Candy

This is the first chapter from new book Me and My Family and Me - Stories for Pearl and Everett. A collection of family stories written to my kids and for you! Available through my website or at Powell's Books.

You know that huge neon map of America we visit at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington, DC?

The one by the artist Nam June Paik that you guys love to sit down on the floor and watch - because inside the neon outline of every single state are monitors playing videos about each place.

Some of them are generic, inside of Kansas a scene from the Wizard of Oz plays. Others are more personal, like the scenes from a rehearsal for a performance the artist took part in inside Washington State.

I think that’s part of what makes the piece so interesting. There’s no rule governing the videos, they’re based on associations. I think a lot of us relate to places the same way. I know I do.

Vermont makes me think of skiing and snow and that bumper sticker “ilovermont” where the two words slur together, and the first “o” is a heart.

Alaska fills me with longing as it’s the only state I’ve yet to visit, and also the most vast and wild.

Virginia irritates me because the saying goes Virginia is for lovers, Maryland is for crabs. I like crabs, I’m a Cancer after all, but growing up in Maryland I felt like we got the short end of the stick on that one.

And New York fills me with nostalgia and the anticipation of seeing family.

Growing up we went to visit New York four times a year. Twice every summer, again for Thanksgiving, and then again for Christmas. I looked forward to each visit for days beforehand.

Most of my Dad’s family lived there. His sister Andi and husband Stephen and their three kids. His brother Peter. And his Mom, your great-grandmother Isabelle, whom we always stayed with. My brother Alex and I called her Grammy Dickson.

Our tips to New York started in the morning, with my parents fitting our suitcases into the minivan like puzzle pieces. We always stopped for lunch in New Jersey at the “fancy” Roy Rogers fast food restaurant.

And by later afternoon we’d drive over the Tappan Zee Bridge in the afternoon crossing impossibly high above the Hudson River and I’d get this feeling of nervous excitement in my chest because we were almost to Grammy Dickson’s. I couldn’t wait.

You guys would have loved your great-grandmother. She had a huge personality and treasured holding court at the middle of the dining room table surrounded by family. She could hold an entire room’s attention, but also knew how to talk to her grandkids without talking down to us or expecting us to act like adults. She would remember details we shared from our last trip and ask questions that would make our imagination work. Like “What would you do with a thousand dollars?” or “What country would you like to live in when you grow up?” Sure beats how’s school going? Or even worse, do you have a girlfriend?

Her apartment had a big living room full of art, books and antiques that overlooked the Hudson, but my brother Alex’s favorite place was her study. Every visit she’d set up two army cots for us to sleep amongst her towering bookshelves and shelves of inkwells and other small collectibles.

Every night she would come scratch our backs and tell us a story to help us fall asleep. She did this well past the point my brother or I needed tucking in, but didn’t we complain. She had long nails, so you could hear them moving against the flannel of our pajama tops. And she spoke in a soft, sing-song voice that made keeping your eyes open almost impossible.

The first night of every visit we would ask her to tell us about the candy store her mom created in her kitchen growing up. It was housed inside a locked pull drawer and filled with rows and stacks and containers full of every kind of candy you could imagine.

Your great-great-grandmother regularly restocked it so it was always as chock-full as a five and dime store case. But she didn’t take cash or check. The store only opened for good deeds, better grades and completed chores.

Naturally Grammy Dickson and her siblings spent a good part of their childhood trying to find the key or jimmy the drawer open without it.

Whenever they managed to break in they would each take just a little bit of candy, hoping she wouldn’t notice. And they’d eat their stolen candy quickly under their front porch, careful to bury the wrappers a few inches into the dirt.

But your great-great-grandmother always caught them. Parents have a way of knowing when their kids have been up to no good.

It’s funny how sometimes we replicate things without even meaning to.

