Ambrosia

Here in Westerville, the City Services Department handled weed complaints from picky residents who value beautiful lawns. For a modest fee, crews would pick up well-sorted yard waste three times per year: leaves in November, branches and good-sized sticks in late April and again in September. Other stuff, such as dead vines, sunflower stalks, and things of that nature, you could compost or drop off yourself at the appropriately signed area behind the recycling center.

At my place on Maple St., I kept most of the green mulch in my yard, chopped up with my composting mower and piled in a large wire bin. The manageable branches I burned in batches in a ceramic chiminea on the back patio. That saved me about thirty-five dollars a year. True, I got a lot of leaves on my place, thanks to my dogwood, redbuds and a historically huge street tree to the southwest of the house (a maple, of course), right where you want it for shade from the summer sun. But I dealt with all that. I’ve always kept a neat yard for the thirty-odd years that I’ve lived in Westerville.

I earned a decent living here as a bank teller, loan officer, and (finally) a financial advisor. Consistent progress toward ever less contact with the general public. I have chosen not to marry, but I do enjoy socializing with a few people at a time, preferably ones I’ve known for several years. A group of us locally host a rotating supper club every other weekend. But solitude is fine. I’m not prone to loneliness.

The thing about my yard was that it used to be quite small and had a claustrophobia-inducing fence at the back. I tried growing vines on it, but the rear of my house faces east, so the side of the fence where I could plant things never got direct sun. As I tell everyone, all plants love morning sun; nobody loves a hot afternoon. So the fence was not as pretty as I would have liked.

Also, as if to taunt me, directly behind that fence, there was a vacant lot. It belonged to one of the grand old mansions of Westerville, which faces south on a major east-west street. Like most of them at this point in time, the mansion has seen better days. Those places are a chore to maintain. The yard remained vacant for half a century—ever since a decrepit carriage house was torn down, so I’m told. Before my time. All I ever saw in there were weeds and a diseased elm tree that shed a few more branches with each passing season.

My little brick two-bedroom is around the corner, facing the cross street, so the mansion’s extra-deep lot adjoined my shallow yard as well as the similarly small yards of my next-door neighbors. Naturally, I lusted after that nice open space.

Cutting to the chase: I recently shelled out for it! I first made the old coot in the mansion an offer on the unused portion of his backyard five years ago, and after he said “No,” I kept reminding him. He did not have the place fenced, so neighborhood kids and dogs would wander in and out. I kept telling him I could “take that liability off your hands,” in case one of those falling branches ever killed somebody. Believe me, some were quite large. The branches, I mean.

Between the price the old coot wanted, the survey to legally divide his yard, removal of that dying tree (and of my back fence), not to mention my property taxes going up, I spent a pretty penny, let me tell you. But I’ve always been frugal and look forward to a comfortable retirement. Besides, I never became encumbered with dependents, and I’ve been running an online side gig for nine years now (vintage costume jewelry—fun and surprisingly lucrative), so I’m not worried about solvency.

And yet, after I put a new fence around my expanded yard, planted a pair of lilac bushes like my mother used to love, along with a vegetable patch, a berry patch and several fruit trees, I realized—there’s still room here. Maybe my new yard could pay its own taxes. Besides, I still had a little chunk of liquidity, which gave me an idea.

***

My brother, Gavin, my only sibling, resided in Riverside, California most of his adult life. That’s about twenty-two hundred miles away. I’d only seen him four times in the past three decades, but we talked on the phone once or twice a year—Christmas and either his birthday or mine (both in summer). When we talked, it was usually for at least an hour, so we were close in our way. We went through a lot together as kids, what with our mom getting cancer in her late forties, dying when I was in middle school, and our dad getting married again right when Gavin was finishing high school.

I realize the “wicked stepmother” is a creature of myth, but in our case she was also a real person. Jasmine was a producer for a local news program until she landed our dad, a fairly well-heeled CPA, at which point she preferred to become a lady of leisure, country club denizen, interior decorator of our home, and personal shopper (for herself, personally). Gavin’s high school graduation was a footnote to their elopement since they’d already gone off on honeymoon. She brought little Tony into our lives, a seven-year-old hellion, whom our father adopted. Numerous framed photos of Jasmine, Dad and Tony appeared throughout our redecorated house. No guests attended their wedding, not even immediate family (i.e., us boys), although a couple of the framed photos showed the happy couple in their wedding clothes with young Tony standing between them. I wouldn’t know if he was actually present at the ceremony, or maybe just cooling his heels in the hallway.

