Fiction

Patience, Piss, and Corruption

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Patience Easley walked almost sideways, her hip and knee and back holding on to a grinding ache. It helped when she could push the yellow janitor’s cart down the hallway to take some of the pressure off the lower joints. She had no medical leave, no retirement fund stashed away. She’d never had enough left over to save, borrowing money to keep her lights on from the local payday lender and title pawn. She had dropped out of high school at 16 to help her family, and had kept two part-time jobs ever since. With no children of her own, Patience was the one everybody in her circle came running to when they needed something. She paid bail for her nephew every time he got locked up for drugs and probation violations, and she had a boyfriend who mostly stayed away but would cozy up to her when he needed something. Piss and corruption. I’ll have to work until the day I die was the mantra that replayed in her mind all day.

The temperature was such that she wasn’t sweating, but she could feel a viscous oil coating her face and scalp. Her bra dug into the fat under her arms and she had to stop every few minutes to fix the shoulder straps that were stretched out and slipping down. It was Monday, and she longed for the day to be done. As soon as she got home to her single-wide trailer, she would shower the day away and watch it swirl down the drain.

Bump bump bump went the wheels of her cart over the tiles of the high school floor. A fetid odor came from the dirty mop water that needed to be refreshed, but that would mean another lap around the building to the spigot, and she didn’t have it in her today. Tomorrow she would do better. The boss man, Darius, was all over her ass anyway. Why not give him something to gripe about? It was sort of a fun past time at this point. It’s not like they’d fire her. They wouldn’t be able to get anyone else to come to work every day at these wages. Used to be, you could get benefits working for the school system and that would make it almost worth your while to bust your butt. But now that the school had outsourced all the custodial services to this private company, they worked the meager crew like mules. They didn’t even get invited to the employee Christmas dinner anymore now that they weren’t technically school personnel. Piss and corruption.

She passed by the young, first-year teacher’s classroom, the tall long-haired blonde still busy at work. It was nearly 7:00. Better her than me. Patience had seen her share of first-year teachers in her 43 years at the high school. They cared so much about their work. They were on a mission to save the world every day, and when they hadn’t, they’d stay through the late night hours trying to figure out where they went wrong. Patience wanted badly to shake the girl, to tell her she couldn’t save them all, to go home and get a life while she still had the chance. Instead, she simply asked, “Mind if I get your trash, Miss Vanloo?”

“No problem at all, Miz Patience! I keep it right back here behind my desk.” She carried the can over to the door.

A little voice in Patience’s head told her to stick around. “Thank ya, Miss Vanloo. Say, your floors are looking pretty dirty. I’ll sweep up for ye real quick.”

“Alright. Thank you, Miz Patience.” It mildly irritated Patience for uppity southern white people to call her like that. She found it condescending, but she knew they were just trying to be polite. Think they’re making up for Jim Crow calling me ‘Miz’. Piss and corruption.

The young teacher kept her nose down, flipping through papers and every so often turning to click-clack on her computer. It occurred to Patience that Miss Vanloo probably felt just as trapped as she did sometimes.

“Ya oughtta call it quits here soon and head ta the house. That work’ll be waitin on ye tomorrow. It ain’t goin nowhere.”

“You’re rrrrriii!” Elizabeth Vanloo started to say as a powerful thunderclap shook the schoolhouse. A couple seconds later, the power went out. “Did you know it was supposed to storm tonight, Miz Patience?”

“No’um, I hadn’t watched the weather report in a good long while.”

The emergency lights in the hallway flicked on. Piss and corruption.

“Let me check my phone… oh rats! My phone’s dead, and I left my charger at my apartment.”

“We had better hang tight til all this passes over. I’d rather be in here than on the side a the road,” Patience said.

The young teacher sighed a slow, deep breath. Patience finished up her sweeping and rolled her cart back to the janitor’s closet. The emergency lights cast eerie shadows on the walls and floor. She felt like she was walking through a passageway into the Twilight Zone.

She picked up a flashlight and an old hand crank weather radio off the back of one of the closet shelves and headed back to Miss Vanloo’s room. On the way, she stopped at a window and watched a torrent of rain and hail coming down. The sky was a witchy green color.

“We don’t need to go nowhere, girl. Best get com’terble and stay put. There’s hail comin down the size a quarters, and the sky looks like a tornada could touch down any minute.” Elizabeth grimaced at the thought of her new car out there in the elements. She had worked so hard to get to the point where she could afford monthly payments, and now it was out there getting battered.

The weather radio confirmed Patience’s suspicions:  a tornado watch was in effect for their county until 3:00 a.m. There’s one—and probably only one—advantage to being a janitor though; janitors get master keys to every room in the building. “Let’s go fix us somethin ta eat,” she said.

The cafeteria, known to be filled with the overwhelming noise of lunching teenagers, was chillingly quiet. Elizabeth held the door to the walk-in pantry while Patience searched with her flashlight and started grabbing this and that. They were coming to the end of the month and the nutrition lady hadn’t yet stocked the shelves for the coming weeks. But if Patience knew nothing else, she had learned how to put together a stick-to-your-ribs meal off foraged ingredients.

