How to Grow an Addict

by J. A. Wright

  I found the God thing confusing and wished my parents were more like Uncle Hank. I liked the idea of someone out there who wanted good things for me, who would help me if I asked and didn’t care if I ripped my new shirt or left a mess in the bathroom; it sounded good. I wondered why my parents didn’t believe in God and if my dad was right about God being a “fantasy for lazy people.” But Uncle Hank wasn’t lazy. And if there was no God, why did I feel so good when I prayed along with Uncle Hank but felt bad when I was around Dad?

  A few days after Uncle Hank paid me for helping with the greeting card jingle, the three of us went to the mall and I bought a few pieces of floral material, elastic ribbon, sequins, felt pens, and a bottle of Hawaiian Tropic dark tanning oil because I’d read about the benefits of suntans in one of Aunt Flo’s beauty magazines and decided I should go for the “deep dark glow” mentioned in the advertisement. Aunt Flo wasn’t convinced that I needed a tan, or a big bottle of suntan oil, but after I promised to keep the lid on it, and to wipe it off before I got into the pool, she gave in and let me buy it.

  On our way out of the mall, I tripped over a man who was asleep on the pathway, fell down, and scraped both of my knees. I didn’t see him because I was busy reading the instructions on the bottle of suntan oil. Uncle Hank helped me up and asked me if I was okay. Then he leaned down and asked the man if he was okay. I looked at the man and wondered why he was wearing a coat. It was a very hot day—too hot for a coat, I thought.

  Aunt Flo whispered to me that he was a homeless man, “a hopeless, good-for-nothing drunk.”

  I’m pretty sure the man heard her because she whispered it pretty loud. I was shocked and embarrassed. Especially because a few people had come out of the mall to see if I was okay and I think they heard Aunt Flo too.

  I told everyone I was fine and tried to cover my bloody knees with my hands so they’d stop looking. “We should get her home and take care of her knees, Hank, and we should do it now,” Aunt Flo said.

  She opened her purse, took out a Kleenex, and handed it to me. Then she took a dollar out of her wallet and put it down next to the man, all the while pulling at Uncle Hank’s shirt so he’d stop talking to him.

  Uncle Hank said, “Stop it, Flo, I’m not done here.” He took his hat off and handed it to the man.

  Aunt Flo rolled her eyes and said, “Holy smokes. Next thing ya know he’ll be giving him his shoes.”

  I followed her out to the parking lot, because she told me to, and we waited for Uncle Hank for more than twenty minutes. Once he started the engine, he asked Aunt Flo why she’d given the man one dollar. “Why not five or ten dollars?” he said.

  “One dollar is more than enough for a person who did nothing to earn it,” she replied.

  “Why not give him enough to make him feel better instead of just enough to make you feel better?” Uncle Hank asked.

  “Why did you only give him your hat and not your pants and shoes?” Aunt Flo asked.

  “That’s different,” Uncle Hank replied.

  It was a quiet drive back to the house; Aunt Flo didn’t say a word until we pulled into the driveway. Then, in a very calm voice, she said, “I presume you’re speaking about yourself, Harold Matanich, because I am certainly not stingy.”

  That was the first time I’d ever heard his real name, and I wondered why he was called Hank when his real name was Harold, and why he used the last name of Mann instead of Matanich, but I decided to save my questions for another time.

  I was out of the car and in the house first, and thought it would be best if I swam the rest of the afternoon and stayed out of their way. Uncle Hank headed to his garden shed and Aunt Flo went to the kitchen. I heard the ice cube tray crash into the sink when I walked to my room to get my bathing suit on, and I wondered if Aunt Flo knew I’d moved her tonic water to the fridge on the back porch to make room for the chocolate pudding she’d made the night before.

  After swimming for a while I got my new purchase out and slathered the suntanning oil on my arms and legs. Then I dragged one of the lounge chairs to the side of the pool with the most sunshine, which happened to be where the cats were sleeping. Aunt Flo was right: the suntan oil was sticky and it made the loose cat hair cling to my legs. I dove into the pool a few times to get it off. Then I tried to soak up the oil and cat hair I left floating on top of the water with a towel, but I didn’t do a very good job.

