"When you're writing a story," began my hyper-boozed grandfather, whispering from his smelly bedroll on the kitchen floor.

To pretend this man didn't stink was a lie my face couldn't tell.

He stopped for a five minute episode of "Wet Cough"; a delicious medley of sight and sound. When his heaving eventually simmered to wheezing he looked back up at me from the black and gray-tiled floor. I can still remember when it was blue and white-tiled, but Mop N' Glo was a no show since Grandma died. Or ran away. Or ran away and died.

Grandpa always called himself a "story teller." We always called him a "liar."

"As I was sayin' Teddy," he sputtered.

"Grandpa, I'm Richie for God's sake!! Richie!!" I yelled. I shouldn't have yelled. 

"All right then, RICHIE! Ya little bastard!" He shouldn't have yelled either .

"When you're writing a story, ya gotta remember somethin' vital." His speech started to slow down, either due to his limited wind or for structured emphasis of whatever he was about to say. Either way, he was taking too long.

"Now, keep this in your head with every word you ever write. Are you listening to me?"

"What is it already?! What do I absolutely have to remember?!" I got impatient and I feel bad about it now, but he looked so silly down on that filthy floor, tucked into some pissy old bedroll that he stole from "The War."

The war he may or may not have even been in.

The whole tiny apartment was a Mardi Gras of almost-visible bacteria. I wanted to get out of there, to get outside and breathe real air. Well maybe not real, but even Grandpa's neighborhood version of air would be better than his. 

On top of everything, I thought I could hear crickets in the room with us. Eight flights up. Not just the stray cricket that comes in on a head of lettuce (when was the last time that place saw a head of lettuce anyway?) no, this was a congregation of crickets (at least a gaggle).

As Grandpa coughed and Harold Pinter paused his way around "The Writer's Secret," the multiplying crickets chirped and sang their plan to overtake us. Then the whole disease factory would be theirs! Theirs!

"What are you writing there Tedd - uh, Richie, my boy?" Grandpa asked in his crumbling voice.

"Nothing. Nothing. Just notes. Notes on writing. From my Grandpa, the writer," I stammered.

"Let me see them. Throw them down here. You know, you're welcome to sit here on the floor, with me."

"No!!" I hollered, much too loudly. He'd offered so quickly, I hadn't thought of being polite.

Then, like a viper after a lost Girl Scout's ankle, he was across the floor, snatching my notebook from my hands. I just stood there, stupid, watching him read my VERY rough draft with his big, fat eyes.

I wanted nothing more than to dive out the window. If the fall didn't kill me at least the infections I'd pick up from the milky glass eventually would. 

I could tell that he was reading it too fast; you just can't hear a story's voice if you read it too fast.

He finished finally, yet still too quickly, and then glared up at me with his famous look that says absolutely nothing.

"What?" I somehow squeaked. I felt like a child with wet pants.

"Well," he started. "I think the line about the "Mop N' Glo was a no show" needs to go - go."

"Me too! I think. I don't know, maybe. But it's only a rough draft. I wrote it while you were busy coughing."

"Idle hands," he laughed moistly. "But, back to the secret if I may, Mr. Funny-Ha-Ha- Kind-of-Writer-Boy." Somehow, emphysema be damned, he got that all out in one cruel breath. 

"What you ALWAYS must remember when you're writing a story (pause for cough, some moderate drooling), is that it's got to have a lot of Plot."

Shawn Rehac is a comedian in Akron, Ohio. He recently had the first reading of "To Helen Back," his third play, and will be producing it early next year.

Mr. Rehac has had several stories and poems published in various literary magazines.