They tried one of the gas stoves. Yes! It worked. Patience set out to prepare their supper, mixing a bunch of mayonnaise packets with instant potato flakes and water in the smallest pot she could find, which was still way too big for just the two of them. She had Elizabeth open a can of stewed tomatoes while she chopped up some little breakfast sausage links into bite-sized pieces. After the fats from the sausage coated the pan, Patience took a little bit of flour to make a roux and poured the tomatoes in, making a sausage and tomato gravy that smelled so rich you could taste it through your nose. Patience felt the touch of ancient memory blessing her hands, as she did anytime she cooked, of ancestral kitchen maids and fieldhands and hunter gatherers, all unlikely survivors. They ate the comforting meal off the kids’ plastic trays using sporks to scoop up the luscious potatoes and gravy. “How’d you learn to cook like that, Miz Patience?”

“I got hongry,” Patience said with a straight face. Nothing had hit Elizabeth Vanloo so funny in a long time. They both shared a genuine belly laugh like old friends.

Patience took a large scoop of food into her mouth when she remembered something funny her baby brother had said years ago. As the wind rushed in through her nose and mouth to produce laughter, it caught the blob of potatoes and sausage and hurled it deep into her trachea. She couldn’t cough it up. The viscid comfort food stuck like glue.

Elizabeth’s mind was on an old flame from college. The handsome fellow was strong but a little soft around the middle because he loved to eat. He had cooked for her at his duplex many times before his wandering eyes had drifted from her long blonde hair to some black-haired beauty that reminded him of his mother. Patience was slumped over and nearly unconscious before Elizabeth realized she was choking.

In a panic, Elizabeth patted Patience’s back like she was trying to console a hysterical child. Finally coming to her senses, she went to perform the Heimlich Maneuver but couldn’t get her arms around the old woman’s thick waist. Patience fell to the floor and Elizabeth began beating on her back as hard as she could. She did this for six full minutes before giving up. In one last act of desperation, Elizabeth rolled the poor woman onto her side and kicked her square in the back like she was punting a football. Patience was already dead, her eyes rolled back into her heavy head and every aching muscle limp as wet noodles. A puddle of feculent urine began forming on the floor underneath her and Elizabeth jumped out of the way in disgust.

The young woman’s heart raced but her legs wouldn’t take her anywhere. Her eyes fixed on the old woman, but her pretty head was empty. She felt a tingle in her manicured fingertips and toes that graduated up her arms and legs toward her center and made the fuzzy little hairs stand up. The foul smell of the dead woman’s shit woke her from her trance, and she backed away. She went to her desk phone and dialed 9-1-1.

“9-1-1, what is your emergency?” the dispatcher answered.

“We are stuck, me and this janitor lady, we’ve been stuck at school in this storm, and we got something to eat, she cooked us this food, the janitor, and she choked and I tried to help her, I tried but she’s not breathing and I really think she’s dead. I need some help. I think she’s dead. Please send help.”

“Ma’am, my GPS tells me you’re at the high school, is that correct?”

“Yes ma’am, the high school.”

“And you’ve been stuck there in this storm and the woman with you has choked, is that correct?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Do she have a pulse?”

“Ugh, I don’t know. I didn’t think to check for a pulse.”

“Okay, I want you to go back to her and feel for a pulse.”

“Okay, but she’s all the way in the cafeteria.”

“I’ll wait for you here on the phone. Don’t hang up. Go check for a pulse.”

“Okay.” Elizabeth ran back, knowing she wouldn’t find a pulse, and sure enough, the blood in the old woman’s veins was stagnant as pondwater. She walked back, tears trickling down her cheeks.

“There’s no pulse. There’s no pulse at all. She’s dead.”

“Okay, ma’am? I understand you’re upset, but I need you to listen carefully and stay calm. We are under a severe weather advisory and we cannot send anyone out right now unless it is an active emergency. Since the lady you are with has already passed, we will not send anyone there immediately and risk the well-being of our first responders. We will send them out as soon as this weather clears and we can safely send someone to you. Do not go anywhere. Do not leave the school until someone arrives to help you, okay?”

“Yes ma’am.” Elizabeth gulped air in between sobs.

“Would you like me to stay on the phone with you for awhile?” said the dispatcher.

“No ma’am, that’s okay. I’ll be alright. Thank you.”

“Okay, you stay safe. Take care now. Bye-bye.”

“Bye.”

A chill ran up Elizabeth’s spine. She stood up and walked to the double doors at the end of the hallway, where she watched rain come in sideways and pound on the glass. A puddle of rainwater was seeping in under the doors and she remembered the putrid puddle beneath the corpse. She gagged and fell to her knees. She wanted to go home.

She sat with her back against the cinder block wall and pondered her existence. Maybe it was this brush with death or the wind whispering to her through the double doors. Maybe it was the walls closing in on her or the memory of wasted opportunities, but at that moment, Elizabeth had to get out of that building. She needed to feel the rain on her skin. She needed to feel anything other than everything on her mind.

She wanted to forget everything and for a moment, live. She forgot many things walking out those doors, including her keys to get back inside. She remembered them when the door slammed shut.

She had always done what she was told. She was always trying to live up to someone else’s expectations. No more, she vowed to herself, walking off the walkway and into the soggy grass, wind whipping her wet hair around like a cat o’ nine tails. She walked back in the direction of her apartment, willing the storm to lift her from the ground and carry her. To hell with this place. Live or die, I’m going home and I’m never coming back.

