Where The Magic Happens

Just in case you're not from around these parts, here are some photos I took last week of my gorgeous hometown (also known as the backdrop for my debut novel, Ancient City Christmas).


The Cathedral in downtown St. Aug. (I'm sure it has a much longer, more latin-ish name, but to everyone in St. Johns County it's simply known as "The Cathedral").


The notorious Scarlett O'Hara's (where everyone, frankly, doesn't give a damn)


The Lightner Museum (formerly known as the Alcazar Hotel)


One of my favorite things in St. Augustine--this is a tile mosaic that the Oldest City was given by its sister city, Aviles, Spain. I saw the mosaic while I was an exchange student in Aviles, when it was still a work in progress, and now every time I see it downtown it reminds me of that trip.


The Casa Monica Hotel, decked out for the holidays but still standing testimony to its Florida locale in shadows.

Look for more pictures of the St. Augustine Christmas Parade after this weekend!

Christmas Arrived Early This Year

Around two o'clock this afternoon, the mailman rang my doorbell. Of course I didn't know it was the mailman until my dad went to the door, signed for a special delivery, and brought it to me. Only then, when my eyes lit on the return address label did I realize that the moment I've been waiting for since I was eight years old had finally arrived.

I ripped the plastic and paper away in a hurry and soon--but not soon enough--I was holding the fruits of my labor (all 274 pages of it) in my hands. My fingertips glided across the glossy cover, my thumbs passed over the page edges, and my heart soared. 

I took these pictures with my webcam moments later (my digital camera is currently out of commission due to the fact that I cannot seem to locate its cord) so I could try and share the moment with friends.

I'll post more about the book tonight, but I just wanted to dedicate this specific post to that moment in time that no one will ever be able to take away from me when I, Shannon O'Neil, clutched my very first published novel (albeit self-published) in my two little hands. 

Later days,

Shannon

Chapter Three

Thursday / December 20, 2007


So now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get to the second beginning of my story. Five days before I got myself into a bind (literally and figuratively speaking) at the Jacksonville International Airport, I was rudely awakened at the ungodly hour of 2:00 p.m. by Alvin and the Chipmunks’ infamous Christmas song. Although I was a huge fan of the group as a child, nowadays the shrill harmonies of the Chipmunks make me want to scoop out my eyeballs with a spork and eat them for breakfast. Ironically, I feel the same way about my mother--hence the reason I made that song her ring tone on my cell.

After two choruses, the phone went silent only to start up again just as I was about to return to the peaceful land of dreams. I unceremoniously whisked the phone off my nightstand, turned it to vibrate, and tossed it into a pile of dirty clothes on the floor.

I buried my own head under my pillows in a vain attempt to go back to sleep, but it was too late. My brain was awake enough to recognize that it was both really, really cold and really, really bright in my apartment, neither of which was conducive to sleep.

With great reluctance, I slid out of bed--taking the covers with me of course--and trudged into the ice cave that sometimes masquerades as the world’s smallest living room and kitchenette. Although I knew that my poorly insulated walls and windows would release the hot air faster than my heater could generate it, I cranked the thermostat up, put on a pot of coffee, and headed for the shower.

I bravely put my life on the line in exchange for comfort by setting up my space heater in the corner of the bathroom. Like I was playing double-dutch, I swiftly hopped into and out of the hot water before it ran out. Though I didn‘t want to, I wrestled my hair dryer out from under the sink and exchanged it for the little space heater (I have learned from experience that I can’t run both without shorting the circuits to my entire floor). Normally, I hate drying my hair (it requires way too much effort) but it just so happens that I hate hypothermia just a little bit more.

Thirty minutes after I went in, I emerged from the bathroom feeling like a new woman--albeit a new woman who was still wearing last night’s pajamas and wrapped up in an IKEA bedspread. Back in the kitchen, I prepared my waffles and coffee, then took both to the couch and said good morning to my roommate, Fred.

Just to be clear, Fred is a soccer ball-sized stain on the arm of my Goodwill couch that sort of looks like a smiley face. He’s kind of like my man in the moon, only his expressions are captured in a brown circle of indiscriminate substance and unknown origin on my faux-leather surface.

Fred also happens to be my best friend.

I turned the TV on, checked the clock, and felt my heart flutter when I realized Fred and I were up just in time for Lifetime’s afternoon showing of our favorite show, The Golden Girls. It was, of course, one of the Very Special Christmas episodes that always relays the same message about love and peace over presents and candy. There were funny parts filled with laughter and touching moments when Fred and I both found ourselves in tears.

Just as the episode ended and I slurped up the last bit of syrup from my plate, it occurred to me that I hadn’t been out of my apartment in almost a week. As a freelance graphic designer, I do most of my work from the desk in the corner of my living room. It has its perks, I have to admit that most days it feels good to roll out of bed in the early afternoon and make the five second commute to my desk without even having to take a shower or get dressed.