  It was after seven when I went looking for Uncle Hank. I was hungry and wanted him to drive to the Burger Barn; it was Wednesday, after all. I looked everywhere for him—or at least I thought I had, and then I heard their bedroom door open and Uncle Hank yell out, “I’m starving, let’s go get some burgers!” When I met him at the front door I was going to say something about the lipstick on his cheeks and neck but he was in such a good mood and looked so happy I didn’t want to spoil it.

  On Aunt Flo’s last night to cook for the competition she served fresh penne pasta with a garlic, tomato, chicken, bacon, and mushroom cream sauce and a salad of avocadoes, yellow tomatoes, minced red onion, cilantro, anchovies, and grated Romano cheese. Her meal was so delicious that both Uncle Hank and I had thirds. But it was the dessert that sealed the deal: a lemon butterscotch chiffon cake that was almost a foot tall and covered with vanilla bean butter cream icing that Uncle Hank raved about until she said, “Okay, okay, enough already. Eat up.”

  All three of us agreed that Aunt Flo was the winner, and not just because of her last meal. She’d caught the essence of the competition better than Uncle Hank because everything she’d made was unique and “new.” Uncle Hank seemed happy about her winning, and he wrote down her chicken and bacon pasta recipe in her black book of good recipes, which she promised she would publish one day.

  A few days after the competition ended, Aunt Flo told me that two of her sisters, my aunts Rose and Gert, were coming over for lunch because their birthdays were July 24 and 26 and Aunt Flo wanted to do something nice for them.

  We made a special cheesecake birthday cake. I grated the skin off a pink grapefruit, a tangerine, orange, lemon, and lime, and put a tablespoon of each in a bowl of chopped up lavender blooms with a pinch of rock salt. Aunt Flo added it all to a whipped cream cheese and egg mixture before she poured it into a pan she’d lined with a crushed gingersnap cookie and butter mix. Just before her sisters arrived, she poured a tangerine glaze over the top of the cake and put pink rose petals around the plate. It was beautiful.

  They were a little late, which upset Aunt Flo because she had plans to watch General Hospital that afternoon and she wanted to watch it alone. Worse than being late, though, they brought three dogs with them, even though they knew Aunt Flo was allergic to dogs. Gert’s corgi Missy was the mother of the other two, who were only about a year old and really cute. The dogs ran right into the living room and immediately started chasing the cats. There was a lot of sneezing, hissing, and barking, followed by a chase around the kitchen and dining room and a few cat slaps. After one of the cats bit one of the dogs on the ear, and the dog let out a cry that was terrifying, Uncle Hank said, “Enough of this,” and asked me to help him take the dogs out to Gert’s car. He re-parked her car under a big tree on the street and rolled down the windows so the dogs wouldn’t suffocate. Then I went back into the house, but Uncle Hank stayed outside to talk to the mailman.

  Gert and Rose lived about ten miles away, in the same house they’d grown up in. I’d never been to their house, and I’d only met Gert once before, on the night Dad had tried to run over Uncle Bill. Rose didn’t come to our house that night, and after meeting her I was glad she didn’t because I don’t know how she would have made it up our front stairs. Rose was a bit hunched over and wore metal braces on both of her legs. Other than that she looked just like her sisters, except her hair was completely white. “You have nice skin, just like our mother had,” she said when I introduced myself.

  “That’s because Aunt Flo bought me some Noxzema skin cleanser and has me using it day and night,�
� I replied.

  Noxzema made my skin glow but it also made me smell like one of Uncle Hank’s dresser drawers, the bottom one where he kept his sweaters and mothballs.

  Once the dogs were in the car and the cats were out of sight, Aunt Flo told Gert, Rose, and me to have a seat at the dining room table while she finished a few things in the kitchen and took something for her allergies. I sat down in the chair next to Rose because I was curious about her braces and the crutch she used to move around. I wondered why she was so crooked and had to bend in such a weird way when she walked. It looked to me like she was going to fall down every time she took a step. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. “Do those things hurt your legs?” I asked.

  “Oh, not really, honey, I’m used to them,” Rose replied.

  “What happens if you take them off? Do you fall down?” I asked.