The moment of madness was temporary, and Elizabeth soon found herself inferior to the elements. She stopped at an old abandoned gas station, the only building remotely close to the rural school. She beat on the front door to no avail, so she went around to the back to find an unlocked door banging open and shut with the whipping winds. She went inside for some shelter. How am I going to explain myself? she thought in a sudden panic.

Patience watched the girl from the other side. “Piss and corruption. She gone and left me laying there like some dog. Shoulda left her there, crazy heifer.”

The wind slammed the door shut behind Elizabeth.

Desires of the Heart

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Aunt Ruth wasn’t really an aunt at all, we just called her kin because she was more than kith to MawMaw. Her hair was fire engine red, and she always wore cat eye spectacles with a beaded chain that would hold them around her neck. She loved Jesus as any good country woman would and she knew how to behave herself in mixed company, but she liked to dip snuff and she cussed a little.

Aunt Ruth had grown up poor like everyone else in Sparta, Georgia, at that time, but she had managed to get by picking cotton and eventually got a job as a secretary for a businessman in town. She never took a sick day and held her boss man in the highest regard, as women were wont to do in those days. He had given her a job that didn’t require breaking her back in the fields; he had been the reason she didn’t have to worry about food on the table or paying a bill. She retired at 65, but continued to talk about what a nice man he was for the rest of her life.

Never married, she lived in a small A-frame house, always neat and tidy since there were no children. Her front porch was cute as could be—daisies in pots next to the porch swing with daffodils and hyacinth in a perfectly placed flower bed. She mostly came to visit with MawMaw at her house, but on the occasions that we visited her, we could always expect a treat out of her cookie jar. Ginger cookies were her favorite. And a cold Coca-Cola to wash it down with.

She liked to play gin rummy with MawMaw, and when they weren’t playing cards, they were looking at the Simplicity catalog and gushing about the outfits they’d like to make if they could just find the right material. Aunt Ruth was very stylish in my eyes, a very put-together lady, and she loved fashion.

“Ruth, you ought to make that dress. Might getchew a man in that ‘un!” MawMaw would say.

“I reckon it’s too late for me to get a man now, Louise.”

“Hogwash. Any woman your age still wearing heels and not a lick of gray hair? You’ve just got to wait for the right one to show up.”

“Louise, it’s called Clairol. You should getchew some. And I been waiting 83 years. If he shows up today, he sure don’t care about punctuality.”

“All in the Lord’s perfect timing.”

At 83 years old, Ruth didn’t really care anymore about finding a husband. She did, however, want a child of her own. I think she doted on us to make up for it, spending time with us playing dolls and having tea parties. She loved tea sets and had a large collection of them in her china cabinet at home. Since she didn’t have wedding china, she filled it with other things.

In those days, there was a filling station as you came into Milledgeville, just over the river bridge. A dashing young man named John worked there as an attendant, and it seemed that the station was always busiest during his shift. All the ladies’ cars ran low on gas at the same time, when he happened to be available to fill them up.

John had a head full of dark hair and stood tall at 6’1”. He kept his shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal his defined biceps, and the material across his chest pulled a bit at the buttons. His brawny physique came from early mornings on his father’s dairy farm, pulling calves, hauling hay, and anything else his parents needed him to do in lieu of paying for room and board. His Mama fed him a good meat-and-potatoes diet, and she prayed he would find a good Christian woman to do the same for him one day.

John wanted to go to college, so he saved every dime he made at the filling station. He had hoped that he would get a football scholarship somewhere, but senior year came and went and well… here he was.

In April of 1969, John had finally saved enough to pay for his first semester of school. He applied to the University of Georgia, saying a prayer over the envelope as he stamped it and placed it in the box at the post office. He had a plan. He would move in with his Uncle Horace and Aunt Christy in Watkinsville and work at his uncle’s auto repair shop until he could afford to move all the way into Athens on his own. Three weeks later, the mailman delivered a letter addressed to him from the Office of Admissions.

His mother laid it at the foot of his bed so he would see it when he came home. She had a bittersweet moment, thinking of him as a little boy, now grown up and moving off to start his own life. A life better than theirs, a life of more comfort and wealth. Her baby was going to be a college educated man.

With bated breath, John opened the envelope. “We regret to inform you…” it began. He laid down on his bed for a good long miserable hour, and then an indignant anger started to rise up within his chest. He sat up. The anger continued to rise like a fever into his head, and when it did, he stood up, took all the money he had—stored in a shoebox in the back of his closet—and stormed out the door. They didn’t want him at their school? Fine. He was going to buy him a motorcycle, dammit.

It was Aunt Ruth’s 84th birthday. She got up at 4:45 a.m., as usual, and spent quiet time with the Lord on her mustard yellow settee in the sitting room. She propped her slippered feet up on the coffee table, turned to the Psalms and settled on number 37.

Trust in the Lord, and do good;

dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

Delight yourself in the Lord,

and He will give you the desires of your heart.

She made herself a breakfast of two eggs, a piece of smoked sausage, and grapefruit. She normally wasn’t so hungry first thing in the morning, but today she wanted a fortifying stick-to-your-bones kind of meal. She would skip lunch, she thought, and hold out for the big birthday dinner at MawMaw’s that evening.