But every few weeks I am blindsided by the sudden fear that I might be turning into an agoraphobic. In all fairness, it is very easy to convince yourself that staying inside a lot is totally acceptable in Boston in the winter time. I mean it’s been gray and cold out there for months now--who wants to get involved in all that when the Internet can bring you anything you want?

I looked over at Fred, who just smiled at me in that hapless, hopeless way he always does. Usually I know I’ve been inside too long when Fred starts to talk back to me. Although Fred was still maintaining his monastic silence that Thursday morning, I felt that I was close enough to hearing from him that I needed to get myself out of my apartment before things took a turn toward padded walls.

Besides, I was up before three o’clock, had breakfast, coffee, a shower and had even blow-dried my hair! How could I waste such accomplishments on Fred and my indoor plumbing?

Jeans, a jacket, three pairs of socks, two sweaters, a scarf and a knit cap later I shuffled out of my apartment and into the icy streets of Boston. It was less than a block to my nearest bus stop where I stood anxiously at the edge of the city’s motley crew of public transportation travelers waiting for my chariot to arrive.

By the time a bus headed in my desired direction finally came up the street, I had started to develop icicles on the end of my nose, which was one of several extremities that I no longer felt connected to. Somehow I still managed to climb the steps and assess my seat choices in a quick fashion. There were exactly two open chairs--one in the back next to someone who could have passed for Charles Manson’s long lost sister (or brother, I couldn’t be sure) and one closer to the front, next to a little blue-haired lady.

As I plopped down in the chair beside her, the old woman gave me a bright smile framed neatly in wrinkled skin. Her emerald eyes sparkled as she offered me an exceptionally cheery Merry Christmas greeting. I returned the sentiment with true sincerity. It’s rare to find someone who is both kind and sane on the city bus (which is another reason I prefer staying indoors) so I felt quite grateful.

“Where are you headed?” She asked me. Her warm smile melted all the ice on my nose.

“To the mall,” I replied. “I’m going to do a little last minute Christmas shopping. How about you?”

“I’m going to my grandson’s house,” she replied happily.

“That’s great.” I settled back in my seat, content with our succinct, casual conversation. She apparently was not feeling the same.

“I have seventeen grandchildren,” she said proudly. “And I can name every one of them in order of when they were born.”

“That’s…great,” I said again, silently praying she wouldn’t think I was calling her bluff.
Unfortunately she was already reaching for a billfold tucked away in her purse that I just knew was filled with pictures. I glanced back longingly at Charles Manson’s gender confused sibling.

“First there’s Eric,” the blue-haired lady began with a gnarled finger pointed at the photo of a teenager in a members only jacket. “He was born in August of nineteen seventy-one and he lives in California….or is it Connecticut?”

I decided to change my strategy.

“It sure is cold today isn’t it?” I rubbed my hands together for emphasis. At least if I couldn’t get her to shut up, I might get her off track.

“Yes it is,” she nodded and let the billfold sink into her lap. Relief passed over me as though she’d just lowered a gun from my head. She paused just long enough for me to think she was done, but then it turned out she was just catching her breath.

“It’s colder where my second grandson, Joshua, lives though. He’s in Colorado...or is it Costa Rica?” The billfold came back to life and she flipped ahead a few pages to a girl with crimped hair that was affixed to the side of her head by an enormous bow. “Then there’s Penny…or is that Jill? I think it’s Penny. She lives in…well it’s right by…hold on, I’ll think of it in a minute…”

I sat up straighter in the chair and silently cursed myself for not bringing my iPod. (of all the roles the iPod can play, social barrier is my personal favorite). Fortunately, right at that moment, I felt the gentle vibration of my cell phone from inside my purse. I was so excited to drown out the babbling of the old lady I didn’t even glance at the caller ID before I whipped my phone open.

“It’s about time!” My mother shouted in my ear. “I was starting to think you were avoiding me!”

“I was,” I told her with a heavy sigh. “I know why you’re calling me.”

“Well Merry Christmas to you too,” she quipped. “Can’t a mother just want to catch up with her favorite daughter who she never, ever hears from? Not even an e-mail or a text or anything?”

“We both know that’s not why you’ve been trying to hunt me down,” I muttered. My elation at being relieved of my duty to listen to the old woman’s list of second generation spawn was fading quickly.

“Alright, have it your way,” my mother said defiantly. “I’ll get right to it.”

“Please do.”

“I want you to come home for Christmas.”

“Oh gee, let me think about that one,” I tapped my finger on the tip of my nose as though I was thinking. “I’m going to have to go with…no! Now aren’t you glad we got that out of the way? What else is new?”

“Bailey, please,” my mother insisted, her voice softening. “This is getting ridiculous. It’s been four years.”

