Shannon
L. Johnson
The
Old ‘55
(Thomas
Fernandez)
Grandpa
eventually died. He
lingered on a respirator with tubes down his nose and mouth and in his
arms. In the three weeks he
was at St. Joe’s Mercy Hospital, his big lumberjack-like body melted
away a little each day until there was nothing left but a few wrinkles
in the sheets. I was there
when he died. They took the
respirator out and he gulped like a catfish in the bottom of a boat.
His lips parted in rhythms as he searched for a pocket of air.
The doctors said he was about to die anyway, so they removed the
respirator. So he could die
naturally, they said.
At
the funeral there began to circulate rumors that the car had killed him.
In a sense, I guess that could be said.
He worked on that car out in the cold damp garage.
He had closed the garage doors to keep out some of the
frigidness. Grandma found
him sound asleep with his head under the hood.
Grandpa recovered from the asphyxiation, but he had caught
pneumonia out there in the freezing garage.
There had been offers to buy the car, but he wouldn’t sell.
He couldn’t. His
parents loved it so much, they both died in it.
The
‘55, as we had always called it, belonged to my great grandparents.
It was their first car, and it meant a lot to them because they
traded what was left of their land out in Beaten, Arkansas, for it.
Papa, my great grandpa, knew they would have to move to town
because Mama had congestive heart failure and had to be nearer the
doctor’s office–“a real city doctor, no country witch doctors,”
Grandpa had told them. They
moved in with Grandma and Grandpa.
Papa wanted to preserve a bit of independence and that’s why he
bought the car. On Sundays,
they drove to church. Afterward,
with picnic basket and their small white and tan mutt Suzie in the vast
back seat, they drove out
somewhere and spent the day until time for evening church.
When
Mama became too ill to ride in the car, Papa would pack the picnic
basket, Suzie, Mama, and put them in the car.
And they’d just sit there.
They’d sit there and eat their lunch.
I remember as a child getting the idea that Papa and Mama were
the only two people who were really in love.
I tried desperately to think of other people who were really in
love. Papa and Mama for
sure, and my 12-year-old friend Shelly.
She and Todd were in love because they wrote love letters back
and forth and they were together all the time at school.
I asked Papa how he met Mama.
I was thinking maybe they had met on the Mayflower.
“When I was just a kid of a boy,” he said.
“We went to school over to Cedar Point.
I was a rascal always pulling pranks and your great grandma was a
nice, proper girl, but she was puny.
I felt I could fatten her up some, so I said, ‘one day I’m
gonna marry that girl and take care of her’.”
Eventually,
they bought a little mobile home and put it out behind Grandma’s and
Grandpa’s house. But that
car had become a part of their existence.
One night after church Grandpa went to check on them.
He found Papa asleep in the car and Mama dead asleep
leaning up against his shoulder. Papa
wanted to bury Mama in the car, but Grandpa talked him out of it.
Papa went straight down hill after Mama died.
He took to the car and hardly ever left it.
Grandma brought him food, and she and Grandpa took him in the
house every other day or so to clean him up.
Once I brought a friend over to prove my great grandpa lived in a
car. I won the bet, but my
friend told everyone back at school how smelly and scraggly my great
grandpa was. It wasn’t
long before a real bad stink came from that car.
Papa was dead in the car, but he had seen to his burial attire:
his picnic duds were hanging just inside his closet door, his straw hat
upside down on the chest of drawers. That’s what he was buried in, right beside Mama, both
dressed for a picnic–in Beulah.
After
Grandpa died, aunts, uncles and cousins came around to see what they
could get. I moved in with
Grandma to help situate things and to protect her from the hounds. I had been mooching off of my mother since I had been fired
from the Daily Record–for sleeping during a City Council
meeting–and I desperately needed a change.
I have been searching for inspiration to write a book all of my
life. Instead, I have had
nothing but chronic writer’s block.
Mother tried to inspire–read: poison–me with her fluffy
purple romance prosody. I
thought maybe Grandma could help. Instead,
she tried to save me. I
soon found myself a sinner in the hands of angry Baptists.
Grandma had my baptism all arranged before I had time hold my
breath. I went to church
looking for story ideas, always looking for material.
Those Baptists didn’t like me going into their closets looking
for skeletons. And I
didn’t like church. Although
I must admit, church people are very good to their own, especially when
someone dies. I thought
organized religion a lot like a turnip plant–part of it’s really
tasty and nutritious, and part of it is rather bitter and as it looks a
lot like mashed potatoes, a cruel deception.
My
friend Chance, Victoria Chancellor, and I often have philosophical
discussions about religion. She has tried on every religion known from Zoroastrianism to
Jehovah’s Witness. “I’m
a spiritual atheist,” she once declared.
“An
atheist, huh?” I
whispered it because we were in the garage, my grandpa’s garage.
My grandpa, church deacon, member of the choir.
Grandpa was a kind man, but he believed the Good Book often quite
literally.
“Now
don’t get all freaked out on me.” She was about to launch into one
of her hypotheses of self-realization.
Sometimes
I just liked to step back and watch Chance work. There wasn’t much opportunity for that because, by nature,
she didn’t like to do work. She
liked the idea of certain types of work.
