Tag: Home Grown

Home Grown

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

Helping Mrs. Davis

The sunset days of an elderly neighbor

By Cynthia Adams

Ethel Davis questioned my pen and note-taking.

“I’m a retired English teacher,” she said, eyes sharp. “Mrs. Davis.” Pause. “And you are?”

So began a friendship lasting well beyond a community project that brought me to her door. A year later, she asked that I help with ending her life.

Mrs. Davis lived near the 1911 house we were reviving. Her own home was in a death rattle. Leaves idled on a rickety porch. Inside, paint peeled from the ceilings, surrendering to the tropical heat she preferred. Rugs, curtains, and upholstery dry rotted.

Mrs. Davis and her house were aging in sync. Her bony elbows jutted through a sweater which she pulled closer as I shucked mine off.

When I brought clothing, she protested. “But, my dear, I have so many beautiful clothes!” I brought food, too, which she accepted protesting, “Oh, Mary could prepare something.”

“Mary?”

“My housekeeper.” Having never seen another soul in the house, day nor night, Mary was either a ruse or imagined helpmate. My heart twisted at her fierce pride.

I grew increasingly anxious for the feisty 95-year-old. The mysterious “Mary” had just left or was late, according to Mrs. Davis, who subsisted upon Campbell’s soup. A sleeve of Ritz crackers sat alongside crossword puzzles, pencil stubs, paper clips, rubber bands and an ancient flash light.

If I brought treats, she insisted, “I’ve plenty, my dear.” Mrs. Davis had a well-supplied imagination.

“My sweet Herman visited last night! He stood right there!” She mentioned nocturnal visits from a long dead sister, too. These apparitions comforted her while alarming me. Was the membrane between life and death dissolving?

Reciting Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar,” she taped it to her headboard, warbling, “Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me!”

Whenever she didn’t answer, I circled outside, calling her name. One autumn afternoon, colorful leaves fluttering onto her porch, Mrs. Davis peered from a cloudy window as I arrived unannounced.

“My dear,” she asked in her mannered way, “could you possibly take me banking?” Donning an ancient wool coat and dishwater gray scarf, she carried a clutch purse dated to the Eisenhower administration.

Entering the bank, she trilled “Hello, Helpers!” pulling out a passbook wrapped by 10 rubber bands.

An eager banker bounded up. “Let’s go to my office!”

Discombobulated, I mumbled, “I’ll wait.” She reemerged, regal, like the aristocrat she was.

We crisscrossed Friendly Shopping Center, where banks safeguarded the widow’s wealth. “My Herman always said, ‘Count the pennies and the dollars take care of themselves.’” She patted the purse filled with passbooks. “My daughter wants her hands on his money.”

Mrs. Davis had a daughter?

At the drugstore counter she ordered soup and water, inquiring if crackers were complimentary.

Studying a flier, she brightened. “A treat for us! Danish cookies are on sale for $1.99! Or, would you prefer an alarm clock?”

“My dear,” she ventured mid-spoonful, “I’ve decided I’m ready to join Mr. Davis.”

My pulse swooshed in my ears — Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark!

“Will you help me?”

“How?”

“I don’t know yet. But, my dear, will you?”

Over dinner, my husband’s jaw tightened. “What does she want exactly? Look, you cannot kill Mrs. Davis!”

“Of course not,” I agreed.

Days later, I banged on her door. Silence. I circled the house. Nothing. Mrs. Davis finally answered her ancient rotary phone, murmuring, “Sorry, dear, I was in the back talking to Mary.”

Soon, her hearing dimmed. She grew even thinner. She recited Tennyson, discussed her ghostly visitors — never again mentioning euthanasia.

One afternoon she failed to answer the doorbell or my phone calls. After a sleepless night, I went to a neighbor. Her daughter had arrived the prior morning in a U-Haul, collecting a visibly upset Mrs. Davis and some furniture.

No number. No forwarding address.

And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark.

Leaves, darkening with mildew, cluttered her porch alongside fliers advertising Danish cookies and alarm clocks. I paused there on walks as dinner smells wafted through the neighborhood and stars blinked on.

Sunset and evening star, I mouthed softly.

Winter deepened. And mysteries, too, of life or its absence.

Home Grown

HOME GROWN

Mama Macabre

My secret weapon

By Cynthia Adams

When I gave my mother a pillow needlepointed with “Drama Queen,” she cast me a look before promptly sticking it in a closet — where it remained.

Mama always had a penchant for drama, whether emblazoned on a pillow or not. Her Katherine Hepburn-like older sister was a stark contrast. Our cool-as-a-cucumber aunt made us invariably wonder even more: Why all the drama?

Was it the advent of high-drama television when Mama was young? However exciting 1940s-era radio programs (a staple of her youth) were, televised dramatizations enacted in real time were a leap forward.

From her mother, an otherwise no-nonsense lady who knew her way around any situation (from cooking and baking for a crowd to tilling the garden and growing her own veggies), Mama had inherited a curious thing: a passionate devotion for daytime soaps.

Their very names trembled with dramatic tension: The Edge of Night, Guiding Light, The Secret Storm — Mama and her mother, Mama Patty, eagerly followed each one.

Complete fiction, they both agreed. Outlandish storylines, they assented. They even recognized that the actors were just too perfect-looking. Even so, they were totally, passionately glued to the tube, Monday–Friday, from after lunchtime (then called “dinner”) to near suppertime (now called dinner.)

These detergent-sponsored dramas unfolded along a consistent trajectory — usually as follows: a. rags to riches, b. riches to rags, or c., the most convoluted, a fall, a rise, then a fall again.

Later in life, another passion usurped Mama’s attachment to soap operas. True crime reflected many of the same dramatic ingredients.

This fascination solidified during the O.J. Simpson trial.