“So?” I asked her. “Is there a law that you can’t spend more than three Christmases away from your family?”

“Maybe there’s a rule in this family that you can’t,” she snapped. “You know all of your brothers and sisters are coming home for the holidays, it’s the only time of year that everyone gets together.”

“Good for them.”

“Bailey! Why does this have to be such a touchy subject?”

“Oh please. You know exactly why! That’s just a stupid question.”

We both paused to break the tension and allow the words that we couldn’t say to peter out in the sound waves somewhere between Florida and Massachusetts.

“Honey,” she continued in an almost whisper, “we would really love for you to come be with us for Christmas.”

“I appreciate that, but I have plans here with my friends, okay?”

That wasn’t exactly true. Two weeks ago I’d bumped into a girl I used to work with at Starbucks who extended me an invitation to her Pimps & Ho’s Christmas party. I politely told her I’d see if I could make it, even though I knew I was probably going to spend my Christmas Eve with my two favorite companions: Fred and a bottle of wine.

“You can see your friends anytime,” my mother insisted. “This is the time of year for visiting with your family.” She emphasized the last word like it was special.

“Right. And if I came to visit with you people, would you pay for the therapy I would need when I left?”

“Bailey, please.” As she said it, I could just see her standing in the immaculate, unused kitchen in her oceanfront estate with one palm pressed against her forehead to fend off the coming headache.

“I’ve already said my peace, what more do you want?”

“I want to see my daughter!” She slammed her spare hand down on the granite counter top. I heard it. “I want to catch up on what’s going on in your life! I want to know if you still like your job! I want to find out if you have a boyfriend or…or a girlfriend--”

“Mother!” I hissed.

“Well I don’t know! How can I know these things when you keep all of us in the dark down here?”

“Okay, fine. Consider this my Christmas present to you: My life involves working from home all day and occasionally going out to dinner with friends. I still like my job just fine. And yes, I have a boyfriend. His name is Fred.”

Beside me, the old lady flipped ahead a few pages in her billfold and pointed at chubby, brown-haired kid with glasses and a tuba.

“That’s Fred,“ she said. “He lives in New York…or is it New Hampshire?” “Fred?” My mother asked incredulously. “What kind of name is that? Is he cute? What does he look like?”

“He’s kind of brown…maybe a little yellow. But he has a great smile.”

“Brown? Yellow? Is he biracial?”

“Sure.”

“Well why don‘t you bring him down and introduce him to the whole family!”

“I don’t think they’d let me bring him on the plane,” I told her. Not to mention the fact that poor Fred would certainly lose his illustrious smile in Florida.

“He’s fat isn’t he? One of those people who’d have to buy two seats or else spill over on somebody else, right?”

“Look Mom, as delightful as this conversation has been I’m really ready for it to be over.” I started to gather my things as the bus approached my stop. “I really appreciate the offer, but I’m not coming home for Christmas. End of story.”

With my purse on my shoulder I sat and waited for the final blow. Our holiday ritual wouldn’t be complete without the closing argument. It was the very reason the rest of my family turned to my mother after all of their e-mails, voice mails, text messages and Facebook posts went unanswered. Elizabeth Bailey Hamilton Danforth is known for a lot of things, but she is famous for only one.

“You know,” she began softly, “Your little brothers and sisters really miss you. Eli was just asking about you this morning. He’s almost eight years-old now.”

My mother is a licensed travel agent for guilt trips.

“I know how old he is, Mother.”

“But you haven’t seen him since he was four,” she added. “He’s grown up so much you probably wouldn’t even recognize him. And you know, Taylor came over the other day. She and Maggie spent the whole afternoon talking about how much they wish their big sister would come home for Christmas.”

Just to clear up any confusion here, Taylor is my half-sister on my dad’s side and Maggie is my half-sister on my mother’s side. By a weird twist of small town fate, they wound up in the same kindergarten class and have not been separated since. They are fifteen now and though it has been eight years since I was that age, I seriously doubt that when the two of them get together they spend a whole lot of time talking about me.

“Look you can lay that stuff on me all you want, Mom,” I told her confidently. “It’s not going to change my mind. Besides, I’ve already put their presents in the mail and we both know that’s the only thing they really want from me.”

I stood up as the bus pulled to a stop in front of the mall.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, please, I’ve got to go.”

“Hold on, Bailey,” she pleaded again.

Last but not least, this was the moment when my mom usually slipped from subtle guilt to flagrant bribes. It’s like our own little version of “Deal or No Deal.” Over the last three years the banker’s offer has gone up from a diamond bracelet to a seven day cruise to a brand new car. This year I was hoping for cold hard cash, possibly in the high five-digit range.

