however, hanging out with his grandmother was only having the opposite effect. Every word that came out of her mouth just served to make him more nervous.

They turned eastward on Constitution and Segwayed past the Reflecting Pool and the Washington Monument. On the left was the Ellipse, the White House beyond that. They crossed over 14th Street and then 12th. Otis looked to his left, knowing that Ford’s Theatre was somewhere to the north. He felt his heart beating as he thought of Vice President Biden sitting there in his chair, his face lined with melancholy for his dead son Tad. A door opened softly behind him.

Gammie led them across Constitution Avenue at Ninth Street, and they pulled the scooters over in front of the National Archives building. There was a large cluster of riderless scooters near the entrance. Otis wondered what the name was for a group of Segway scooters. A murder of scooters? A battery?

Grandmother and grandson walked into the somber marble building and immediately found themselves at the end of the slow-moving line that led to the metal detector and an x-ray machine. They passed through the checkpoint, then moved through the hallways toward the enormous vaulted chamber that held the country’s sacred documents. It was dark and dim and quiet in the treasury, in spite of the presence of many tourists. “Feel free to explore the documents in any order,” said a guard. “You don’t have to move from left to right.”

“I want to see the Bill of Rights,” said Otis.

“I’m not sure where I am,” said Gammie, looking around the dark space in bewilderment.

“It’s the archives,” said Otis. “We rode scooters here.” He took his grandmother’s hand and led her to the central altar. The Bill of Rights was to the right of the Constitution. It was so faded that the words could scarcely be read.

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