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Excerpted from ‘How to be a Pencilneck’ by Owen Garratt
 © Owen Garratt 2009
www.pencilneck.com
Al lRi ghts Res erv ed
.
MOM AND THE CRUISE SHIP Part One
That smell…!The doors to Miami International Airport shushed open and the smellwashed over the loud shirted snowbirds that’d just landed, including my Mom andme. That smell! I came to a quick halt, dropped my bags, bent at the waist andbegan a roaring sniff that rose me up and bent me over backwards – almost like areverse sneeze. Mom, no doubt thinking this another quirk of puberty, rolled hereyes and stepped to the side in an effort to distance herself from the spectacle.If you’ve never had the pleasure of a snootful of Miami air circa 1980, itwas a heady broth of salt, humidity, sunshine, car exhaust, tourists, suntan lotion,chintz, glitz, pomade and senior citizens. But what really got my attention washow oddly familiar it was; a sort of olfactory déjà vu. Mom attributed it to my tripto California with Grandma, but no, California has its own smell going on.Northern seas don’t smell like that either. The Caribbean is unique, and Miamiputs its own spin on it.As the porter was smashing our luggage into the shuttle van and I wasgrinning about wearing shorts in December, it became apparent that the localswere looking at us with that dismissive pinched look that you sometimes get whenyou’re making a social blunder. All around us, people were bundled up against thefoul weather; coats; jackets with the collars turned up; people breathing into theirgloves. Personally, I cut a dashing figure in a t-shirt with my swim team’s logo, apair of swim trunks and sandals, and was quite comfortable in the 12 degree C/53degree F sunshine. True, it was a bit rotten driving to the airport back home in -27C/-16F with no coat or pants, and Mom had some crisp thoughts concerning mysanity, but now I considered myself perfectly attired.
 
Excerpted from ‘How to be a Pencilneck’ by Owen Garratt
 © Owen Garratt 2009
www.pencilneck.com
Al lRi ghts Res erv ed
.
Everyone, from the porter to the shuttle driver to the security and evensome of the more elderly passengers were looking at me as if I were some sort of dangerously unbalanced anarchist that was about to start some kind of trouble.“WHERE’S YER PURSE?” an old fella has leaning into his wife’s faceand hollering at her.“IT’S RIGHT HERE ON MY ARM WHERE DO THINK IT WAS?” sheyelled.“EH?” he yelled back.She scowled and held it up for him to see. He slapped at it as if to hide it.“PUT IT AWAY, THAT KID LOOKS LIKE TROUBLE!”He pointed a knobby finger at me and they both looked like they had a badsmell nearby.She began to shush him in that tight way that Grandma’s do when they’retrying to retain decorum.“EH?” he yelled. “SOMETHIN’S WRONG WITH THAT KID! HE’SCRAZY! LOOKIT IM’…IT’S THE MIDDLE OF WINTER AND HE’S INSHORT PANTS!!! CALL THE POLICE!”“WE CAN’T CALL THE POLICE JUST BECAUSE HE’S TOO DIMTO DRESS PROPERLY…GET IN THE VAN!” she yelled.“EH?”“GET IN!!!”
 
Excerpted from ‘How to be a Pencilneck’ by Owen Garratt
 © Owen Garratt 2009
www.pencilneck.com
Al lRi ghts Res erv ed
.
“GIT THE MP’S! IF SARGE SEES HIM OUT OF UNIFORM HE’LLGIT THE STOCKADE!!!” he yelled, a bit cryptically.“I KEEP TELLING YOU YOU’RE NOT IN OKINAWA, WE’RE JUSTVISITING KAREN AND THE GIRLS, YOU OLD FOOL!”“EH?”She turned to us and explained that every time they come to visit theirdaughter and grandchildren, the palm trees confuse him and he spends the first fewdays thinking he’s back fighting in the Pacific. Have you noticed how Grandmastalk about Grandpas as if they’re not there?Mom muttered at me in a sideways undertone to get in the front passengerseat.“They should send this old dude off to one of those islands where there’sJapanese who don’t know the war’s over…it’d be a great punch-up!” I whisperedas Mom slid into the far back. I hopped in and started to rummage around for theseat belt.The drivers name was Thomas Delgado. I know it was Thomas Delgadobecause his cab driver ID was prominently displayed on the glove box. I haveabsolutely no idea how come I can remember Thomas Delgado’s name some 28years after the fact. My memory is pretty…er…’porous’…and few details stick.More often than not, I have to count on my fingers to pin down one of my Son’sbirthdays, but for some inexplicable reason, I can remember Thomas Delgado, andwhat he was doing the morning of December 19
th
, 1980.He was yelling at me.
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