How to Grow an Addict

by J. A. Wright

  Mom was the first one to stand up and cheer. “I’ve never been so proud of anyone!” she yelled in my ear.

  Dad turned around and shook the hands of other fathers, all the while saying things about Robbie being a genius. I couldn’t think of anything nice to say, so I didn’t say anything.

  Afterward, about a hundred of Robbie’s friends showed up at our house for a party and Dad was right in the middle of it, pouring shots of tequila and whiskey for anyone who wanted to “drink like a motherfucker.”

  I don’t know if I drank like a motherfucker, but I did drink enough to make it impossible for me to walk from Dad’s big garage to my bedroom. I crawled on the grass for a while before I stopped to rest. Someone must have found me sleeping on the lawn and put me into bed that night, because when I woke up later, I was in my room.

  The next morning, when I threw up on my way to the bathroom, Dad yelled out from his room, “Go get yourself one of those light beers your mom drinks and sip it. That’ll make you feel better.”

  He was right. It did.

  I think Robbie had a party every Saturday night that summer from then on. Dad let him use his garage, bought kegs of beer for him and his friends, and even let them drink his whiskey. Mom made me stay inside. “Robbie’s friends might think it’s funny to get you drunk and watch you fall down, but I don’t. You stay inside and watch TV,” she said.

  She brought her portable TV into my room, along with all my favorite ’tos—Cheetos, Fritos, and Doritos—and I stayed up past midnight for weeks watching horror movies and old reruns. I also played softball that summer for the Lassie’s team, but I quit the last week of July so I could go with Aunt Flo and Uncle Hank on a road trip to the Grand Canyon. While I was used to spending time at their house, this was the first time they’d invited me to go with them on a monthlong road trip.

  Uncle Hank once told me that I was a blessing, and I knew both my aunt and uncle thought I was better off at their house than at home, especially if my Dad was around. I sometimes overheard Uncle Hank saying things to Aunt Flo like, “That brother of yours is a hurricane headed straight for a tornado, and his son isn’t far behind.”

  The Grand Canyon trip was the first time I’d ever been out of California, and the time I learned about the interstate highway that connected all the states together. I had a hard time remembering all the state names until Uncle Hank made up a game where I had to find all the letters in the name of every state on road signs as we drove by them. When I started school that year, my teacher was impressed with my ability to name, and spell correctly, all the states. When I told her Arkansas was really Kansas again, with a small addition, she said she’d never noticed that before and was impressed that I had.

  We did something fun every day on our trip, including swimming in rivers and fishing for our dinner. Aunt Flo cooked whatever we caught. Mostly trout, because the salmon hadn’t started heading back to where they were born—to die—yet. I thought the story of the salmon was the saddest thing I’d ever heard and couldn’t believe anything would go to so much trouble to have babies.

  On our way home, in late August, we stopped at an Indian reservation so Uncle Hank could buy a box of cigars and Aunt Flo could buy a bottle of gin. They also bought a box of fireworks, beaded earrings, and a matching hair clip for me, and a pair of soft leather moccasin slippers for Aunt Flo.

  I had a great time, didn’t get into any trouble, and had a full set of fingernails when they dropped me off at my house. Uncle Hank helped me take my stuff up to our front porch, and Mom met us at the door and gave us both a big hug.

  “She’s a great traveler, and just so you know, she’s welcome at our place anytime,” Uncle Hank said as he winked at me.

  I walked with him back to the RV so I could say good-bye to Aunt Flo, and then I stood on the street and waved good-bye until I couldn’t see their silver bullet RV any longer.

  Robbie didn’t even last a year at Cal State. Something to do with him and a couple of guys taking drugs and getting drunk and one of them choking on puke and having some type of fit. It took the police four days to find Robbie because he got lost in the desert around Palm Springs. When they finally found him he was only wearing an undershirt and boots, and he was too sick to walk. He spent a whole week in the hospital because of his bad sunburn (on his privates too) and a few broken ribs. Then he came home for the summer because Mom wanted to make sure he was taken care of properly.

  Dad was sure Robbie had been the victim of spiked drinks given to him by a group of “fraternity homos.” He even wrote a letter demanding the school investigate the incident and contacted his lawyer because he was considering suing. Then he called his friends and visited all of our neighbors to tell them Robbie was home for the summer because a drunk driver hit him at a crosswalk. He made me promise to tell people, if they asked, that Robbie had been run over.

