Uptown 8
Denny pulled on a heavy fiber rope that dangled from the ceiling. He pulled again, more forcefully this time, but still without the expected result.
“Back up a little,” he said to Aaron.
The eight year old sprang to the far end of the hallway in an exaggerated leap from danger.
“Where does the secret door go?” he asked his Dad.
“It’s just the attic buddy,” said Denny.
One additional forceful pull broke the seal on at least two coats of paint. The attic had not been used within Aaron’s lifetime at least. Another tug and the folded up stairway opened like a jaw with the screeching noise of an expanding set of rusted springs and a cascade of dust. Denny unfolded the stairs and pressed against them with his boot to secure the bottom edge against the hallway carpet.
“Ready?” he asked.
Aaron nodded and smiled.
Denny slowly climbed, hesitating with each creak or groan of the old wooden staircase as it lodged into its proper fixed position. Near the top he reached for a string and pulled until a satisfying click turned on an old hundred and fifty watt bulb.
The attic had a plywood floor throughout. Aaron followed Denny, stepping over a wrought iron floor grate into the cold and musty space, wide-eyed and unsure how closely he should follow. The attic was large enough for an adult to stand, with sloping exposed rafters on either side of an elongated rectangular space. It was ominously dark at the far end of the room.
“What is all this stuff, Dad?” asked Aaron, looking around at all the boxes, trunks and other attic dross piled almost wall to wall and ceiling high. There was clothing, sports equipment, furniture and unused rolls of paper towels. Bags of brittle toothbrushes, dental floss and dried out deodorant. Grandma was quite the hoarder.
“Mostly junk, I guess.” said Denny. “But we need to make sure before we throw it away. You never know, we might find something we can sell on ebay.”
“What is THIS?” Aaron asked, pointing to a disconnected old black telephone.
The phone was a desk model with a large shiny base, a curving handset that rested on a delicate metal cradle and a thick black cord that linked the two.
Denny pulled his iPhone from his pocket and held it next to the antique device.
“This was what telephones used to look like, the kind your great grandma used. And this,” he said, motioning to the iPhone, “is like something from Star Trek. But I guess you wouldn’t know about that either. Wouldn’t take a Scottish engineer to figure this one out,” he muttered, picking up the receiver on the old phone.
Reflexively, Denny began to dial.
“You used to spin the dial instead of touching a number,” he said, “like this.”
He held the receiver to his ear and dialed the first number that leapt to mind. A number before area codes, in a time when the initial digits of a phone number related to neighborhoods. UP8-0025. Uptown. It was his grandmother’s number throughout his childhood. The rotary dial whirred and clicked, quickly for the lower numbers and seemingly forever for the zeros.
“That takes so long!” exclaimed Aaron.
“Yeah, it sure…” Denny froze.
A familiar voice on the phone said, “Hello?”
It was a female voice, gravelly from years of smoking. A voice full of smiles and home cooking. A voice he hadn’t heard in fifty years.
His legs shook as he sat down on an old steamer trunk to steady himself. A chill colder than the attic air gripped him. His hands trembled.
The voice again said, “Hello?”
Denny opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He opened it again.
“Grandma?...” said Denny.
