If you are ever asked to smuggle fresh baked ham —you should just do it. You may not understand the significance (I really wanted to say ‘imporknance’,) of this one charitable act.
A year or so into my first real job, I flew to Florida. My sister Melanie had conceived a trip to Disney World. She would drive down from Chicago with the kids in tow and I would fly from LA to meet her.
“I thought maybe we could pay a visit to Grandpa Hank and MaryAnn before we drive into Orlando,” Mel said over the phone in a voice meant to ensure my agreement.
“That sounds…fine to me,” I said, clenching my teeth and feeling my eyes roll back like marbles.
“I’m bringing a cake for the girls”
“Even better”
At the airport, I hoped I had time for a quick smoke before Mel came to pick me up. I can usually squeeze this in just as my bags are making their way to the carousels. But, as I walked through the sliding doors I became encased in a warm foam cushion of tropical ether that I could barely box myself out of. I pawed the limp cigarette from the pack and tried my best to get a drag out of it—but I felt like I was trying to dislodge a boba from a straw. “Well, that’s not gonna work,” I said to myself stamping out the butt with my toe after about three strained inhales–my precious nicotine relaxation time stymied.
My anxiety receded as my sister and her entourage met me at the curb–the creaky minivan door motor struggling to slide open after too many preemptive pulls.
“You guys ready for Disney World?”
The bright green eyes and wide smiles of my young twin nieces snapped me into vacation mode. They both gestured at me to sit beside them. This carefree giddiness will eventually fade all too soon as they enter their tweens, but for this moment in time, I’ll soak in the sunshine of their youth.
My grandfather Hank lived with his partner MaryAnn (my father’s mother passed away several years prior,) in a cozy condo in Bradenton—Tampa’s boring little sister city south of St. Petersburg on the gulf coast.
“This area is very hip, actually. There’s a big clown college nearby,” Mel said.
That didn’t reassure me.
Lush with palm fronds and green waxy plants of the tropics, my grandparent’s place was situated in a charming senior community abound with stucco.
“Oh look at you Melanie–and Philip–and who are these–Oh isn’t it wonderful!” welcomed MaryAnn–a petite octogenarian with a head of silvery curls wearing a light white sweater and pants the color of ocean mist.
We all piled in, the kids fanning out as if to check for easter eggs. No sooner did I cross the threshold did a vice clamp seize my wrist
“Hand me one of your cigarettes. I’m all out,” MaryAnn said in a soft but insistent voice out of earshot from the kids. I feigned a look of confusion but her nose knew better. I had not seen this woman since I was no more than a teen—well before taking up the horrible habit as an undergrad. But she sensed like a seer of cigs and I gladly complied. “Take as many as you need”
…And isn’t it true we savor these small reliefs, even from those closest?
“Let’s stop at this next oasis,” Maryann directed from the backseat of the El Dorado sitting beside a more youthful me, clutching her Benson and Hedges.
“Huh?!” grumbled Hank, wrestling the steering wheel, eyes shielded behind brown tinted glass, the Tennessee state line passing by.
“You need sugar. You’re all wound up”
“Shut up, bitch! Bitch, shut up!” Hank shot back with venom.
[MORE EXPLETIVES]
“Forget yourself as well!” her voice trailing away to nothing.
And then she just stared straight ahead, eyes wide open, arms crossed and silent in penance. I pitied her at that moment. I didn’t dare say a thing, nor would I know what I could say. My Dad, beside Hank in the passenger seat on this exodus from Chicago, kept quiet as well. These outbursts were frequent and fierce and seemed to teeter on a bash to the face. It was not good.
“It’s only his blood pressure,” my Dad said then, attempting to assuage the verbal jolts.
***
A ribbon of dancing shells and conches dressed the walls of Hank and MaryAnn’s dining room; the spread smelling like a freshly opened shower curtain. Mel is preparing cake for the girls, leaving me unguarded.
Hank looked like a shell of a man now. Skinnied by age and seated in a Lay-Z-Boy, oxygen tank beside him and balder than before.
“What are you now, 6 feet?” barked Hank with a midwest nasality
“Just about. A little less I guess”
“Mare, get those two suits from the closet.”
Like a premeditated liquidation, two vintage ensembles miraculously appeared and were thrust into my arms as I’m poked and prodded by his wife to try them on now, this instant.
“These were twelve hundred dollar suits. I’d wear ‘em to the track” said Hank.
Maybe in 1973…but unless I was performing in a dinner theater as a henchman of Al Capone, I could hardly find a practical use for them. But I smiled and showed genuine appreciation (I still own one of them—though never worn.)
Then, as MaryAnn slipped out of sight, Hank latched onto my wrist pulling my ear towards him.
“Bring me back a few hunks of ham when you go out. Just tuck it in a napkin—you’ll make it out ok,” he whispered.
“Don’t ask him to bring you back ham, Hank? It’s too much salt!” Her ears had the ability to penetrate sheetrock now.
“MaryAnn you…” catching his tongue, the embers extinguished.
***
The very best part about traveling from Chicago to Florida was passing through Tennessee. Forget the triple A tourist attractions, I was more interested in the fireworks megastore that was young-ninja-in-training distance from the motel. I was not going to pass up this opportunity, and I knew I could take advantage of the adults’ coffee cravings to give me a window to slide out and amass my forbidden arsenal. I already knew just how I’d stash them.
SNAP POP BANG
“Just outside the perimeter there on the corner,” I radioed, as I looked through the binoculars from the stump
“A bunker, actually. It’s in backyard territory–red garage zone. I see two–no three combatants perched on the ridge,” I checked the topo maps, scouring for a landing zone.
“This is going to need to be an aerial attack. No time to plant the C-4”
“Launch!”
“MISFIRE!”
It wasn’t immediate, but eventual and certain. A handful of heat and the pain followed like a mini mushroom cloud in the palm of my hand,
“Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!”
Always check your wicks. The loose ones run fast.
ENTREAT
“Well, I think we should head out to dinner soon. Just us. Hank is resting”
The Golden Corral is all a flutter at 4:30pm, the clitter-clatter of banquet silverware, the rattle of coffee cups on stoneware plates, the ‘humphs’ and ‘ooms’ of consumption. Such a wonderful ambience. It did smell of dish rags though.
As I looked around the table I saw our familial island, a daisy chain of hands passing napkins, salt and pepper, exchanges of banter and teases between sister, brother and uncle. It was a joy to see MaryAnn, animated by our fortunate visit, turning from shoulder to shoulder, talking about her favorite coastal restaurant dinners and the surprising admission of her and Hank’s love of really bad reality TV. Between the pops and sizzles, there really was a warmth to their relationship, and something keeping it steady for the long haul.
My covert mission not to be forgotten, I hatched a plan to sneak away to the carving station.
“Just keep talking about Idol, Mel. Bring up Taylor Hicks or something,” I say nudging her with my elbow–napkin primed for the occasion.
“Quick, get the ham. And, don’t get caught.”