Right now, though, she was tinkering with the old car. She loved antiques, and so I guess finishing Grandpa’s car
didn’t really qualify as work. “We
ought to take this thing for a drive.” Her head was hidden under the
hood. All I could see were
her overalls and a dirty red grease rag hanging out of her pocket. I thought, she could be anybody in those big overalls, but
then I pictured the rest of her and I had to laugh.
Her short brown hair was matted into three and four inch dread
locks and a little silver hoop pierced her left nostril.
Grandma always said Chance was full of the stuff of mule traders.
She told some good stories.
I always wanted to believe her because her stories were more
exciting than my life. “De
black woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see,” she was
given to misquoting Zora Neale Hurston lately.
“Especially in the South.
And that’s why I’m gonna haul my ass out of here, soon.”
“Uh,
Chance, you’re using an adjective to describe yourself that doesn’t
quite fit.”
“Huh?”
“You’re
not black!”
“How
do you know?”
“Okay,
you are whatever you say you are.” I realized a long time ago that you
can’t argue with someone who is insane.
Chance
is creative and artistic. She
is a free spirit, albeit tortured in some way.
I think it hurts her to proclaim her atheism.
She is a feminist, and that is the problem she has with religion.
We agree on this. Religion in the Bible Belt is not woman-friendly.
“God endorses man because God is male.
Man created God, and God created man.
Woman was an after-thought, and she is the real root of all evil,
according to man and to God. Eve screwed it all up for all of humankind.
Can you imagine what society would be like if God were a women,
if all references to God were female specific,” my friend preached to
me as she turned red in the face. She
took religion and other people’s ideologies personally.
Good thing we mostly agreed.
“What’s
your grandma gonna to do with this thing, anyway?”
“I
don’t know. Sell it, I
guess. Do you think it’d
make it around the block?”
“Hell,
yeah. Let’s start it
up.”
“Maybe
I better ask Grandma,”
“You
know she’ll say yes.”
With
a little manual choke manipulation we got the car started.
I was afraid to let Chance behind the wheel.
I guess I wanted to believe her virtuosity in all things, but I
had inherited a good dose of skepticism from Grandma.
“We need to take and blow the mutha out,” Chance said
snapping her red rag at the car.
“Blow
it up, you mean.”
“Harley
Jane? What are you two
doing out here?” Grandma
always looked like she’d just traveled through Dante’s inferno.
I think it has something to do with the Puritan work ethic and
spending 18 hours a day cooking. Also,
Grandma is Irish–fair skinned with wild red hair, red when she was
younger. Now her hair is
just wild, grayish-red, and Alfred Einstein-y.
“Hey,
Grandma, Chance thinks we ought to take the car out for ride.”
“Well,
I’ve got dinner ready. Y’all
better come in and eat something before you dry up and blow away.”
Grandma spit root beer-colored snuff into a Del Monte Green Beans
can she was carrying, turned, and walked back up to the house.
Food
also has something to do with Puritan strictures, or maybe it’s a
Southern thing: a Southern woman looks for any occasion to cook, and her
company is supposed to show their appreciation by eating three times
more than they normally would. It
was hard to be cynical about food, however.
Grandma’s food was so good.
Chance, the vegetarian, delighted in Grandma’s cornbread, poke
salat, squash soup, fried okra, fresh tomatoes.
I, feigning geographic explorer to a little-known exotic country,
would try anything weird. I
enjoyed challenging Chance’s fortitude as I gnawed and pulled on a
pickled pig’s foot. The
idea of pickled pig’s anything is pretty awful, but I featured myself
a method actor, and so yummy it was, as long as anyone was watching my
performance.
While
we ate Grandma sometimes would talk about the olden days.
She would begin by talking about someone in her church, and since
we didn’t know most of those people we would urge her toward a segue
into the past. While
sopping up bean juice with cornbread or sprinkling salt on slices of
garden grown cucumber, she would tell how when she was young Papa would
catch a possum for supper. But
they couldn’t eat it right away--because possums eat anything–so
they’d keep it under an old wash tub and feed it produce like cabbage
and carrots and turnips and what not.
They’d do this for a day or so until the animal’s system was
cleaned out. Then they’d
kill it and eat it. She
talked about scrambling squirrel brains with eggs, roasting rabbits, and
barbequing raccoons. Ethnic
foods–and I consider Southern cooking ethnic–always sounded
scrumptious to me.
“We
ought to fix up the ‘55 and go on a road trip.
What do you think, Grandma?”
I was pretty much just joking.
“A
drive up to Albert Pike for a picnic would be nice,” Grandma said
without a trace of doubt that the old car would make it.
“Me and your grandpa used to love to go up there.”
“You
think that old car will go that far and back?” I was an explorer, but
I am also very pragmatic and anal retentive.
Albert Pike was about a two hour drive, one way.
“Oh,
I don’t see why not.” She
obviously didn’t understand how far automotive technology had come.
“Grandma,
that car’s eight years older than me,” I said.
“And
look how young you are. Besides,
just because something’s old don’t mean it’s lost its
usefulness.”
“I
told you so,” Chance sung under her breath.