“There is one other thing…” she said softly. Here it comes. “I hate to bring this up, but you know your grandparents are getting a lot older. Who knows how much longer they’re going to be around…this could be their last Christmas.”

My feet hit the sidewalk and stopped moving so suddenly the guy behind me nearly knocked us both to the ground. As I stepped out of his way, I tried to close my mouth, but I couldn’t get it around the new rotten apple my mother had thrown out.

The bus started to pull away and I found myself staring at the blue haired lady in the window as she slipped away.

“That’s really low,” I said quietly. “Really, really low.”

“It’s the truth, honey. You never know about these things.”

“Goodbye, Mom--”

“Bailey wait! I can write you a check!”

“--Merry Christmas.”

PROPERTY OF SHANNON L. O'NEIL. DO NOT PUBLISH WITHOUT CONSENT OF THE AUTHOR.

Chapter Two

Christmas 1982

Although it occurred two years prior to my birth, I feel as though I had a seat in the front pew of St. Augustine’s First Baptist Church for the Ancient City’s wedding of the century on Christmas Day, 1982. I’ve heard the story a thousand different times from every affected party who took part in the affair, every one of whom remembers that day with an alarming amount of detail and clarity.

Even within the greater realm of St. Augustine folklore, the tale of my parents’ wedding remains as one of the most popular stories passed down through generations of North Florida natives, lagging just behind the tale of Pedro Menendez de Aviles’ founding of the city in 1565 and Ponce De Leon’s great search for the Fountain of Youth.

You see, from the time they first started dating in the spring of 1980 at St. Augustine High School, my parents were labeled as the Romeo and Juliet of the tiny seaside village.

My father, John Andrew “Jack” Hamilton was the youngest son of North Florida’s most revered judicial servant, the honorable Judge Raymond Q. Hamilton III. For centuries, the Hamilton family had been sculpting the history of St. Augustine through politics, justice and the power of an iron fist. People held passionate opinions about the Hamiltons in only one of two directions--adulation or fear. Many people who subscribed to the latter belief felt that the family was a long line of criminals who forced their way into the city’s political landscape.

That’s not an entirely false perspective.

By 1982, Judge was the reigning family patriarch who had already ascended to the highest ranking judicial position in the county. Everyone knew he had plans to move up into the broader spectrum of the district in the following election season, and he was grooming both of his sons--Raymond Q. Hamilton IV and Jack--to follow in his footsteps.

Unfortunately, while Ray IV had agreeably accepted the family business and headed to law school at the University of Florida, Jack had decided to build his own business as a personal act of spite against his father. He barely maintained a “C” average at SAHS and found his love not in politics, but in the dewy grass of an open football field. Judge was somewhat pacified with his son’s athletic prowess (which is a quick path to fame in a small town) right up until Jack decided to continue his athletic career at Florida State.

An ardent Florida Gators booster, fan, and alumnus, Judge would sooner have seen his son walk through town in a dress than a Garnet & Gold uniform. To Judge, it was an embarrassment, a crime, and an act of pure betrayal for Jack to march off to Tallahassee and play football for Bobby Bowden.

But he did it anyway.

To make matters worse, before he left for the capital city he also decided to invite the daughter of the St. Augustine’s most beloved Baptist minister (and Judge’s most outspoken critic) to his senior prom.

Elizabeth Jane Bailey, my mother, played the role of a pastor’s daughter to a tee. To every adult she came in contact with, the shy brunette with the sharp blue eyes was nothing but sweetness and sweaters. Inside the bathroom stalls of SAHS, however, the writing on the stalls indicated that when the sweater came off (as it was known to do on a frequent basis), the sweetness went with it.

Although they would never admit it, those rumors and the combined pain it would cause their fathers were the chief reasons behind the start of my parents’ relationship. No one really knows when it turned from lust to love, but even after Jack went off to Tallahassee, the two continued their ill-fated romance.

My maternal grandfather, Pastor James Bailey, has always told me that every gray hair on his head (and there are a lot of them) sprouted during the two-year courtship of his only child and the son of St. Augustine’s most notoriously corrupt politician.

I believe him.

In fact, I think the majority of those gray hairs were probably born during the last few months leading up to my parents’ Christmas wedding. It was then that the infamous judicial servant and the respected Baptist minister had to put their differences aside to unite for a common cause.

While some people in St. Augustine were encouraged by the sudden softness of the relationship between the two families that followed my parents’ engagement, most folks just saw cause for suspicion. Once that ring went on my mother’s finger, the city should have become a battle ground between the two that would have made the previous entanglements of the French and Spanish in the area pale in comparison.

To add fuel to the conspiracy theorists’ fire, rumors flew around town about the mysterious disappearance of the bride and groom at the end of the summer. Although both had gone up to Tallahassee for school, it would have been common place to see them around town on the weekends or especially during the Thanksgiving holiday. So the fact that no one had caught even the slightest glimpse of the two since Labor Day was somewhat troubling.

