Oh, Addy, Addy, Addy

Mother thinks I’m spending too much time with my Grandpa. Thinks he’s a bad influence on a growing boy. I don’t like to hear this ‘cause I enjoy being with my Grandpa.

Grandpa comes from Lithuania. He’s been here in America for 30 years and talks only in his native language in spite of loud and angry opposition from my father and my two uncles.

“When you live in America, you should speak English,” they yell at him. Grandpa can carry on a conversation with Grandma, who is Lithuanian. He calls her Elze.

I ask Father if he will teach me just a few words so I can say something to Grandpa in Lithuanian. Father tells me it is shameful for children to speak in a foreign language during these times.

So Grandpa and I communicate in other ways. I recognize his approval by the way he pats my head. His eyes tell me when he’s happy and when he’s sad. There is no mystery when he’s upset. He roars, stomps and kicks at things.

I don’t know what “Oh, Addy, Addy, Addy” means when he says that, but I sense by its tone it can mean happiness or despair.

The Cook County 1910 census lists Grandpa as a laborer in a car shop. That is what he did when he immigrated, but now he works at collecting cardboard boxes and newspapers and selling them at the junkyard. Mother dislikes this because she’s heard some neighbors call him “rag picker,” “sheeney.”

Grandpa uses a two-wheel wooden cart he made himself. It has two tongues in front, which he tucks under his arms to pull it. The iron wheels make it hard to pull.

We scavenge in the alley behind the stores on Michigan Avenue on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. These are the best times, Grandpa feels, to get boxes because stores restock their shelves on these days. Our territory is from 111th to 113th streets and other pickers know enough to stay dear of Grandpa on these days.

We find the most boxes behind The People’s store, Boersman’s Men’s Store and Van Kampen shoes. These people are familiar with the old man wearing baggy, shiny pants and an oversized, faded pin-stripe suitcoat.

He rips the comers of boxes as easily as stripping husk from corn. I help by stacking boxes in the cart. On good days we can get a full load and, if we are lucky, enough newspapers to make several bundles.

Grandpa knows exactly how big the bundle should be to weigh 30 pounds. He has me stand on it to pack it down while he binds it. He motions me to hold my finger on the knot before he tightens it, then he pulls the cord trapping my fingertip. This is one of the few times he laughs. I like to hear him laugh although my finger stings.

He weighs each bundle with a hand-held scale then marks some figures on a slip of paper.

We go to the junkyard on Saturday morning. It is seven blocks, mainly uphill. I try pushing the cart to ease his struggle.

There are other men here, much younger scavengers than Grandpa, waiting in line with their collection of metal, rags, bottles, boxes and newspapers. Grandpa lifts each bundle, placing it on the dock to be weighed. A man looks at the scale, writes something on a tablet and, when all the bundles are weighed, he leans down and says to Grandpa gruffly, “That’s 285 pounds total. Here’s your money.”

Grandpa angrily shouts, “Tu nori mane apgauti. Sveria daugiau. Palauk!”

He pulls the slip of paper from his pocket and shakes it at the man. “As zinau. As patikrinau,” he yells. “Duok man tikkslia suma,” he says.

“Give the old man what’s coming to him,” another man says, “so we can load the truck.”

“Here, you dumb Lugan. Now get on your way.”

Grandpa takes the coins and puts them in his change purse. He turns to me and smiles. I am proud of Grandpa. When the blocks become more level on our way home, he pats me on the head and motions for me to get in the cart. He hums a tune as he pulls me. “Oh, Addy, Addy, Addy,” he says.

I think Mother is uncomfortable living in the same house with Grandpa and Grandma. It is a soldier-straight frame two-story house sardined among similar ones on Indiana Avenue in south Chicago. The houses are so close together you can pass things back and forth from one window to another.

Fortunately, there are separate entrance doors. We live this way until Grandma dies. She was slight, quiet and forever sickly. She suffered and cried openly.

Perhaps this is why I am attached to my Grandpa. He is like a bear — strong, defiant, loud and seemingly immune to illness.

Her tragic death triggers the traditional changing of living quarters so typical of ethnic families. We move to the first floor. The oldest of my uncles and his family move into the second floor. And Grandpa is exiled to the basement, which his sons have modified into living quarters — bedroom, bathroom and hot-plate type kitchen.

Grandpa physically resists the move and they carry him to his place in the basement.

We are not collecting boxes and newspapers anymore. I see Grandpa becoming more regressive and disheveled, yet I spend more and more time down there watching him do things.

I watch his hands when he prays. His left hand holds the rosary beads while the thick fingers of his right hand caress each bead and move them methodically along the strand.

“Grandpa, why do you pray all the time?”

He raises his head as if he knows my words and says, “As noriu buti su savo Elze dauguje. Dabar palik mane ramybeje.”

There are times when he cradles Grandma’s combination music box and photograph album in his arms. The painting on the cover is that of a young woman dressed in a white gown sitting in a trellis gazebo. Grandpa points to the woman. “Elze, Elze. Cia yra mano mylima zmona,” he says.

When Christmas nears, I want to do something special for Grandpa. He gets socks, slippers, underwear from my parents. I find an old cardboard box and cut it up into a shape like a Christmas tree, then paint it green and paste stars on it. I sneak into his basement home while he is sleeping and place it on his kitchen table.

He wakes, shuffles to the table and touches the cardboard tree. Grandpa smiles, looks at me tearfully, pats my head and says, “Oh Addy, Addy, Addy.”

Hal Shymkus has been writing stories since he retired from Cummins Engine Company 20 years ago and has been first- and second-place winner in past New Mexican holiday writing contests. A transplanted Hoosier, Shymkus has lived in Santa Fe for 12 years.