“Come on Harley. Let’s
start ‘er up and take her around the block.”
Chance
backed the big black Sunday-go-to-meetin’ car out of the carport and
up the hill, but I made her let me drive.
Sitting behind the steering wheel, I was taken back more than
thirty years. It was 1959,
and Papa was driving to some secluded picnic area that only he and Mama
and Suzie knew. I had never
driven a column shift, but I was learning.
The steering wheel was huge.
I was learning and enjoying the little idiosyncrasies this car
carried. Grandpa had
painted the dash red; the glove compartment door kept falling open; one
of the little vent windows whistled; and the passenger-side window had
what looked like a b.b. hole in it.
For now, I had completely forgotten that this car had already
killed at least three people.
When
Chance and I got back, my mother was at grandma’s. Chance liked Mother. In
her frilly, romantic, deluded world, she was simply a misunderstood
artist, Chance said. “Just
look at what she’s done with that trailer.”
Mother lived in a mobile home which she had decorated like the
Palace of Versailles. She
lived in a Baroque world. Everything
to the extreme. One school
friend of mine put it nicely when she exclaimed, “Oooo, look at that
upholstery and those curtains. Isn’t
it a bit busy?”
Busy?
My mother doesn’t know she is an authority on Baroque style.
It just comes naturally. Grandma
calls her Miss Hoity-Toity, but she isn’t a snob.
She lives in a place inside her imagination where glass slippers
do exist. A place where
beautiful muscle-bound men with olive skin and foreign accents just wait
to indulge their heroine’s starving sexual compulsions.
My mother is the heroine, and she is waiting for her Fabio.
When
we came inside, Grandma was trying to force-feed Mother.
“I’m
not hungry. I told you, I
just ate a big pretzel at the mall.” Mother pushed the plate back away
from her.
“Pretzel
schmetzel. You need to eat
something good for you. Are
you too hoity-toity for home cooking?
I’ll swan you’re going to blow away with these two.”
Grandma nodded toward me and Chance and pushed a plate containing
purple hull peas, fresh tomatoes, fried okra, and cornbread at Mother.
“I can’t get them to eat a thing either.”
I
would not allow her to make me feel guilty.
“Grandma, I ate two helpings of everything. She’ll eat when she’s hungry.”
I often felt like Mother’s protector, but I didn’t want to be
because I wanted run off on an expedition to Katmandu or Machu Picchu
or somewhere and write my book. And
I didn’t want to have to worry about anyone.
“Mother, did Grandma tell you we’re going to take the ‘55
on a road trip?”
“Who
is?” She was forking her
peas and occasionally depositing one in her mouth.
“Papa’s old car?”
“We
are. Whoever wants to go.
You want to go?” I really didn’t think she’d bite.
“Where
are we going? To New
Orleans? You know it’s
very French down there.”
“Whoa,
yeah.” Chance was already
in favor of a nine hour drive to the French Quarter.
“I have a friend down there.
I’m sure we could stay with her.”
“Well,
we were thinking more like a day trip.
Sort of ...” I was
usually the planner of these family get-togethers, but I felt I was
losing control of this situation.
“It
won’t even take a day to get to New Orleans,” Mother said.
“I can get a half day off on Friday, and we can spend Saturday
there. Mother, you’ve
always wanted to go to New Orleans, haven’t you?”
My mother was trying to convince her mother that this trip was
something she had always wanted. I was picturing the big black car stranded in the Delta, the
four of us–a huddle of women in a strange land of darker shades and
meager living–locked inside terrified to move.
“That’s
kind of a big test to put the old car through,” I said trying to ease
Mother into a different, shorter direction.
“Well,
where else is there?” She
was pouting, but I knew I could change her mind.
“We
could drive over to Tallequah and visit Sequoia’s cabin.”
Mother wasn’t listening to my suggestion.
She was rummaging through her purse, and Chance was already
sipping coffee at the Café DuMonde.
“Let’s
go up to War Eagle,” Grandma said coming back to the table with some
old brochures. I knew she
and Grandpa had gone up there a few times.
All I knew about the place was that it was up in the Ozarks, and
you could get fresh cornmeal there at the mill.
Driving up those twisty mountains in the car called for a little
more faith than I could muster.
“I
think your mom’s right,” Chance was saying.
“We gotta go to New Orleans.
There’s something for all of us there.
It’s all down hill from here.” She smiled at her pun, and I
was thinking she would be a sight anywhere more conservative than New
Orleans. “We can go to
Cajun country, and Plantation country, and museums, and the Vieux Carre,
there’s lots we can do. That
old car will make it.” Chance
was campaigning for New Orleans, and it was working.
I don’t know how it worked on Grandma, but it did.
I guess there is a bit of adventure in her that I never
considered.
“Don’t
y’all think you better take that car by Delbert’s and let them give
it a good look?” With
those words from Grandma, I knew we were going to New Orleans.
The trip was set for the following week.
Before
we took the car to Delbert’s Full-Service Gas Station and Garage,
Chance and I gave it a gulp of gas treatment and took it out on the
highway and blew it out. Then
we cleaned the carburetor, flushed the radiator, changed the oil,
cleaned and shined the interior, washed and waxed the car.
