Knock Knock

By Carl Kopman

Art by Kiko

Maybe you’ve heard this one before—
Knock Knock,
Who’s There?

      I’ll get to the punch line later, after all, it was told to me by a six year old kid whose name slips my mind; a humbling part of aging, this retrieval of words, grasping at tangential associations;  like the other day with a jacked-up barista tapping his foot behind the coffee counter, while I stood frozen searching for a word to place my order. 
      “Cappa…” I think grasping for the coffee word.  Cappadocia…floating in the skies above Cappadocia…circling the hills…the bat guano caves…
      “What’s it gonna be, sir?”
      “A Cappa…a cappuccino…a double,” I say snapping back.
      The steaming of milk rising from the espresso machine —the hissing of gas…the pop of the flame igniting hot air…a  circus of balloons rising in the blue sky over the dry hills chasing clouds shaped like chariots.

Knock Knock, 
Yes, the kid, the joke .
Knock Knock,
Who’s There ?

      It’s Phoebe— no, that’s not part of the joke, that’s the little blond neighbor girl with the serious face and big blue eyes whose name I couldn’t remember who told me the joke after first asking, “Will you remember me in three months?”
      “Yes.”
      “Will you remember me in six months?
      “I should hope so, Phoebe.”
      “A year?”
       “Sure, Phoebe…of course, I will.”
       After all I remembered her name, though I do sometimes call her Abbie—the name of my precious doodle dog who died in my lap…licking chocolate icing from a cupcake I held in the palm of my hand while succumbing to an infusion of phenobarbital. I still remember her chocolate coated tongue licking my hand… her mournful eyes saying goodbye …her…

Knock Knock, 
Who’s There?

      “Will you remember me in 2 years,”  Phoebe persists, eyes opened wide, head cocked to the side, blond hair brushing against her ten year old brother (with whom I play chess) sitting at the table next to her.  His name is Finn.  I’m sure of that cause he likes to cross his eyes, suck in his cheeks and pucker his lips like a fish which is what he’s doing when I answer Phoebe.
       “I’m sure I’ll remember you…if I’m still alive.” 
       This sends both kids into a burst of silly laughter.  Finn rolls off his chair, followed by two rooks and a pawn, onto the rug—his sister spraying a mouth full of milk into the air while falling on top of him.
       “What’s so funny?” I ask.
       “Yoooou,” they sing pointing fingers at me.” 
       “And you’re so old,” Finn adds causing another round of laughter as my wife fusses about the kids wiping milk from Finn’s hair and Phoebe’s mouth while I feign anger before breaking into a smile when both kids hug my wife as they rise from the rug.
       “You guys really like being away from your parents, don’tcha?”
       “Sure we do, it’s fun,” Finn replies placing his chess pieces back on the board.
       “Whaddaya like best about it?”
       Finn is surprisingly thoughtful, even stroking his little chin.
       “Well…I…can…say curse words when they’re not here.”
       “Like what?” I cannot resist asking.
       Finn looks at Phoebe.  His younger sister is all ears.  “ Like,” he hesitates, “like…shut up…and….fuck.”
       My wife and I exchange a glance.
       “Shut up.”  “Fuck.”
       Or did he say, “Shut up and fuck.”
       My wife raises an eyebrow.  Me, I laugh and rub Finn’s head.

Ding Dong,
Who’s There?
It’s me, Paddy.

      Paddy is the mother.  She’s come to pick up her kids. I look at her a little differently before I go to the kitchen to collect her children’s belongings. As I hand Phoebe her shiny red raincoat with large white polkadots she looks up at me and speaks in a rising voice.

Knock Knock,
Who’s There?

      That’s when Phoebe delivers the punchline. It cracked me up. My wife even laughed.

Ring Ring
Ring Ring.
And now I get a phone call
My best friend tells me he’s dying.
Stage 4.
Matter of months
Shut up! And Fuck! I think.  

      And that’s when I think of Billie Collins talking about poetry saying if an ant, or maybe it was a mouse, or a dog, or maybe it’s a friend walks across the page while you’re writing…well… then…that’s part of the poem.

Knock Knock,
Who’s there?
It’s Me.
Me Who?
That’s not the joke, anymore. 
That’s my grandson. He’s at the door.

      “C’mon grandpa, open up, my books are heavy.”  He’s come by to hang out, have a snack, do his homework. We walk through the living room, past the chess board on dining room table where two black rooks and a pawn stand in check mate over my supplicated white king—and into the kitchen where I grab a mango, an avocado, a red onion and some salsa.  I start peeling, slicing, dicing and mashing them into a guacamole while my grandson settles down with a slump into his chair after grabbing his books and headphones from his back pack and a handful of chips from the bag on the kitchen table.
       “Kiko?” I ask.
       “Yeah grandpa,”
       “Will you remember me in three months?”
       “Pshh, c’mon,” he answers rolling his eyes.
       I bring the bowl of guac to the table. He samples it with his finger, adds several shakes of salt, loads up a chip.    Compelled, I continue.
       “How about six months…will you remember me then.…” 
       “Oh Oompa you’re being silly,” he says adjusting his headphones against his ears after pulling his long hair free from their grasp. I can hear the Beatles leaking out. He opens his leather drawing journal and begins sketching something from his mind.  At first, I thought the two round oval-ish shapes he drew were going to be hot air balloons floating in the sky with Lucy like diamonds but soon the ovals turned into the eyes of a visionary encompassing an apocalyptic landscape.
       Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away

Ring,
Ring,
Again.

      “Hello…”
      “Hello, this is Verna from Dr. Death’s office…Abbie’s ashes are still ready for pickup.  It’s been a year now and well if you want us to dispose of them …well we understand.”
       “Oh no I’ve just forgotten…I’ll be by next week. Thank you.”
       I disconnect.  Walk over to the kitchen table and dip a chip into the guacamole.  Kiko’s hunched over his journal drawing a cemetery—its crosses disappearing into lines of perspective.  I tap him on the shoulder.  Once. Twice.  On the third tap which turned into a poke, he removes one head phone from an ear. 
       “What now,” he asks, head still in his journal, drawing.
       I’m feeling somber, vulnerable.  Abbie.  Friends dying. Trump.  All those things.
       “Kiko, will you remember me in five years…ten years?”
       He hears it in my voice. He puts down his pencil, removes his head set and turns towards me.
       “Of course Oompa, what’s wrong.”
       “How about twenty years…thirty years…will you remember me then?”
       “You’re my gramps,  I’ll remember you for ever.  I’ll love you forever.”  
       I still can feel his head buried in my chest as he hugged me. I can still feel the gravity of passing sadness on to him. I want to change the mood…make him laugh— this darling thirteen year old grandson who draws pictures of the end of the world.  I want to give him rainbows and flowers and hot air balloons in the skies above Cappadocia.

I’ve got a joke, I say.
He looks at me, inquisitively.
Knock knock, I say.
Who’s there, he says.
It’s me, I say.
Me who, he says.
You forgot me already, I say, incredulously.

      He laughs.
      I laugh but not whole heartedly.
      The joke has lost something in its telling.
      My grandson returns to his journal and as I clear the empty bowl of guacamole from the table I notice he is placing flowers on the graves in his drawing and a full moon rising is being chased by chariots in the night sky above.

Photo by Nancy Rubin

Carl Kopman
Born in 1942