  Before she could answer, Aunt Flo called me into the kitchen and told me to stop asking questions. “Rose had polio when she was a little girl and it almost killed her. I don’t think she likes to talk about it, so how about you ask her about something else, perhaps about those badly behaved dogs they brought with them?” she said.

  It was a very hot day, and the cheese soufflé Aunt Flo made fell flat. “This goddamn oven always does this!” she screamed as she dropped the soufflé pan into the kitchen sink.

  We all laughed when we heard the scream and Gert said, “I’d rather have one of your tuna sandwiches, to be honest. You make the best tuna.”

  Aunt Flo smiled, took a bow, and said, “I sure do. But it’s going to take a few minutes and I need to toast the bread because the sourdough loaf is frozen.”

  That’s when Uncle Hank walked into the dining room and invited my aunts outside for a tour of the garden and a taste of his homemade wine. I followed closely behind Rose, just in case her crutch sank into the grass and she needed someone to pull it out, and because I thought I might get a glass of wine too. Uncle Hank loved his wine, and he showed Rose and Gert how he smashed the grapes with a special mallet he’d made and what he did with the juice after squeezing the grapes. He even made them inspect the wooden barrel he kept the juice in until it turned into vino, and then showed them the special light blue wine bottles he bought and labeled himself: Fino Vino 1980s. When he finished telling them everything he knew about winemaking, he poured us all a glass of his best and made a toast to good health and good wealth. My aunts sipped and smelled and asked questions about the wine but I drank mine real fast then put my empty glass out for more, only to get a sour face from Uncle Hank and a request that I go back to the house to help Aunt Flo.

  I hid behind a flowering bush outside the kitchen door to watch them walk back from the garden shed and told Aunt Flo how nervous I was about Rose. I thought for sure she was going fall over and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to help her up because she was much larger than me.

  But they made it back to the dining room table just fine and I set the table for lunch while they talked about relatives I’d never heard of. It probably wasn’t a good idea for Uncle Hank to keep refilling their wine glasses during lunch, and I heard Aunt Flo tell him to cool it a couple of times, but he just laughed and said the wine wasn’t very strong: “It’s more grape juice than wine,” he said.

  About the time she finished her fourth glass of wine, Rose said the room was spinning and asked me to help her to the couch so she could lie down. After she was comfortable, I went back to the table. I was about to ask Aunt Flo if I should make a pot of coffee when Gert asked me to pass her the wine bottle Uncle Hank had left on the kitchen counter. Even though Aunt Flo told her coffee was on the way, Gert insisted on having another glass of wine. She poured every last drop into her glass and asked me to sit down next to her. “You look a lot like your dad, not a thing like your mom. Your mom’s good-looking but she’s a bit of a ditz. Why else would she stay with your Dad all these years while he carries on with Bill’s wife Genie?” she said.

  I saw Aunt Flo throw her a look, but it was too late. I’d heard it and I was interested to hear more. Then Rose yelled out from the couch, “Not only that, I think your mom was pregnant for a year with you!”

  Aunt Flo stood up. “Enough, you two. Let’s change the subject.”

  But Gert just talked louder and faster. “You know, your parents were separated when your mom fell pregnant with you. Your dad was living with Genie but he went back to your mom because she said she was pregnant, and your dad’s not the type to avoid his responsibilities.”

  “After you arrived, Genie started dating Bill, and that made your dad meaner than ever!” Rose yelled out from the couch.

  Aunt Flo got up and walked over to Gert. She put her hands on Gert’s shoulders and said, “Come on, Gert, let’s go outside and get some air. You’re drunk.”

  Gert squished up her face and let out a loud burp and said, “It’s the God’s honest truth, Flo. Everyone knows it, and the girl’s old enough to know it too.”

  “She’s barely eleven,” Aunt Flo said.

  “Is Genie really married to Uncle Bill?” I asked. “My mom said he’s lying about it.”