My mother never lost interest, from June 17, 1994, the night of the televised white Bronco chase. She watched each development thereon, and knew each and every gory detail, from the infamous glove manufacturer (Aris) to alleged assignations with a lover, to the most obscure points.

Yet I had underestimated just how invested Mama had become.

So, when I took my mother to L.A. following bypass surgery, she had clear requests. First and foremost, she wanted to drive past the Beverly Hills homes of her favorite television and movie stars. Also, she wanted to visit the infamous Simpson site. That site.

She actually knew Nicole Brown Simpson’s Brentwood address.

With great misgivings, I drove Mama to Brentwood. She practically knew the way without aid of GPS.

When I slowed near the apartments briefly and sped on, Mama insisted I turn around and pass by again, but slower this time.

Gritting my teeth and gripping the steering wheel, I was deeply conflicted and yet did as she asked — she was a cardiac patient!

Mama’s disappointment was evident. Too many things (fences, trees, pedestrians) obstructed a clear view. What did she expect anyway? A historical marker? Plus, she complained, I was still driving far too fast.

Our reactions to the scene were radically different.

She expressed how shockingly modest the apartment complex was. I pointed out this was an actual crime scene, not a stage set.

Digesting how appalling it was that a horrific landmark was now a tourist destination, we returned to the hotel at my insistence. She didn’t appreciate the irony when I later booked us on a Grave Line Tour of celebrity homes. To Mama’s mortification, the guide pulled up before our hotel driving a gray hearse, no less. (The company’s website is priceless. Its tagline, “We put death on the map,” is truth in advertising. Now, you can stipulate if you prefer a “limousine ride through the City of Fallen Angels” over the hearse.)

But her interest in the dark side of the human psyche steadily intensified as she grew older. In the fall of 1994, when Susan Smith murdered her children in Union, S.C., Mama again absorbed every broadcast interview, each sordid detail.

Had she, I ventured jokingly, harbored a secret desire to drive me and some of her more vexing children into a lake? Of course not, she snapped.

Mama had a paralyzing fear of water and could not swim.

Otherwise, who could say? I wondered aloud. Mama didn’t laugh.

She even went with me to Union (along with hordes of other media folk) in pursuit of a story about the murder’s impact on a small town thrust into an intense media glare. Mama’s retention of minutiae actually proved helpful.

She quickly recalled the spot where Susan and her boss had occasionally met for drinks. There, a bartender talked on record, thanks to Mama, who innocently plied him with questions, murmuring sympathetically while nursing her favorite cocktail, a Bloody Mary. (Naturally.) He winced when I pulled out a notebook, yet Mama somehow put him at ease — a feat I couldn’t have managed alone.

It turned out the bartender was an old school friend of Susan’s. He shared details of her troubled adolescence and abuse, something he wouldn’t have done without Mama’s coaxing.

Till her end, Mama was helplessly hooked whenever a dark story broke.

Recently, I could not help but think of her as the Murdaugh murders and trials unfolded, horrifying and stupefying in their violent scope and retelling.

It’s a story that would have no doubt necessitated a return to South Carolina, Mama in tow, ready to ply a possible source.

Bloody Mary, indeed.

2024 Department Home Grown

Home Grown

Cut the Kiwi

The real reason Pan Am reached its final destination

By Cynthia Adams

As Pan Am approached its final destination in December 1991, it offered heavily discounted airfares, beginning that summer.

Monitoring deals, I noticed a $300 Pan Am offer from New York to Nice. At the height of travel season!

My elegant friend, Dixie, who loved travel, was immediately interested. We grabbed tickets and spent weeks excitedly planning. We’d enjoy the South of France, proceeding to Italy, where her friends were renting a place. Then I’d return solo from Genoa via Nice.

Consulting Frommer’s, my go-to guide, I circled budget hotels, pensiones and cafés.

Better-heeled travel friends offered advice. “Always request the airline’s vegetarian meal,” said Tom, who had studied at the Sorbonne. “It’s fresher, better.” Noted, I phoned the airline requesting special meals for both of us.

Meanwhile, Dixie was packing a rolling duffel dubbed “the beached whale.” She was still stuffing the Whale when we picked her up for departure. It was aptly named (no weight limits then), especially as she dressed to kill versus as a whale harpooner.

She was decked out in crisp linen and a hat for departure. I wore something comfortable.

We were in coach and I had the middle seat, but who cared?

The Riviera awaited! Once airborne, Dixie produced a small bottle of wine from her capacious hand luggage. “To celebrate!”

We surreptitiously toasted.

Aisle Seat shot us a look that said, “Couldn’t you wait?” — which we ignored. I produced Mrs. Field’s cookies purchased at the airport, which she refused. “I’m saving myself for our special meal,” she murmured.

Soon we heard our names called; the special meals! The hostess brought ours, ignoring the contraband wine. Aisle Seat stared as we excitedly opened them to find: A congealed lump of rice, black beans . . . and a whole kiwi, rolling manically around.

Aisle Seat gawped at our trays before smiling at his: beef tips on rice with steamed veggies, roll and cake.

Leaning over, Aisle Seat whispered, “Do you mind my asking what is wrong with you that you have to eat that?”

We wept with laughter. Giving up on the inedible, unseasoned food I vigorously attempted cutting the kiwi with my plastic knife. It escaped each attempt. “I’m hungry enough to just gnaw it,” I confessed.

More misadventure lay ahead.

Once in France, the Beached Whale proved challenging for coming travels, especially using trains along the Côte d’Azur. It was beastly navigating hilly destinations. Reaching our inn, I would arrive panting; me in jeans, Dixie in beautifully rumpled linen.

Controlling the Whale’s wonky wheels and heft left me perpetually famished. We found reasonable fare and delicious jug wine. That is, apart from my one order for fruits de mer, which in my terrible French, arrived raw.

