Demolition Day: Five Houses, I Helped Demented Grandma Rage

The day the redevelopment office announced our old family compound qualified for five houses and six million dollars, my grandmother suddenly came down with dementia.

The household registration papers and the old property deeds we needed for ownership verification and signing, she couldn't remember where she'd put them.

The moment word got out, my aunt and my uncle, who hadn't come home in ten years, bought overnight tickets and rushed back.

One was down on the floor prying up tiles, the other was up on the roof beam tearing off shingles.

And Grandma Fox huddled behind the door gnawing a raw sweet potato, grinning like a fool and drooling at them.

My mother yanked me aside and shoved a nail clipper into my hand.

"The old lady's out of her mind, but she still knows you. Go over and trim her nails, and listen to whatever she's mumbling."

"Just get her to let slip where the deed to that land on the east side is, and this family's set for the rest of our lives!"

I crouched in front of Grandma and had just lifted her hand.

Spitting out sweet potato skin, she leaned her face to my ear and said,

"Sweetheart, go grab that mink coat your aunt spent twenty grand on, and use it to line the dog's kennel."

...

A chill shot straight up my back.

For a second her cloudy eyes had gone clear, but by the time I blinked and looked again she'd split into a grin, drool sliding down her chin onto her shirt, patting her hands at me like a simpleton. "Sweet, sweet potato... sweet!"

I tightened my grip on the nail clipper.

Ten years. For ten years my aunt and my uncle had left the old lady out here without a word.

Not a cent transferred, not so much as a bag of groceries bought.

Now that the demolition money was coming, suddenly they were more devoted than anyone.

I stood up and slipped quietly into the east wing room.

My aunt's suitcase lay open, and that genuine mink coat she'd bragged about over and over since arriving, the one she said cost more than twenty grand, was draped right on top of the bedding.

I scooped it up, walked briskly out of the room, and threw it straight into that big iron cage in the corner of the yard that reeked of sour filth.

The old yellow dog usually ate scraps and was caked head to foot in black mud.

Seeing something soft and furry drop in, it spun around twice in delight, then plopped its rear right down on it and stretched out its tongue, licking back and forth across the fur.

Not two minutes later my aunt came charging out of the west room wiping sweat, cursing under her breath.

"Where the hell did that old hag stuff the deeds? I've all but chopped the bed slats into firewood and still nothing!"

She looked up and saw the yellow dog rolling around on her mink coat.

A whole clump of fur in the middle had already been torn off by its claws.

My aunt froze for three seconds, then shrieked. "You wretched beast! My mink! That's pure mink, twenty-eight grand, I had someone buy it for me!"

She flung herself at the cage like a madwoman, snatched the broom from the corner, and started whaling on the dog.

The dog turned vicious, baring its teeth and barking wildly.

It clamped down on the hem of the coat, and woman and dog went at it in a tug-of-war across the yard.

With a loud rip, the coat tore clean in two on the spot.

My aunt landed hard on the ground, eyes red, staring at the ruined pelt in her hands.

The next second she got up, took two steps over to me, and jabbed a finger straight at my forehead.

"Cecily Fox! Was it you, you worthless little burden? Nobody in this yard touched my case but you! You're paying for my mink!"

And with that she raised her hand to slap me across the face.

But the slap had barely stirred the air when there was a sudden splash behind her.

A whole basin of sour, reeking water poured right over my aunt's face.

Vegetable leaves and rotten scallion skins hung all over her head, the foul water dripping down her hair.

My aunt choked and coughed, wiped a hand across her face, and screamed, "Who! Who threw that?!"

There stood Grandma holding a plastic basin, hopping around and cackling. "It's raining! Watering the flowers! The kennel's nice and warm, the gold bars and the deeds are all buried under the kennel!"

The whole place went dead silent.

My aunt didn't even bother wiping the water off her face. Her voice shook a little. "Ma! What did you say? The deeds are under the kennel?!"

Grandma paid her no mind at all. She turned, hugged the doorframe, and hummed some tune no one could place.

"Big Yellow guards the house, gold bricks under the bones, whoever digs them up keeps them, hee hee hee~"

"Uncle, don't you dare!" My aunt didn't care about her clothes anymore and lunged for the cage.

