THE LION

It is April and spring fights winter.

     Go to your grandmother's. I've left that medicine by the door, you know what to do with it.

    Matthew puts the glass vial in the pocket of his red hoody and descends in the elevator to the garage. Before putting the car in drive he removes the vial from his pocket and secures it in the glove box. It was not an easy thing to come by and he wants to promise it safe passage.

     Matthew's grandmother has taken to bed with a wretched cough. She fired her girl. The girl had done everything. Had replenished the cigarettes; had refilled the crystal with brandy; had vacuumed the lion skin rug with the snarling teeth and dead glass eyes.  Now the old woman calls her daughter to serve her needs, who in turn buzzes up to Matthew. He is an obliging son and will travel the quarter mile to do his mother's bidding.

     When he arrives at her building the security man lifts the gate. His car is well known here. He parks in a twenty minute zone and removes the vial from the glove box. He ascends in the elevator to the twelfth floor. His grandmother hears him enter. Matthew? Matthew? is that... Her wretched cough interrupts.

     When he enters her bedroom she is just getting over her coughing fit. Put down the blinds, she commands. Get me more brandy. Matthew puts down the blinds and walks out to the living room. He pours a spot of brandy into a snifter, to which he adds four blue drops from the vial. He returns to his grandmother's bed side.

     He hands her the glass. Sit me up, she says. He props her up on a second pillow. Look at your hair, she says, what a mess. It looks awful. Take money from the drawer. Go and get that mess of yours cleaned. Today, she says, do it today. No Grandson of mine is going to walk around looking like that.

     She lights a cigarette and takes down the brandy. There is only a sip here. Get me another, and hands him the glass.

     'It will only take a moment' Matthew says. He smiles lovingly at his grandmother and exits the bedroom.

     In a fresh glass, Matthew pours coca-cola over ice, to which he adds brandy. When he returns to his grandmother's bedside her jaw hangs open, her pupils set back in her skull. Matthew extinguishes her cigarette. And before calling an ambulance he lays atop the lion skin and finishes his drink.