With all the gossip slipping through the cobblestone streets, it was no surprise that such a large crowd turned out on Christmas Day for the wedding. Hours before the doors of the church were even opened, people lined up from the steps of the church, down the sidewalks, and deep into the downtown historic district.

According to my Nana Jane (my mother’s mother), there was a last minute effort to find someone to act as a bouncer and check for invitations at the door of the church. Unfortunately, no one was willing to stand up against the masses, and so it was that the large oak doors of the church swung out into the cold December morning and invited everyone in to its warm chapel.

Gorgeous poinsettias, holly boughs and pine wreaths still hung throughout the church from the previous night’s candlelight service. Some of the church ladies in attendance murmured amongst themselves that the bride and groom had taken advantage of the holiday decorations bought with the church’s budget, but none of them dared to say so to the pastor.

While the parishioners, gossip mongers and other interested parties vied for the best seats upstairs, my mother donned her gown inside her father’s basement office. Had it not been for pictures, I would not know what my mother‘s wedding dress looked like. After the events of that day had transpired, not one of the 250 guests could remember a single detail about the handmade gown.

Fortunately, a photographer was on hand to document everything, including the hideous nature of my mother’s dress. Although, at the time, I understand that fancy, beaded bodice work, long sleeves made of lace, and balloon-sized shoulder pads were all the rage, that style does not translate well into modern times. I am forever thankful to my parents’ first dog, Skippy, who had the good sense to shred that dress one afternoon while he was home alone so that I would never be offered the chance to revive its glory.

At any rate, my mother squeezed into her gown with the help of her bridesmaids and stood back to take a long look at herself in the mirror. It wasn’t exactly the glamorous wedding the eighteen year-old reigning prom queen had imagined, but it was her wedding day nonetheless.

Moments before the ceremony began, my grandfather slipped into the room and immediately burst into tears at the sight of his only daughter in her full wedding day regalia. An uninformed bystander would easily have been fooled into thinking that his tears were of joy and nostalgia, when in fact they fell out of shame and embarrassment. Once he stepped into the chapel with his daughter on his arm, my grandfather knew his life would be changed forever.

Back upstairs, someone shoved a bouquet of red roses mixed with holly into the bride’s hand just before the doors swung open into the vestibule and the crowd leapt to its feet.

My other grandmother, Judge’s wife Paula (who refuses to go by Grandma, Granny or any other derivative of the word for fear that it will make her sound old) stood up along with everyone else and tugged her skin-tight red dress down to reveal more cleavage than the Baptist church had ever seen. She held her head high and pasted a bright smile across her red lips which she was prepared to maintain throughout every painful minute of what was about to happen.

Upon her first step into the chapel, my mother was greeted by a chorus of gasps and murmurs echoed by the high arches of the wooden ceiling. The sounds, however, were not related to the beauty of my mother in her white dress or the joy of the moment. Instead, they were actually the product of a watermelon-sized bump that could not be concealed beneath my mother’s hand-beaded bodice.

Paula smiled on bravely while Judge dabbed at the sweat on his brow in the front pew beside her. Across the aisle, Nana Jane closed her eyes and started to pray out loud as her sobbing husband and chagrined daughter drew closer to the altar.

From his spot next to a foursome of grizzly-bear sized men (all former offensive linemen for the SAHS Yellow Jackets), Jack decided to adopt his mother’s approach. He plastered a bright smile on his face even as his heavily gelled mullet started to condensate with sweat--all of which made its way down the collar of his suit jacket. He was sweating so profusely in fact that his dark jacket was noticeably damp when he accepted his bride’s hand from her weeping father and turned his back to the crowd.

My grandfather took his spot at the altar where he paused to gulp down a glass of water and attempt to collect himself before beginning the ceremony. Lucky for him, the crowd was still so stunned at the sudden turn of events that no one paid much attention to him as he stumbled through the service. Instead, the bodies in the pews whispered amongst each other and even passed notes written on the back of the wedding programs wondering how this could have happened and why nobody had known about it.

By the time everyone re-grouped at the National Guard Armory on the bay front for the reception, however, the story of how that lump came to be had made its way through the crowd. As it turned out, the Hamilton-Bailey Ancient City wedding of the century was not in fact the first ceremony shared between the town’s young star-crossed lovers.

Apparently, during a secret trip to Daytona Beach (St. Augustine’s sin city neighbor to the south) with friends over the summer, the couple made an alcohol-induced decision to visit Wally’s Wedding Wonderland, a shady beachside chateau sandwiched between an IHOP (site of the rehearsal dinner) and a bar (site of the reception). With the same wedding party who presided over the second ceremony on hand, my father put down his solo cup long enough to pay Wally $29.99 for the summer wedding special. Twenty minutes later, a surprisingly valid marriage license was issued and the happy newlyweds stumbled off to the nearby bar (a place called the Rough Seas, which I personally think was a foreboding sign).

