How to Grow an Addict

by J. A. Wright

  I wasn’t sure if I could make myself forget, so I just told her I’d try.

  “He’s taking a taxi home and he promised to bring burgers and strawberry shakes back with him, so I hope you’re hungry,” she said.

  “I’m starving,” I replied.

  CHAPTER 9

  A couple of weeks later, on August 11, 1986, Uncle Hank had an accident. The police said it was likely he slipped and hit his head on the side of the pool before he fell in. Aunt Flo found him floating facedown above Mayadelsa. I heard her screaming and rushed to my bedroom window to watch her jump into the pool. I knew something was really wrong because she’d never screamed like that before, and she’d never gotten into the pool with her pajamas on. I ran outside in my underwear to get the gardeners and they ran to the pool to help Aunt Flo pull him out.

  “Call for help!” Aunt Flo screamed as she held Uncle Hank’s head above the water. I ran to the kitchen, grabbed the phone, and tried to dial 911, but my hands were shaking so much that I misdialed the first two times. When I finally got through to an operator, all I could say was, “Please.”

  Aunt Flo and the gardeners got Uncle Hank out of the pool and took turns doing CPR until the firemen and ambulance arrived. I stood next to the pool and watched a fireman pound so hard on Uncle Hank’s chest that he practically sprang off the ground. But nothing worked. He was gone.

  When they put him in the ambulance and covered his face with a sheet, Aunt Flo screamed so loud the neighbors from all the way down the block heard her and came over to see what was wrong. It was awful. Everyone was crying, even Carlos and Jorge. I was so scared I thought my body was going to fall apart, like my arm would fall off or my eyes would pop out.

  Mom and Dad arrived just after the firemen left but had to leave early the next morning to go to work, so I was on my own with Aunt Flo for a few hours. I called Mom at work a couple of times to ask if I should make Aunt Flo breakfast or do the laundry and she said, “It won’t hurt to keep busy, honey. I’ll come over straight after work.”

  I fed the cats, put some towels in the washer, and made Aunt Flo some toast and a cup of coffee, but she wasn’t interested and didn’t look up when I sat a tray next to her. I didn’t know what else to do so I sat on the couch and watched TV while she sat in Uncle Hank’s lounge chair and sobbed.

  I was relieved when Aunt Gert showed up at 2 p.m. and said she could stay for a few days, because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get Aunt Flo to eat, drink, or stop crying. I was afraid she was going to faint or die from a broken heart.

  Aunt Flo’s face was red and her eyes were so swollen they were barely slits. I told Gert that I’d tried to get her to eat and I’d made up a few ice packs for her eyes and put them in the freezer, just in case she wanted them. Gert tried to talk Aunt Flo into taking a bath, but Aunt Flo wouldn’t talk and wouldn’t look up at either of us until Gert asked her if she’d like a drink. “Make it a double,” Aunt Flo said.

  I filled her favorite highball crystal glass almost halfway up with gin, dropped in two ice cubes, poured tonic to the top, and took a few sips before I handed it to her.

  When Mom showed up after work to take me home I told her I wanted to stay one more night. “Gert doesn’t know anything about the house or what to feed the cats and I think she’s gonna need my help to get Aunt Flo to bed,” I said.

  “Oh, I suppose one more night won’t hurt. But don’t make her drinks so strong. She’s a little too wobbly,” Mom replied.

  The next morning, after Gert and Aunt Flo drove off in Uncle Hank’s T-bird to the funeral home to pick out a casket and take some clothes for Uncle Hank to wear, I threw my half-empty bottle of Hawaiian Tropic oil away and spent an hour scrubbing the diving board with hot water and Joy dish soap. My swim with Mayadelsa afterward was hard. I tried to stay under until I went to wherever Uncle Hank had gone, but I couldn’t do it.

  Aunt Gert and Aunt Flo got back from the funeral home about an hour before my mom drove up. They each ate one of the sandwiches that a few nice ladies from the community center had dropped off earlier. I made Aunt Flo another G and T and told her I’d cleaned the suntan oil off of the diving board. “I’m sorry Aunt Flo, I should have cleaned it off the other day when I noticed it but I forgot,” I said.