  Robbie was released from the hospital the day I turned eleven. I was supposed to have a birthday dinner with an ice cream cake from Baskin-Robbins, but Robbie needed peace and quiet, so Mom took me to McDonald’s instead. On the drive home, she said I’d be spending the summer with Aunt Flo and Uncle Hank.

  “Thank you, God,” I said quietly and then put my hand over my mouth so Mom couldn’t see how big my smile was.

  Aunt Flo was seventeen minutes older than my dad and the only person I ever heard tell my dad to shut up without getting into trouble. I know this because I used to listen to them talk about grown-up stuff, and every so often, when Dad would start in about the Democrats or what a messy pig I was and how he thought kids needed a good smack now and then, Aunt Flo would tell him to “shut up.” But sometimes she’d say something like, “We all know what a good beating will do for a kid, don’t we?” instead, and that would stop Dad from saying another word too.

  Besides her ability to stand up to Dad, Aunt Flo was glamorous and beautiful. She was tall and thin, with a squeaky voice and straight white teeth that stuck out a bit. She also had long fingers, a long nose, and vibrant orange hair that she wore in a bun on top of her head. She told me one day, when I was visiting for the weekend, that she achieved the special orange tone by mixing red and yellow food coloring with her Nice and Easy hair dye. Uncle Hank loved her hair color and often told her so. Sometimes he’d say nice things about my hair too. But I think he was just being kind, because my hair color was a mousy brown and not very nice—not like his. He had lots of dark brown, wavy hair and he looked just like the guy on Magnum, P.I., which Aunt Flo wouldn’t miss for anything in the world. Mom didn’t see the resemblance to Tom Selleck; she thought Uncle Hank looked more like Robert Goulet, whom she said she once danced with at an LA nightclub.

  I’ll never forget the time she told me about it. We were up late watching TV one night because everyone in my second grade class had come down with chicken pox and I seemed to have it the worst. They were even in my nose and ears, and I couldn’t keep myself from scratching. Mom wanted to make sure I didn’t scar my face, so she made a little bed for me on the living room couch and held my hands while she watched The Late Show. When she heard Johnny Carson announce that Robert Goulet was his guest she practically screamed, “Oh honey, stay awake for this!”

  She got a chair from the kitchen and moved it right up to the TV screen. When Robert Goulet started singing she put her face against the TV screen and sang along. Later, before she walked me to my bedroom, she told me the story of how she’d gone to a nightclub a couple of years before I was born to celebrate her birthday and was sitting alone at the bar, waiting for my dad to arrive, when Mr. Goulet sat down next to her, tapped her on the shoulder, and said, “Can I buy you a drink?”

  “I said no because I expected your dad to arrive any minute and I didn’t want him to see me talking to another man. I waited for more than an hour for your dad, but he didn’t show up. I was going to leave, but instead I leaned into Mr. Goulet’s shoulder and said something like, ‘If the offer still stands, I’ll take a dry martini.’”
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  Mom was both laughing and crying when she told me how Mr. Goulet bought her a couple of drinks and danced with her a few times before he told her he was an actor and then asked her to meet him for a drink the next night.

  I had to try hard to stay awake and act as if I was interested in what Mom was telling me, but I really didn’t get it. The only thing I understood was that Dad didn’t show up for her birthday and she was mad at him so she danced with the guy who’d sung on TV.

  After she tucked me into my bed and put a pair of her white gloves on my hands to keep me from scratching, she said, “Just so you know, I thought about Mr. Goulet’s invitation the rest of that night and all the next day. Even after your dad explained how he’d missed his flight and couldn’t get another one, I was still tempted, but I just knew I’d fall in love with Mr. Goulet, and I wasn’t up for a broken heart or a broken home.”

  The next time I saw Aunt Flo I told her about Mom and Mr. Goulet, and she said it didn’t surprise her one little bit. “Your mother is the most provocative fly in the cage, that’s for sure,” she said.

