By Walter Agnew Moore II

My grandmother takes another sip of her coffee. She's never without a cup. They say that drinking so much coffee is bad for you. She's 96 now. I plan on drinking coffee every chance I get.

My mother is humming in the bathroom, pouring water into the tub. "I'm gonna have your bath ready in a minute, mama", she sings out and then starts humming again without waiting for an answer. My grandmother sits in her chair, the one where her short legs barely clear the end of the cushion, and raises her eyebrows as she sips again.

"A bath," she says, "I always did hate to take a bath."

She looks off then goes on again: "You don't remember when we stayed with Grandaddy, do you?"

"No ma'am. I don't." It would be a miracle if I did remember, it was in 1915, in the country outside Plantersville, a life-time before I was born. But dates and places flow easily around my grandmother now— to her, it is still 1915, or 1945, or 2003 if she feels like it. I am her grandson one day, her little brother Patton the next. She goes on with her story.

"Well, I suppose you *were* young. But Hattie and I were staying with Grandmama and Grandaddy. Hattie was the little goody-goody sister, and I was the bad one. Hattie was pretty. I was fat. Hattie would stay in the house and be a little lady, but I would go stomp around in the woods."

"Grandaddy had a farm, but that's not all he did— he was a lawyer and a teacher and a blacksmith too. He would read the Bible every night for an hour, then he would read some other book for an hour as well. I can still see him at the table there by the lamp, with his big old nose stuck in a book."

"We weren't allowed to bother him for those 2 hours, you know."

"Well, it all went bad one day when Grandmama was trying to give me and Hattie our baths. Of course, Hattie was delighted to bathe or do anything else she was supposed to do, but I was *determined* not to bathe, come hell or high water. Grandmama was threatening to switch me, but I was stubborn as a mule." She sips the coffee. "And you know, I must have stunk."

"So Grandmama had started chasing me back and forth, I reckon she was going to toss me in the tub head-first, clothes and all, and I was screaming, and Hattie was standing there telling me to mind Grandmama, when I heard a 'thump', and the room got quiet, and I looked over at Grandaddy at the table, he'd just slammed that book shut."

"'Josephine Albina Britton,' he said, 'You come on outside with me.'"

"He took me by the hand, and we walked out the door, ever so slowly, down off the porch, across the raked dirt yard. We went out past the shed with the anvil, and we kept walking, right into the woods."

"I thought, 'Oh my Lord, Grandaddy's taking me out here into the woods so he can kill me!' I was walking like a prisoner to the gallows."

"After a while we came to the edge of a field. All this time he had not said a word, and that made me more scared than if he'd yelled and spanked me. I was wishing he *would* spank me, just to get it over with."

"Instead, he pointed up toward the sky with his free hand, the dark blue sky over the trees. I could see some birds up there, circling slowly in that last little bit of light."

"'You see those birds, Josephine?'"

"'Yes sir.'"

"'You know what kind of birds those are?'"

"'No sir.'"

"'Those are buzzards, Josephine. You know what they eat?'"

"'No sir.'"

"'They eat little girls who don't bathe.'"

"Then we just turned around and walked home. I was scared to turn loose of his hand all the way back, now that I knew I was buzzard-bait. I looked back once or twice, and I thought I could see those birds. When we got inside, I took my bath."

She smiles sideways and holds me with gaze.

"Mama," says my mother, here in the present day, still around the corner inside the bathroom. I hear her plunking her hand in the water to test the temperature. "Come on in and take your bath... your bath is ready!"

My grandmother looks off to the side and winces: "Oh Lord..."

I stand up and stretch, standing tall over this little rag-doll-sized woman. She won't be able to walk to the bathroom by herself. "C'mon Grandmama, let's go, you better drink that coffee, or I'm gonna steal it from you!"

She clutches the cup to her chest in mock-horror and grins up at me: "You touch my coffee, and I'll kick your teeth in!" Then she bursts out laughing, smiles, watching me over the rim of the cup with those big blue eyes as she takes another sip.