  She looked down at the drink in her hands and almost whispered, “You’re always on the move, aren’t you? A very busy child. Too busy.”

  I felt my insides sink and thought she was saying it was my fault that Uncle Hank was dead. I was about to say, “What’s that mean?” when I heard Gert say, “Accidents happen all the time, and this was just an accident. You didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.”

  Uncle Hank’s funeral was held the day before his thirtieth wedding anniversary in a small church not too far from their home, and so many people showed up there wasn’t one place left to sit or stand. The casket was open, and I got to walk up with Aunt Flo to see him before they closed the lid and put him into the hearse. He looked peaceful, and his hair was combed back just the way he liked it, but someone had put red blush and lipstick on him and it made him look like an old woman. I tried to wipe some of it off with a tissue Mom had given me earlier but Aunt Flo told me to leave him alone. “He’s perfect, so perfect,” she sobbed.

  After they lowered his casket into the ground at the cemetery, a guy from his church got everyone, including my dad, to say a prayer, and then we went back to Aunt Flo’s because her sisters had made a big lunch. I think everyone from the funeral arrived to eat and talk about Uncle Hank. I hated it.

  Mom was the first one to mention Aunt Flo’s ring. It was an emerald and diamond ring I’d never seen before, but I did recognize the design and the gems from Uncle Hank’s hidden box. When Mom asked about it, Aunt Flo looked at the ring on her right index finger and told us she’d found it in Uncle Hank’s drawer when she was looking for a good pair of socks to send over to the funeral home. “It was in a little silver box next to a card with my name on it. The card says Hank always loves Flo, and I’m going to sleep with it for the rest of my life,” she sobbed as she caught the tears off the end of her nose.

  I decided to stay with Aunt Flo after the funeral because Gert had to get back home to help Rose, and because Aunt Flo needed someone to feed the cats and take out the trash, but mostly because I knew it was my fault that Uncle Hank was dead and I didn’t want Aunt Flo to hate me. I knew that if I’d been more careful with my suntan oil like Aunt Flo had told me to, Uncle Hank would still be alive and no one would be heartbroken. And I thought if I stayed I could somehow find a way to make Aunt Flo feel better. I couldn’t, and it all got to be too much when she drank an entire bottle of Uncle Hank’s wine late one night and I found her sitting on the diving board cursing at Mayadelsa for taking Uncle Hank away. I had to call Mom and Dad to come over to help me get Aunt Flo into the house and into bed. After she dozed off, Mom said, “I think you’ve had enough of the grief scene for a while. You’d better come home and get some rest.”

  It was hard to leave Aunt Flo, and before I got into Dad’s car I woke her up to say good-bye. She took my hand and squeezed it. “I’m sure it’s going to be okay one day, but it might take a while,” she said.

  Then she pulled me to her chest and hugged me for the longest time. It scared me and made me cry almost as hard as she was crying.

  I called Aunt Flo every morning for weeks after the funeral to see if she was okay. She was never okay, and even though she’d answer the phone, she wouldn’t say much, just a quiet “hello” and then nothing. So I would say “hi” or “good morning” and then read her something out of the newspaper, the headlines mostly, and eventually she’d ask what the weather forecast was and how many more days it would be before she stopped seeing him in the hallway or hearing him call out to her in the middle of the night. I always cried when she said things like that. I didn’t have an answer, and besides, I missed him too.

  I started the sixth grade a month after Uncle Hank died, and I rode m
y bike to Aunt Flo’s after school every day until Christmas. Sometimes Aunt Flo would be in a good mood, and sometimes she’d be cranky or sad. When she wasn’t feeling good, she’d hand me a grocery list and some money. It always took me at least an hour to ride to the store to get her groceries and back, and when I returned it would be time for me to go home. If she was in a good mood, the front curtains would be open, the sprinkler would be going, and I’d spend my time petting the cats or cleaning the leaves off the top of the pool or watching TV. Visiting her was a good thing for me. I felt much better being with her and around Uncle Hank’s things than I did at home. Plus, Robbie was still at home recuperating from his accident.