Still, more tears of laughter.

Dixie, a former model, wafted along with aristocratic grace.

Men trailed in her wake.

Once in Genoa, noisily chattering women encircled and jostled Dixie as she stood perfectly quiet. A few blocks later she discovered she was robbed. She quoted Tennessee Williams’ last line in Streetcar: “I’ve always depended upon the kindness of strangers.”

Her wallet, relieved of cash, was kindly returned to the train station.

But, at her friend’s rental, I broke the Italian washing machine. A Candy washing machine. That required negotiations with the Candy Man for repairs. And an emptying of my cash.

Yet it was my solo return to Nice where the greatest travails awaited. I was pulled out of the boarding line by officials demanding a full body search. “But I’m an American citizen!” I protested. “I have rights!”

“Not here in France,” they replied, strangers to Tennessee’s dictum, wheeling a contraption like a portable shower for privacy as they proceeded with the search. They studied my luggage, sternly questioning hair dryer repairs during my travels. (As if any American, ever, repairs a hair dryer.)

“Nope. Only a Candy washing machine,” I answered.

Upon boarding, all eyes were upon the woman detainee who made the flight late. I kept my eyes forward, flush with embarrassment.

Soon after departure came a flurry of announcements. Lunch would soon be served.

“Special meal for Ms. Adams!” chirped a Frenchwoman.

I kept my face averted, studying the disappearing coastline.

When the hostess approached my seat bearing what was probably another congealed mass of starch, I feigned ignorance of any such request. “I’ve no dietary restrictions,” I replied stonily. “Perhaps there was a mistake.”

The hostess looked knowingly. Was that a wink?

“Perhaps so,” she said, mercifully retreating, holding the damnable meal aloft.

When the headline announcing the final Pan Am flight ran later that year, it was the end of a once grand airline. I folded the paper. “It was the gawdawful vegetarian meals,” I muttered.

If only I had told them before it was too late.

2024 Department Home Grown

Home Grown

HOME GROWN

By Cynthia Adams

There were warning signs before Dad finished packing Mama’s pea-green-colored Samsonite luggage set into the new-to-us station wagon. In the days before soft-sided luggage, such cases were hardshell, hideous and unyielding. Her clothing and makeup cases alone claimed most of the cargo space.

Our Great Canadian Trek was so auspicious Dad had passed over the usual Yank tanks — huge Caddies and stinkin’ Lincolns — for a second-hand forest-green station wagon with faux-wood accents. My brothers were excited. My sister and I less so.

And then I saw my father surreptitiously stuffing in wholesale-sized boxes of Almond Joys, Baby Ruths, Tootsie Rolls, Fireballs and Butterfingers. It dawned on me: He planned to fill us up on sweets so he wouldn’t have to spend money eating out on the road.

Arguing commenced about who would sit where. My youngest brother wanted to wedge himself in the rear beside the candy boxes.

Before we’d left the driveway, our wheel man was fuming. “Shut the ‘H’ up!” he commanded, soon adding the puzzling: “Don’t make me stop this car!” He hadn’t actually even started it.

My thoughts turned to the Donner party and other god-awful, doomed expeditions. There were 1,500 miles yawning ahead between Hell’s Half Acre and Nova Scotia. Ironically, Dad promised Prince Edward Island, the inspiration for my beloved Anne of Green Gables, would make it all worthwhile.

The AC spluttered then died as we rolled through northern Virginia on new Michelins Dad couldn’t stop bragging about. He was not much on getting repairs even as he mumbled about having the Freon checked. Fanning herself, my mother muttered, “So much for driving in comfort.”

Dad, gray eyes narrowing, accelerated onto the interstate and shouted to the hesitating driver in front of us, “The sign says ‘YIELD,’ for God sakes, not ‘give up’!”

I sulked, too, wondering if my new crush would even remember me weeks later.

Dad barked at me to toss some candy to the youngest ones as soon as they began hinting about hamburgers. They devoured sweets, grew antic, then complained about the heat, which increased as we approached the Chesapeake area.

Mom suddenly shrieked. “The sign says there’s a tunnel ahead!”

She was completely petrified of tunnels and long bridges.

Dad commenced reassuring her that she would be OK. I looked forward to the tunnel, assuming it was cool inside. I hissed, “If we drown, we drown.” Dad looked back and shot me a murderous look. Mom paled.

Things did not improve as we skirted New York. In fact, the northward journey became a blur of heat/exhaustion/sugar comas and quibbling. The days (and chocolate candies) melted as everyone’s tempers shortened.

Memorably, we found cooler temps as we hit New England, stopping off in Lincoln, Maine, to visit Dad’s friends, the Lloyds. We learned they were putting us up, but in separate houses. My younger sister and I stayed with Miss Lillian in a Victorian greatly resembling the Addams Family home.

That night, my sister pressed a button near the antique headboard. The kindly widow knocked gently at the door. “Yes, dears?” she asked.

The button had once been used to summon servants.

“My sweet Herman used that to call me when he was ill,” she explained sweetly. As soon as the door closed, I said Herman likely died in our bed. My youngest sister, age 11, was terrified but tried to hide it. Instead, she refused to share the same bed, taking her pillow and our blanket to lay on the rug, where she remained until morning.

At breakfast, I insisted the pot of full cream on Miss Lillian’s table was “northern milk” and watched as my gullible sister poured a glass and took a huge swig. Meantime, our mother discovered bears feasting on wild blueberries in the Lloyd’s backyard, terrifying her.

By the time we lumbered into Canada, we were thoroughly sick of each other. By the first Canadian sunrise, Dad — ever eager to buy property — met with a Realtor. The innkeeper knocked at my door, saying Dad had arranged for me and my sister to help out with housekeeping in exchange for lower room rates.