She piddled around the house for awhile, watering her flowers, working on her cross stich sampler, and watching Andy Griffith. She decided she would go into town—it being her birthday after all—and finally get that pretty dark pink silky material she had been eyeing for months. It was expensive, but she couldn’t remember the last time she treated herself. She figured it was a good a day as any to splurge a little.

She pulled her Buick into the A&P parking lot first, remembering that she needed to replenish her coffee canister. When she got out of the car, she met John in the parking lot. He was coming out of the store with a brown bag concealing a six-pack of Schlitz beer.

“Hello, young man.”

“Hey Mrs. Ruth, how are you doing today?”

“I’m doing just fine, thank you. It’s my 84th birthday. I’m happy to be seen and not viewed!”

John gave her a courteous chuckle. Then he got a notion. “Mrs. Ruth, how would you like to go for a ride on my new motorbike?”

“Oh, I don’t think so, sugar. I might fall off or something.”

“No ma’am, I wouldn’t dare let you fall off. Let me give you a ride. I just got it. 1969 Harley-Davidson.”

“Well…” She thought for a moment. She thought of her simple life and all the chances she hadn’t taken. She thought of her heart’s desires. “Why not!” she said to the handsome young twenty-one year old.

They rode for miles that afternoon. All over the county. Everyone they passed stared at them, puzzled. This old woman on the back of a motorcycle with her hands around the waist of the most eligible bachelor in town.

When he got to the river bridge, he accelerated, and she felt the bike lift in the front. “Yippee!” she cried in his ear. They felt a rush of wind, his dark hair waving freely and her perm and set gone to all hell. All at once, something radiated out of their chests and rose from their shoulders. John laughed. Ruth smiled and squeezed him tighter.

Running on Empty

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The fog was so thick I had to creep along at 10 miles an hour. I passed a mile marker sign, then another, then finally a sign that listed a single gas station at the next exit. I rolled up the exit ramp, a right at the stop sign—praying no one was coming—and made it into the Citgo parking lot. I picked up my cell phone out of the cup holder. No service.

Fine. Might as well get out and get something warm to drink. I dug through the console for enough change to buy a coffee and went on inside.

“Do you have a bathroom?” I asked the attendant.

“Around the corner. Here’s the key,” he said, looking up from a newspaper. Great, no cell service and an outside bathroom.

I walked around outside and started to unlock the door, but it was already open. I flipped on the light switch, and there in the corner of that nasty little dark bathroom was a child. She was maybe five or six years old with long, tangled brown hair and a dirty face.

“What are you doing here, little one?” I asked in the softest voice I could manage having just been startled. I had a feeling that if I spoke the wrong way, I might scare her off like a stray animal.

“Mama told me to stay right here. She’ll be back in the morning.”

“Okay, where did your Mama go?”

“To work.”

“Well, where does she work?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay, well I’m going to see if I can get you some help. Are you hungry?”

“A little bit.”

I ran back inside and told the man at the register about the unexpected bathroom guest. “Oh, that little rat! I’m sorry about that. I told her Mama not to leave her there!” he said, irritated.

“Well, no, it’s okay, but we need to call the police or DFACS or something, right? And she says she’s hungry.”

“Of course she is. Those two cost me too much. Take her a pack of peanuts off that rack and you best be getting on.”

“But…”

“I said you best be getting on. She’s not your problem. I’ll handle her.”

Shocked to my core, I walked backward a couple of steps and turned to walk back out to my car. I sat there in silence for a while, looking down at my hands on the cool steering wheel. I would have to keep driving and find cell service so that I could call for help, but I didn’t want to leave the girl alone. I looked up through the windshield and locked eyes with the man at the register. I knew I had to get her out of there.

I raced my car around the building, yanked the girl off the floor and told her she had to get in the car. I caught sight of the man running around the corner as I closed her passenger door. He caught me at my side of the car, and thick, calloused fingers grabbed at the edge of the door, prying it open. I turned around and donkey kicked him in the groin, slammed my door shut and put pedal to metal. “We’re going to find your Mama,” I said.

We lost sight of him in the fog pretty quickly. I nearly missed the ramp to get back on I-75N. I had to find cell service. The girl sat quietly without shedding a tear. She’s used to this chaos, I thought as we sped down the highway, me keeping my eyes on the dotted white lines in front of me as best I could. The visibility was only about fifteen feet. “We’ll get you something to eat soon. I know you’re hungry, but I had to get you safe. Away from that bad man. Do you know him?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Who is he?”

“Mama’s boss.”

It all became clear to me in the silence that followed. Her Mama must be a prostitute and he, her pimp. I lifted my phone out of the cup holder, taking my eyes off the road long enough to see that there was still no cell service. “HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK!”

I jerked the steering wheel, luckily in the right direction. The Mack truck blazed past me in the mist. “You had better put on your seatbelt, child.” She did.

Just then, I heard a shot, then another, and a couple seconds later, felt the air going out of the back tire on the driver’s side. We rode even faster on the rim, trying to lose the bastard. We had just passed an exit and I could see nowhere to go but off the road. “Hang on tight.” I jerked the wheel to the right. The car went down an embankment and flipped twice. Please God, make a way.