  Robbie didn’t go back to college until January 1987, five months after Uncle Hank died. Dad’s boss helped him get into a private university because his old school didn’t want him back. When Robbie got the news that he was accepted, he packed his bags and told us he was leaving right way. Mom thought his initiative was admirable and told me if anyone could bounce back from a bad situation, it was Robbie. “He’s special and determined, not to mention handsome, just like your father.”

  He took off a few days after New Year’s without saying a thing to me, which kind of bothered me because I’d made a special effort to be nice to him since Uncle Hank died. A few days after he left, on my way home from Aunt Flo’s, I saw him in a car with his bowling alley friend. They stopped the car in the middle of the road, honked, and waved me over. I got off my bike and took my time walking over. When I reached the car, I asked Robbie why he lied about going to college and he started laughing and said, “Everyone lies and everyone dies. You know that.”

  I just looked at him.

  “You gonna tell Dad?” he asked.

  “I might,” I replied.

  His friend said he’d give me ten dollars to keep my mouth shut. I told him I wanted his pack of cigarettes and lighter and the bottle of beer he’d just opened, too. He handed all of them to me and I took the long the way home, down a couple of alleys so I could drink the beer and smoke a cigarette. About the time I finished the beer, I felt so good I didn’t care if I ever saw Robbie again.

  It was almost Easter before Aunt Flo started feeling better, but finally she did. She even started gardening, which was good because her yard looked like a forest and the pool had a layer of dark green slime and dead leaves on top and I couldn’t see Mayadelsa. I felt great the day I arrived at her house and found Carlos and Jorge working in the garden. They were happy to see me and didn’t seem bothered by Aunt Flo, who was giving them orders about what to do with every tree and bush.

  When I told Mom and Dad about Aunt Flo feeling better, Dad said, “It must be Valium or vodka, because Flo will never get over Hank. She’ll probably die soon herself from lack of attention. Hank did nothing but pay attention. It was pathetic.”

  So we were all pretty shocked when Aunt Flo had us over to dinner on Memorial Day and introduced us to her new husband, Reverend Bob. She told us they were married the week before in Las Vegas.

  I thought Reverend Bob was a religious man, but Dad said he wasn’t anything close to godly. “He’s a small-time ‘Nothing’ with a stupid name,” Dad said.

  Aunt Flo was the happiest I’d seen her since Uncle Hank died. She even called me “sweetheart” about ten times. After dinner she invited me to stay the next weekend with them, “I’ll make dinner and a strawberry sponge finger cake for your birthday. Twelve, right?”

  “Yes, I’ll be twelve in two days, and yes to staying,” I replied.

  I was excited about spending time with Aunt Flo and the cats and about being able to swim with Mayadelsa. The next Friday, after school, Mom and I went shopping and then she dropped me off at Aunt Flo’s place. Mom didn’t go inside because she was in a hurry to get home. “I hate it when the frozen peas thaw out and get the other groceries wet,” she said.

  Aunt Flo met me at the front door and told me she had big plans for us. “You probably want to go swimming first though huh?” she said.

  Boy, was she right. I raced past the cats lounging in the living room to get to my room to change into my suit and then ran as fast as I could to the pool, only to find Reverend Bob floating on an air mattress, hovering over Mayadelsa.

  I was going to say something, but it looked like he was asleep, so I headed for the diving board and played around on it, hoping he’d notice me and move out of the way. After what seemed like an hour, he looked up and said, “I would hope you’d have the good sense not to dive in when the owner of the house is trying to relax in his own pool.”

  “Hardly your pool,” I fired back before I could stop myself. I dove in, making a smooth entry, and shot all the way under his mattress to the end of the pool. As I emerged I heard him say something about a smartass kid. Two more dives were all it took to get him out of the pool. I stayed and swam until Aunt Flo insisted I come in and get ready for dinner. “I’ve made a special birthday meal and a cake, so get your behind in here now,” she said, laughing.

  Aunt Flo and I ate our meal and birthday cake at the dining table while Rev Bob ate his from a TV tray in the living room so he could watch Jeopardy. “Don’t be too upset with Bob. He’s no Uncle Hank, but he loves me and I need him,” she said.

  I slept with all of the cats that night and it was so cuddly and nice that I decided I would have eight cats of my own one day.

