COLUMN: The end of innocence

From Joel Chasnoff's "Ferrari Krishna," Fall '96 From Joel Chasnoff's "Ferrari Krishna," Fall '96The year: 1986. The place: Houston, Texas. The weather: somewhat overcast, temperature in the mid-eighties, barometer falling, no wind chill. Picture it? a young boy, age 12, is at a movie with his grandparents, both of whom are much older than 12. Picture it? the movie theater is crowded, but we crawl over a family of 14 and find three seats together. Picture it? a world without caramel. Hmmm? My grandfather's family is of Russian descent, and his parents played a part in a unique American phenomenon. Back when immigration (or is it emigration? I always get confused, the same way I do with stalactites and stalagmites) to the United States was booming and the American League still hadn't installed the designated hitter, my grandfather's parents were on a boat from Russia bound for Ellis Island. Their boat, however, was the one boat in the history of American immigration refused entry to Ellis Island and redirected instead to the Gulf of Mexico. Typically, when boats of immigrants were turned away, the immigrants simply returned to Moscow or St. Petersburg (the one in Russia, not Florida, although wouldn't that have been nice?). This time, however, the immigration officials had a change of heart -- or a sense of humor -- and the boat was sent to Galveston, Texas. Sending fresh, young immigrants to Texas is very much like bringing a high school senior to Penn and saying, "The first thing I'd like to show you are the David Rittenhouse Labs." Either way, it's a fairly poor introduction to an otherwise nifty place. But my grandfather's family settled in Texas and made do. Actually, they made corn and rice, on a piece of farmland a few miles in from the Gulf. And, to this day, my grandparents are living in the same house in Bay City, Texas where they've lived since the Hoover administration. (The president, not the handy vac, although both sucked? Sorry about that.) Anyway, in 1986, I happened to be in Houston for my grandfather's 70th birthday. My grandfather is one of three triplets, and all three were alive at the time (since then, the other 66.667 percent of the trio, rounded, have passed on). In honor of the birthday, there had been a party the evening before. The festivities were rockin' -- there were about 200 relatives, 40 pounds of food and drink and two heart attacks. Fortunately, the heart attacks occurred at roughly the same time, although in different parts of the house. Even so, I must commend the paramedics on a job well done. The day after the celebration, since I wasn't leaving for another few days, the ol' grandparents decided to treat me to a flick. It was my choice, so I opted for Major League. In case you haven't seen Major League, it's a movie about a baseball team that overcomes tremendous odds and ends up winning an important game. It's very much like Ghandi, except most of it is set in the U.S., and there's no climactic hunger strike scene. There was, however, quite a bit of nudity and four-letter words in the film -- words that I can't say here, although I really wish I fuckin' could. I was somewhat uncomfortable, being exposed to these "adult situations" with my grandparents sitting next to me. I realized soon enough, however, that I had nothing to worry about. My grandfather has terrible hearing, so he couldn't hear the words, and my grandmother was much more into her bucket of popcorn than she was the action on the screen. But every so often, when my grandfather couldn't hear the dialogue, he'd lean over to my grandmother and mumble, "Rosalie, what'd he just say?" And she'd tell him what had been said and then head back to her popcorn. This went on throughout the entire movie -- he couldn't hear, he'd ask, she'd answer, the people behind us would tell us to keep it down, but really, no harm done. Just a regular night on the town with the grandparents. Or so I thought. Because toward the very end of the film, in a very intense moment, one of the players shouted a line that was somewhat embarrassing for me to hear in the presence of Grandmom and Granddad. But my grandfather didn't hear the line, so he said, "Rosalie, what'd he just say?" Replied my grandmother, "Daniel, this is the last time I'm going to tell you... suck my dick!" "Oh," my grandfather said, nodding his head. My grandmother returned to her popcorn. The 300 or so people in the room chuckled at the old lady's request. And I sat there, in the middle of the first row, blushing in the dark and scarred for life, wondering how many American teenagers were lucky enough to hear their grandmothers asking their husbands to suck their dick.