The only invention as perfect as the English Sonnet… he knew little of sonnets. “Shakespeare wrote them,” he thought. “But I know a fair amount about Martinis”. And that is to what the great American writer of letters, H.L. Mencken was referring, when drawing a comparison to that form of literature… The Dry Martini, as perfect as an English Sonnet.
It was a September afternoon to cherish… blue sky, dry air, beautiful sun charting its path to the far hills. He loved this time of the year best… still pleasant enough to enjoy the warmth of outdoors, the beauty of the change in color just around the corner… the stiff cold just beyond that. Maybe it was a bit early in the day to be mixing a Martini… this wouldn’t be the first time that he began the cocktail hour well before the sun set over the yard arm.
“I enjoy the decadence of beginning the evening earlier in the day,” he thought to as he poured a healthy amount of Tanqueray Gin into his pitcher. Plenty of ice to chill the Gin to a piercing cold. A dollop of Noilly Pratt Dry Vermouth to complete the liquid portion of the recipe. A rapid stir, that increased to a vigorous stir (his Ex would have said that it was a transfer in aggression, while he maintained that it was a display of exuberance). When condensation developed on the pitcher, he knew that preparations were nearly complete. He retrieved an “up” glass from the freezer (one of four placed there, a memory of the day when four Martinis seemed to be an appropriate number).
He strained the icy liquid into his frozen glass, and added 3 tomolives… he had a ceremonial first sip to confirm its excellence, and to reduce the chance of spillage.. and then he repaired to the deck. He positioned himself in the far corner to take full advantage of the sun and closed his eyes. He heard the wind rushing thru the trees, opened his eyes and took a second sip.
Tomolives… that was courtesy of his Mother. In the Winter, she would set up “shop” in Sanibel, Florida. A tiny house where she retreated to “re-coup” away from everyone. She loved the sun, she picked shells… and of course, she wrote. She would say that her best writing took place there. Dierdre of Timmy’s Nook, would take her out in a boat to the small Inn at the Cabbage Key for lunch. The signature garnish of the Inn was a tomolive… a tiny green tomato, the size of an olive, and then pickled. Tomolives made their appearance on every sandwich plate… and, and of course in every Dry Martini. Eve Fleischner (nom de plume, Eve Porterhouse) who never sipped a Martini in her life… still, knew a good thing when she saw it.
It was like that… his Mother always took note of the small details. Maybe that is why she was such a good writer. And it didn’t take much for her to connect this “insignificant” garnish to her middle child. Once that connection was made there was no stopping her. Above the objection of Dierdre, she insisted on being introduced to the Owner of the Inn… and then, so introduced, pleasantries aside, she asked for a favor… she wanted to buy a jar of tomolives to give to her son.
The owner, gracious, said that it would be his pleasure to give her a jar. And that was the way she acquired her first jar of tomolives.
This little scenario repeated each Winter. Dierde and his Mother would take the 15 minute boat ride to the Cabbage Key for lunch… and his Mother would always return to Sanibel with a jar of tomolives for its eventual use in his piercingly cold Dry Martinis. The scenario repeated, that is, ’til the day that the owner of the Inn gave her the name of his distributor in Ft. Meyers… and that suited his Mother just fine. She loved wholesalers. Now, when she returned to Connecticut… she had not a jar of tomolives; but a case.
He would tell his Ex that they had just “landed in the shit.” He would have to tell her that it was just an expression… landing in the shit was a good thing.
He loved listening to the wind. Wind pressing against the panes in a blizzard… or wind moving thru the leaves as it did this day. Although he didn’t sail, he could imagine the sound that it would make filling the canvas… and that thought made him smile, too. Smile, as he bit into his first tomolive. He loved the snap of the first bite, its sour flavor complemented the botanicals of the Gin. “You had to love Mom”, he said out loud, although no one was there to hear his words.