Then we let Delbert’s check it out.
Delbert, Jr., replaced the fan belt and sold us an extra, and he
installed new wiper blades. All the lights worked, and the horn.
We passed inspection, were registered, licensed, and insured.
Now all we needed was a good road map.
Mother
decided to take off Thursday afternoon, so we’d have two whole days
down in the Big Easy. The
three of us were packed and waiting for her at two o’clock.
Lady Godiva’s Hair Salon would survive the weekend without her,
but today she had to do an eleven-thirty perm.
We expected her any minute.
The
trunk of the ‘55 was vast, but Mother’s suitcase, dress bag, make-up
kit, hat boxes, and shoe boxes quickly filled all but the tiniest
niches. Those were left for
the rest of us. Chance and
I traveled light; we could practically wear the same clothes we started
in save for a couple changes of underwear.
Grandma packed a simple supply of personals and brought several
spit cans, so she could throw them away as they became used.
But the food. My
gosh! It seemed as though
we were headed for the old country church and dinner on the grounds.
There was fried chicken and fried pies, lunch meat, bread,
pickles, tomatoes, potato salad, potato chips, sodas, cookies,
mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, and candy–hard candy, jellies, and
chocolate. We had a cooler,
a picnic basket, and a grocery sack packed with goodies all in the back
seat. Still, there was
plenty of room left for two people, a blanket and two pillows. I drove the first shift.
“Okay,
it’s three o’clock. Let’s
see what kind of time we make.” I
carried a little notebook: I wanted to chart expenses, but mostly I
wanted to see what kind of mileage this thing would get.
And I wanted to discipline myself into recording things: sights,
sounds, details: concrete and abstract.
Always looking for material.
We
took 270 East to Malvern and kept on going to Pine Bluff. The car ran wonderfully.
No trouble at all, and everyone was in an excited mood.
Grandma was excited, I could tell.
“Are you all right, Harley Jane?
She asked. “Do you
need me to drive for a while?”
“I’m
all right for now, thanks.” There
was construction after we got on 65 at Pine Bluff, and all Mother’s
and Grandma’s fussing and Chance trying to talk to me was making it
hard for me to see. Soon we
were at a halt. “Ugh,
this will mess up my calculations,” I said it mostly to myself.
“It’s
all part of the trip, relax.” Chance
was the quintessential hippie going with the flow. As far as tension, I was a tight high note, and she was so
loose she made no sound at all except what only whales could hear.
“Whoa, check that out. Ah,
man, that’s horrible. I’m
getting it.”
“Wha
... Wait!” Before I could
figure out what she was looking at, Chance had jumped out of the car in
the middle of construction–only two-lanes now, big semi trucks headed
in our direction with a temporary concrete barrier being the only thing
separating us. Even though
we were sandwiched between two semis, Chance had seen the small white
mass squeezed between traffic and the concrete wall.
It looked like dirty rags or paper, but it sure didn’t look
like a chicken.
Chance
jumped back in the car just as traffic started to move.
“I don’t think it’s hurt, but it’s definitely in
shock,” she said.
“Lands!
What in the world are you going to do with that?” Grandma asked
hugging her Sue B Chicken and Dumplings spit can close.
“Lands. I can’t
believe you’d bring that nasty thing in here.
Cover up the food.”
“I
couldn’t just leave it there. It
would have been killed. Some
asshole, I mean, idiot dropped it off his truck or something. Hey,
chicky, chicky, are you hurt?”
“It’s
probably got mites and no telling what all.”
Her spit can notwithstanding, Grandma did have something of a
phobia, ever since that time my cousin Carl spent the weekend with her
and Grandpa. They had all
gone looking for poke salat out in the woods, and when they got home
they noticed Carl scratching himself bloody.
They assumed he’d gotten into some poison oak.
Aunt Pat called Monday afternoon after she’d taken Carl to the
doctor. The doctor said Carl had scabies. His whole Sunday school
class had them, but they weren’t sure where it started. Aunt Pat told Grandma she was supposed to boil all her sheets
and towels in disinfectant, and there was some special spray she’d
bring over, and Grandma was to spray everything with it.
And if she or Grandpa got to itching, tell her because there was
a special ointment you had to put all over your body. They quarantined Carl’s Sunday school room for two Sundays.
They sprayed all kinds of disinfectant in there.
I heard it took the paint off of the metal folding chairs.
“Pull
in at a gas station and let’s get rid of it,” Mother talked as if
she were the only level-headed one in the car.
I never thought of her that way.
“They
don’t want a chicken at a gas station.” I was really more concerned
about getting us safely through this construction.
“Just make sure you hold on to...”
My instructions came too late.
Others may have mistaken our trauma for an untimely pillow fight.
The bird made several laps around the inside of the car flapping
and losing feathers, pooping and clawing at our heads.
“Shit, Chance. I mean shoot. Grab that thing.”
Chance
grabbed the bird’s feet, pulled her in, and tucked the fowl under her
arms like she was carrying a football.
I glanced in the rearview mirror at Grandma and Mother.