Days later, once they had returned to St. Augustine and sobered up, the high school sweethearts realized their impromptu wedding may not have been the best idea they’d ever had. Plans for an annulment were discussed, but before any papers could be filed, my mother used Walgreens’ entire supply of pregnancy tests to confirm her worst fears.

Without a better alternative, the Ancient City’s own Romeo and Juliet committed their own double suicide in the form of a full confession to their respective parents.

Both agreed later that poison would have been easier and less painful.

Judge flew into a rage so severe he heavily damaged his custom-ordered painting of the South defeating the North at the battle of Gettysburg. Paula, meanwhile, disappeared into the kitchen with a flask and a pack of cigarettes.

Pastor James made a beeline for the St. George Tavern and drank openly in front of others for the first time since he had left seminary. Nana Jane stayed at home and began feverishly knitting a new scarf while alternately taking long swigs from a bottle of wine.

In the end, the two families came together and decided to try and make the best of a bad situation. A lavish wedding on Christmas Day was planned to try and take the focus away from the obvious focal point. But even though no one involved ever said it out loud, everyone was aware that all the poinsettias and holly in the world wouldn’t be able to take the attention off the real guest of honor; my older sister, Rebecca.

As the bride and groom rode off from the reception that day in a horse-drawn carriage, people were already busy rehearsing the story they would tell their children of the most infamous moment in St. Augustine history since the massacre at Matanzas Inlet.

Of course, what they didn’t know (which I have learned the hard way) was that twenty-five years later, the Christmas Day wedding of 1982 would barely crack the top ten on the list of Christmas spectacles involving the newly formed Hamilton-Bailey family.

PROPERTY OF SHANNON L. O'NEIL. DO NOT PUBLISH WITHOUT CONSENT OF THE AUTHOR.

Chapter One

Monday / December 24, 2007

I should not have yelled at the nice lady behind the ticket counter.

Incidentally, I also should not have thrown a piece of luggage at a fellow traveler, cursed at a young skycap, taken a swing at a security guard, and basically caused a disturbance that brought the entire ticketing lobby of the Jacksonville International Airport to a standstill for half an hour on one of the busiest travel holidays of the year—Christmas Eve.

I have come to these conclusions by way of a long, quiet hour of reflection, which I observed in complete silence and solitude. And by solitude, I mean controlled confinement inside some sort of holding cell reserved for potential terrorists and unruly travelers.

I might have arrived at said conclusions sooner if I’d been able to pace around and contemplate the many mistakes I’ve made this evening. Unfortunately, such pacing has been rendered impossible by the small size of the room and, to a greater extent, the giant plastic twist-ties (handcuffs of the new millennium, apparently) that have me bound at the wrists and ankles.

Unlike the interrogation rooms you see in police stations on television, the one I’m in has no two-way glass or glaring light to direct into anyone’s face. Instead, it is the epitome of plain. The concrete block walls are painted a bland shade of gray, the floors are dirty white linoleum, and the fluorescent light fixture overhead constantly flickers. Even less pleasant than the appearance of the room is its rather distinct odor, which falls somewhere between cat pee and dead bodies—with just a hint of strawberries.

In addition to the aforementioned folding chair, there’s also a small brown card table and another chair crammed into the tiny space. Just those three pieces of furniture (if you can even call them that) take up almost the entire room, the rest of which seems to be filled with the incessant buzzing of the lights that would be driving me crazy if it weren’t for the fact that I passed crazy and entered sheer insanity when I attempted to throttle several people at the ticket desk.
Hence the reason I’m here in the first place.

But before you rush to judge me, let me say that I think I have a pretty damn good defense. I know things aren’t looking great for me right now, but I assure you that I am typically a very docile, laid-back individual not unlike yourself. I consider myself friendly, intelligent, and well mannered in most situations.

My biggest vices in life are mint chocolate chip ice cream, good books and Dog the Bounty Hunter. I’m a twenty-three year old recent college graduate who borrowed more money than I care to think about in order to buy a creative writing degree from Boston College so it could collect dust in my apartment where I work as a struggling freelance graphic designer.

I’m not saying all this to pat myself on the back (literally speaking, I can’t pat myself on the back thanks to these plastic handcuffs), I’m saying it to try and make you understand that it would take a series of extenuating, unusual, and chaotic circumstances to send me into a tailspin like this. In fact, it would take something along the lines of a Perfect Storm of events to bring me across the border of sanity into my current predicament—and that’s exactly what has happened.

If you think I’m being overdramatic and you would like a little evidence to back up my claim, feel free to soak in my current attire from head to toe.

