16x20 acrylic on canvas
My Lolo was out of sorts. Seventeen years ago, he’d crammed into Uncle Johnny’s car with some young cousins from Los Angeles. They’d cut a swath across the middle section of country, en route to my Chicago wedding, stopping a couple times along the way. Two-thousand ten miles, seven different states over the course of two days. It was August, blistering hot, and Lolo was failing both physically and emotionally, as a lifetime of hard-living and the recent loss of Lola Ambrocia had reduced his once wiry, strong frame into a skinny, wax-like Madame Tussauds shell of his former self.
The last time we saw him in the San Fernando Valley, he’d while away the hours sitting in his favorite chair, trying to kill house flies in the front room. Because of complications from emphysema, he couldn’t enjoy his favorite pipe anymore. Instead, he’d used scissors to cut a rubber band, and operating it like a sling shot, he’d snap at anything at which hovered in his vicinity. It was as if he’d established his own La-Z-Boy “no fly zone” in the living room, meting out punishment with swift, unforgiving rubber precision.
During the trip to Chicago, they’d stopped at a hotel six or seven hours west of Illinois and Lolo couldn’t sleep. He said Lola Ambrocia had visited their room late at night, in the form of a translucent apparition. So bright was her visage, he couldn’t shut his eyes.
At the wedding reception we had a videographer who worked the room, recording well-wishes and pithy comments from the slightly-inebriated family and friends in attendance. Lolo, who had been instructed to retire from cocktails at the same time he put away his pipe, lifted a party favor, offering a toast. It was a small flower vase with a ribbon tied around the neck, about the size one would associate with dollhouse accouterments. About halfway through wishing his best for Scott and I, in broken English, he lost his train of thought and stared blankly at the camera. The smile disappeared from his face; tears welled up in his eyes. He was still holding the tiny flower vase as the camera went dark.
Years later, long after he passed, more than one family member has had the peculiar experience of waking suddenly, their bedrooms choked by the aroma of tobacco. It’s always the same sweet apple and cherry wood blend Lolo favored.