With her carefully fashioned coif mussed and decorated with
chicken feathers, Mother looked to be in shock.
Grandma held a tissue to her nose and shook her head.
I thought I could see mischief in her eyes.
The
gas station was one of those new shiny, splashy-colored kinds that
serves chicken, pizza, and burritos.
They sell gas and oil, but they don’t know the first thing
about auto mechanics. And
they didn’t know what to do with a shocky hen.
They gave us a box that had, ironically, contained frozen chicken
parts. We poked holes in the waxy cardboard and threw in some corn
chips. “Maybe if we keep
her in the dark she’ll settle down,” Chance said as she chirped at
the bird and closed the lid.
“We’ll
get rid of her when we get out in the country.” I was being
authoritative, but I didn’t know what we would do:
Throw her off in a cornfield somewhere; find some old country
shack and plop her down on the door step, knock and run.
“This
is gonna be a cool trip. We’re
on an adventure,” Chance
was talking to the front windshield.
But she was right. This
was already an adventure. Isn’t
that what I longed for? How
many people go on a trip, find a chicken on the highway, and invite it
to come along with them?
“I’m
hungry.” The best and
worst thing about road trips is the junk food.
“Here,
take this wet wipe and clean your hands real good before you touch any
of that food. We don’t
need to spread salmonella on everything.”
“Grandma,
yuck.”
“Just
do it. Here, everybody wash
your hands.” She was doling out packages of baby wipes like they were
candy at Halloween and we were trick-or-treaters.
By
the time we got to Dumas, we had been on the road almost three hours.
The construction and a certain dirty bird had set us back
time-wise. I had hoped to
get to New Orleans before midnight, but I forgot to figure in stops and
emergencies. We’d be
rolling into the City of Sin at the witching hour and in my wild
imagination fall pray to some voodoo doctor, drug pusher, pimp daddy,
thug, or alligator ... aren’t they nocturnal?
“We’re gonna be late getting there,” I mumbled to Chance.
I could see in the rearview that Grandma was asleep, mouth
slightly ajar, lips vibrating intermittently like a metronome.
Mother was lost in one of her Romance novels. The large bosomed, red-headed female on the cover could have
been her, except that Mother had about twenty-five years on that
delicate damsel. Mother’s
latest stint as a hair dresser had lasted five years now.
Before that she had been a sales clerk in home furnishings at a
local department store. She’d
also been in real estate, but her honesty proved detrimental to any
commission: “You don’t want this place. It’s a decorator’s
nightmare.” Mother had taken several continuing education courses in
design, decorating, fashion, and even romance writing.
She was beautiful with red hair, the color Grandma’s used to
be. Of course, Mother kept
hers dyed. Despite trying
every fad diet to come around, she had a “woman’s belly,” as
Grandma called it, which was blamed on me.
Mother looked good on the outside, but I knew her health could be
better. The only reason she
didn’t wear a girdle was because she had a spastic colon and the
girdle gave her fits. Besides,
she reasoned, Botticelli’s Venus had a woman’s belly.
I was sure Mother’s boobs had long since given in to the pull
of gravity, except that she kept them propped up with special mail-order
bras. At that moment,
Mother wasn’t in this car with us.
She was in a castle in some foggy place, probably imprisoned in
its tower waiting for her Fabio.
“It’s
all right. Squeaky’ll be
up. We can crash with
her.”
“How
do you know this Squeaky, anyway? And
what does she do in New Orleans?”
“She’s
from Little Rock. We worked
at the Spaghetti Warehouse together.
She’s kind of a ... she’s an artist.
She does portraits in Jackson Square.
Well, they’re more like caricatures.”
“What
makes you think she’ll be up so late?”
“Come
on. Nobody goes to bed
early in New Orleans. It
doesn’t even start up until late.
Hey, are we gonna be able to slip away from your folks for awhile
and check out some bars and stuff?”
“Yeah,
we’ll figure something out. So,
Squeaky’s a weird name for a girl ...”
“Yeah,
Harlequin Jane, Squeaky’s real weird.”
“Okay,
you got me there. Now
don’t call me that ever again.”
I
didn’t like the looks of Dumas, and Chance and I were talking, so I
just kept going. After two
Mountain Dews, a peach fried pie, and some barbequed chips, I was ready
to pee and run a couple miles to get all the junk out of my system.
I definitely needed to stop and do some yoga stretches. “Anybody need to stretch their legs or use the bathroom?
Here comes a rest area.” We
were just past Dermott down in the Delta.
My dark vision of the four of us stranded visited me again.
“I wonder if we should let that chicken see some light.
Or will it rile her up?”
“Nooo,
don’t open that box.” Grandma
was the authority on chickens, having raised them and wrung a few necks.
“But
what if it’s dead?” Chance
tapped the box, and we heard a claw scratching the cardboard. “She’s alive.” Chance
began pulling the lid up ever so slightly.
“Zora, are you all right honey?
Did you eat your Fritos? I
think I should give her some water.”
Zora?
Appropriate, I guess. A
tenacious bird named for a tenacious woman.
And hadn’t Zora Neale Hurston driven down to parts of Louisiana
on a mission to research various cultures?
She was particularly interested in voodoo.