But my uncle was quicker. He rushed forward in one stride, grabbed my aunt by the hair and yanked her back.

"You married out, you're an outsider now, get lost! You think a Fox land deed and house deed are yours to take?"

"Joe Fox, that's crap! I crawled out of Ma's belly too!"

My aunt raked her nails backward across my uncle's face, gouging five bloody streaks in an instant.

The dog whimpered in terror, but the two of them clawed at the ground like rabid animals, digging pits with their bare hands in the mix of dog piss and rotten mud.

My mother, furious, shoved my father. "You useless lump, what are you standing there for! Go grab it! That's five houses!"

My father gritted his teeth, rolled up his sleeves, and moved to join the brawl.

"I hit something! It's hard!" my uncle cried out, beside himself.

The joy lasted barely two seconds before Maisie sank her teeth into his wrist.

Joe yelped and let go, and Maisie snatched the thing free to look at it. A pig's trotter, gnawed to pieces by the dog.

Furious, she flung the bone to the ground, cursing under her breath.

Grandma leaned against the doorframe, picking at her feet, her eyes sliding sideways to watch the yard.

Then she suddenly lifted her head and beckoned to the reeking Joe. "Joe... come here, Joe..."

Joe's ears were sharp. He dropped Maisie and rushed over.

He knelt at the old woman's feet and put on a fawning smile. "Ma, you remember now, don't you? It's me, Joe, your youngest, the one you love most. Where are the deeds, really?"

Grandma squinted and patted Joe's face, mumbling.

"Joe, my good boy, the year I had you, there was a flood... Ma hid you in the drainage ditch out back."

"My gold bracelets and the household papers, I threw them all into the deepest part of the mud pond out back. Go on, go fish them out..."

That ditch out back was a dead pool that fed into the village's sewage channel.

It had sat abandoned for nearly ten years. In summer the stink of it made you want to gag just walking by.

Joe frowned and hesitated. "Ma, they're really in the mud pond?"

Grandma's face changed in an instant, and she brought her hand across Joe's face. "Ungrateful son! You won't listen to your mother! Then nothing for you! Not one cent for you!"

"No, no, no! Ma, I'll listen! I'm going right now! I'm going this second!"

Terrified she'd change her mind, Joe scrambled off toward the back lot on all fours.

Maisie, watching from the side, panicked and hurried forward too. "Ma, what about me? I'm Maisie, your eldest girl! You loved me best when I was little, so where are the old deeds?"

Grandma stared at Maisie with hollow eyes, fixed on her for a long moment, and then her whole body began to shake.

She grabbed the broom beside her and swung it at Maisie. "You wicked witch! You've come to beat me again! You're not eating my family's rice!"

"Ma! It's me, Maisie! I'm not your mother-in-law! Your mother-in-law's been dead thirty years!"

"It's you! You stole my grain, and you made me kneel and wash your feet!" Grandma shrieked at the top of her lungs.

"Unless you kneel and kowtow three times, and bring me the wash water and scrub my feet, I'll burn every last bit of the Fox family inheritance! Burn it all!"

Maisie froze where she stood, her face going from green to white.

Every day in the state capital she lived in comfort, and on her visits back to the village she thought even a glance at the roadside mud was filthy. And now she was supposed to kneel and wash the feet of this senile old woman?

"Maisie, hurry up and kneel!" my mother urged from the side, fanning the flames.

"Five houses on the line, and three kowtows is nothing. If you won't do it, then don't expect a share of those deeds!"

Maisie gritted her teeth, steeled herself, and knelt.

"Ma! I was wrong! I'll wait on you and wash your feet!"

With that she went to the kitchen and carried out a basin of hot water, reaching to pull off Grandma's mud-caked shoes.

Grandma's feet were all calluses and dead skin. Choking back the urge to retch, Maisie sank her hands into the water and scrubbed the old woman's feet, stroke after stroke.

"Harder! Has the wicked witch not eaten?"

Cursing, Grandma stamped her foot down into the water, splashing it right into Maisie's face.

Maisie squeezed her eyes shut and forced a smile through her teeth. "Ma, does that feel good? Now the deeds"

"Good... it feels good..."

Grandma squinted and grinned like a fool.