  I didn’t get to hear the answer, because Aunt Flo put her hand over Gert’s mouth about the same time I felt Uncle Hank’s hand reach under my arm and pull me up. When I looked up, he smiled and asked if I could help him out in the kitchen, so I followed him. I was filling the sink with soap and water when he told me in a very serious voice that Rose and Gert were gossip girls and I shouldn’t believe everything they said. I told him I knew about Genie because my parents fought about her all the time. Uncle Hank said he was sorry I had to listen to my parents fight and then he rustled my hair, rubbed my back, and whispered in my ear, “Don’t worry about these things; they’re not important in the big picture.”

  He poured cups of coffee for everyone while I washed the lunch plates and thought about how much I wanted to stay with Aunt Flo and Uncle Hank forever. When I offered to carry out the cream and sugar for him, he said, “I’d better tend to the dragons on my own. I think you’d have a better time watching TV or working out how to use the zoom on your new camera.”

  I was glad I didn’t have to go back into the dining room because I could hear Gert and Rose talking about my dad and how much money he had to pay our neighbor Mr. Kendrick for wrecking his front porch.

  Aunt Flo and Uncle Hank had bought me a camera for my birthday and I’d already used six rolls of film, mostly taking pictures of the cats. I liked to dress them up with the flower chains I made from garden flowers and take their pictures. A few of the cats were okay with it, especially if I gave them a drink of milk or shared my lunch with them first.

  Aunt Flo thought cats had germs and told me several times, “Don’t let them eat from your plate or you’ll get sick.” I didn’t care about getting a cat sickness because those cats were my best friends. They let me carry them around and pose them in all sorts of positions for photos.

  Just the week before our lunch with Gert and Rose, I’d made all the cats jumpsuits using the material and elastic string I bought at the mall. I also used a little sewing machine Uncle Hank got from a garage sale and a roll of tape from Aunt Flo’s desk. It took a long time to put the suits on the cats, and two of them protested and scratched me pretty bad. Then, when I finally got them all dressed and ready for a photo shoot, they wouldn’t stay still and look into the camera like I wanted. They wouldn’t do anything but lie down until Uncle Hank brought a cube of butter out to the garden and put a little bit on their ears, and then they got up and starting licking each other.

  “Be quick,” Uncle Hank said. “This won’t last long.”

  I clicked away as fast as I could and got eight good photos of them all dressed in jumpsuits, flowers taped on their heads and licking each other’s ears. Uncle Hank took my roll of film to the drugstore and when we got the pictures back he told me they were the best photos he’d ever seen.

  We didn’t have a cat at our house until I was seven. That was when
Aunt Flo left Rascal in a box on the front porch with a note that said, “This cat needs a home and you have one.” I had already met Rascal before Aunt Flo dropped her off. I was at their house when Rascal snuck into the kitchen looking for something to eat. Uncle Hank said she was a stray, and they tried for months to make Rascal feel at home, but she didn’t get along with their other cats, so Aunt Flo decided she should live at my house.

  When I found Rascal on our front porch, I hid her in my room and put Aunt Flo’s note in my diary. It took Dad almost a week to notice her. He spotted her on the kitchen counter one morning, and by the time I got to the kitchen he was trying to catch her. I managed to get to her first and refused to hand her over because I knew he was going to toss her out the back door. I ran to my room with Rascal, got the note Aunt Flo had left, and walked it back to Dad. He read it and then picked up the phone. I pretended to go back to my room but I really just stood out in the hallway while he spoke with Aunt Flo. He started off with, “You know how I feel about cats; they’re just rats with furry tails.” He got quiet for a second, started to say something, and then stopped midway through. Then I heard him say, “I did not run over Tiger. That rag shouldn’t have been sleeping under my car.”

  He slammed the phone down and I never heard him say another thing about getting rid of Rascal.

  I got a few good close-up pictures of the cats that afternoon and finished a whole roll of film by 6 p.m., about the same time I saw Uncle Hank helping Aunt Rose and Aunt Gert walk to their car. I waited for them to drive away before I went into the house. I looked in almost every room for Uncle Hank and Aunt Flo before I found Aunt Flo on the patio outside the dining room, sitting in a lawn chair, smoking a cigarette, and drinking a cup of coffee.

  “Come over here for a second, honey,” she said.

  I sat on the grass next to her chair and looked up at the almost invisible half moon making its way toward us. “Hank took my two very silly and drunk sisters home. Forget what they said if you can.”