Yo, Meema!

When my granddad died two years ago, we worried about Meema being all alone in the home she once shared with him. Meema was small and frail, and it was truly impressive that her feeble bones could hold up the weight of her two-inch thick glasses. To keep her busy, my brother and I bought her a cheap computer and gave her a quick crash course on surfing the web. She’d send us emails occasionally, and everyone was always very impressed by our tech-savvy octogenarian.

A few days after Meema’s 84th birthday, I sat at her 60s-style metal kitchen table for dinner, and I noticed one unexpected dinner guest. Hanging on her fridge amid her truckstop magnet collection and frayed slips of paper was a single portrait. It was clearly cut out from printer paper and the ink wasn’t the brightest, but there was no denying who it was.

Sylvester Stallone. Rocky Balboa. Rambo.

His deep, dark eyes distracted me from the plates of meat and potatoes Meema had made for me. Stallone? Why!? Meema never watched a Stallone movie in her life! At least, I thought. I pictured him in the ring, battered face bulging, draped in red, white and blue.

“YO, MEEMAAAAAAA!”

I mentioned it to my mom on the phone the next day.

“I think it’s sweet that Meema has a thing for Rocky,” Mom said. “Your Grandad was a skinny Irish shoe salesman. Maybe she always dreamed of a big strong Italian man.”

I shuddered and did some research.

How old is Sylvester Stallone?

Born: July 6, 1946, Hell's Kitchen, New York, NY

He was older than I thought. I guess in my mind he was always the burly brute with a five o’clock shadow, hauling logs up the snowy Russian mountaintop in Rocky IV. Is it still robbing the cradle when you both could technically be in the same nursing home?

Ever since I taught Meema to use the Internet, she’d started using it as her personal window into Stallone’s life. She knew everything about him. His first name wasn’t really Sylvester, he was born Michael. All three of his wives were in his films. His signature snarl was actually caused by a mishap during birth.

Did she always have a thing for Sly? Who knows. He might have just been a handsome face she spotted in a check-out line magazine. Whatever it was, with Granddad gone, her love could really blossom.

The next time I visited for meatball night, the entire fridge was covered. Big photos, little photos, cutouts of his head, shots of him in the boxing trunks, shots with the Rambo machine gun, shirtless, smiling, snarling, with headband, without headband, track suit, regular suit—she probably used an entire cartridge of ink. Meema shuffled around the kitchen, collecting pots and pans to make dinner. She completely ignored the menagerie of Italian Stallions staring at us from the fridge.

A few weeks later, I received an email that I cannot believe made it through my spam filter. The subject line, all in caps, read: SLY IN TOWN FOR BIG FLICK

When I picked Meema up on what is now infamously known as “Sly Day,” she was sitting straight as a board on her front porch. Decked in a purple sweater, flowered skirt, and dangly yellow earrings, she looked like a wrinkly child waiting eagerly at the gates of Disneyland. She swung her purse over her shoulder and marched into my car, clearly upset that I was a whole seven minutes late.

We stopped for lunch at a coffee shop near the shooting location. At 11:00 the cameras were already set up, and a few trailers were parked on the side of the road. Meema barely touched her tuna sandwich, keeping her eyes glued to the window during the whole meal.

We paid the bill and sauntered out onto the sidewalk, playing it very cool. There were other rubberneckers whispering about what they could be shooting and what celebs were in town. Meema knew. Did these folks even Google? She had a Stallone RSS feed. That’s how hardcore Meema was.

We ended up sitting on a nearby park bench for almost an hour. Meema stared intently at the trailers like a prison guard on watch. Finally we started to see some movement. Assistants ran up and down the stairs of the vehicles, but no sign of Sly. Meema craned her neck, and took off before I could even give my two cents.

And then, it happened.

Just a few dozen feet from Meema’s trajectory, he appeared. The Italian Stallion. Sly put on his dark sunglasses, started down the steps of his shiny black trailer, and was immediately swallowed by a sea of raised smartphones. I watched Meema’s little body shift from a shuffle to a trot.