Although my taste in fashion is somewhat quirky, I would not ever voluntarily dress myself in a shapeless, ankle-length, long-sleeved dress, covered in blue sequins and lined at the hem, collar and cuffs with faux white feathers. With it’s NFL-sized shoulder pads, it looks like it came straight from the back of Bea Arthur‘s closet circa 1983 (where it was buried with the things even she herself would never wear).

The outrageous outfit is part of a costume I was forced to wear for my stepmother’s blasphemous Christmas parade float entitled “Jesus Through The Years.” I know you’re just dying to know more about that, and I assure you, I will get to it in time.

But the point I’m trying to make right now, is that if I was still the same, sane person I was when I arrived in Florida four days ago, I would not be wearing this attire. Unfortunately, I lost all the clothes I brought along for my trip in a tragic hujta (that’s hoo-ta) fire within my first twenty-four hours on Sunshine State soil. Therefore, my wardrobe since then has been largely sculpted by need and not option.

Now I don’t think I need to go into more detail beyond “blasphemous float” and “tragic hujta fire” for you to understand what I’ve been dealing with for the last few days (which, for the record, have felt like decades). Nor do I need to explain further why I was so irritable when I arrived at JIA by taxi just after dark and saw fit to skip the switchback line of customers piled in front of the ticket counter.

In a tone just a notch below hysterical, I informed the woman behind the counter that I needed to be on the next flight to Boston or anywhere between here and Boston at any cost. I had my credit card out, ready to charge my way back to sanity, when the woman informed me (in a rather sassy tone, I might add) that there are no more seats available on outgoing flights tonight. She said if I wanted to get in line and wait like everyone else, she could see about putting me on standby.

At that point in time, my only intention was to utilize a firm, but compassionate touch to convey to this woman how urgent my request was. However, some of the people in line who saw me climb across the counter, seize the woman by her ridiculous bowtie, and lift her off her feet, seemed to think that what I was doing actually fell under the category of assault.

The security officers at JIA apparently believed that to be the case, otherwise I don’t think they would have used a taser gun to subdue me (I suppose I should be thankful it wasn‘t a real gun). Nor would they have dragged me into this little room, handcuffed me to a folding chair, and left me to sit here alone with my thoughts.

Although I can see how my actions may have been misconstrued, I maintain that I am an innocent person who was driven to the point of desperation by forces out of my control. It is not my fault that there are no lifeguards in the gene pool. I did not ask to share DNA with a troupe of individuals whose light bulbs have been permanently dimmed. I am the lone Halogen among them and I have paid the price for it.

These are the same people that I ran away from to go to college in another state. I haven’t been home since Christmas four years ago when I spent nine whole days (eight days too many) visiting my family and getting a refresher course in why I decided to go school in Boston in the first place.

Okay, you’re judging me again.

I am not a horrible person. Do I need to reiterate my previous paragraph of self-praise? I’m a good person, I swear. I love my family, I really do, but they’re crazy people. All of them. They make me, even in my current state, look like I’m as put-together as a Martha Stewart gift basket (pre-prison Martha, not the new Martha).

I know you’re mumbling to yourself that all families are a little crazy and maybe I’m just over-exaggerating, but who are you to judge levels of craziness if you’re talking to a book?
Listen to me, okay, I’m not completely uncultured. I know that everyone’s family has a little craziness to it. Everyone has skeletons in the closet, everyone has a black sheep, everyone has a few family gatherings that go awry. I know that. But my family has storage units full of skeletons, a flock of black sheep, and not one family gathering that has ever, EVER gone well.

E-V-E-R.

Including this very Christmas.

Although technically the holiday is not over yet…something that scares me more than the current odds on me getting a cavity search sometime in the very near future.
No sooner has that disturbing thought passed through my head (though not for the first time in the hour or so that I’ve been confined to this place), than the door to my tiny cell flies open and the hulking frame of Tony the Security Guard takes up a position in the doorway that completely eclipses my view of the hall behind him.

“You still thinking about taking a swing at me?” He asks. I shake my head vigorously.

“No sir, Officer,” I reply. “I apologize for that, I got a little carried away.”

“Just a little,” says Tony with a short chuckle. He moves into the room and shuts the door behind him with a thud. I unconsciously kick my feet to move my chair as far back into the corner as it will go, feeling a bit claustrophobic now that Tony (who I’m sure someone at some point in his life has been called “Big Tony”) has cut the size of the tiny room in half.

“Listen, Officer,” I begin, “I know I caused a major spectacle out there at the ticketing counter, but it’s been a long couple of days.”

“Tell me about it,” says Tony as he sinks into the folding chair across the table from mine. The chair creaks loudly and I’m terribly afraid it’s going to explode, but Tony seems unconcerned. He reaches across his inflated body to pluck a candy cane from the breast pocket of his uniform.