His Mother had taught him long ago to notice things… to be aware of the details. Appreciating the details would lead to a greater understanding of the larger things in life, she told him. Maybe that is why Eve Porterhouse was such a terrific writer of mysteries. He mulled this over as he reached the halfway mark in his Martini… meaning it was time for tomolive #2.
She would say to him that you can pass something, or someone, several times without taking note… it could be a farm stand, the person who delivers the mail, a new friend, anything… So the first time you recognize the special qualities of something it doesn’t really count… it’s simply the newness of the idea that creates the impression. It’s the second recognition that’s important. Now you take on the understanding of what makes that something special.
She would take him down the driveway to their garage. It was a place that he knew well. He practiced layups by the hour on the hoop that was mounted on the garage. She pointed out the lilac tree in the Gordon’s yard that overhung our drive. By agreement, Mom was entitled to clip any lilac flowering on our side of the fence. He had barely taken notice of the tree. Now they approached. She asked him to close his eyes, which he did. Now she directed him to smell the lilac in the air. Now you will remember it she said… whenever you smell lilac you will be returned to this place.
It was some 15 years ago when he, along with his older Sister & younger Sister had to sell the house on Alston Avenue after their Mother’s passing. His Sister, 11 years his Senior had remembered living on Orange St., and Beer St. before that. But to his younger Sister and himself… the house on Alston Avenue would be home. The one home they knew.
Yes, there was an emotional tug as they divided the artifacts of the old house between the families. Their Father had long since passed, and their Mother had turned the home into a quasi-museum… items collected over a lifetime. She continued to write to her very end in the small studio in the rear of the home… chain smoking as she typed on a Smith-Corona. His Father had encouraged her to smoke… smoking seen as a sophisticated activity in the 1920s.
As they turned the keys over to the Realtor, he looked at the basketball hoop above the garage, thinking of the solitary hours he would engage in imaginary games of basketball… one would think he would have been better at basketball than he was… He wondered whether he would ever be able to come back to this street again.
He neared the completion of his Martini… took a look at the horses grazing easily in the farm on the far side of the stone wall and considered the possibility of building a second Martini; but thought the better of it. The days of multi-Martinis had long passed.
His thoughts returned to the home on Alston Avenue. He and his older Sister had just visited it the day before. Or, technically, what was left of it. She had received a call from an old neighbor that the house had burned “to the ground”. And he knew that he had to return to the street one more time for a visit… a visit his younger Sister couldn’t bear to make.
When he joined his older Sister there, the ruins lay mostly still. The houses on either side were left totally untouched by the conflagration. A charred and burned hulk was all that remained of the structure that had been his “only” childhood home. He looked down the drive, the garage was untouched as well; but the hoop had been taken down by one of the previous owners.
They had looked at the wreck thru some tears that smeared their faces, and she finally cut the silence, “it probably started in Mom’s office, the cigarette smoke imbedded in the walls… it just took 15 years to ignite…” And they shared a small laugh… a laugh that opened the door to other recollections.
The time he fell asleep in the third floor closet and everyone panicked when he couldn’t be found, the time their little Sister found their Dad’s saxophone in the basement and thought it was a monster… the stories rolled on, each nook and crevice seemed home to a specific tale.
If he thought that the treasures of the home had been the only thing that mattered, he now knew that he had been mistaken.
The Martini, now finished… only the last tomolive remained in the base of the glass. Tomolives that he now purchased on a direct basis from the manufacturer in Arkansas. He closed his eyes yet again to feel the combination of sun and breeze on his face. The artwork, the figurines, furnishings, the knick-knacks that were spread to three homes… and would be spread further still in succeeding generations had special value… but it was the “nooks and crevices” of the home that vouchsafed special memories. If he didn’t recognize it well enough 15 years ago when they turned the keys over to the new owners, he recognized and understood it now. He had wrongly assumed a permanence to those nooks and crevices.
He gazed at tomolive #3, then closed his eyes and tried to summon the memory of the lilac tree in the afternoon breeze.