They do not sell anti-aging topicals for condominiums. This leaves me calling my late grandfather for practical advice. I ring Captain Lempfert for numerous matters. We crash through my celestial data limits long before we get to housekeeping. I call him when a colleague says I have “big veins for a woman.” He will stretch out his own arms, just as he did at the dinette. He will say how lucky we are to have parallel rivers, gallant and wide. No phlebotomist will ever need to stab us twice.

He was the Captain of the 8-0 Precinct. He loved Brooklyn like Brigadoon. The black-and-white photographs in his basement were a “Where’s Grandpa?” puzzle of officers in all colors. He bore witness to good. He kept a binder of acclamations beginning, “Be It Known.” He wrote everything down. I would give two thirds of my ego to have the index card he made for my piano. His paisley handwriting read, “Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.” He still has it. He reminds me I can keep my head if bosses rage or my poetry sits silent in the middle of the street. 

I am not afraid to wake him up when my GPS goes out. When I am clogged with myself, he turns on the light in the kitchen that smells like bananas. They were on the top of the fridge under all circumstances. My grandfather’s routine was a bungee cord to hold the world in place. The day began with bananas in cereal and ended with a M*A*S*H* rerun and a Psalm. The pulse beat unimpeded. As long as no one expected my grandfather at church or Thanksgiving, the Captain could keep in touch. He left his hermitage to rescue me when I missed a connecting train home from college. He framed a print of a lone wolf, next to my grandmother’s sea captain. He hummed her hymns in the kitchen but cancelled the outstanding balance of Christmases when she died. He gives me permission to hide, with the caveat that it is not his to give.

I burst in unbidden when I look old. My grandfather gets the giggles and rubs his smooth head for luck. There was one key to the vault labeled Slaphappy. He gave it to me when I was born. Not even the seraphs know the combination. I was named for my grandmother, and he took me at my word. I drew his face as the sun, stick hairs lighting the world. He is proud that his cheeks were smooth at ninety-one. Do I see how unwrinkled he is? Isn’t that something? He detained Diet Dr. Pepper liters in his refrigerator door for me. He replaced a pink toothbrush printed “PRINCESS” every six months. I ask if he keeps filling binders with my writing. He laughs, because I don’t need to ask. When he died, we found out he had donated to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation from the week I was diagnosed. I tell him I keep those binders, and he asks me to persist.

My grandfather is the most practical number in my contacts. I need his help when the dryer rages or the LEDs go on the lam. My grandfather maintained seven hundred square feet like the Louvre for thirty years. He repudiated my mother’s suggestion to upgrade the marigold kitchen tile. He did laundry under the auspices of every heart-shaped Whitman’s sampler box he ever gave my grandmother, arranged by year. The paint did not crack, and the bathroom wallpaper peacocks shone like justice. I want my own stubborn condo to prevail. My friends scold me for prophesying thirty years of quiet among the books and cats. Don’t I know how much can happen between here and seventy-three? There could be a good man. There could be a good reason to move the ceramic angels across town. My friends slosh into the river with their hands on their hips to keep me from building a dam. My grandfather tells me to have the HVAC unit serviced every six months and shows me his graph paper system for staying on top of chores. We spoke every Sunday at seven-thirty, but he called off-cycle to ask if I ever let the dryer run when I wasn’t home, and to remind me not to stand in front of the microwave.

When the recessed bulbs began to fail, leaving the kitchen in twilight, my mother pleaded. C’mon, Dad. We can find new lighting. This is not the Smithsonian. These have survived since the Nixon administration. They gave their all. My grandfather could barely look at her. If we tried to replace something, we might break something else. He liked it the way it was. They don’t make that swell yellow color anymore. We were not going to talk about this again. 

I can ask the Captain anything now, but he doesn’t have to answer. He’s not sure why he never needed to paint, or how the carpet stayed so clean. They said he was unaware of his surroundings the last three days. His seven hairs had grown long as daddy longlegs. When I kissed the top of his head, he raised his eyebrows to meet me. I ask if he remembers. Bananas make a mess of my blood sugar, so I buy scented candles. Be it known. The conversation continues.

Angela Townsend is a Pushcart Prize nominee, seven-time “Best of the Net” nominee, and the 2024 winner of West Trade Review’s “704 Prize for Flash Fiction.” Her work appears or is forthcoming in Arts & Letters, SmokeLong, and Terrain, among others. She graduated from Princeton Seminary and Vassar and writes for a cat sanctuary.