A HISTORY OF GIANTS

PART 1

The Bible - Genesis 6:4

There were giants on the earth in those days; and also, after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown.

            The old man sat there alone in the darkness. He spent all his life chasing giants. He had wanted more than anything to prove himself worthy, all the while thinking only of himself.

He brought the letter back up to his face to read it. Alone in his own darkness, tears flowed down his well-worn face. He thought about his own father and realized his fate was no different. He was certain he would die sad and alone just the same.

 His whole life, his entire history, amounted to nothing but a life’s worth of research that no one cared about. He hoped it would come to an end soon. All he had believed had abandoned him.

The world was right. He was a fool. He begged for death, but like all his pursuits, death evaded him. It, however, found his son.

CHAPTER 1 

UNACCOMPANIED MINORS

My sister, Darby, and I were born as close together as any set of twins could be. Only twenty-eight seconds separated our births. Darby was born first. My mother used to say I didn't want to miss a single thing my sister would see, so I pushed my way out to life. It seemed that my entire life was set on trying to catch up to her. Teachers always said she was smarter. She always had more friends than I did. She always seemed to be one step ahead. I hated that. I loved her more than anyone else when we were growing up. It wasn’t hard.  At times, it seemed like she was all I had. 

We sat at Gate C18 in Las Vegas’ McCarran Airport nearly every week after our parents died.  We'd wait for a plane to carry us somewhere else. Darby sat working her complex number puzzles like she always did to pass the time waiting on a plane.

Typical of me, I had my head buried in the latest paperback Gramma Louise picked up at the airport bookstore. I wasn't picky about the books, which was a good thing because she never paid attention to whether the book was appropriate or not. A boy can learn a lot from what he reads. All that mattered to me was being able to escape what real life was bringing us.

 Behind us, the airport gate windows were filled with the fabulous Las Vegas strip lit up like postcards with fanciful lights, roller coasters, and exotic architecture. For Darby and me, the spectacle of the enchanting landmarks had long faded in our interest.  We had seen enough excitement that any two kids could handle in a year.

Besides, this had become the usual backdrop of our Friday and Sunday nights. While busy travelers scurried back and forth between the terminals on the people movers, we did our best to ignore all that surrounded us.  We ignored the sounds of faraway flight announcements and slot machines being played in the background.  We did, however, often listen to conversations near us especially if was something about us, our parents, our lives, or our family. As a kid, you learn to tune in and listen to things you hear adults say to other adults. Things they would never tell you directly. 

“Hello?” Gramma Louise answered as her eyes paced back and forth looking for Grandpa Lewis, who was somewhere on a slot out of sight of the gate. “Hi Jane,” Gramma said. “We’re just waiting for their flight. No, Dad and I leave for LA in a couple of days. The ship doesn’t leave port until Sunday morning. I know. I know. Well, you know your father, and with everything we’ve been through this last year we all need a break.”

            Gramma Louise with her croft of dyed red hair and dangling earrings, dropped her purse on the seat next to her as she stood up to look around for her husband with her ear pressed to the phone.

“I know, Jane, it’s no trouble. I know you’re busy, and, honestly, it is about time they pitch in…Yes, I confirmed their arrival date yesterday. She said they were sending someone to pick them up at the airport. A farm hand or butler or something…you know how they are. Very eccentric. I know. I know. For goodness’s sake, they didn’t even come to the funeral. But they’re grandparents too and it has been almost a year. It’s time for them to help. We all agree.”

Gramma Louise listened to Aunt Jane on the other end of the phone while scanning the airport for Grandpa Lewis.

For the entirety of the year, I had heard them refer to our other grandparents, our dad's parents, as eccentric, shallow, and cold. Not exactly the glowing recommendations for the people you were being shipped off to for the summer.

Gramma Louise’s seemed to panic as she realized something.

“You know what? I need to go find your father before he maxes out the credit card before we even leave for the cruise. I’ll call you before we go. Bye Jane.”

            “Kids, stay here. I am going to find Grandpa and go to the bathroom.” Louise grabbed her purse, tucked her cellphone away, and quickly picked the underwear out of her butt heading down the walkway.  We didn’t even look up from what we were doing. This was all routine.

“What does eccentric mean?” Darby asked.

I answered, “I think it means crazy.”

“Eccentric is pretty normal around here then,” Darby answered back.

