Eating, Smoking, Drinking || Cynthia Close

EATING

Anorexia and bulimia were not in the popular lexicon of 1958. It was the year I turned thirteen. The turbulence of childhood morphed into all-out warfare as the struggles with my mother escalated. Being a housewife and a stay-at-home mom, the kitchen was her seat of operations, and food was a vehicle to control behavior. Meals were prepared according to schedule. Dinner mandated our coming together as a family. My father’s arrival seemed to be the key but he would often not appear at the expected hour. Stomachs growled while the hands of the clock on the mustard-yellow kitchen wall crawled along at an agonizing pace. Mom hovered like an anxious bird in front of the old cast iron gas stove, gradually turning down the flame as her American Chop Suey turned into a soggy, overcooked mess while we waited. No eating beforehand was allowed. When Dad finally made an entrance, his odd half-smile and slight stagger put me on high alert. It was clear he had been drinking. 

We (my younger brother, mom, dad, and me) would sit around the Formica table in our cramped little kitchen. Awkward silences punctuated my mother’s attempt to hold a conversation, pretending that everything was hunky-dory. The air was thick with things unsaid. Feeling trapped, I yearned to escape. Mounds of unwanted food sat in front of me. We were never allowed to help ourselves or our plates, and even my Dad’s were always arranged and served by my mother. It had been this way for as long as I could remember. 

I’d been a slightly overweight kid. Not obese, but “chubby,” as they called it back then. I was very self-conscious about my slightly rounded belly and the fact that my knees were so soft and thick that they appeared to be boneless. Mom used to take me shopping once a year in early September for school clothes, often picking out frilly dresses with tight little cap sleeves. She insisted on coming into the cramped quarters of the dressing room with me. As she yanked the dresses over my head, they would get stuck on my fleshy upper arms. In a rising panic, breaking into a sweat, fearing I’d suffocate underneath the opaque layers of nylon while she berated me for having to go to the “Chubbette Department” (I kid you not—this is what passed for clever marketing in the 1950s) to find something that fits. 

“You embarrass me,” she whispered. Devastated, I sullenly acquiesced while hating the clothes purchased with her money; their layers of crinolines and powder-puffy ruffled skirts exacerbated my desire to rid myself of the body I could not hide. 

Back home, at the kitchen table, the piles of food kept coming. I wasn’t allowed to leave my seat until I cleaned my plate. In that starkly outlined moment, in front of an insurmountable Everest-sized mound of now cold mashed potatoes and peas—I snapped. That’s it. The Furies erupted from the deepest recess of my primordial self. I’m taking control over what goes in my mouth. I refuse to eat. As I sat staring blankly out the kitchen window, the early evening sky turned dark while the food on my plate congealed into a goopy mass. Everyone left the room while I sat at the table, ramrod straight, hands folded in my lap as if in prayer. The dishes had been cleared. Finally, Mom gave up, went into the living room, and turned on the TV. I slid off my chair and went to bed. 

One terrifying evening at the dinner table, not knowing where to go with her frustration, mother goaded my father. “Erik, DO something about that girl!” Dad seemed reluctant, almost confused, as he rose from his chair. His six-foot frame blocked out the glare of the ceiling light, casting me in his shadow. I dared not look up into his face. He stood by my side, hesitated for a moment, and appeared unsure how to proceed. I waited in wary silence, briefly contemplating my fate, knowing flight was not an option. He slowly raised his leg, putting his knee on my lap, either to hold me down or to gain leverage. With his left hand braced on the back of the chair, he slowly forced a whole, red, ripe tomato in my mouth with his bare right hand. My teeth clamped shut, gritted against this onslaught. The juice and seeds ran slowly down my chin and neck in thin, red streams down the front of my shirt. My lips flattened from the pressure of his palm across my gums. I held my head up, firm, unflinching. I’d rather die than give in. There was a lot of shouting going on around me. I didn’t hear it. I’d entered the ZONE. It was a place I’d learned to retreat to, avoiding all fear. Drawing on images and scenes I’d been reading about in Greek mythology, I felt the Erinyes would protect me. The rest of that evening remains thankfully buried in the folds of my memory. 

Not surprisingly, I started losing weight. I developed other strategies to appease them. I learned I could eat whatever my mother gave me and then later sneak into the bathroom and vomit. Soon, I began to gorge when no one was home. Mother never allowed me to have ice cream or cookies between meals, only after I’d eaten all the other stuff first. I started eating gallons of ice cream when she was out, and then I’d stick my finger down my throat to throw it all up. She would question me about the disappearance of all this food. I’d lie, and she wondered what was going on as I continued to lose weight. Eventually, my period stopped. Mom took me to a pediatrician to find out what was wrong. The pediatrician prescribed hormones, little pink pills in a plastic wheel that I had to take every day for twenty-eight days and then my period would come back. And so, it did. With the little magic pills. My weight continued to drop. I was so pleased with my new look. I could wear tight pants and throw away the girdle my mother made me wear to control my “jiggle.” I felt liberated. I hit a low weight of eighty-seven pounds. My Dad would count the protruding bones of my spine that had become visible. I was 5’4” tall. 

SMOKING AND DRINKING

My mother kept a ceramic box filled with cigarettes on the coffee table in the living room. They were for guests. Every table had an ashtray. Ashtrays were popular Christmas gifts that we kids would make out of clay in elementary school art classes in the 1950s. My Dad smoked cigars then. Big, fat, stinky ones, and sometimes he’d leave the soggy butts with one or two more puffs in them resting on one of those ashtrays. My mom chain-smoked. I think it was Lucky Strike. Grandpa smoked Camels. My Gram smoked, but one Christmas, she had a bad cold that turned into bronchitis, and she quit. Cold turkey. She was the only one in my family who managed to do that.

I was seven or eight years old when I snuck my first cigarette. I took one out of that box on the coffee table and hid outside behind the house. I got it lit, took a puff, and gagged. This is horrible! Why does everybody do this? That was it for me. I was never tempted to smoke again. Probably one of the best decisions I ever made.

Drinking, however, was another matter. Drinking was also part of the social fabric of our lives. Cocktails were served at family functions. Whiskey Sours were big for a long time. My Gram loved her Old Fashioned with the maraschino cherry. She’d save her cherry for me.

Dad had a serious problem. He was what you would call a functional alcoholic. He ran a successful business. He never had an auto accident. I don’t even remember him ever getting a ticket. Despite the happy family image perpetrated by my mother, his drinking terrorized our family. We’d watch and wait every weekend for the tipping point when he would careen over the edge, and something really bad would happen. The usual focus of that “really bad” thing was me. I was the family lightning rod.

After family parties, I’d offer to help clean up. It was an opportunity to drink the remains from glasses left, the sweet, syrupy dregs of Gram’s Old Fashions and Whiskey Sours. When I was twelve or thirteen, my friend Donna and I were home alone one afternoon. We decided to mix ourselves a little drink, just for fun. We selected a full bottle of Gin from my parents’ well-stocked liquor cabinet because we stupidly thought we could replace what we drank with water and no one would know. One drink led to another. Soon, there was nothing but water in the Gin bottle. It was summer, and we stumbled out to the backyard. I tripped over my little brother’s wading pool and landed flat on my back in the grass. Donna giggled and said she’d better go home. I must’ve passed out. The sun was fading when I felt my mother’s hot breath in my face. Slowly, I opened one eye. She was leaning down, almost nose-to-nose with me. “Cynthia! Have you been drinking?” I laughed, rolled over in the cool, damp grass, and the rest was pretty much a blur.