We grudgingly complied because, well, we’re Southerners. Dad also rejected driving to the Green Gables heritage site. Instead, we returned via Moncton, experiencing the much-ballyhooed Magnetic Hill. As Dad and my brothers exclaimed, I sighed dramatically.

As we continued homeward, nerves shot, Mom overruled Dad and chose a white-tablecloth restaurant, where we (inscrutably) ordered six tomato juice cocktails while he was in the bathroom. Seeing the waiter place juices on a little saucer before all of us, he exploded, “Do you think I’m made of money?” All eyes followed as we noisily scraped our chairs away from the table and departed.

There were more proverbial straws soon to break the camel’s fractured back. Naturally, the car threw a fan belt before we made it to the Mason Dixon Line. The radiator blew, too, prompting me to dub the wagon “Moby Dick.”

We dressed in shorts and T-shirts, seeking relief from the heat, but my sweat-damp thighs stuck to the brown Naugahyde seats. Each shift of my posture produced embarrassing fart-like noises, delighting my siblings. My youngest brother imitated this, producing a gross symphony of sounds to accompany the miles southward — an obscene vacation soundtrack.

Despite Moby Dick’s many ills, and our laments and complaints, Dad finally docked him in our driveway.

I leaped out, pirouetted in the gravel, and raced inside to claim the aqua-colored Princess phone by my parents’ bed.

Later, my father and brothers remembered the trip positively. They would extol New England’s abundant beauty, plus lack of litter, billboards and heat, seemingly forgetting all else. Dad would tell all listeners about the mystery of Magnetic Hill.

But my mother’s brow would raise, her eyes round before exploding. “Tunnels and bridges! Bears in Maine! Overtaxed hairspray costs in Canada! Miles of nothing! That hideous, hot station wagon! Never. Again.”

“Say what you want,” Dad would muse affably, a changed man once home in his easy chair. “That’s some bee-yoo-tee-ful country up there. Can’t wait to get back.” OH

Cynthia Adam is a contributing editor to O.Henry magazine.

2024 Department Home Grown

Home Grown

12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

The Dog Who Owned Us

Goodbye to a good girl

By Cynthia Adams

Paintings by Dana Holliday

Left: Zoe loved to wear a circus-like collar and do tricks

Right: Kip was a take-charge (versus a take-commands) dog . . . who wore his authority seriously

A gray February fog clung to us as we walked. Our shoulders slumped in the slackened posture of sorrow. Clasping hot cups of coffee couldn’t ease the chill; the worst of the cold was soul deep.

Our eyes flickered towards one another, then slid away to the marsh grasses our two dogs sniffed, then to the sea beyond. Zoe, a gentle-natured mutt, stumbled, stiffly hinged as if her body parts no longer worked together as a coherent whole. Once, she had moved with loose-limbed grace.

Kip, the younger, trailed slowly and I tugged at his leash, wondering. With a canine’s exquisite sixth sense, did he grasp the reason for our sad silence?

Zoe came from humble beginnings as a “pound puppy” 16 years earlier at the Guilford County animal shelter. She was a terrier mix, part Australian shepherd; the greater part was a sweet mystery.

When we had first sought a pet, I produced a picture of a small terrier torn from a magazine long ago. My husband pocketed it, and so began frequent forays to the animal shelter.

“I’ll find our dog,” he assured. “Just be patient. ” On weekly walks through the shelter, the picture in hand, he did.

The story of our charismatic Zoe’s adoption — how my husband got into a lottery with others who also wanted her, then lost out — only underscored the pleasant shock when Zoe was discovered there again, returned. (“She found us. It’s because she was meant to be ours all along,” Don explained.)

Amazingly, Zoe was a look-alike to the dog in the now dog-eared picture.

Initially, she was so well behaved she wouldn’t even bark. Don coaxed her with pats, treats and constant assurances that she was “a good — no — a wonderful girl.”

Zoe wanted nothing more than to please and be pleasing. In her, we discovered a clever dog quickly mastering David Letterman’s stupid pet tricks (she unfailingly chose the larger of two bills when asked!). Zoe also trained us well.

What she loved most was to walk twice daily — even on several-mile-long treks. She also had endless reserves of gratitude, sweetly thanking us for small favors with devotion. Her bright eyes seemingly welled with gratitude. Initially healthy, Zoe battled with nerve sheath tumors in middle age. But inoperable retinal disease left her completely blind. By age 12, cognitive changes began as well, then deafness.

She had found her voice, and used it — now barking at nothing. Still, Zoe demanded twice-daily walks along routes so frequent they had names, so familiar she needed neither her sight nor hearing to follow them. The “Homer route” looped past the home of a corgi Zoe liked. The “Belle route” passed a sweet yellow lab’s home. The “Weaver” looped past a business park. In Zoe’s older age, a half-mile loop in front of the house could only be managed in a no-hurries gait.

Our slightly younger terrier, Kip, had pancreatitis. Both geriatric dogs’ medical files grew thicker. Both required carrying up and down stairs.

We discovered Zoe was in renal failure while vacationing at the coast. The kindly emergency vet gently advised: “It is time.”

We determined to make those final days Zoe’s best. We took exceedingly slow walks, keeping to our routine. We gave her cheeseburgers. No matter what special wine we uncorked, nor what gorgeous, pink-tinged sunset played out that weekend, we soldiered on, miserable. Kip sniffed Zoe’s frail body knowingly.

The appointed day arrived with impenetrable fog low over the Intracoastal Waterway. As Zoe sniffled and snuffled the marsh grasses, I snapped one last picture with my cell phone. Her eyes showed a ghostly blue-white, otherworldly iris.

