I remember my grandfather's wooden leg.

It must have been a spare because he kept it hanging on a hook on the wall
leading down to the cellar stairs.

I was four-years-old and I didn't know that my grandfather wasn't whole. Nor could I understand why anyone would need to keep an extra leg just hanging around.

It looked like a Pinocchio leg to me.

I was not allowed to open the door to the cellar.

But I was four-years-old and there was a leg hanging on the other side. Allows didn't count.

I would stand and stare. I would never touch it, though. It was a scary leg hanging on a hook next to oily over-alls and a pair of frayed suspenders.

Eventually, my mother or grandmother would shriek by, apron-shooing me away from the edge of the steep and disintegrating cinder-block cellar steps.

"What are you doing, little man? You know you're not supposed to open that door. You could fall down the stairs on your head."

With a tut on her lips and a dish-water grip on my wrist she'd lead me away, my head swiveled back toward the irresistible allure of the hanging leg.

All the aprons, all the shooing in the world, couldn't trump the fascination of a wooden leg for a four-year-old boy who didn't know his grandfather wasn't whole.

I don't know exactly what woke me up. The circling red lights? The loud, commanding voices? The cold air?

I wandered into the living room, my pajamas riding low on my backside.

The front door was propped open.

Men I didn't recognize hovered around my grandfather who was lying on a bed with wheels.

He saw me, and motioned for me to come closer.

"See you later, buddy," he said.

I chewed on the sleeve of my pajamas.



My grandfather, Eric, was buried with his favorite leg.

His spare hangs on a hook next to my favorite baseball caps.