I wondered if we’d have any experiences with voodoo during our
short visit? I wondered if we’d cross her old cold path?
Chance
and I tried to find a home for Zora among the travelers at the rest
stop. Most people gave us a
recipe for “the best fried chicken ever.”
Chance didn’t think that was funny, and I was becoming attached
to Zora, thinking of her more as literary hero than as a yard bird.
We did get one offer to take her, but we could tell his
intentions right off. “Sorry,
sir, I think I might keep her as a pet,” Chance said backing away as
the old man with sweaty hair and worn out overalls smacked his toothless
gums.
“Shaaaaw.
You caint keep no chicken as a pet.
I’ll clean ‘er up and split ‘er with ye,” he said
pleasantly and innocently enough.
“Thanks
anyway.”
As
I was stretching on the grass, meditating as I saluted the soon-to-be
waning sun, Dueling Banjos invaded my nothingness.
Oh, well, the sun was being covered off and on by ominous-looking
clouds, anyway. “Looks
like it’s storming off to the west,” Grandma said, interrupting the
bluegrass music in my mind. I
guess she saw me playing peek-a-boo with the sun.
“You ‘bout ready? I
see your friend still has that nasty bird.”
“Yep.
Plenty of people want to have her for supper, and I don’t mean
as a guest.”
It
began sprinkling rain as we hit the road again. I didn’t want to, but I let Chance drive.
Grandma again offered to drive, but I told her to pretend she was
someone famous and we were chauffeuring her.
It hadn’t dawned on me that she needed to get behind the wheel
of the old car. The rain
was coming down harder. Big
trucks were trying to make us go too fast, and other trucks were driving
too slow in front of us, spraying dirty water on the windshield. Somewhere past Lake Village, the sky darkened, thunder
clapped, and lightning flashed. It
was very difficult to see, and then it happened.
One of our brand new windshield wipers just flew off.
Just back and forth, back and forth, and blup.
“Jeez,” Chance said turning the wipers off because the broken
one was scratching the window.
“What
happened,” Grandma was startled awake.
“I’m
pulling over.”
“Right
here?” I said, concerned about the big trucks.
“I
can’t see. Is there a rag
or T-shirt or something in here?” Chance had stopped the car and was
leaning over into the back seat pulling a pillowcase off of one of the
pillows. “I’m going to
wrap this around the arm so it won’t scratch.”
The
arm looked like an amputated stump dressed in soggy bandages.
We were back on the highway, all squinting to see the road ahead.
As quickly as the rain had started it stopped.
We journeyed onward. Within
a few miles, the dark heavens opened and some quirky god drained a lake
on us. Lightning bolts
stabbed at the fields nearby as thunder vibrated our nervous systems.
All the while, our pillow case became heavier and grimier.
The wind picked up, and the rain blew across the windshield in
sheets. It was so white
through the windows, I thought we’d died and were heading down that
proverbial tunnel to the other side.
Chance pulled over. It
was not really a voluntary thing. I
think she lost sight of the road. For
a moment it felt like we were on some kind of a ... actually, it felt
like a big old car going over very small berms.
With every dip and jolt upward, Grandma gave an uhm and an
oh me. “Sorry.
At least we’re off the road.
Man, I could not see at all.
Are there any hazard lights on this thing?
Not that anyone could see them.”
We
sat there in the steamy car, which was forecasting an aroma of chicken
house. It was seven
o’clock. Normally, we’d
have another hour or so of daylight, but the storm brought with it an
early darkness. “Where
are we?” Grandma was wide-eyed. “Wonder
if we’re not settin’ in the middle of somebody’s cotton field?”
We
relaxed knowing we were out off the dangerous roadway at least, out of
harm’s way. The rain let
up, and we hardly noticed. Chance
tried the wipers, but the windows were steamed from the inside. There
came a tapping on the glass. A
dark blurry shape moved near the outside of the window.
Grandma reached up and locked her door.
I was embarrassed but wished we had all already locked our doors.
My vision had been an omen.
Too bad it went no further than this–I had no foreknowledge of
my own death. I grabbed a
napkin and wiped the passenger window. There stood an older black man holding a bucket over his
head. He was smiling or
grimacing. I rolled the
window down. “Y’all
come off the road a little. Ever
body okay?” He seemed nice enough, just an old farmer.
“We’re
all right, thank you. We
lost sight of the road and just thought we’d sit here until it cleared
up,” I said being as polite and unobtrusive as possible.
“We can probably go on now, if we’re not stuck,” I said
leaning out of the window to get a good look at where we sat.
Looking back I could see where we had left the road.
We came off the shoulder, hit a shallow ditch, came up into this
man’s yard, and settled in his driveway not too far from his old
maroon Olds 98. “Ooo, did
we mess up your yard?”
“Nah,
nah. Y’all a bunch a
women in der? Well, I’ll
be. In this old car? Come
in so’s Mannie can meet y’all.
Umm, umm. Y’all
sho is a sight. Come on
now. Let this rain blow over some,” he grinned at us showing off
what had to be brand new teeth.
He
was getting wet, and I smelled an adventure.