Zoe had chosen us 16 years ago; now, it was our final gift to surrender her to the sweet hereafter. The vet stroked her, too, as Zoe’s eyes closed. She left us as she had come to us, in trusting innocence.

A good — no — a wonderful girl. OH

Cynthia Adam is a contributing editor to O.Henry magazine.

2024 Department Home Grown

Home Grown

By Cynthia Adams

On a recent trip with friends, I casually mentioned my father’s unfortunate incarceration, an expression adopted from the character Anthony Bouvier, portrayed by Meshach Taylor, on the hit sitcom Designing Women. Fans of the show may recall that from 1986–1993 Taylor played a gentle quipster, unfairly convicted of robbery.

I preferred Bouvier’s jokey euphemism; it landed gentler than saying, “My father went to the big house.” Or, “Dad did time.”

Prison talk is freighted, folks. Predictably, eyebrows raised.

“It’s not like he killed anyone,” I hastily added. What I didn’t add was he was merely one case among others in my family line.

A former mentor shared these encouraging words, “Normal families seldom produce writers.”

Take this magazine’s namesake and this city’s native son, William Sydney Porter — pen name O. Henry — who went on the lam to Honduras before serving time. He served three years in an Ohio prison; my father served only three months. I found myself bringing that up, as if it explains anything. Dad, however, could have easily walked out of an O. Henry plot — with a love for storytelling and an obsession for Pepsi-Colas and Mounds candy bars.

Dad, himself, and other relatives were never shy about sharing our family’s hapless narrative.

During a visit in Atlanta with my great uncle, Miles McClellan, he shared an alarming story. Our ancestral widowed Scots-Irish grandmother killed a tax collector during the Great Famine. “I’ve spent time at the Library of Congress,” Miles confided, “trying to learn more about her.”

Uncle Miles told an incredible tale: She whacked the tax collector with a fireplace poker when he attempted to collect their cow in lieu of taxes. She was spared a death sentence, but she and her children were exiled.

He died before finding proof, but the tale had taken unshakeable root in my imagination.

There was more. Uncle Miles himself experienced incarceration as an adventurous young man who loved newfangled motor cars. He sought his fortune in Atlanta, starting one of the city’s early car dealerships. My grandmother insisted her favorite brother was framed by older, jealous rivals. Then, the narrative grew tricky: He fled after faking his own death by driving his Model T into a creek, then lived in Baltimore under an assumed name. But he returned to face the charges, just as O. Henry did, however false. My grandmother fainted outright when her brother walked up her driveway, very much alive.

After serving time, Uncle Miles went on to found another successful business — this time selling municipal water towers — and (honestly) earned wealth. He piloted his own plane, lived in an Emerywood mansion, and remained witty and compassionate, while walking the straight and narrow.

But when my father was sentenced to a federal penitentiary in Birmingham, Alabama, tales of redemption didn’t soothe us, despite his funny and considerate probation officer, Randy Harrell, who became a family friend. The fact that Dad was appointed a pre-trial probation officer seemed a clear indication of pending doom. When Dad was led away in handcuffs, I was a new college student. Three younger siblings were still at home. Dad was jailed at Maxwell Air Force Base with Watergate offender Charles Colson. My liberal father’s response? “This is cruel and unusual punishment,” he wrote to the warden and to anyone he could think to complain to.

Dad and Charles apparently became buddies, although Dad was wary of Colson’s “jailhouse religion.” I kept a letter sent by Colson to me on Pentagon stationary urging me to keep up my studies. The logo, incidentally, is crossed out.

Dad returned to a business and family life in ruins. And the family curse continued. A young sibling would wind up spending months jailed for fishing without a license — so help me God. (He had a prior DUI). The old saw about he who represents himself in court has a fool for a client proved true in his case and mine; read on.

When appealing a driving conviction before Judge Elreta Alexander before her retirement, I tested that theory. Standing well apart from the hangdog guilty group and edging closer to the allegedly innocent, I pleaded “guilty with exonerating circumstances.” The judge snapped: “Stand there with the rest of the guilty!”

Admonished, I slipped a folder of images of “No Right on Red” signage at a downtown stoplight behind my back, now terrified of actually presenting my evidence. Would this clever judge realize my wide-angle lens might have distorted the sign’s distance from the stoplight? I had sworn to give honest testimony; but were the pictures just a tad misleading?

After systematically finding each “innocent” plaintiff guilty, Judge Alexander beckoned me to approach the bench. “You. The one who doesn’t know if she’s guilty or innocent. What is it that you brought?” she asked, demanding the ill-concealed folder.

As she studied my pictures, I lightly joked that the worst that could happen was she would find me guilty. Fixing me with an assessing look, she warned that, no, things could get worse.

“Read your ticket,” the judge said grimly. She could, in fact, jail me for illegally turning right on red. And levy fines.

Jail?! I grew redder than a fully ripe McIntosh apple.

Perhaps because the ticketing officer failed to appear, Judge Alexander relented, ruling prayer for judgment continued, a PJC.

I paid the court costs and sprinted out — a near miss as a jailbird.

Long afterward, I refused to turn right on a red light, no matter how many horns honked or fingers flipped me off.

Felonious grandmother, uncle, father and brother, know this: I vow to break the chain of unfortunate incarcerations.

That annoying driver who rubbernecks before proceeding right at the stoplight? It’s probably law-abiding little ole me. Just wave hello and please don’t honk; there’s some serious ancestral baggage riding with me and a curse I’m doing my best to shake. OH

Cynthia Adam is a contributing editor to O.Henry magazine.

2024 Department Home Grown

Home Grown

Angel on Her Shoulder, Nape and Wrists

Mama picks her pungent poison

By Cynthia Adams

My Mama was wild for big, strong fragrances, favoring those that grew stronger as the day grew longer. In terms of chemical warfare, Mama could have taken out a small village with her perfume alone.

