1:32:00
I said. "I came back to
see you on Christmas."
1:32:05
Don't ask me why I did
it. I don't have any idea.
1:32:08
It just came out that way, and suddenly
this old woman's hugging me there
1:32:12
in front of the door,
and I'm hugging her back.
1:32:16
It was like a game we both decided to
play... without having to discuss the rules.
1:32:24
I mean, that woman knew
I wasn't her grandson.
1:32:27
She was old and dotty, but she wasn't so far gone that she couldn't
tell the difference between a stranger and her own flesh and blood.
1:32:35
But it made her happy to pretend, and since I had nothing
better to do anyway, I was happy to go along with her...
1:32:44
So we went into the apartment
and spent the day together.
1:32:46
Every time she asked me a question
about how I was, I would lie to her.
1:32:50
I told her I'd found a
good job in a cigar store.
1:32:53
I told her I was about to get married.
1:32:54
I told her a hundred pretty stories, and
she made like she believed every one of them.
1:32:58
That's fine, Roger, she would
say, nodding her head and smiling.
1:33:02
I always knew things
would work out for you...
1:33:07
After a while, I started getting hungry.
1:33:10
There didn't seem to be
much food in the house,
1:33:12
so I went out to a store in the neighborhood
and brought back a mess of stuff.
1:33:18
A precooked chicken, vegetable soup, a
bucket of potato salad, all kinds of things.
1:33:27
Ethel had a couple of bottles
of wine stashed in her bedroom,
1:33:32
and so both of us we managed to put
together a fairly decent Christmas dinner...
1:33:37
We both got a little tipsy
from the wine, I remember,
1:33:40
and after the meal was over we went out to sit in the
living room where the chairs were more comfortable...
1:33:47
I had to take a pee, so I excused myself
and went to the bathroom down the hall.
1:33:53
That's where things took another turn.
1:33:58
It was ditsy enough doing my
little jig as Ethel's grandson,