Two Cigarette’ and Two Icy Mint’

Two Cigarette’ and Two Icy Mint’

My Uncle Stuby was my favourite uncle when I was a little girl (don’t tell my other uncle that…). I think it’s because he was so expressive in his love for my cousin and I.

He used to pick me up at school on a bicycle that he made from scrap parts. At least two or three different bicycles went into his one unique home-made model.

At fours years old, in infant school, I was the most timid, insipid little thing –a skinny, scrawny little girl with an enormous head of hair that was too heavy for my little neck to carry. After lunch, at school, all of us children would travel single file back to the classroom--with our sticky fingers and bubble-gum lips-- and we were told to take a nap. Like a nice little obedient girl I would put my head on the desk, close my eyes and fall asleep.

Later in the afternoon around 3.00 pm my uncle would come to school to take me home on his scrap bicycle. He would take one look at me and haul me up into his arms and give me one of his big pity kisses: during nap time some of my classmates would have undone my plaits leaving me with my big sticky, bubble-gum hair straining my neck. My uncle would bend down and undo the lace from his beloved Clarks suede shoes, and, with great concentration and effort, bundle up my hair and try to fashion me a ponytail with his shoe lace. He would then climb on to his bicycle and hoist me up to sit on the red bar connecting the patchy leather seat and the yellow handlebar of the bicycle; and home we went with the sun burning our foreheads and my Uncle’s gravelly voice singing Dennis Brown in my ear.

On a Friday evening, after a long week of work at the bottling factory, my Uncle would gear up for a relaxing weekend. He would start out by sending me to buy two cigarettes and two icy mints. Icy mints were mint sweets like breath fresheners – the mint flavor was so strong that it felt like ice on the tongue. After dinner and a shower he would sit in front of the TV and smoke his cigarettes; one icy mint was his, the other mine. This time was luxury for my uncle— a week of hard work, time with family, two cigarettes and two icy mints.

As I grew older I savoured so many different things in life. My “cigarette and two icy mints” have gone through many changes: At 4 years old it was “two cigarette and two icy mint’” with my Uncle Stuby; at 20 years old in Barbados it was a stop at my favourite used book store on a Saturday morning where I would buy a dozen romance novels and go home to bed to read all weekend; at 25 in the Bahamas it was two hours at the gym that overlooked the beach; more recently it’s that 20 minutes before I fall asleep when, to my noisy protests, my unruly dog would hop up on our bed and burrow a space between my husband and I.

What’s your “two cigarette’ and two icy mint’”?