Doug Larsen - A Portrait of My Grandfather

Hawkey looked positively ill. He stared wildly with frankly appalled eyes, and dozens of people stared back. My mom started taking pictures. The reporter dashed forward, wielding a microphone.

“Mr. Hawkey! Why did you kill Al Melfred?”

Hawkey stared at her with sick eyes. He worked his mouth feebly, but no sound came out. But everyone who had overheard the question was shocked and appalled, and I heard an alarmed buzzing: “…Killed Al Melfred! … I thought it was a heart attack! … Why would he do that? … Al was the nicest man…” Hawkey was led through a corridor of staring eyes and shocked faces—the camera focused on his face, the reporter barking questions, and my mom taking pictures. I walked in front of them, drinking in the look on his face. It was what I’d wanted to see for a long time. It was satisfying and triumphant, but it was all necessary because Grampa was dead, and I felt a light stinging behind my eyes.

The cops didn’t allow us in their elevator, so we took the other one and beat them down into the lobby. A horde of people had gathered, and watched in silent shock as their president was paraded past them in handcuffs.

The videotape made the late night news, complete with an information packet my dad supplied. The next day, it was the second story on the national news. I watched as Van Ives, red faced and perspiring, was dragged out of his office, shouting loudly. Klemhauser, feebly attempting to pretend that nothing was wrong, was trying to joke with reporters as he was led away. There was some great footage of Gunderson being tackled as he tried to run to his car, and being subdued by police. Since I had told them that Gunderson was the dangerous one, ten cops were on hand for his arrest.

They were all being held without bail. Camera crews ambushed their attorneys, who had nothing to say.

The interviews lasted for days. National networks carried the story, with clips of the subliminal ads, looking lousy on plain old TV, and clips of me explaining everything. Coast to coast, people saw the gunman who had killed Grampa, and they also saw Gunderson firing the shotgun into my chest. My mom was the most active speaker, and her comment that “in some corporations, only the scum rises to the top” was aired over and over again.

Advanced GameTek and SKS Holdings disavowed all knowledge of the activities of the four conspirators, fired all four of them, and did everything they could to distance themselves from the whole fiasco.

“Why did they do that?” I asked Mom and Dad. “Why didn’t they use the legal defense fund they were gathering?”

“It wouldn’t do any good in the face of such overwhelming evidence,” Dad explained. “It was meant for things like disputing charges that their ads were aimed at kids; that kind of thing. It was never meant as a cover for murder.”

Mom agreed. “All the company can do now is try to cut their losses, and leave those four as scapegoats. They’re hoping that the public will be satisfied with that.”

They weren’t. The TV news magazines did segments on me and Grampa, and a few senators came to get first-hand experience with the ads that were placed in the virtual games. A rash of new legislation was introduced to severely limit tobacco ads of all kinds, along with a bunch of other legislation on the industry.

Back at school, everybody noticed me now. I was kind of a celebrity. Even the to-die-for Tiffany Montgomery favored me with a few glances, and looked straight at me once. I looked right past her, and walked over to Mary Adams.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi!” she said, surprised.

“I wanted to tell you I’m sorry for being rude when you talked to me about my Grampa,” I said.

“Oh, that’s OK,” she said, not sure what to say.

“I appreciated the thought,” I said. “I was just so sad I didn’t know how to act.”

She squeezed my arm. “I understand. Don’t worry about it.”

The next step was still quite a plunge, but it wasn’t as hard as I thought it was a few months ago. “I was—uh—I was wondering if you’d like to go to a movie with me sometime.”

Her face lit up. She really was quite pretty. “Sure!”

We arranged the details, and then the bell rang for the next class. “I’ll see you later,” she said, moving off.

“Sure.” I stood smiling, and watched her walk away. Then I headed to class. I walked right past Tiffany Montgomery, but I didn’t even glance her way.

With everything over, I was able to think about the good times with Grampa again. Before every date with Mary, I’d look skywards and smile, because I knew that Grampa was up there, rooting me on. He’d have liked Mary, and he’d have liked the fact that I had a girlfriend.

Thinking about the good times was Gramma’s suggestion, and it helped me deal with the fact that Grampa was dead. I wondered if she did the same thing, but who knows how adults handle stuff?

One of the things I kept thinking about was that fishing trip when I was five. I wondered what happened to that picture that Grampa took of me, with the huge galoshes, enormous hat and innocent expression. I asked Gramma about it, but she didn’t know what happened to it. So I looked around Grampa’s house, and our house, to see if it was anywhere. Gramma even went through Grampa’s wallet and stuff, but it wasn’t there.

Everybody in the family had got involved in the search after awhile, because it was Grampa’s favorite picture of his grandson. And everybody was real disappointed when I gave up, and said it was nowhere to be found. My mom, especially, she was bummed, because it was her dad’s favorite picture of her kid.

I don’t know; it’s weird. After the first disappointment, it never really bothered me that I couldn’t find it. I was kind of glad that it disappeared when he died.

I like to think he took it with him.