I remember nodding back in agreement as I was unwilling to stop what I was reading to react. Although, to this day, I don't remember what I was reading specifically that day. You’d think I’d be able to recall what I was reading when all this happened.

Considerable time passed when Gramma Louise and Grandpa Lewis finally returned bickering back and forth. The gate attendant made the announcement:

 “Southwest Airlines flight 128 for Sacramento, California will now begin pre-boarding.”

This was our cue. As soon as the announcement was made, we began packing our items into our backpacks and zipped them closed. We both stood up in twin unison waiting for our grandparents. Gramma Louise wrapped her arms around the two of us at the same time in a forceful group hug.

“Be good, you two. Don’t make any trouble for your Grandpa Jack and Grandma Mimi.” Gramma Louise carried her usual scent of drug store cologne and Ben Gay.

Darby replied for the both of us as she often did back then, “We won’t, Gramma.”

Louise fussed with my hair, licking her fingers to get a cowlick to stay put. I always hated my hair being messed with. I never cared how it looked. I hated getting it cut and hated combing it. I often optioned for wearing my Dodger cap over combing it.

 “And try to limit the amount of time that each of you is pressed with your nose in your books and math puzzles, p-l-e-a-s-e!” Gramma begged.

 Darby once heard Gramma on the phone with Aunt Jane. “It’s not natural,” she said. “Kids should be kids. You know, riding bikes, climbing trees, even playing video games. These kids do nothing but spend their days with their heads in books and puzzles.” 

Gramma Louise even went so far as to send us to a psychologist for observation. She felt that maybe the loss of our parents had pushed us into living our lives through books. The psychologist did not share the concern.

“These are two extremely gifted children with a hunger for knowledge and education. After all, their own father was a teacher.”

In fact, both our father and our paternal grandparents were teachers. This was also a concern for both Louise and Jane. The two talked often about the fact that our other grandparents seemed a bit odd, liking it to them being professors at various universities.

Our grandmother and aunt never talked to us directly about what mattered to us. They never talked to us about any of the details of our parents’ death. For that matter, the fact that neither Grandpa Jack and Grandma Mimi attended our parents' funeral was clearly a sticking point with Aunt Jane and Gramma Louise.

“Seems odd to me that neither one of them is making the effort,” Grandma Louise commented on the phone to Jane. “Their own son is dead, and they can’t be bothered. They think they're better than us with their college degrees and all. Well, at least us high school graduates have the compassion to take care of these kids and pay our respects.”

This type of talk resurfaced in our heads and became more troubling when suddenly being sent off to visit these grandparents we barely knew.

This was the first real summer after our parents died. It was the first time that dad wouldn’t be planning some car trip vacation for us to some national park or to the central coast. It was the first summer that Mom won’t be taking us to the beach. It would be the first time we wouldn’t watch movies outside, play in the sprinklers, or eat smores in the backyard. All of that was over for us.

I remember the last day of school that year. For as long as I can remember, I had sat in my classroom on that last day of school watching that second hand move through the last minute of school and the school bell going off ending the academic year and starting the season of summer. That year our parents died, the excitement during that countdown had turned to dread.

Truth was, Darby and I were both afraid of Grandpa Jack. Who wouldn’t be? With all that said, or not said about him in front of us. What we did remember about him was that he rarely said anything to either of us. He was not the talking-to-the-kids type. He didn't hug or kiss or did anything to show any sort of love and affection.

“Stop fussing with his hair, Louise, my gosh, leave the boy alone,” Grandpa Lewis called out at the airport.

“Don’t snap at me,” Gramma Louise shot back at her husband in the crowded terminal.

“Come on. Come on. Get going, you two,” Lewis motioned with his hands, checking his watch. “The parking meters running, and these kids need to get on that plane.”

We did as we were told. We had become quite accustomed to flying. We flew with nearly the same flight crew every week. This flight was no different. Our normal flight crew of Sandy, Marybelle, and Tito traveled from Ontario to Las Vegas, then went on to Sacramento, then on to Oakland, and then back again.

On board the plane, we settled into our usual seats; in the front, left side behind the galley. After pushing our bags under the seats and securing our seat belts, we'd pull out the same books we had in the airport. We sat silently working on our activities. We knew the drill. All the flight deck instructions and safety warnings were the same. The entire flight was routine. The only difference this time was the destination.