“Meema, wait up!” I yelled, trying to catch her. I sprinted towards her as she started waving her purple sleeves above her head, trying to catch Stallone’s attention. Then as quickly as the encounter began, it ended. Meema’s orthopedic heel wedged into a crack in the sidewalk. Her legs buckled sending her straight down onto the concrete. Her giant glasses flew into the air and crashed beside her motionless little body. Like Apollo Creed in the fifteenth round, it was a K.O.

An hour later, I found myself in the waiting room of the hospital, flipping through one of those trashy celeb-worshiping magazines. Dr. Shapiro, a tall, goofy, dark-haired orthopedist entered the waiting room.

“Are you Beverly Healy’s granddaughter?” he asked. I nodded, and he explained that Meema had a few scrapes and a fractured hip, but would make a full recovery. She was on a great deal of pain meds, but I could go say hello.

I entered Meema’s hospital room where she lay with her eyes closed. Her face without her trademark glasses was sad and unsettling. I felt an immense wave of guilt. I should have been the one running to get his autograph for her. She’s 84, for Christ’s sake. All she wanted was a minute with Rambo.

When my brother came to visit, his face went from concern to amusement when he found out Meema would be just fine.

“I guess you could say she threw in the towel, huh? I mean, I don’t wanna make jabs but, Meems wasn’t exactly matched fairly with that sidewalk.”

After he went through about five more boxing puns he suggested we try to reach out to Stallone’s people and tell them the story. An obsessed old woman running to get his autograph tripped and fractured her hip? If he had a soul at all he’d run up those hospital steps faster than… Well, you get the reference.

We both sat there on our phones, two feet away from Meema, trying to find any possible contact info. We shot out a couple emails to agents claiming to have worked with Stallone, but nothing seemed too promising. After about twenty minutes of searching, Doctor Shapiro entered the room.

“Yo, Beverly!” He said with a horrible accent. He bopped around on his toes with his hands up in fists. He spun around to check on her vitals, and when his back was turned I saw Meema open one eye and quickly shut it.

“Your grandmother is doing fine, kids.” He winked and left the room.

“Hey Meem,” I whispered. “I think we’re gonna head out now.”

Meema slowly opened her eyes with an impish smile. I leaned over to give her a hug, and when I did she pulled me close.

“He looks much better in the movies,” she said.

I looked over at my brother. He gave a dubious look and shrugged.

I looked back at Meema’s tiny face, waiting for my opinion like a gossiping teenager.

“You know what, Meem? You’re right. It’s all that makeup.”

“Makeup doesn’t belong on men.” She said matter-of-factly, and closed her eyes again.

A minute later, she was snoring. When my brother and I snuck out of her room quietly, we made sure to thank Doctor Shapiro on the way out.

“Great lady, your Grandma,” he said. “It was funny, she asked me how many days I’m in town for.”

A great ending to this story would be to tell you that Stallone did come see Meema. They totally hit it off, and now Sly carves the roast at our family dinners. Instead, Meema’s near blindness paired with the pain meds led her to believe that Doctor Shapiro was Sylvester Stallone.

We went with it.

Two weeks later, Meema returned home. I tidied up her condo, and got her mail that was overflowing with junk. Well, mostly junk. In the pile of envelopes was a personalized letter from Sylvester Stallone himself. I guess one of those email addresses actually did reach his agent.

Meema read the letter carefully through her shiny new frames, nodding along with each sentence. When she was finished, she carried the letter into the kitchen, still plastered with mementos of her illusory love. Opening the cabinet beneath the sink, she tossed the letter into the recycling bin.

“What do you think, Meem?” I asked, hoping for some sort of resolution to this wacky phase in my grandmother’s life.

“I think the visit and the letter was coming on a bit strong," she said.

I held back a chuckle and agreed.