For years, I questioned whether Mama had any sense of smell whatsoever. She navigated her Yank tank of a car with Avon perfume samples at the ready inside the trunk that seeped so powerfully into the interior, it would make my eyes water. Mama put the “stinking” into her Lincoln.

Typically, Mama didn’t wear the fragrances she briefly sold. No, she was a fan of more precious perfumes. Nina Ricci’s line was a long-time fave. But she was quick to jump ship in favor of celebrity-hyped scents. Joy became a favorite after reading it was then the costliest perfume on the market. She also favored anything worn by her style idols, Elizabeth Taylor or Joan Collins.

She positively flipped for Opium, a scent so powerful that I dreaded being in her vapor trail.

The last thing you wanted to do was hug Mama early in the morning. You, too, would wear Nina, Opium, Black Diamonds or her perfume du jour for the rest of the day.

Her fragrances tracked alongside a timeline of popular culture.

That changed when she remarried in her 70s after meeting a man who loved fragrances as much as she did. He would buy a huge (refillable) bottle of Angel for Mama and Polo for himself.

Between them, they could never sneak up on a person. You smelled them coming.

By then, Mama had abandoned all other fragrances for Angel. It still lingers on the clothing I saved after she “went to her reward” — its ironic name not lost upon her family.

All of which suddenly rushed back to me after entering a bathroom as a young woman exited. I had the equivalent of an olfactory flash back, including the gag reflex.

Covering my face with a tissue, I fled and immediately phoned an academic friend who positively excels at one topic in particular: pop culture. He shares the snappy sensibilities of late comedian Leslie Jordan.

When he answered, his speech, always slightly breathless, was crackling with wait-till-you-get-a-load-of-this energy before I could even mention my prime reason for phoning — loathsome colognes.

We immediately fell into our old-friends patter, talking over one another and half-listening, which is oddly comforting. These free-for-alls take peculiar turns that make us cry with laughter.

I delight in dragging his intellectual self to my idiotic level, which is a bit like taking David Niven to a tractor pull.

But, this time, he was way ahead of me.

“Google ‘actors with dentures,’” my friend said with urgency, which admittedly threw me for a nanosecond, given our last chat was about Jimmy Carter, whom he had met on several occasions. For ages, he had hinted he might get me permission for a media visit to the Carter family compound in Plains, Georgia, where he had consulted on a preservation project.

After a pause, he cackled with laughter — just as I feared he had lost it.

I scribbled a note to myself as we nattered on, assuring him he’d just handed me a column idea. At least we were hewing to the general subject area of smells.

Assuring him I would google “dentures,” I steered him back to what was uppermost in mind: compiling a list of the worst fragrances of all time. Without hesitation, he ticked off the most odious of men’s colognes: Pub. Hai Karate. Polo. British Sterling. Jungle Gardenia. Straw Hat.

And hiccuped with laughter.

Delighted, I mentioned Tom Ford’s unisex fragrance — “F––––g Fabulous” — one which a clerk at Belk’s fragrance counter told me her store would not stock.

“Indecent,” she sniffed. I only knew such a scent as “F––––g Fabulous” fragrance existed because my niece spotted it at Charlotte’s SouthPark Mall.

“It stinks,” she texted, “but I sure want the bottle.”

Meanwhile, my friend zigzagged back to dentures, insisting Clark Gable’s horrid breath caused leading ladies to stuff their nose with cotton. (Explaining why Scarlet was so disgusted by Rhett?) A denture-wearing Tom Cruise and others surprised. (Go ahead. I’ll wait while you do your own search. I’ll be here when you return from that rabbit hole.)

Seeking bias-confirmation, I absently googled “most reviled fragrances” as my friend gabbed about the challenged chops of stars.

Angel popped right up.

“Not very original,” posted a disgusted Reddit respondent, who just might be a chemist. “Angel, the progenitor of every sickly-sweet gourmand, its ramifications still being felt nearly 30 years later. OK, it wasn’t the first to use the caramel/chocolate ethyl maltol but it WAS the first to use it in those quantities, to that effect.” He ranted: “What makes it worse is that they squandered that bottle, that name and that beautiful blue color on THAT juice.”

Describing Angel as “carnal and sensual,” another Redditor claimed it was worn by model Jerry Hall. But I halted at the heading, “What perfume is good for body odor in monsoon?” Soap! my mind screamed.

For years I refused to wear any fragrance. It took most of early adulthood for my sense of smell to normalize after a childhood spent in mom’s flagrantly fragrant wake. Eventually, make-up maven Bobbi Brown created Beach, a clean, uncomplicated scent, reminiscent of Coppertone and sunlight. Fleeting, too, as a weekend idyll by the sea; it was truth in advertising, that name.

Some things, like Beach, wear well —
and, more importantly, fade like your favorite denim shirt. Some things grind. A lot like Cruise’s original teeth, come to think of it.

Meantime, my friend was still cracking on about celebrities and dentures. But my head, frankly, was lost in a fragrant cloud — one that had Mama’s name all over it. OH

Cynthia Adam is a contributing editor to O.Henry magazine.

2024 Department Home Grown

Home Grown

Just the Beans

Upping our daily grind

By Cynthia Adams

Our kitchen counter is dominated by a coffee machine large enough to be in a Starbucks.

It grinds, perks, foams and noisily squirts. It is shiny and intimidating.

If this machine were a Hollywood star, as I am pretty sure it thinks it is, it would be Sofía Vergara.

The fully loaded, foreign-made espresso maker came from Williams-Sonoma. When Don came home with it, he stared at the enormous box before uncrating the behemoth, breathing shallowly. He sank down onto a stool. It was a moment. Finally, he gently eased it out of the packaging, barely exhaling, before carrying it to its place on the counter.