We landed right side up, thank God, and I told the little girl to get out. “We have to run now.”

I held onto my phone and raced with the little girl through the trees back toward the last exit. The terrain was hilly and uneven and the underbrush tore at my pant legs. I held onto her tiny hand, grimy and cold. She couldn’t have even reached the sink back there in that abysmal place. It wasn’t long before we came to a clearing and a dirt road. Unbelievable. An unpaved road next to the Interstate.

I checked my phone again. One bar. I dialed 9-1-1. When the dispatcher picked up, I couldn’t hear her clearly and I was sure she couldn’t understand me, breaking up as bad as it was. I just prayed that they would be able to track us using GPS from my phone or something. Please, God.

We walked down the road, hoping to find a house with a friendly resident.

“You best leave that child with me and get on, ma’am,” the man said from behind us. All the blood ran out of my head as I realized he had caught up with us. I felt sick and turned around, trying to control my breathing. Please God, make a way.

“No sir. I’m going to get this child home safe.”

“Ain’t got no home, that ‘un. And I done told ye, she’s my problem. Not yers. Get on and we won’t have no more trouble.”

“I can’t do that.”

“We might have a problem then,” he said as he pulled his gun.

“Shit, Jim. Put that thang up!” came an elderly female voice behind us, then the sound of a shotgun being cocked.

“Aww, go own Edna! This bitch messin’ around what none ‘a her bidness. I ken take care my own!”

“Your bidness ain’t right, Jim, and both you and I know it. Now go own and I’ll take care a this,” said the old lady in curlers and house coat.

“Damn it, Edna,” he said just before he shot her in the arm. She returned fire quickly, hitting him right between the eyes. A fine shot for an old woman with one usable arm. He keeled right over backwards, his heavy head making a thud in the red dirt and sending up a cloud of dust.

“Y’all get own inside and we’ll call the law,” she said.

We sat down on her sagging floral print sofa while she phoned the sheriff’s department. The living room walls had 70s style wood paneling from floor to ceiling. The house smelled like cigarette smoke, baby powder, and Aquanet hairspray. There was a velvet painting of Elvis Presley beside her television with an ornately carved wooden frame and two shelves on the adjoining wall holding a dusty collection of curiosities. There was a bookshelf with no books, save a Bible and a Rand McNally Illustrated Atlas of the World. There were several photo frames with the store pictures still in them. In a tiny metal frame was a wallet size Olan Mills photo of a young boy with a bowl cut. He looked familiar.

I drew in a long sip of oxygen and blew it out, the first deep breath I had taken since stopping at the Citgo. I turned my head and saw that the girl was gently fingering the yarn in a crocheted afghan thrown over the armrest. Poor thing, she must not know what to make of all this. “Are you okay, darlin?”

“Yes ma’am. I’m glad my Granny found us.”

Rooster

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None of this would’ve happened if Daddy hadn’t fallen asleep. Mama was working her shift at the hospital and since he wasn’t working that weekend, he was supposed to be watching my baby brother and me. It was a beautiful, sunshiny day with just the right amount of breeze to make it comfortable. Daddy had taken us back to the pond that morning, propping brother up on some old quilts in the back of his pickup truck and trying to teach me how to bait a hook. I didn’t want to touch the juicy red wrigglers, so he just kept doing it for me. I caught a couple of bream the size of fish sticks and decided I had had enough, so I whined until Daddy packed everything back up and took us home. And besides, I had wet my pants because I was too scared to squat behind the tree. I don’t care what Daddy said, it looked like prime boogeyman territory to me.

We got back home around 11:30 and had an early lunch of boiled hot dogs and boxed macaroni and cheese. Brother had his Gerber peas and applesauce and went down for a nap. I, on the other hand, had established that I was too old for naps. Daddy said “I don’t care what you do, just go to your room and be quiet. If you wake up your brother, I will tan your hide.” Let me explain. If you weren’t raised in the South, bless your heart, you might not understand that there are echelons to corporal punishment. There’s the “pop”, usually reserved for babies and toddlers, which is just a little tap on the hand or foot. This says, “You’re too little for a spanking, but in a couple years this is going to turn into one. Straighten up, little grasshopper.” There’s the spanking, a traditional hand to butt transaction. The next level of discipline would be the “whooping”, which usually entails a paddle, switch, or belt. You have really ticked off one of your elders at this point, but the worst punishment of all is “tan your hide”. It is typically administered by fathers or really mean Grannies and is reserved for special occasions.

So I pitter pattered back to my bedroom and closed the door.

You can’t fault a 6-year-old for being curious. It’s in the nature of an intelligent child to question the world around him or her, and I was brilliant, thank you very much. It occurred to me, sitting there in my quiet bedroom, that if a chicken could hatch an egg by sitting on it, then so could I.

With this notion, I considered that Daddy had not yet gotten the eggs that day and wouldn’t I be helpful if I just went ahead and took care of that chore for him? He would be appreciative that I had done him this favor, him being so tired and all. So with Daddy sawing logs in his living room chair, I set out on my mission.

The window was a little tricky to get open, but with a little finagling, I finally figured out how to unlock the window and push it up. The screen was easy—it just popped right out. As luck would have it, the monstrous air conditioner was right below my window, just like a stairstep. I hopped down onto the unit and right down to the soft green grass below.