  Even though I wasn’t sure what she meant, I guessed it had something to do with the way Mom acted when men were around. Mom had a baby-talk voice that she only used with men. I thought it was funny and kind of silly, but Aunt Flo said it was neither of those things. She said it was flirty and dangerous. “Women who act like your mother only cause concern for other women,” she said.

  It took me a few years before I realized what Aunt Flo meant when she said that.

  Most of the men who came to our place seemed to like the way Mom spoke to them, and Dad didn’t seem to care, or even notice. The only time I ever saw him get mad at her for giggling and talking silly was the time we went to one of his office dinner parties. I had to go along because Robbie had a high school function and they couldn’t find anyone else to babysit, and because Dad said taking a little kid along would give him a good excuse to leave early.

  The dinner took place at a French restaurant, and we sat with five people who all seemed to know Dad, and what to do with the fondue pot in the center of our table. Everything was going pretty well until suddenly Dad reached over my plate and grabbed Mom’s wrist really hard. “For Christ’s sake, stop harassing the man and order something,” he said.

  Mom had been using her best baby-talk voice to try to persuade our waiter to explain the menu in French; even though he’d told her a few times he didn’t speak French well enough to explain the menu. I felt the heat of embarrassment move all the way from my belly to my face, so I looked down at my plate and prayed Mom wouldn’t yell at Dad and make it worse. Mom jerked her arm free of Dad’s hand, buttoned her blouse all the way up, and drank her entire glass of wine in one go. She didn’t talk to anyone the rest of the night and didn’t eat any of her dinner.

  The drive home was horrible. Dad imitated Mom’s babytalk voice the entire time, and I stared out the window and tried to pretend I wasn’t there.

  Mom wasn’t the only grown-up I knew who spoke in a baby voice. Ken and Ron did it too, especially when they talked to their poodles Bitsy and Itzy. Ron owned a dog-grooming salon right next to Ken’s hair salon in the middle of town, and they often came to our house when Dad was away. Dad said they were cross-dressers and queers and he didn’t want anything to do with them.

  Ken and Ron were nice and I liked them okay, but it was Mom’s friend Olive who I liked the most. She was nice to everyone, especially my mom. They met on their first day of junior high, and Olive told me once that Mom was her idol. She moved from San Diego to Huntington Beach after Robbie was born because she missed my mom so much. I don’t think Mom felt the same way about Olive—mainly because she was fat and didn’t have much hair, and Mom didn’t think women should allow themselves to get fat. Ken and Ron were both a little fat, too, but that didn’t bother Mom.

  “Men look better with a little meat on their bones,” she told me one night when Ken and Ron were over playing gin rummy and after she’d handed Ken a second piece of lemon cake. Ken liked to play cards and fix hair. He even tried to help Olive with hers. He bought her a hairpiece once, but she said it was too hot and made her head sweat, so she only wore it a couple of times before she threw it away.

  One weekend, when I was about seven or eight, they all spent an afternoon at our house drinking wine coolers while Ken gave Olive an Afro perm on the little bit of hair she had, which was mainly around the sides of her head. Olive hated the Afro, said she looked like a clown. A few weeks later, after Mom and Olive rented a video called 10, Mom bought Olive a blonde cornrow wig and she wore it for years, until she got her Cleopatra wig.

  Olive lived in a housing development not too far from us, and sometimes, when Mom got one of her headaches, I had to ride my bike over to Olive’s so she could take care of me until Mom felt better. I never knew what kind of sickness Mom had that gave her headaches, but I once overheard Aunt Flo talking on the phone, and she told the person on the other end she believed Mom got so many headaches because she was out of her mind. She said Mom did things that only crazy people do, including painting our living room maroon and wearing a black lace bikini at Aunt Flo and Uncle Hank’s annual Fourth of July barbecue and then kissing all the men, including Uncle Hank, in a “more than friendly way.”

  It wasn’t just my mom who Aunt Flo thought was more than friendly with Uncle Hank, though. She thought most women were after him. If we were out in public and a strange woman spoke to Uncle Hank, Aunt Flo would get between them and interrupt the conversation. Uncle Hank thought women were friendly to him because of his accent, but Aunt Flo didn’t. She thought they were trying to get him interested in them. If they spoke to him for more than a few seconds, she’d move in close and pretend to translate, or she’d change the subject and ask the woman about her church. Uncle Hank and I both knew she wasn’t interested in hearing about their church.

