I gave myself the word prompt “pickle” and wrote this wacky, fictional thing: “That damned Peaches!”
I blame Peaches. If only Mom didn’t have to leave town for an emergency business trip. Because Dad–or as Mom called him, “That Damned Man!”–wasn’t around, Mom asked Uncle Dwayne if he could watch me. Her name for her brother Dwayne, “Drunken loser.” I was ten, so I told Mom I could take care of myself. I’d just heat up a Swanson frozen dinner, crawl in her warm waterbed and watch my favorite shows: “The Brady Bunch,” “The Partridge Family,” and even the show Mom hated, “Love, American Style.”
Mom rolled her eyes at me and dialed Uncle Dwayne.
A woman with a bubble of red hair opened Uncle Dwayne’s door. “You’re just darling! I’m Peaches!”
She pulled me so close I had to struggle to find air in her Jean Naté-doused cleavage. I knew that smell well from trying it at Woolworth’s and accidentally spilling the entire bottle. The stink made me gag. But I tried not to gag because that would be rude. She seemed nice.
Uncle Dwayne ignored me all night. But I liked Peaches. She taught me how to tease my hair the way she learned when she danced in Vegas. She agreed David Cassidy had amazing dimples and that it really would be great to ride in his colorful bus–but only with him and not with those other Partridges.
“If the bus is rockin’…” Peaches elbowed me and wiggled her eyebrows. “Know what I mean?”
I laughed. No, I didn’t.
In the morning, Peaches let me watch “Soul Train” on Uncle Dwayne’s TV, and she even poured me some coffee. I pretended I liked it, even if I didn’t. But I did like being treated like a grown-up. Mom always acted as if I would become crazed if I had a few sips of caffeine. How silly, I thought, as I drummed my fingers on the breakfast table and tried to stop my knees from shaking.
I needed something in my stomach. Peaches scoured Uncle Dwayne’s fridge to find something that resembled breakfast.
“Dwayne? Doncha got nothin’ in this ice box for the kid?” Peaches yelled, and then reached deep inside the refrigerator. Her butt, in pink polyester slacks, wriggled around as she dug inside. “Sardines, mustard, something green that shouldn’t be–I mean, really! What’re you a cave man?”
Peaches finally managed to scrape together my breakfast: a bowl of tutti-frutti ice cream. She said, “At least it’s got fruit.” So I ate that with some slices of pimento loaf on rye crackers and pickles. She also gave me Uncle Dwayne’s beer stein, his special engraved one that said “Brewski,” full of orange juice.
I lapped up a few spoonfuls of the tutti-frutti ice cream and nibbled a bit of pimento loaf. But those rye crackers smelled weird, sort of like the old guy in my apartment building who smokes a pipe and stares at me when I ride alone with him in the elevator.
Lucky for me, I liked pickles a lot. And I liked orange juice, too. Plus, I was super hungry. Crunch. Gulp. Crunch. Gulp. I alternated between the pickles and the juice. Until, suddenly, I felt the combination of orange juice acids and bitter coffee colliding and then revolting against the pickles I’d consumed. It was war–and my stomach was the battlefield. My insides churned and groaned. I tried for the bathroom, but…
“Damned kid!” is all Uncle Dwayne said to me the entire time I was there. And he only said that because I threw up all over the new orange shag rug in his den–the place he called his “magic spot,” where he spent his time watching football games, and where he hid out the whole time I stayed over. Now he was on his hands and knees picking out partial bits of pimentos, pickles, and tutti-frutti candied cherries from his luxurious deep shag.
Now, decades later, if I smell pickles I have to cover my mouth and run. And I always think about Peaches. Every time I go to the deli and make a big fuss about my sub sandwich, as in: “Excuse me! I told you I can’t have pickles!” I think of Peaches. Every time I get a burger and have to hold my breath as I return the tainted fast food, I think of Peaches. Every time I walk down the aisle in the grocery store that has pickles or pass the grocery deli and smell them, I think of Peaches.
It’s a tough life. Those cruel neighborhood deli employees avoid helping me and talk behind my back whenever I go to pick up a pound of turkey. It’s probably because I’m wearing noseplugs, but so what! Didn’t they see Elephant Man or Sybil? We’ve all got problems. Where’s their compassion?
Worst of all, it’s been nearly impossible to find a guy who will vow to never eat pickles. It’s a dating scenario I never saw portrayed on “Love, American Style”: My pickle problem. What I wouldn’t give to have normal dating issues–a date too talkative, too boring, too cheap. I don’t care, as long as he hates pickles.
My future husband can’t even eat them when I’m not around because I’ll smell them on his clothes, on his breath, from hundreds of feet away. Yes, I’ve tried every kind of therapy–hypno, group, and primal scream, just to name a few. Nothing works. I’ve even tried blinders like horses wear along with my nose plugs. But I can smell pickles from ten feet under chlorinated water. I swear, I smelled them while diving in the deep end at a pool party. A party I was invited to simply because the people didn’t know me well. If they only knew…my life is pickle hell!
That damned Peaches!
*I actually LOVE pickles. I have no idea where this came from. But this dancing lady looks pretty happy with her pickle-like dress.
I stared at him, shaking my head. And then I got it. “Oh. Broken peas! Split pea soup!” I nodded, looking over to Ian.