I ran all the way to the chicken pen. (See, there’s part of the trail from our house all the way to Granny’s house that Papa’s shop casts a shadow over. One does not simply walk past the shop. You must run or the boogeyman will get you.) I jumped to unlatch the eye hook on the door, propped it open, and went on in the pen. Thinking I was about to feed them, the fowl followed me back to their nests, where I found six brown eggs and two beautiful blue ones. I held out my too-short t-shirt and put the eggs in the pouch as I had seen Granny do before to carry eggs. One rolled out the side and cracked on the ground, so I set the rest of the eggs down on the dirt while I tried to cover it up. Daddy wouldn’t like it if he saw that I had dropped one of his precious eggs. This turned out to be kind of fun, it looking like brownie batter and all, so I plopped down right there in the chicken shit and made a beautiful mud pie. The chickens were starting to peck at the eggs I had laid on the ground, so I scooped them back up and headed back for home. As it turns out, I forgot to shut the door to the pen.

By this time, Daddy was up and yelling my name desperately, “Alice! Aliiiiiiiiiice! Oh God, oh God, I’ve lost my child!” I knew I was in trouble, so I snuck in the back door and went to my room just as he started off toward the corn field. I could still hear him yelling my name, but I was right back where I was supposed to be, and besides, his only rule was that I not wake up brother. He didn’t say I couldn’t go get the eggs.

I proceeded with my science experiment. I decided that I should take off my pants to sit on the egg, because chickens don’t wear pants. I placed the first egg on the floor and sat on it. Smush. I took the second egg and made a nest for it with the blanket off my bed. I gently sat on it this time. Smush. It was when I picked up the third egg that I heard Daddy howling with tears outside and figured I better go check on him. I had never heard Daddy cry at all, much less like this. “Oh God, oh God! Please! Where is my baby girl? Please God!”

I creeped out of my room and toward the kitchen door as Daddy trudged up the stoop. I saw the shadow of a great winged demon fly up from the floor as Daddy opened the screen door. “Squawwwk!” The rooster! The rooster got out! The rooster was on Daddy’s head!

As Daddy flailed and fought with the rooster, I ran for my life toward the back door and all the way to Granny’s house. I was surely a goner unless I made it into the loving arms of our matriarch. Standing in my underwear with raw egg all over my butt, I banged on her back door with all my might. “Granny! Granny! You’ve got to let me in! Grannnnnnyyyyyy!”

Thinking the worst, Granny opened the door and shooed me inside, locking the door behind me… and she never locked the door. “What on earth, Alice? What on earth is it?” I explained to her in no uncertain terms that I was just trying to help get the eggs and the rooster got out and Daddy was going to kill me. Kill me dead.

When Daddy came up to Granny’s door, he had a dead rooster in one hand and his belt in the other. “You’ll not lay a hand on this child,” Granny proclaimed as she consoled me in her rocking chair, feeding me an oatmeal cookie and a Coca-Cola. Granny saved my life that day.

Mama was grateful that, after a long day on her feet, she didn’t have to cook supper. “Granny, it was so sweet of you to cook supper tonight. This is the best chicken and rice I think I’ve ever tasted.”

“Rooster and rice,” Daddy moaned, his eyes downcast.

Nine Lives

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Melissa had severe cerebral palsy. The tendons in her wrists were stiff and curled her hands up into unusable appendages. Her neck was spastic, making her head bob uncontrollably. Not a single part of her body cooperated with what she wanted to do, including speaking clearly. How she wished she could say what was on her mind!

She had grown up in special education classrooms that were completely separated from the rest of the “normal” kids. While her mind was sharp, her body wouldn’t communicate her intelligence to the rest of the world. She was confined to a motorized wheelchair, which, in turn, confined her to only the places her wheelchair would fit.

Melissa loved her Mama and Daddy with all her heart. They were the ones who bathed her, fed her, lifted her in and out of her chair, and at the end of the day, still found the emotional strength to lie down beside her and talk for a while. They were starved for alone time, while Melissa sometimes felt like she was drowning in it. But you would never hear Dawn and Willis complain. Everything they did was for Melissa.

In her quiet time at home, Melissa liked to look at a family photo album that her Mama had put together. There were pictures of her grandparents and great aunts and uncles, cousins she had only met a couple of times, a young Dawn and Willis, and a baby Melissa. She was always careful not to stare at people in person –simply her presence made people uncomfortable enough—but photos allowed her to study the forms of healthy and happy people. She stared at the images for hours at a time, imagining the lives of others.

Willis drove log trucks until his diabetes got the best of him and put him on permanent disability. Dawn worked 52 years at the same insurance agency where she managed the office. Once Melissa aged out of public school, she started going to what they called the “Center”, a place for developmentally disabled adults to stay during the day. Melissa loved it. Much better than being isolated and feeling like one of the “others”, everyone at the Center WAS one of the “others”, and they became an extended family. At the Center, they got to participate in music and movement therapy led by local college students. They had reading time and movie time, and occasionally they got to travel to small concerts and school plays. But Melissa’s favorite activity was painting. Over time, she had learned to manipulate the brush with her mouth. She swirled and swooshed and swooped the color across the paper or –when the budget allowed—canvas. Painting allowed her pure self-expression in a way that her limited speech and motor skills could not, and it calmed her racing thoughts.

