The Microbrewery

My grandfather used to tell me: “A lie is only a lie if you tell it once.”<br><br>He was always saying things like that and I never really understood them until I was much older. The entire family would sit around the kitchen table after Sunday dinner and he’d go over the week’s sales numbers for the brewery, announcing the winners of the weekly wagers. My uncle would complain about the production line and my mother would try to figure out ways to make more beer for less. I’d sit on his lap and trace the patterns in the drinking glasses and loafers. Those were the only things about him that were elegant.<br><br>I had always assumed he was there from the start, but my mother said he took over from his father and continued the tradition. Once, I asked what really happened to his father and she made me promise never to ask him. My little brother said that grandpa killed his own father and I believed him. My brother was always right, even if it meant bad things. After that, I was afraid of the brewery and I started spending my days in the park with my friend. We’d sit on the swings and I’d try to convince him to sneak into the park bar with me. Lately, he’d started saying it too. We’d cross the street to the big carnival when they set it up in the parking lot and I’d wonder why they never played the beer commercials.<br><br>My father died when I was ten and grandpa gave my mother and me the keys to the house at the top of the hill. He said my father would never trade it for anything and so he wouldn’t trade it either; he promised to leave the house to me when I turned 18. I used to run and lie on the bed in the biggest bedroom and imagine growing up to be my mother and making him proud. He always said I was just like her and so I knew I’d never live up to her. I never even asked. Especially after my brother told me how my father died.<br><br>My little brother didn’t like the brewery either. He only liked the playground and we’d race down the stairs and play tag on the jungle gym, catching dice from the game of liar’s and sipping the last taste of spoiled beer at the bottom of the pails. We’d make up stories together of what might have caused the stains on the floor, how much dirt was in the drinking glasses. When the carnival came, he wouldn’t go, so I’d sneak to the park bar with my best friend and order a white wine spritzer. I never liked how the beer smelled, like grass and cheap cologne. Once, I asked one of the bottles if he’d been a liar, what had he lied about? He said he was a liar and that’s all that mattered; he laughed and told me to get out. I liked that better than the truth.<br><br>After I turned 21, my grandpa took me on a tour of the brewery. He explained things to me that I already knew, but I listened because he knew them better. My brother declined, but he would have said no anyway. Grandpa said I had a gift, that my mother had had it too. He said I’d be able to tell when we ran. I didn’t know what he meant and he never told me, but now I realize what it was. He said it was why my father couldn’t be in charge. He said he was wrong for my father and my mother was too smart and my brother was too dumb.<br><br>I didn’t understand what he meant until we reached the bottom level and he shook my hand to seal the promise he’d made so many years before. He handed me the keys to the house at the top of the hill and I tucked them into my pocket and put my hand back into his. “I thought you said it was always wrong to lie,” I said and he laughed and said, “I only lie once.”