Grandpa Loves Porn

by Jennifer Leckstrom

“Should we renew grandpa’s subscription to Playboy?,” I ask my husband, as I stand in my kitchen staring at the crisp white letter with “RENEW NOW” stamped next to two shimmering stickers promising free gifts. The stickers feature buxom blondes, their hands, complete with acrylic finger nails, are covering their nipples, but sadly—in my opinion—not their overly inflated fake breasts.

“Of course,” he replies, followed by a wink. “You know he loves it,” he says of my 84-year-old grandfather.

Of course, I do. How could I ever forget the Saturday afternoon last fall when I discovered my grandpa’s secret vice: porn.

It was mid October and my husband, Tom, and I stood in my grandfather’s driveway at his home in the Poconos, just four miles from our own. It is a plain brick ranch with white siding that has seen better days. During our weekly visits Tom whacks weeds while I keep grandpa company. I always bake a batch of cinnamon buns for my grandpa, an elderly man who has lived alone for 40 years.  I know that our visits are one of the few things he has to look forward to. I didn’t realize that porn was another.

“Jennifer, these are the best yet,” said grandpa, spitting out bits of the still-warm bun as he speaks. A piece of browned coconut clung to his cheek, which is peppered with liver spots and white whiskers of varying lengths. Sitting on his blue scooter in an unevenly buttoned red and black plaid shirt, he looked disheveled but delighted. A basket filled with the day’s finds was mounted to the front of the scooter, an apparatus my grandfather, crippled by a bout of childhood polio, relies on heavily; he can barely walk on his own anymore.