Just then a scream tore out of the back lot.

Joe came into view caked in mud from head to toe, even his lips gone black.

He ran into the yard clutching a filthy, torn plastic bag. "Ma! I felt along the whole bottom of that pond! I dredged this up! And I've got seven or eight leeches biting my legs!"

Joe tore the bag open with shaking hands.

But there were no gold bracelets inside, and no household papers.

Only a rotted-out canvas shoe with no sole left.

Joe's vision went black, and he nearly toppled to the ground.

Every face in the family darkened at once, and inside, only Grandma sat clapping her hands and cackling.

But for those millions, they clenched their jaws and swallowed the rage.

Only the matter gave them no room to breathe.

Early the next morning, the township supervisor walked straight through the yard gate with the redevelopment office director.

The director slapped a notice against the door plank and called out.

"Here's your final ultimatum! If you still can't produce the old deeds and the original household papers for verification and signing by noon tomorrow, this compound gets treated as an ownerless illegal structure!"

"And you can forget about the six million and the five houses, any of it!"

The moment he said it, Maisie went white, and Joe hopped on the spot in a panic.

"On what grounds can you take it back? This is our Fox family house!"

Joe lunged forward to tear the notice off the wall.

The director shoved him back and gave a cold laugh. "No deed, no proof it's yours. Rules are rules. If I don't see the papers by noon tomorrow, I'll send the bulldozers in and settle it that way."

The moment the redevelopment people left, the way Maisie and Joe looked at each other changed.

Everyone knew there wasn't much time left.

That night nobody in the house slept.

I lay in bed pretending to sleep, eyes half open on the window.

At two in the morning, footsteps crossed the yard.

I lifted the edge of the curtain and saw Grandma walk into the front room, her hair loose.

At the same moment, the doors of the east and west rooms both cracked open a sliver.

Grandma stopped in front of the altar table, looking at Grandpa's memorial tablet, her body swaying.

"Old man, you went so early. That box you tucked behind the tablet, I locked everything valuable inside it. Nobody can take it from me."

When she finished muttering, she turned and shuffled slowly back to her room.

She had barely gone inside when the yard came alive.

Joe ran straight to the gate and threw the main power switch.

"Joe Fox, you bastard!"

Maisie cursed him out in the dark.

Then I heard a rush of scrambling footsteps heading for the front room.

I pushed my door open and looked, by the moonlight, in the direction Grandma had gone.

Joe had just reached the front room doorway when Maisie, a padlock in her hand from somewhere, slammed into him from behind and shoved him straight into the woodshed beside it.

Then, with a click, she locked the woodshed door.

"Let me out! Maisie Fox, you vicious witch! You think you can keep it all?"

Joe kicked at the door and roared from inside.

Maisie ignored him. Flashlight in hand, she darted to the altar table, knocked over Grandpa's memorial tablet, and pulled a wooden box out of the hidden compartment behind the shrine.

"Mine! It's mine! The five houses are mine!"

Maisie hugged the box and laughed out loud.

Inside the woodshed, Joe heard her and lost it.

He grabbed a rusty hatchet, smashed the window, and hauled himself out through the frame, not caring about the pain.

He was about to pounce and grab, when his eyes caught on the floor tiles under the shrine.

That was the spot Grandma had spent all day staring at with that vacant grin.

Joe's eyes shifted. He dropped to his knees and started prying up the tiles.

A few minutes later he dug out a square bundle wrapped in oilcloth.

"Yours is a fake! This is the real deed!" Joe crowed.

My parents watched the two of them, each clutching something, and stamped their feet in a panic, but neither dared step in and grab.

So that was how it went. Neither Maisie nor Joe dared to sleep.

They guarded each other like they were guarding against a thief, and dragged themselves through in the yard until dawn.

Noon on the third day.

The township supervisor and the redevelopment office director stepped through the gate right on time, a crowd of nosy neighbors trailing behind them.

"Time's up. Did you find it? If not, we go by procedure."

The director checked his watch and pressed them, his face cold.

Maisie rushed up first and slapped the wooden box down in front of him. "Found it! This came out from behind my father's memorial tablet. It's absolutely the deed!"

Joe wasn't about to be outdone. He shoved Maisie aside and set his mud-caked bundle on the table too.