The two of you have a dedicated pull drawer in our kitchen full of snacks. I can see it from where I write this. It’s full of snacks like granola bars, microwave popcorn and organic macaroni and cheese and it’s not locked, so you guys can open it whenever you want. Every now and then we’ll slip some candy in. Especially after holidays when your Grandma Jeanie inevitably gives you full chocolate bars, bags of Hershey kisses and whatever else she was pleased to happen upon as a gift.

And Susan and I loved to tell you guys stories about when we were kids when you were still in need of tucking in.

Everett, for years you had the most amazing bedtime ritual. You’d start by brushing your teeth, then you’d run upstairs and give your worries to our guinea pigs or our puppy Clover. You’d blow air through your cupped hand onto their backs, sometimes even whisper chanting “worries, worries, worries,” so they’d all go away.

Then, and only then, were you ready for your bedroom story.

Susan was most often the storyteller. For one, she’s great at it. And I am allergic to guinea pigs, having thought I was a mostly allergy-free person until Poppy and Marigold arrived in our house. But a few nights a week I’d find a mask, plentiful since the pandemic, endure the inevitable runny nose, and tell you a story myself.

Usually I’d tell you about my own childhood, or stories from when you were younger. But once, searching my brain for a story you hadn’t heard, I told you about your great-grandmother’s candy drawer. At first you smiled, but as you thought about having so much candy inside your own house your entire body started to shake and vibrate with excitement.

You both love candy dearly and deeply.

Everett, lollipops were your first love. The first Halloween where you could walk up to a house under your own power, they were all you were interested in. You followed every “Trick or treat!” with “Got any lollipops?”

And if the people giving out candy didn’t, which was usually the case, you would about-face empty handed, trot down the stairs and march off to see if the next house did.

I appreciate that you tolerate that story, Everett, but I think it makes you a little melancholy thinking of all the snack-sized Snickers and brown and yellow bags of M&M’s you missed out on.

The story you prefer is from Halloween a few years later. The one when Pearl and her friends dressed up as witches and said you could tag along if and only if you dressed as a black cat. So you did.

It was an especially cold and rainy night, so most kids didn’t stay out too long. But you two can stand harsh weather in general and even more so when candy is on the line. So you stayed out for hours and hours with Susan and I trailing along behind, ignoring our pleas to come in and get warm. The longer you stayed out the higher the stakes. By night's end, folks were giving out huge fistfuls of candy, lest they be tempted to eat it the next day themselves. So you each came home with an insane haul.

You spent the next hour sorting the different varieties, per usual, creating bar graphs on the carpet to see which types were trending, and trading back and forth. All the while eating as much as we would let you.

Pearl, towards the end of the night, you asked us when the Candy Fairy was coming. “The Candy Fairy?” we asked.

“You know,” you explained, “the fairy who comes in the night and takes away all your candy in exchange for a toy.”

We had never heard of the Candy Fairy, but seeing a golden cavity-preventing opportunity we thought fast and assured you both she was delayed with so much territory to cover, but would arrive the following night.

So the next day we bought a couple PlayMobil figures and that evening you each eagerly set out your haul for the Candy Fairy before you went to sleep. You awoke to your new toys, happy with the trade.

But what to do with the 14 pounds of candy we now had hidden at the top of our bedroom closet?

I had been doing some auctioneering for nonprofits and schools for a few years by then and had gotten pretty good at it. I was also performing in a variety show where a few friends and I got together once a month in front of an audience. It was called the New Shit Show because whatever we did had to be new and also because the evening could, if not rehearsed and planned properly, become (if you’ll excuse the language“ a bit of a shit show.

So for the next performance I came up with the idea of conducting a short auction for my allotted time. Rather than sell anything valuable I grabbed some random things from around the house I didn’t need anymore, starting each item off for just a dime or quarter.

I got a few dollars for a t-shirt with a funny logo and a few more for a stack of coffee table books. Then I put that bag of candy up for sale and told the story how the Candy Fairy had enabled me to liberate it from your collective teeth. Two people got in a frantic bidding war and wouldn’t you know it, I sold it for $37.

I love that you two love that story. And I think your great-grandmother would too.