The Adventures of a Latchkey Kid by Robert Hodum

Author:Robert Hodum [Hodum, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2020-10-05T15:36:47+00:00

Hanging Out with Cousin Dennis

Whenever Mom went over to see her parents in Huntington, I would go along. Aunt Jessie and her son, my cousin Dennis, lived with my grandparents. The few words I grasped from hushed conversations highlighted how Grandpa Cross’ generosity had saved them. Once up in Dennis’ room, away from the adult prattle, I saw a picture of him and his mom on his dresser. I asked him where his dad was. He said that one day he went away. No other words about that crossed between us.

Dennis, at sixteen, black leather jacket, tight jeans and slicked-back greasy hair, liked to hang out with the hoods at the local bowling alley or soda shop. Frequently in trouble at his high school, he’d refuse haircuts, sneak out when grounded, and come home either bloodied or under the influence. Grandpa used his stern countenance and strong backhand to keep my rule-breaking cousin in line. It didn’t always work. When the shouting matches with Pops, as he called Grandpa, boiled over, my mom would get a call. Dennis didn’t like dealing with his Aunt Mary, the enforcer, who looked him in the eye, and with a strong point of her finger, made it clear that she would take no prisoners.

Theirs was the most peculiar love-hate relationship. Frequently exasperated by the late night phone calls and the face-to-face conflicts my mom endured, she’d comment how she loved him, but sometimes wanted to slap him silly. Of course, that never happened, but she did verbally grab him by the collar. She’d pull Dennis by the proverbial ear to the barbershop, insist that he bathe, and often calmed down her dad and mom who threatened to turn him out on the street. But more than once I saw her slip money into his pocket.

He’d give her a kiss on the cheek, and whisper, “Thanks, Aunt Mary.”

“Use it well,” she’d reply.

Privy to all the anger, sorrow, and frustration he caused, I still cared very much for my cousin. Though sometimes being with him felt like walking blindfolded and barefoot over a floor covered with broken glass.

One Saturday Grandma forced Dennis to babysit me while she, Aunt Jessie, and my mom had their tea and caught up on the goings-on in the ever-growing and not always amicable Cross family. Grandpa John, by then was hard of hearing, had rigged up a chair-mounted speaker right next to his right ear, so he could watch the Yankees play, which he faithfully did while chain-smoking stogies in his easy chair. There was always a bluish-gray cloud around the center of the room where he had the TV and his smoking stand and comfy, worn chair.

Well, after some discussion that day with Grandma, Dennis was given permission to go out, but had to take me along. So out to the street we would go. He was given strict instructions to keep an eye on me, not to see his “hoodlum friends”, and definitely not to smoke in front of me.

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