He handled it with the care and caution of an acolyte bearing incense or an offering to the altar. I murmured something about the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffet, contentedly drinking McDonald’s coffee each morning. Don’s dumbfounded expression shut me up.

The machine claimed a huge section of counter space; a kitchen squatter, as large as the microwave and nearly as heavy.

The lengthy instruction manual and its detailed warranty were scrutinized, analyzed, memorized. It was actually some months before Don left town and I attempted to use the shiny beast myself, safe from his watchful eye. He was the barista in charge of all coffee making — and I remained too intimidated by the thing.

This Australian-engineered coffee machine had more doohickeys and programmed features than my car. Well, close.

I dialed, adjusted, waited as it did its work. But the machine instantly loathed me, producing an espresso so intense and unpalatable I shouted “Mio Dio, quell caffe e forte!” And I don’t even speak Italian.

The Australian machine only likes Don, presumably because he has relatives living near Sydney. Mine live near Hell’s Half Acre. I gave up and drove to McDonald’s for a latte as soon as I regained my ability to speak English.

Ostensibly, we had invested in this finicky contraption to end the high cost of daily “designer coffees.” It would take a mathematical whiz to calculate exactly how long it would take to make it worth it.

Realistically, we have not saved one thin dime but are instead dipping into our retirement fund. The cost of the machine was only the beginning.

Because the machine deserved — no, demanded — specialty unroasted beans. “You do not put regular gas into a Ferrari,” Don spluttered.

How could I think of using ordinary roasted beans from the local market? Whose antioxidant value was already diminished?

My ignorance launched Don into mansplaining.

He explained free radical damage. And polyphenols. The benefits from green beans might be preventatives against all the worst illnesses: cancer, heart disease, diabetes. He took a deep breath.

So, if we didn’t buy roasted beans, I asked, did this mean we needed unroasted beans?

Of course, he replied. “They’re called green beans.” I believe he briefly closed his eyes, collecting. Then what? I asked, shooting a dirty look at the Australian which seemed to be smirking at my ignorance.

This led to the next phase of our coffee journey. Don first experimented by roasting green beans in a popcorn popper, something YouTube had suggested. That was soon deemed too difficult to control . . . beans went from lightly roasted to charred in seconds.

Did I mention the green beans were not inexpensive, especially factoring in the cost of shipping? Coffee is a commodity folks. Globally traded.

We swiftly replaced the hot air popcorn popper with a bona fide roaster, which also must be carefully attended despite all the fancy gee jaws and settings. It’s Australian, too, and nearly as cheeky as the coffee machine.

The roaster was installed in the basement near bags of green coffee beans specially ordered from Sweet Maria’s in California. (Until the first invoice from the Californians, he roasted coffee for nearly anyone who mentioned a love of java.)

The roaster required a contraption Barista Don built to divert the smoke, snaked across the basement ceiling to the chimney flue and overwhelming the basement.

But I do not murmur complaint, for therein lies the true payoff of coffee roasting. The dazzlingly aromatic smell, redolent of various coffee types, sometimes infused with the round notes of fine chocolate, rises through the floors of our very old house, suffusing the air.

I inhale deeply. This is the exact smell I hope carries me off to the afterlife when I die.

Back upstairs, the Australian is soon fed its favorite beans. It will grind, perk, foam and noisily squirt. And it will produce a perfect cup, often what caffeine lovers call a “God cup.” I wait obediently, grateful, actually.

Barista Don and I have reached a kitchen accord.

For just a sip of the freshly roasted goodness in my cup, you’d do the same. The machine — that Australian diva that took over our kitchen — has rightfully earned her seat at the table. OH

Cynthia Adam is a contributing editor to O.Henry magazine.

2024 Department Home Grown

Home Grown

You Can Lead a Horse to TV . . .

The Captain, Trigger and me

By Cynthia Adams

Watching my father lead Trigger into the den one sunny morning to watch Captain Kangaroo, he proves a point. The pony is as gentle as my horse-loving Dad claims. And Trigger’s taste in TV is spot-on.

This is a moment of undiluted magic.

Because I am every bit the scaredy cat my sister insisted I was, Trigger terrifies me, though Dad argued he’s a fantastic pony. My puny 5-year-old self is certain that, like other horses in Westerns, he cunningly waits to rear up and buck me off.

Dad, laughs, knowing Trigger isn’t itching to buck me; Trigger simply has an itch.

“He didn’t buck you, Cindy girl,” he insists. “Trigger is just twitching at a fly.”

But I grow ever more anxious about riding.

So one Saturday, inspiration strikes Dad. His right brow rises up, a tell-tale sign when he has such moments, and he heads to the barn. With a few clicks of the tongue and some sugar cubes, he returns, leading the pony through the back door straight into the den where I sit munching Alpha-Bits. He recruits my older sister, Sharon, to keep lookout for Mama.

It is so masterful, Trigger doesn’t even jostle the Progressive Farmer magazines on the coffee table as my father leads him.

Stopping before the boxy RCA television, he commands Trigger to lie down on the braided rug. I giggle excitedly as Trigger obeys.

After a few giddy moments watching the Captain, Grandfather Clock and Mr. Green Jeans with Trigger, my sister hisses a warning. Pulling on my Keds, I hastily follow them outside.

Dad saddles Trigger and hauls me up. Then Trigger flicks at a fly.

I fall right off.

I lack something essential in the horsewoman department. Pluck? Certainly. Assurance? That, too. Also, weight and balance.

Dad swears me and my sister to secrecy about the TV session, and Mama is none the wiser.

But the episode has done its work, solidifying my desire to somehow become a cowgirl like Sharon. I dream of becoming bigger and sturdier. One worthy of such an erudite pony as Trigger, a superior pony who appreciates the Captain like I do. Unlike my sister and dad, I remain wary of life on the range.