Besides, Chance was already taking Zora, box and all, out of the
car. Mother and Grandma
weren’t moving. “Moth-ther,”
I admonished through gritted teeth.
“No,
Harley Jane, I think I’m perfectly comfortable right here,” she said
holding her book higher in front of her face.
“Grandma?”
“I
believe I’ll set here and take a nap.”
“Mizzes.
Y’all come on in. Y’all can take a nap in out of the rain.”
“Oh,
no, no, we don’t want to put y’all out,” Grandma cleverly turned
it around so that she was being the polite one.
Hearing
the porch door slam, we all looked over to see a hefty woman wearing
what had to be a pair of her husband’s work boots picking her way down
the muddy drive way. “Poke? Ever thang all right?”
“Yes’m
be right der. Y’all
better come on in now, come on.”
He headed for the house. Chance
and I followed. On the
porch two dogs stood, stretched, allowed a brief wag of their tails, and
slowly bobbed down the steps. They
sniffed our legs and then showed keen interest in Chance’s box.
“Um,
sir. I have a .. a chicken
here. She’s a pet and
...”
“Oh,
bring it on in.”
Inside
the house was warm, too warm for most, but I like warmth.
The woman had gone to the kitchen.
I could see her through a cutaway in the wall between the kitchen
and the table. She was
taking something out of the oven. It smelled good in the house.
There was the bitter smell of greens, the golden aroma of
cornbread, and there was a heavy but comfortable lived-in honest sweaty
smell. It smelled like
Grandpa’s hat and the pennies in the his truck ashtray.
“My
name’s Poke Roberts, and that gal over there is Mannie.
She’s got some Mexican in her that’s ...”
“Ah,
now quit inventin’ yo tongue gonna fall out,” Mannie said casting a
happy grin our way. She
hadn’t gotten new teeth, for her top fronts were missing.
A
light rapping on the screen door proved to be two stubborn or curious
women come to join in the socializing.
Feigning full bladders, they earned another invitation into the
house. About that time a
small brown figure peeped from behind a curtain which functioned as a
door. He stepped out
rubbing his eyes and whining. “Granny,
I’m hungry. Who all those
white women.”
“Hesh,
hesh now. We goin’ eat in
a minute.”
Zora
was the ice breaker as the boy became enraptured by a chicken in a box .
We discovered Jamaal was the couple’s great grandson.
His mother was out of his life, dumped him and ran off somewhere.
His grandma was in Chicago working for the Post Office.
She didn’t have any way to keep him, and everyone thought he
was better off in the Delta than in Chicago.
We learned that we were right near Eudora–another omen, Eudora
Welty, famous southern woman writer.
I don’t think it occurred to me that I was living a pretty
interesting story, but I was being faithful about keeping a journal.
I had done so sporadically all my life.
I guess I always knew I wanted to be a writer.
I just never saw anything in my journal pages or in life around
me worth writing about.
The Roberts had left their front door open.
Through the screen I noticed the rain had begun again as a
steady, soothing shower. The
kind of quenching that flowers and garden vegetables, trees and brush,
and weeds and crops must revel in.
I pictured a cartoon with animated plants turning their mouths
toward the sky and gulping the pure water.
I could see them dancing, their roots kicking up water like Gene
Kelly in “Singing in the Rain.”
“I
guess we can drive in this until we get to somewhere where they have
wiper blades.” I was looking out past the screen door to the dogs
rolling around in the wet yard chewing on each other.
They made playful growling sounds as they took turns mouthing
each other’s necks.
“We
can find y’all a wiper blade, but first y’all might as well have
some supper,” Poke said as he set the table.
“Oh,
we don’t want to put y’all out.
We’ll just go on. Y’all
needn’t feed us ...” Grandma was sincere this time, and she also had
probably never eaten supper with black folks before either.
“Nah,
nah. We gots plenty, and we
won’t you to stay. You
aint puttin’ us out none.” Poke
was carrying a pan of cornbread to the table.
“Don’t
you worry. I always cooks a
big mess of food. It’s
been a long time since we had any company, aint that right Poke?”
Mannie was headed back to the kitchen to fetch another steaming
bowl of something that smelled scrumptious.
“We
aint never had white women, Granny.
We aint never had white women for supper.”
Mannie grabbed Jamaal and held him close to her skirt so as to
suffocate his talk.
“Come
let’s all set down.” Poke motioned everyone into place.
There were only four chairs so Poke sat on a foot stool, and
Mannie brought in one of the chairs from off of the porch.
Mannie situated Jamaal in the living room at the coffee table.
Poke bowed his head and looked through his eyebrows at everyone
around the table. “Let’s
say the blessin’. Missus,
uh?”
“Farquarson,”
Grandma said.
“Would
you kindly lead us in the blessin’, Missus Farquarson?”
Grandma
nodded and began, “Our Heavenly Father, thank you for delivering us
into the hands of these kind strangers.
Thank you for this bountiful feast and bless it to the
nourishment of our bodies. In Jesus
name ... Oh, and I pray we aren’t putting these nice people out.
Jesus name. Amen.”
“Amen.”
Poke stood waiting for everyone to sit.
“Now,
I’ve got turnips and greens, souse meat; there’s some hot sauce.