Out of the gazillion thoughts that stirred around in her head, Melissa had never considered outliving her parents. Even after her Daddy died, she couldn’t fathom a life without her Mama. Even when she found out her Mama had breast cancer, she took it as just another obstacle that they would overcome together. But one day, tucking her into bed as she had done a million times before, her Mama lie down beside her and explained in the calmest of terms that she was dying. The cancer had spread. She would not get better. They had about a month.

Dawn called a lawyer and set up a plan for Melissa’s care. The house and all their possessions, including her Daddy’s prized blue ’57 Chevy, would be sold and the money put into a trust. She would go to live in a group home, where her friend Cory from the Center lived. Even though they couldn’t talk to each other, at least they were familiar and could give each other a friendly nod of recognition from time to time. She would get to keep her bedroom furniture and the family photo album.

In three and a half weeks, hospice was called in, and after another couple days, Dawn was gone. Melissa was immediately taken to the group home. Orphaned. Disabled. It was the loneliest she had ever felt in her thirty-three years.

Dawn was cremated and a small service was held at their little brown country church. Melissa knew she had some family out there on her Mama’s side, but she didn’t know how to contact them. She recognized a few people from her Mama’s office at the service, but that was all.

After the funeral, Mrs. Sarah, the attorney, took Melissa back to the group home. She was late for lunch, but Mrs. Pat, the older widowed lady who worked there, had set aside a plate for her. Melissa parked herself at the round oak pedestal table. Mrs. Pat microwaved her plate and set it in front of her. The smell of warm cornbread dressing filled her nostrils and touched her soul. She cried her first tears at that table. It felt good to let it go. Mrs. Pat fed her small bites and let her cry, knowing the tears needed to come, not trying to stop them. When all the food was gone, she held onto Melissa’s curled up hands, not saying a word.

In the months that followed, Melissa found comfort in routine. Wake up, eat breakfast and get on the bus with Cory. After a day at the Center, get back on the bus home, eat dinner, sponge bath, TV time, and bed. Still, she missed the nightly talks with her Mama. She missed the song of the crickets outside the window at her old house in the country. She wished the lamp lights in town weren’t so bright, and the occasional midnight siren startled her. So much was the same, and nothing was the same.

Soon, the holidays came and, between the staff at the Center and the group home, they all made sure Melissa didn’t have time to feel lonely. There were parties for days, carolers that stopped by, church services to attend, dance recitals to watch. For weeks, it was all she could do to stay awake for her bath. She was grateful for the diversions while they lasted.

On New Years Day, Mrs. Pat cooked black eyed peas, collard greens, fried pork chops, cornbread, and sweet potatoes. The food was comforting, but Melissa felt a dark space in her heart. The holidays were coming to an end. Tomorrow, the Christmas decorations would start to come down and make room for more solitude. She wasn’t ready for the “new normal” to resume. She asked to be excused for a nap, and Mrs. Pat obliged.

Rolling into her room, she picked up the family photo album and sat it on the bed. Mrs. Pat strapped her into the motorized lift and gently laid her down on her side so that she could flip through the pictures. Once Mrs. Pat closed the door, Melissa’s tears began to fall. It’s not supposed to be this way. I was supposed to die first.

A high-pitched meow interrupted her downward emotional spiral. Melissa looked up to see an orange tabby saunter across the room and hop up onto the bed. The cat circled and nestled down in the crook of Melissa’s arm, right on top of the photo album. She looked down and noticed that the tip of the cat’s tail was broken and stuck out in the wrong direction. It can’t be. No, it can’t be, can it?

Dawn had often told stories about her childhood cat, Rusty, an orange tabby with a tail broken from her accidentally shutting it in the kitchen door. Dawn had adored the cat, and it had shown her great affection, allowing her to dress it in baby doll clothes and feed it ice cream from a spoon. She used to tell Melissa about the cat’s purr that sounded more like the trill of a bird than a feline and how the tabby would hop on all fours if you made a popping sound with your mouth. It was a clever cat with impeccable hearing that would find Dawn immediately when she called his name.

Rusty. Melissa nuzzled the cat with her nose, and he turned around and put the little pink pads of his paw on her cheek, making her giggle. To see what would happen, Melissa called the name, which came out “Ussy”. The cat purred a strange, high-pitched sound that she hadn’t heard from a cat before. A great calm fell over Melissa, and both she and Rusty fell into a deep sleep.

As her mother would say, she must’ve needed the rest, because Melissa slept soundly through the rest of the afternoon and all night, waking at 5:14 a.m. The album had fallen to the floor. Rusty was gone, but the peace of the surprise visitor remained.

The Galaxy 500

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Ralph Harris was a drunk son-of-a-bitch. And a bitch his mother was. She once signed up to be a “foster grandparent” for a local hospital just to get the stipend. She looked down her nose at everyone except Preacher Roberson, and she talked about him behind his back. In those days, the only phone lines were party lines, and Mrs. Harris spent 14 hours a day on the phone gossiping. Nobody else on Barnes Ferry Road could use the phone. You’d have to ask her, “Mrs. Harris, can I please use the phone?” to which she would say that it would only be a few more minutes. After several more minutes, “Mrs. Harris, I have GOT to use the phone. Please.” To which Mrs. Harris, personally offended, would huff and puff, “Well, alright then!”