Sharon, with her sassy cowgirl outfit, hat, red boots and holster, fears nothing. Maybe she’s not a gun slinger, but she does break her shoulder blade defending me from the neighborhood bully.

So I study cowgirl arts, like fire-making, perfected in my bedroom closet, where I strike match after match. Though I never catch my clothes ablaze I am successful in building a roaring campfire — directly outside our front door.

After serious punishments are meted, I abandon fire making and attempt to make a name for myself as a magician, ordering a magic set from Bazooka bubble gum. I envision entertaining cowgirls and cowboys exhausted from fending off desperados on the range.

The main component in the minuscule magic set — lifeless Mexican jumping beans that looked suspiciously like dried black beans — are a huge disappointment.

Even Trigger looks puzzled by the inert beans.

Ditto for the desiccated sea monkeys I order. Magician David Copperfield reports he was similarly inspired by the Captain, too. But the magic act never materializes. Despite my best efforts, the only thing I am able to vanish is my dream of being a magician.

Trigger proves a fine listener as my ambitions unspool and die. The Captain teaches patience, so feeding my confessor carrots and apples, I cluck my tongue like my dad when visiting him in the pasture and barn. Trigger regards me with softly nonjudgmental eyes.

Still, when he flicks, I bail.

Slowly understanding it is neither his fault nor mine, I scramble up to try again. He becomes a good friend to have, despite all the past and future falls.

So, we brace for them together, Trigger and me, waiting for the day I grow bigger, stronger. Worthy of my own cowgirl suit. OH

Cynthia Adam is a contributing editor to O.Henry magazine.

2024 Department Home Grown

Home Grown

And Just Like That…

I learned sologamy is a thing

Kicker: Marrying yourself is called sologamy. Self-marriage is legal in all 50 states. Yet it took a 5-year-old to tip me off.

By Cynthia Adams

While hacking at a tangle of ivy and Virginia creeper, our neighbor, Warren, approached the fence. He swung a toy sword while wearing the expression of someone who wanted to unburden himself.

When I complimented his red kicks, he solemnly nodded, his blonde curls bouncing, and studied his feet as if surprised to find them there.

His small fingers reached through the chain link fence to pet Patch, our Schnauzer. Generally friendly, Patch responded with a small growl, even as his tail wagged happily.

Like kids, dogs are unpredictable.

“Sorry, Warren,” I apologized. “He’s grouchy today.”

“So is Baxter,” he pointed out, nodding. Baxter, a wire-haired rescue, is mercurial. We worked hard to end incessant fence fighting between Bax and Warren’s two dachshunds.

“How’s preschool going?” I asked, still weeding. Wrong topic.

He muttered something unintelligible. His frown deepened. Muddling along, I gathered the little guy was interested in planting vegetables. “Plant some popcorn,” I suggested, trying to elicit a laugh.

“You can’t grow popcorn!” Warren replied. But, after thinking, he changed his mind and his face brightened. “It’s corn!”

So, I suggested he grow popsicles.

“You can’t grow those!” he protested, spluttering. Warren was a tough audience. “You have to go to the South Pole to get popsicles!” Nonetheless, he agreed to include me in his next polar order.

Garden and snacks exhausted, I again broached the subject of school. One girl in particular seemed to dominate Warren’s thoughts, but he struggled to explain how. I’ll call her Julia.

I gathered that Julia perplexed him — naturally, irritation can mask fascination between the sexes.

“You know what she said?” he asked, frowning and walloping a magnolia with his sword, venting his frustration.

What might a precocious girl say? I couldn’t guess.

“She said Obama married himself.” He gave the tree trunk another hearty stab before fixing me with a long look. Waiting.

I mumbled, “Is that right?”

Warren muttered something to the intractable magnolia, not bending to his will, and lashed it once again.

“That doesn’t sound right to me,” I said, trying to read Warren’s reactions. “You can’t marry yourself.”

This was comic fodder. My mind flashed to a TV show from the 1960s, The Linkletter Show. It was the sort of comment Art Linkletter drew when interviewing kids ages 5–10 for a popular segment called “Kids Say the Darndest Things.”

But Warren had me thinking.

Beyonce’s song, “All the Single Ladies,” pointed to a clue: Single women have long outnumbered married ones in the U.S. and in the U.K.

Seems that sologamy, self-marriage, self-partnering had many names, and was legal and well documented.

When and where it began is unclear, but, in a 2003 episode of the dramedy Sex and the City, the main character, Carrie Bradshaw, declared she would just marry herself. Ostensibly to fight the unmarried woman stigma. Of course, that was fictional. Real life examples weren’t hard to find and include:

Supermodel Adriana Lima said “I do to me” in Monaco in 2017.

Actress Emma Watson “self-partnered” in 2019.

Also, closer to home, American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino (from High Point) embraced sologamy by putting a ring on her own finger. Barrino later married Kendall Taylor — which self-marrieds can do — in 2015.

Bigamy? No. The self-married can legally other-marry.

Singletons going the self-marriage route may or may not wear a wedding gown, may or may not buy themselves a nice ring, and may or may not have a wedding cake for their big day. But they report feeling affirmed, ready to vow eternal love henceforth.

To themselves.

“This is not a Bridget Jones-like tragic story,” wrote Ariane Sherine in a Spectator piece entitled “Marriage for One” four years ago. “If we can’t find a knight in shining armor, we make alternative arrangements.”

Warren, abandoning his sword, was now on his trampoline, whooping and hollering. I mopped my brow, observing his spring-loaded joy, which didn’t require another to be complete.

Perhaps young Julia’s wouldn’t either.

It was a new time.

Knight be damned. OH

Cynthia Adam is a contributing editor to O.Henry magazine.

2024 Department Home Grown