Spoonbenders

“I’ll join you,” Grandpa Teddy said. He rose from the table, straightened his cuffs, and took her arm.

“You’re not supposed to smoke, Dad,” Irene said.

“Loretta’s smoking,” he said. “I’m secondary smoking.”

Uncle Frankie gestured to Matty. “Come on, it’s time you saw something.”

“I’m not doing these dishes alone,” Irene said.

“Have Buddy help you.” He slapped his brother on the shoulder—a little too hard, Matty thought. Buddy’s eyes fluttered, but his gaze never moved from the middle distance. He had a way of sitting very still, slumping lower and lower, as if he were turning to pudding.

“Leave him alone,” Irene said.

Buddy remained unperturbed. He’d been in one of his trances since finishing his pie, staring into space, occasionally smiling to himself or silently mouthing a word or two. His muteness was a mystery to Matty, and the adults wouldn’t talk about it, a double silence that was impenetrable. Matty’s mom would only give him variations of “That’s the way he is.” Once Matty worked up the courage to ask Grandpa Teddy about why Buddy hardly spoke, and he said, “You’ll have to ask him.”

Frankie led Matty to the front room, where a huge console television was parked against the wall like a Chrysler. His uncle dropped heavily onto his butt—holding his wineglass aloft and managing to keep most of the wine inside it—and opened up one of the cabinets.

“Now we’re talking,” Frankie said. A VHS machine sat on a shelf, and in the space below was a jumble of videocassettes. He pulled one out, squinted at the label, and tossed it aside. He started working his way through the stack. “I gave Dad a copy,” he said under his breath. “Unless Buddy threw it out, that fuckin’—hey. Here we go.”

It was a black cassette box with orange stripes. Frankie ejected the current tape from the machine and jammed in the one from the box.

“This is our history,” Frankie said. He turned on the television. “This is your heritage.”

On the screen, a store clerk madly squeezed rolls of toilet paper. Frankie pressed play on the VCR, and nothing happened.

“You have to turn it to channel three,” Matty said.

“Right, right.” The TV’s dial was missing, exposing a naked prong. Frankie reached up to retrieve the set of needle-nose pliers Grandpa Teddy kept on top of the console. “That was my first job. Grandpa’s remote control.”

The tape had the swimmy look of something recorded off broadcast TV. A talk show host in suit and tie sat on a cramped set, with a brilliant yellow wall behind him. “—and they’ve been thrilling audiences around the country,” he was saying. “Please welcome Teddy Telemachus and His Amazing Family!” Matty could hear the capitals.

The applause on the recording sounded metallic. The host stood up and walked over to an open stage, where the guests stood awkwardly, several feet back from a wooden table. Father, mother, and three children, all dressed in suits and dresses.

Grandpa Teddy looked pretty much like himself, only younger. Trim and energetic, the Hat pushed back on his head, giving him the appearance of an old-time reporter about to give you the straight dope.

“Wow, is that Grandma Mo?” Matty asked, even though it could have been no one else. She wore a shiny, silvery evening dress, and she was the only member of the family who looked like she belonged onstage. It wasn’t just that she was Hollywood beautiful, though she was that, with short dark hair and large eyes like a 1920s ingénue. It was her stillness, her confidence. She held the hand of a sweet-faced, kindergarten-age Uncle Buddy. “She’s so young.”

“This was a year before she died, so she was, like, thirty,” Frankie said.

“No, I mean, compared to Grandpa Teddy.”

“Yeah, well, he may have robbed the cradle a bit. You know your grandfather.”

Matty nodded knowingly. He did know his grandfather, but not in whatever way Uncle Frankie was talking about. “Oh yeah.”

“Now, this is the number one daytime show in the country, right?” Frankie said. “Mike Douglas. Millions watching.”

On-screen, the host was pointing out various things on the table: metal cans, some silverware, a stack of white envelopes. Beside the table was a kind of miniature wheel of fortune about three feet tall, but instead of numbers on the spokes there were pictures: animals, flowers, cars. Matty’s mother, Irene, looked to be ten or eleven years old, though her velvety green dress made her look older. So did her worried expression; Matty was surprised to see it already set in place on such a young face. She kept her grip on the arm of her younger brother, a wiry, agitated kid who seemed to be trying to twist out of his suit and tie.

“Is that you?” Matty asked. “You don’t look happy to be there.”

“Me? You should have seen Buddy. He got so bad that—but we’ll get to that.”

Maureen—Grandma Mo—was answering a question from the talk show host. She smiled bashfully. “Well, Mike, I don’t know if I’d use the word ‘gifted.’ Yes, I suppose we have a knack. But I believe every person has the capability to do what we do.”