Gavin didn’t do so well in life. Married and divorced three times, he was a Gulf War vet exhausted from trying to figure out lingering health issues. Always lived paycheck to paycheck. He got a Veterans Pension and Social Security. That’s it. Out in Cali, he lived in some kind of flophouse for vets, where he paid a thousand a month for one bedroom and a shared downstairs with a TV. I visited once, stayed at a motel down the road. Basically, he was one step from homeless.

So I got to thinking. Why not put up an ADU in my enormous yard? That’s an “accessory dwelling unit.” A little guesthouse. Something around five-hundred square feet—fine for one person. I’ve spent a couple of winter months renting a trailer in southern Arizona (parked at a National Forest campsite, not rolling along the Interstate), so I know it can be nice to have just enough space.

Moreover, I thought, Gavin could use a pleasant place to spend his golden years. And why shouldn’t he pay me a thousand a month: keep his money in the family? That was his suggestion, not mine. Over the years, when Gavin and I talked on one of the holidays, more than once he said something like, “I wanna come back to the Midwest. I should come live near you.”

Yeah, well. I never believed it would happen until he landed in the hospital with an emphysema attack and perilously high blood pressure. That was shortly after I bought the back lot. All at once, he got serious about coming to live near his only family member.

I headed down to City Hall to find out what it takes to get a permit for building an ADU. My lot qualifies, no question: I could put up a house much bigger than I had in mind, even a money-making duplex with four bedrooms. All I needed before submitting a building plan was approval from the Zoning Commission, which would require a public hearing and a vote.

***

I was always on good terms with my neighbors. Everybody knows each other on the block. Halloween was a big deal. I passed out full-sized Twix bars to the neighborhood kids I recognized (“fun size” for those I didn’t), and after trick-or-treating, adults would gather in someone’s front yard for a drink or two. Every year on Labor Day, we closed the street and held a block party with picnic tables on the pavement and grills on the sidewalks serving up hot dogs and burgers. I usually brought an ambrosia salad, dressed with pineapple juice. I only used fresh fruit, including the coconut. People knew me for that. Quite a few said it was their perennial favorite.

Naturally, I typed up an informative letter to tell everyone on the block (not just my immediately adjoining neighbors) about my plans and the upcoming public hearing. I was aware that some people didn’t like the idea of “greater housing density,” which the City had been pushing of late. But since my new yard was so big, and the plan was to provide a home for my brother, I never dreamed anyone would object. Many neighbors had congratulated me when I bought the back lot of the mansion, and several complimented my plantings. Of course, I always shared the abundance of fruits and vegetables.

The ancient Greeks believed we can’t escape what Fate has in store for us. Or maybe they taught that we carry a fatal flaw within us, and it calls down the blows of Fate. I can’t remember whatever I learned in those old humanities classes, but even if I did, it couldn’t have prepared me for what transpired at the Zoning Commission hearing.

I gave a brief spiel about wanting to build a house for my indigent family member on the neglected lot where I had removed diseased trees and invasive plants. I explained that California had become prohibitively hot and expensive for my elder brother. Our Midwestern economy and northern clime would be ideal.

Then came the comments from concerned citizens.

Our neighborhood is unsuitable for new developments. We adjoin the historic district. This represents a degradation to our architectural integrity.

We moved here for peace and quiet, not crowded lots with comings and goings.

This opens the door to transients and undesirables.

I can’t have my children living next-door to renters and God knows who!

Mr. Ainsley’s brother may be a fine person, but what happens when he dies? Anyone could move in there.

Two people died of overdoses in the apartment building on Fairview. That’s what you’re inviting to our street.

Why doesn’t Mr. Ainsley let his brother live in his own house? It’s not like he’s got a family in there now.

You know nothing about new-build housing, do you, Ray? Do you even know how to find a reliable contractor?

At that point, I had the pleasure of hearing my next-door neighbor interrupted by one of the commissioners. The woman commanded, “Do not speak to the applicant directly, sir. You’re here to address the Commission.”

Well, I didn’t make it out of my childhood home—that heaven on earth refurbished with heavy drapes and a wicked stepmother—without learning to armor up and put on a blank face. I had little choice but to sit there and get schooled. Yes, I am an unpartnered man approaching retirement age, and I was a fool to imagine that polite neighbors were my friends. They had ample opportunity to bring their concerns to me—I’m willing to discuss. But no. People would rather blindside you and spout insults in public.

***

I did some therapy at one time. I’d been feeling low on energy, so I found a highly recommended psychologist and told her about some of my major life events.

“Multiple abandonments,” she said as she, evidently, wrote these words down on her pad.

I argued on behalf of my mom. Obviously, she would have stayed with us if she possibly could. My dad and Gavin fared a bit worse: they made the choice to center their lives elsewhere and leave me to shelter as best I could manage.

