Have To Leave Town

I’m fixing to have to leave town for a few days.

I remember my granddaddy, Papa John, teaching me that sometimes circumstances fail to leave a man any other choice other than to just leave town for a few days.

The occasion occurred after a time when the negotiation of a disagreement between he and my grandmother reached a stalemate.

I wasn’t aware of any details of the disagreement, just that it existed. I first realized there were seeds of discontent in the air when I observed my grandmother giving Papa a hard and silent look every time they came in contact with each other, at least when they were in my presence. I couldn’t imagine what kind of looks she might be giving him when they weren’t in my presence.

Breakfast time was usually a warm and chatty time between them, but lately I had noticed that the silence was as cold as grandmother’s fresh churned butter. It was also evident that there was some sort of bone of contention between them just from the way she poured his coffee.

I observed that at present she sort of just sloshed the brown liquid into his cup, rather than using her normal grace of movement when she sort of swept over his shoulder and poured his coffee slowly and smoothly like it was liquid love.

It was the second or third day when I discovered that my grandparents were at an impasse and still had not ironed out their difficulties. I had been out in the barn most of the morning picking dry peanuts off the bushes when I realized it was midday dinner time.

When I got up to the house and was crossing the front porch heading toward the front door, my granddaddy almost knocked me down on his way out.

It seemed that he was going out at the same time I was going in, so I stopped and asked him if he wasn’t coming in to eat.

While he was adjusting his good brown felt hat on his head, he looked down at me and said, “Son, I’m fixing to have to leave town for a few days.”

I knew better than to ask any questions so I just stood there on the porch and watched his long strides until he disappeared down the lane.

To put everyone’s mind at ease, grandmother and granddaddy patched up whatever differences they had between them and Papa was welcomed back home after a few days.

I never knew what caused the riff between them, or the actions that took place or what words were spoken which led up to grandmother pouring granddaddy’s coffee like he liked for her to.

But the point is that sometimes it’s just the right thing to do and the only thing to do—­to just be fixing to leave town for a few days.