“I really don’t want to waste your time,” I insist from my side of the table. “I’m sure there are much more dangerous airline travelers out there that you should be questioning instead of me.” Tony peels back the plastic wrapping on his candy cane and happily shoves the straight end into his mouth, leaving the curved portion to hang off his lips like a festive cigarette.

“You’re not wasting my time,” Tony says with a crooked smile. “I’d rather be in here eating my candy cane then be out there listening to all those people bitching and moaning about getting to wherever they’re going. Matter of fact, I’m good to sit right here with you until my shift ends.”

“And when might that be?” I ask hesitantly. Tony glances at the silver watch on his wrist that would probably fit around my calf, then folds his arms across his thick chest.

“About six hours,” he replies. His smile doubles in size and the candy cane moves from one corner of his mouth to the other.

“Well Officer, as much as I would like to sit here with you for the next six hours and watch you eat that candy cane, I really need to be getting on my way. I’m not sure if the nice lady at the ticket counter had a chance to put me on the stand-by list for the next flight to Boston before I threatened her, but at any rate I need to be making the necessary arrangements to get on that flight as soon as possible.” I offer Tony a big smile of my own, hoping to come across as pleasant and completely sane. He doesn’t seem convinced.

“You have some explaining to do first,” Tony says in a serious tone.

“Like what?”

“Well for starters…what in the hell are you wearing?” He has a valid point there. My outfit is cause for concern.

“It’s a costume,” I tell him. “I was in the Christmas Parade in St. Augustine earlier today and I haven’t had a chance to change.” That’s not exactly true. I did have a chance to change, but believe it or not that outfit would have been more disturbing than this one.

Tony doesn’t seem wholly convinced by my rebuttal, but he lets it go for the bigger issue that I was really hoping wasn’t going to come up.

“Alright then,” he says. “Then how about you explain to me why you was all over the news a few days ago for punching Santa Claus in the face.”

“Okay first of all, he wasn’t Santa Claus. He was an alcoholic homeless guy in a Santa costume.”

“Oh really? And here I was thinking Santa took time out of his busy day at the North Pole to hang around outside a mall in Boston ringing a little bell for charity.” Tony’s sarcasm is palpable.

“The bottom line is, no charges were filed,” I insist. Tony hesitates before he poses his next question.

“You know what the problem is with people like you?” Tony asks, leaning forward and placing his forearms on the card table. “You can be in a crowd of hundreds, and yet you can’t see past the three feet of space you’re taking up on this Earth.”

“I don’t think I’m one of those people,” I reply a little tersely. I’m in no mood to be patronized by a giant, candy cane-eating security guard.

“Of course you don’t,” Tony says coolly. “But you are.”

“If I was one of those people, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because if I was one of those people—a selfish person like you’re implying—I would be in Boston right now enjoying my Christmas holiday with my friends and a good bottle of wine.”

“I see,” Tony says with an amused raise of his eyebrows. “And for what unselfish reason did you come spend Christmas with us Florida lowlifes instead of your buddies in Boston?”

“Well it’s sort of a long story,” I say. “I guess I came down here to give my family another chance. I wanted to see if they’d really changed in the last four years.”

“How does that lead to you trying to throttle one of my fellow airline employees?”

“My family is crazy. Absolutely, unequivocally crazy. I would have sworn them off years ago if they hadn’t still been paying my college tuition.”

“That sounds totally unselfish to me,” Tony says sarcastically.

“It’s not what you think,” I tell him. “My parents are divorced—“

“So are mine.”

“—and they’ve both remarried.”

“So have mine.”

“I have ten brothers and sisters.”

“So your family is large, big deal.”

“I also have an adopted African boy living in my dad’s backyard.” This gives Tony pause. His jaw goes a little slack and the candy cane slips forward a bit, but he quickly regains his composure and leans back in the chair, which elicits another loud creak.

“Okay that’s a little strange,” Tony admits, “but that still doesn’t give you cause to disrupt airport travel on Christmas Eve.”

“No, but the events of the last four days do,” I reply.

“Like what?”

“Where do you want me to begin?”

“Well I suppose the beginning would be a good place,” Tony says with that nasty tone of sarcasm again.

“You mean the beginning as in my parents’ marriage at a shady wedding chapel in Daytona, or the beginning as in when I accidentally burned down my adopted African brother’s tribal hut?”
Tony tries hard not to show it, but he’s definitely intrigued.

“Wherever you need to start to convince me that I need to let you out of this room so you can get on a plane and take your ass back to Boston.”

“Alright then…we’ll start at the wedding chapel and work our way forward.”

“I’ve got six hours, let’s go.”

“Tony,” I say sincerely, “I’m not sure that’s enough time.”

PROPERTY OF SHANNON L. O'NEIL. DO NOT PUBLISH WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF THE AUTHOR.