  At breakfast the next morning, I noticed Aunt Flo’s hair was different. It wasn’t in a bun on top of her head; it was hanging past her shoulders and parted in the middle, and it looked like she’d had a perm.

  “Your hair is different,” I said.

  “Oh, it’s a new style I’m trying out. Bob thinks long, wavy hair makes me look younger.”

  She also said she had a surprise for me in the living room, so I put my cereal bowl in the sink and headed over to see what it was. It was a big bag filled with all kinds of stuff to make a scrapbook, including colored construction paper, glitter, felt pens, ribbon, and what seemed like a hundred photos of Uncle Hank and me, some I’d never seen before. I stared at the photos for the longest time and could tell that I was happy, even as a small baby, to be with Uncle Hank. Aunt Flo continued to hand me photos even though she knew I was crying. When I looked over at her I could see she was crying too, but I didn’t feel like she wanted to stop looking so I got a box of Kleenex from the bathroom. We spent most of the morning cutting and pasting photos on pages of my new scrapbook.

  The next day, when Aunt Flo arrived home from a Mary Kay party, she walked into the bathroom while Reverend Bob was washing my back. She called me a “nasty girl” and she called him a “child molester.”

  I jumped out of the bathtub and grabbed my towel. “I told him to stay out, Aunt Flo, but he wouldn’t leave me alone!” I cried after her.

  “She’s a liar. She begged me to wash her back,” Reverend Bob said as he looked down at me, a mean grin on his face like the Joker from Batman.

  Aunt Flo must have believed him, because she told me to go to my room and get my things. I sat on my bed and tried to think of the right words to say to make her believe me. I also tried to think of what I did to make Reverend Bob think I wanted him to come into the bathroom.

  Aunt Flo drove me home an hour later. I was thankful for the radio, even though it was on the country music station and they were playing a Tammy Wynette song that I didn’t like. Just before she turned the car onto my street, Aunt Flo turned the radio off and said, “I’m sorry about what I said earlier. I didn’t mean it.”

  I told her it was okay, that I didn’t want to cause any trouble. “I just didn’t know what to do,” I said.

  She squeezed my hand. “I hope I haven’t made a mistake with Reverend Bob.”

  Before I got out of the car she handed me an envelope. “I’ll call you soon, honey, I promise,” she said.

  I took the envelope, got out of the car, and watched her drive away. I waited until I was in my bedroom and Mom and Dad had gone to bed before I
opened the envelope. Two twenty-dollar bills and a note: Buy yourself something nice. Love Aunt Flo.

  A few weeks after the bathroom incident, Reverend Bob showed up at my softball game. He pulled up next to me as I was walking to the bus stop. “Hey, your aunt sent me to get you. She’s not very well and wants to see you,” he said.

  I was worried about her, so I got into the backseat and closed the door. Reverend Bob didn’t drive to Aunt Flo’s, though. Instead he drove the other way and stopped the car in an empty part of a hardware store parking lot. Then he reached over the seat to hand me a shoebox. “I got you this present because you’re so young and so pretty. Try it on. I want to make sure it fits,” he said.

  “You said we were going to see Aunt Flo. I want to see her,” I demanded.

  “Just open the present and try them on and then I’ll take you back!” he yelled.

  The present was a bra and underwear set and I was scared when I saw them.

  “Put them on,” he insisted, “or I’ll come back there and put them on you myself.”

  The bra was way too big and the lace on the underwear was hard and scratchy. He wasn’t too happy with me because I refused to lie down so he could take my photo. He yelled at me to pose the way he wanted me to, but all I could think about was how mad Aunt Flo would be if she ever saw a photo of me in lace underwear, smiling like I was something special. He finally gave up and told me to get out of the car. I grabbed my coat and slammed the door as hard as I could. I ran until I was out of breath. It took me almost an hour to get home, and the scratchy lace underwear I still had on was so painful I had to stop at the library to use the bathroom so I could take it off and leave it in the garbage. I don’t know when I started shaking; I think it was when I noticed how dark it was and how far I still had to walk before I got home. I really hoped Mom would be there when I arrived so I could tell her what happened. But no one was home, so I toasted a couple of Pop-Tarts and went to my room.