  I really didn’t care what Aunt Flo said or thought about my mom—didn’t care if she said things about her that weren’t very nice or referred to her as a tart—because I liked Aunt Flo and Uncle Hank more than I liked Mom and Dad. They did things I’d never seen my parents do, like kiss for no reason and hold hands when they were watching TV. Sometimes, when he didn’t think anyone was watching, Uncle Hank would pat Aunt Flo’s bottom, especially if she was wearing stretch pants, and then he’d grin from ear to ear.

  When I heard from Mom that Robbie was going to need all of her attention now that he was out of the hospital, and that I’d be staying at my favorite place for the whole summer, with the people I loved the most, I was so happy that I stayed up late packing my bag and thinking about the fun I’d had the summer before with Aunt Flo and Uncle Hank on the Grand Canyon road trip.

  Mom and Dad stayed up late fighting. And because my bedroom was right next to theirs, I heard everything. Mom was mad because Dad was going away for two weeks on a business trip, and she thought he should stay home to help with Robbie. Dad was mad at Mom for spending too much money on new clothes and too much time with her weird friends. After Dad told Mom she’d let herself go lately, I heard her cry for a few minutes and then say, “Are you sure you’re going alone this time?”

  Before I fell asleep, I heard Mom tell Dad to call my principal and let him know I was going to miss the last week of school.

  The next morning, Mom won the fight over who would drive me to Aunt Flo and Uncle Hank’s house. It was only a mile away, and I was prepared to walk, but decided to get a ride with Dad because I’d put just about everything from my dresser into my suitcase, and it was heavy. I got into the backseat of Dad’s yellow Falcon with my suitcase and a picture of Rascal. He dropped me off at Aunt Flo’s front gate.

  “Don’t cause any trouble, and keep your goddamn fingers out of your mouth,” he said.

  He drove off so quick I’m sure he didn’t hear me say, “See ya later, alligator.”

  I knocked on the front door for a long time before Uncle Hank answered. He invited me in and
asked what I was doing there.

  “Is it okay if I stay here until school starts in September?” I asked.

  He grinned, motioned for me to come into the house, and said, “I don’t see any reason why not. But why, have you run away?”

  I wasn’t too surprised that Mom and Dad had forgotten to call Uncle Hank and Aunt Flo about their plans for me to stay with them for the summer.

  I followed Uncle Hank to the kitchen and watched him put two pieces of bread in the toaster before I blurted out, “I have to stay with you because Robbie’s in big trouble and the police had to take him to the hospital and now he’s all messed up and at home with Mom and she said she can’t take care of both of us and sent me over here.”

  “Oh, that doesn’t sound so good. I’d better wake up Flo. She’ll want to hear this.”

  I ate my toast and watched Good Morning America while I waited for Aunt Flo to get up and get dressed. When she finally appeared, she asked me what was going on at home. I tried to explain it all accurately, and when I finished Aunt Flo said, “Hmmm . . . I think a little Bloody Mary is on the breakfast menu today.”

  Uncle Hank laughed, looked at me, and said, “It’s fine sweetie. Of course you can stay with us. Why don’t you go to your room and unpack your things and I’ll give your Mom a call and let her know you’ve arrived safely.”

  I had my own room at my aunt and uncle’s house, decorated just the way I liked it, with paintings Uncle Hank and I made on the wall and a white bookshelf full of books I sometimes read out loud to their cats. My room was big, with its own bathroom and a walk-in closet that was almost the same size as my bedroom at home. When I was five, they bought me a little bed with a Cinderella headboard. Then the very next year, they bought an even bigger bed for me after Uncle Hank noticed how much his cats liked me, which was around the same time I learned to operate their electric can opener and could feed them all by myself. When that happened, the cats stopped sleeping in the living room and began sleeping with me, and at first it was okay, but after a few nights in a little bed with a bunch of cats it got uncomfortable and made it impossible for me to sleep. The one with the loudest motor slept on my pillow, up against my head, and a couple of the others crawled under the covers and snuggled next to my feet. One night there was a big fight and I had to get up and remove three cats from my room. After I put them out, though, they scratched the floor, meowed, and stuck their paws underneath the door until I couldn’t stand it any longer and got up to let them back in.