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Breakfast Artist

There was the smell of laundry detergent and cigarette smoke in the porch walkway as I entered my grandparent's house. I smelled it every morning as I walked into their house, but today it was different because my mother had told me that granddad had to stop smoking.
I was almost afraid to walk inside because I had heard horror stories about people trying to quit smoking. I remember when my dad quit dipping. He was pretty mean for about a month, and then he just started chewing tobacco. He told us that it was different than dipping, and we believed him. But my granddad was old. I can't even imagine him without a cigarette in his mouth. Hammering a nail, cigarette; cleaning a fish, cigarette; trying to pass a kidney stone, cigarette.

So I opened up the door and he was in his chair, just the same as every other morning, head bowed over the kitchen table, his false teeth nearly falling off the edge of the table. Nanny looked over from the stove where she was scrambling some eggs, "Mornin' honey."
"Morning Nan. I'm not gonna have any eggs. Mom made me some cereal."
She shook her head as I sped past her to the head of the table. I pulled the chair out next to granddad and sat there resting my chin on the table. He never really said much until he was ready so I thought I would do some detective work of my own.
His shirt pocket didn't have the bulge of his filtered camels. "Wow, he's actually gonna do it," I thought to myself. He didn't have his glasses on, his sight failing him through the years, so thinking I was out of his peripheral vision I started moving in closer to smell his clothes. I got to about a foot away, and nothing.
"BB, here's what wer gon do t'day."
I tried to jerk back like a groundhog going back into the kudzu but I ended up banging my chin on the table. My lip started swelling instantly and I could feel the blood forming. Before I even had a chance to cry, granddad reached over, put his thumb on my lip and held me there like a bass out of water. I was too confused to cry or move a muscle.
"People don't take too kindly to snoopin." He had a little grin as he said this, but a stern seriousness was coming from the pressure he had on my throbbing lip. Granddad took his hand away, held my head away from him and said, "That'll do now." The bleeding had stopped.
"Ater you clean that lip wer gon pick some okra. Now member to wrap that wet hankerchif

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