“The effect on the child remains,” the therapist said, “whether it can be forgiven or not.”

Her words hit like a cold wind. Multiple abandonments. I hadn’t looked at my life in that light before. I still don’t look at it that way. But the diagnosis made an impression.

Gavin was born three years before me. It wasn’t his fault that the logical time for him to leave home arrived so soon after the home we knew was so blithely disassembled. Tony inherited his bedroom. Gavin’s stuff got piled in the garage. I muddled along through high school, holed up at the library or in my room like so many others. Lost my appetite for family dinners where Jasmine kept after me about all the sports events I was missing, not to mention girls, proms and making sure to “take precautions.” Naturally, she spent our college funds. Gavin got one semester paid for at our local city college, then he was on his own to drop out and join the army.

When my time came, Dad stopped by my room and gave me a check for two thousand—evidently, all he could spare at that point. “You’ll be okay, Son,” he told me. “You’ve always been level-headed.” No doubt, he felt ashamed of neglecting us. I suppose that’s why it was easier to cut us off entirely.

After the public hearing, I barely slept for days, so angry my teeth hurt, and disoriented from the realization that my charming neighborhood and the good will of humankind were not what I had thought. A fearsome desire for revenge possessed me. Some form of vandalism: Rock salt poured in stripes and circles across the emerald lawns. Maybe spray paint on garage doors. Or I could sabotage their next brush pickup with dead vines and leaf mulch—the city won’t take mixed yard waste, so they’d get stuck driving to the dump themselves and shelling out fees. I felt confident no one would be bold enough to accuse me. But how were we supposed to pretend to be chummy neighbors after this? At least a thousand times, I pictured the moment I would inevitably cross paths with any of them. I’d stare in their eyes from ten feet back, then as we drew closer, I’d look icily away.

Or I could query out loud, “Kicked any homeless people huddled on their grates lately, Stan?”

Did I fail to mention that the Zoning Commission vote went against me, four to three? I enjoyed the very chilly comfort of hearing the three commissioners for approval urge their fellows to consider the greater good of providing a new housing unit in a near-downtown neighborhood. Core density and all that.

I had to wonder—

Is there a clause in my deed that states my property can never be put up for rent, even after I die?

Is it so hard to find a reliable contractor?

Does the duplex up the street really threaten people’s children? Or cause addicts to OD and die?

Could I move Gavin into my house, give up my music room and share the kitchen, my smart TV, the washer and dryer, etc?

***

It took over a week, a bottle of Laphroaig and several late-night walks around town, but I managed to talk myself off the vandalism ledge and stop lumping all humans into one heap of bigots and two-faced morons. Some are kinder than others.

For example, the man in the mansion who sold me his backyard laughed when I confessed I used to call him an “old coot.” He replied, “Exactly right—that’s what I am!” He’s only seven years older than Gavin (though better preserved). His name is Fred, and when he saw in the news that the Zoning Commission had ruled against me, he called up to offer me an extension of his driveway to access my big yard from the street his house faces. He not only had a legal easement drawn up, granting me perpetual use of the driveway, he helped me find a guy to grade and put down asphalt as well as converting a section of my fence into a rolling gate.

All this came in handy when the twenty-four foot Airstream mobile home I bought for Gavin was delivered. It’s now nicely installed on the brand new pad and hooked up in the middle of my yard, flanked by pine shrubs and gooseberry bushes. Of course, it casts shade on some of my earlier plantings, but next spring, I’ll shift some things around and I’m sure we’ll all survive.

I’ve noticed a few of the local personae non gratae glaring over their fences at my new development. Didn’t want my elegant granny flat in the neighborhood? How do ya like my trailer park?

They can eat their tiny hearts out.

Gavin appears to love it here. He kept thanking me and hanging on my neck when he arrived from Riverside. That first Midwestern winter was a little rough on him after the California sun, but he claims to love slippers, flannel, big sweaters and the like. I thought he was going to cry at Christmas, when a tender dusting of snow fell on the holly bushes. It was the first holiday we’d spent together in over thirty years.

Once or twice a week, Fred strolls through the gate and we gather on my patio to enjoy the garden. “You give new meaning to the term ‘manicure,’” Gavin says whenever he sees me deadhead the flowers or train a vine to climb its trellis. We have a few laughs, a few drinks and snacks. Turns out, Fred was a military doctor and served at Garmisch, so he and Gavin always find things to talk about. We even did Thanksgiving dinner last year, a potluck in the dining room of Fred’s big house, complete with a few cousins from Columbus, hither and yon.

I brought my fresh Ambrosia salad, and everybody raved about it.

Must admit, it’s nice to feel appreciated again.