The Harris family had a mean streak. Years of impoverished rural farm life had inspired the Harris daughters to marry and get the hell out of there while the ones left were hardened and bitter. They had always been dirt poor. But the people of Route 3 took care of their own. Daddy gave the widow Harris an acre next to his own farmland, upon which Mrs. Harris built a small house and settled. Until the day he died, Daddy regretted giving up that acre.

The boys had tried to do better. Ralph enlisted during the Korean Conflict. Joe tried to make it in Lincoln County, where the railroad and kaolin mines gave young men the chance to earn an honest living. But Joe chose booze over his job, wife, and kids, and by the early 60s, both men were back at home with their ornery Mama fighting over the TV.

Of course, I didn’t know all this at the time. I was only 8 years old, and all I knew was how much I wanted to drive Ralph’s ’64 Galaxy 500.

Back then, I had a motorized scooter that I must’ve put 100,000 miles on. It was loud as hell, and I tore up Barnes Ferry Road on that thing. I didn’t realize how aggravating I must have been until Joe shot a .22 over my head as soon as I passed their house one day. Scared shitless, I tore off through the cow pasture as fast as my little legs could carry me. Next thing I know, Mama and Aunt Lou were packing heat and headed over to the Harris’s to give them what for. I reckon it worked.

Ralph helped Daddy around the farm when he was sober. He’d be fine for a while. Good as gold until something would set him off and he’d be drunk for six weeks. Daddy hated it when he’d get drunk, but I didn’t mind. When Ralph was drunk, he let me drive.

I could barely see over the steering wheel. I had to stretch my toes out as far as they’d go just to get to the gas and brake pedals. The crunch of the tires over the little rocks in the road set my heart on fire. A left out of the driveway, past Granny Gilmer’s, past our house, past the parsonage, and another left at the stop sign put us on Montpelier Highway. The sun reflected off the shiny blue hood and into my already limited line of sight. I was in paradise.

“How fast do you think this thing will go, Ralph?”

“Faster than the 15 miles an hour you’re going right now, that’s for damn sure.”

He reached over and pushed my knee down. The engine revved and the car accelerated. I felt the blood in my veins pulse a little bit harder. The sun through the driver’s window warmed my arm and cheek. I sat up a little taller and scooted to the very edge of the seat, trying to keep up the increased speed. Ralph rolled down his window. The wind blowing over the car made a thunderous noise as it caught the window frame. As we passed the Epps place, Ralph snorted and spit.

“Ain’t as hot as it was in Korea. Shit, we’d be burning up one day and freezing the next. Never knew what you’d be dealing with.”

“So you happy to be home?”

“I’d be happier if my Mama’d get off the damn phone and do something. What’s your Mama cooking for supper?”

“I don’t know, probably rooster and rice. Daddy said he was gone kill that sumbitch Bantam if he got after him one more time.”

“Prob’ly so. I heard a ruckus this morning near the coop. Your Daddy prob’ly wrung his neck. Reckon your Ma would mind me eating with y’all tonight?”

“Yeah, you know Mama’ll feed anybody. I think Lizzy and them are coming over. And Aunt Ruby and Uncle Ray will come over to play rummy. I’m sure Mama can pull up another seat.”

——————————

Link sausage was sweating on the stove while Mama peeled an orange. The scent of citrus cut through the greasy air in the kitchen where we sat awaiting breakfast. Mama and Daddy had a handful of beliefs they would never sway from, not the least of which were the resurrection of Christ and the dominance of breakfast as the most important meal of the day, never to be skipped. I was sitting at the kitchen table over a Corelle mug of milky coffee when Ralph walked up and knocked on the door. “Mr. Turner, I done messed up. I done killed Mama and Joe.”

Daddy sat him down outside on the back stoop and called the sheriff. As soon as they got there, they took Ralph and picked up the bodies. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again. After everybody left, you couldn’t tell from the outside that anything had happened. But there the Harris house sat, quiet. No hum of the TV. No slapping screen door. Just a little quiet house with a Galaxy 500 sitting silent in the yard.

Don’t ask me how he got off, but they only made Ralph serve two years in prison.

—————————–

The last time I saw Ralph was in old man Simmons’ corner store. My brother Jim and I had stopped to get a Coca-Cola after a long day fishing on Lake Eufaula.

A little black boy walked in and started wandering up and down the rows. Out of the corner of his eye, Ralph caught the boy slipping a piece of candy in his pocket. Without comment, Ralph stormed out to his car and brought back a shotgun. When he shoved the barrel right between the boy’s eyes, the poor kid fell to the floor and pissed himself. “Don’t you ever steal nothin’ or I’ll blow your brains out! Now you go take that candy back to Mr. Simmons and apologize.”

We thought the kid was a goner. Hell, Ralph had already killed his own Mama and brother. But as soon as the kid gave back the candy and apologized, Ralph told him to “git”. The kid ran as fast as he could out that door. Ralph nodded at Mr. Simmons, then turned to us like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “Boys, y’all tell your Pa I said hello.”

He walked out, revved up that Galaxy 500, and drove away.