"That's a load of crap. Yours has to be fake. Mine was hidden the deepest. This is the real deed!"

The director frowned. "Enough, stop arguing. We'll open them and see."

Maisie shot Joe a smug look and started prying at the box's latch.

The box opened, and there really was a yellowed old sheet of paper lying inside.

Maisie was shaking with excitement. She handed the paper over with both hands. "Take a look, sir. It's the old deed!"

The director took the paper, unfolded it, and his face went strange.

He cleared his throat and read it out loud, in front of the whole village:

"IOU. Borrower, Joe Fox. August 1998. Having gambled away my money and secretly sold the family's food supply, I borrowed three thousand dollars from my mother to pay off my debts."

"I swear to slave away to repay her. If I don't, may I be barred from the Fox family grave when I die."

The silence in the yard broke into roaring laughter.

"Well, would you look at that! So Joe stole the family's food back then to go gamble!"

"Everyone thought he'd struck it rich out there. Turns out he's just a gambling degenerate!"

The neighbors pointed at Joe, whispering.

His face went the color of raw liver in an instant. He rushed over, tore the IOU to shreds, and roared at Maisie, "You bitch! You dug this out on purpose to shame me!"

Maisie stared blankly at the wooden box, dumbstruck herself.

Joe yanked out his own treasure and slapped it down in front of the director without even looking at it. "Director, read it. This has to be the deed!"

The director sighed, picked it up, and read again:

"Pledge to sever family ties. I, Maisie Fox, am taking the last five thousand dollars in this house today to buy an apartment in the city, and from this day I cut off all ties with the Fox family."

"Even if my mother later starves or falls sick and dies, I will never come back to look at her once. None of the Fox family's debts are any concern of mine."

The blood drained from Maisie's face in a single sweep.

The neighbors' laughter died, replaced by contempt and cursing.

"Ptooey! What a piece of work! Took the old lady's burial savings off to the city, and now she's back to grab the demolition money?"

"These two, brother and sister, are worse than animals, each of them!"

Maisie and Joe stood in the middle of the yard, gawked at by the whole village like a pair of monkeys.

"Director, this, this isn't right..." Maisie said, trembling.

The director's face darkened too. He rapped hard on the table. "Are you people making a fool of me? What is all this nonsense!"

"Time's up. Since there's no deed, we're leaving. The house gets seized as an unclaimed illegal structure!"

With that, the director turned to go.

Six million dollars and five houses were about to slip away. Maisie and Joe went wild.

"Stop! You can't leave!"

Maisie's head snapped around, fixing on Grandma, who sat drooling in her wheelchair.

Something seemed to click for Joe too.

"This old hag's been playing us! She's not senile at all!"

Roaring, Joe lunged at Grandma.

Maisie went straight for her bag and pulled out a red ink pad and a sheet of blank paper. "Mom! No deed today means you'll do it the other way! Put your fingerprint on this paper, now!"

"Once you've stamped it, the house is ours!"

Maisie strained with everything she had to pry Grandma's fingers open.

Grandma burst into wailing tears and cowered back into the wheelchair. "Murder! This wicked woman's trying to kill me!"

My mother hid behind my father, and my father didn't dare step in to break it up. He was still hoping Maisie really would get that fingerprint down.

"Press it! Hurry, press it!"

Joe clamped down on Grandma's wrist while Maisie jammed the ink pad at Grandma's thumb.

Screw this.

I couldn't take it anymore. I grabbed the washboard beside me and slammed it straight into Joe's back.

Joe screamed and stumbled forward.

Then I kicked the ink pad clean out of Maisie's hand and planted myself in front of Grandma's wheelchair.

"Enough!"

"You'd kill your own mother over a little money. You think you deserve a cent of that demolition payout?"

Maisie clutched her reddened fingers and shrieked at me, "Cecily, you little brat! You dare ruin this for us?"

"Without her fingerprint, nobody's getting a dime!"

Joe scrambled up to come at me too. "Get out of the way! Keep getting in the way and I'll finish you off today!"

I let out a cold laugh, then pulled a red booklet and an old household registration book from my pocket.

"What you dug up three feet of earth looking for was right in front of you the whole time!"