The Man is Coming

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It never really registered that my Gramps was a criminal until one day I heard all the grownups whispering about the man. "The man's coming," they kept saying. It was an unusually quiet day in Gramps' kitchen and my aunt kept turning people away at the door. The only people at the kitchen table that afternoon were children playing a mock game of grownup spades. A few other aunts were placing full bottles of alcohol in the trunks of the cars and deciding amongst themselves who would take what where. I listened, with my head down, because it wasn't good manners for children to be in grown folks' business.



A few days later, as I walked home from school, I saw several police cars leaving my grandmother's house with my grandmother in the back seat of the last car that pulled away. I entered the kitchen as I usually did, but I knew better than to ask any questions. I could always play question-and-answer catch up with the other kids in the family (and listen to the grownups "whisper").



"They didn't find anything, so that's good." one aunt said.
"They're all crooked anyway," another aunt said.

And she was right. I learned much later that the country sheriff had his own bootlegging gig going, but that's another story.



Gramps returned home that evening and the man returned once every couple of years. Gramps would receive a phone call from someone who had inside knowledge that she would receive a visit from the man and I would watch the same ridiculous routine go down.