Potatoes, beans, cornbread, fried chicken, corn on the cob;
where’s the butter? Jamaal
bring that butter over here. Here’s
some pickles if you won’t ‘em, and some green onion.
Y’all help yoursefs. I
got some pecan pie fuh dessert.”
“Wow,
this is incredible.” Chance filled her plate with every vegetable
there was. I didn’t tell
her that everything was so good because it was all cooked in meat
drippings.
“Jamaal,
leave that bird alone while you’re eating.”
“He
likes some cornbread.” The
little boy poked cornbread through the flaps of the cardboard box, and
then he put his eye up to one of the holes.
“Now,
y’all said your coming from Hot Springs?
I got a sister live up there.
She said she didn’t want to marry no farmer. So she moved to the big city.
She been workin’ at one of them fancy hotel’s up there.
She do the baths.” Poke wasn’t letting his talking interrupt his eating.
“Which
hotel,” I asked.
“Oh,
the Fordyce, I think it’s called.”
The Fordyce was one of the old bath houses renovated and made
into a hotel and spa.
“I
go to the Fordyce quite often for a bath,” Mother said.
“What’s your sister’s name?”
“Her
name is Ruth.”
“Ruthie.
I do know a Ruthie. She’s
my masseuse. Is she in her late fifties?”
Mother asked.
“Yes,
she is.”
“Now
that I look at you I can see the resemblance.
In this whole wide world. Idn’t
it a small world? I’ll
tell her we nearly ran into you.”
Mother laughed at her own joke.
After
dinner, the rain had eased to a steady mist.
Poke told us how to get to Sweet’s Garage, which wasn’t far
off the highway. The
business was closed, but we knocked on the door of Sweet’s house and
told him Poke Roberts sent us. We
got new wiper blades just as the night grew pitch dark.
These
delays would put us in New Orleans well after midnight.
I didn’t care how close a friend Squeaky was to Chance, we were
not going to pop in on her at four in the morning.
We decided to get a motel in Vicksburg.
I had hoped it would still be daylight as we drove through some
of these small black towns like Transylvania and Tallulah.
I loved watching the people relaxing on their porches, talking to
one another.
Since
I was driving and no one was helping to keep me awake, I stopped for
coffee at Tallulah. That
little perk influenced me to keep going.
I could catch up on my sleep tomorrow in a park or something.
I didn’t want us to waste our precious little time in a motel.
I also decided not to drive over to Jackson and then down
Interstate 55. Country
roads, the scenic route (although it was now dark), always suited me
better, so I stayed on 65 heading for Natchez.
At Natchez, I would get on 61 to Baton Rouge.
I would then decide whether to stay on 61 to New Orleans or get
on Interstate 10.
Mother
was in front with me, and when, somehow, I had gotten off the highway
onto a really rough road that led nowhere, the heavy glove compartment
door came unlatched, fell open, and whacked her right in the knees.
She awoke with a start. “What?”
I could tell Mother’s mind was processing the available
information and soon she would remember where she was.
“Is this ...? Harley
Jane?” Mother was whispering. “Where
are we?”
“Umm.
Actually, I don’t know.”
“What
do you mean you don’t know. Where’s
the motel?”
“About
two hours back. I de ...”
“What!”
“We’re
still on 65. Well, we were.
I was trying to get on 61 at Natchez, and I’m not sure what I
did, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t 61.
Although I wouldn’t be surprised; some of the roads around here
are pretty shitty.”
“Watch
your mouth. This is
practically a dirt road.”
“I
can see that.”
“Well,
turn around.”
“This
thing won’t just turn around on a dime.
I need room.”
The
road didn’t wake Grandma, but our fussing did.
“What is all the commotion about?
What in Sam Hill? Harley
Jane?”
“I
know. I got us lost out in
the middle of nowhere.”
“Well,
let me drive then.”
“Grandma,
what good would that do?” I
was getting frustrated, and I needed them to be quiet so I could think.
“She
said she doesn’t have enough room to turn around.”
“Back
it out then.” Grandma’s
solution sounded so simple.
“Back
up for two or three miles?”
“We’ve
come that far?” As soon
as she said that, we fell into what felt like a meteorite crater. What there had been of the road ended, and we drove off of it
landing six or eight inches on the real dirt road beneath.
“Oh,
Heavens.” I could just picture Mother in the dark fanning herself.
“Don’t
worry. Look. What is that?”
Chance’s
voice startled me. “It
belongs to the road department. It
looks like they actually plan to finish this road sometime.
You can turn around there.”
I hadn’t realized she was awake.
While my family was frantic, she was so calm. She probably
enjoyed being lost. Zora on
the other hand was thinking no telling what.
When we fell into the meteorite crater, she began a frantic
clucking that didn’t stop for at least forty-five minutes.
I
turned around and headed back to the main road. Thankfully, everybody was too tired to be mad at me.
After directing me to 61, Grandma and Chance went back to sleep.
I offered to let Mother drive, but she declined.
She said she would just keep me awake and on the right road.
I wondered how she was taking all of this.
She had an extensive regimen of beauty care that she had to
follow every night. This night I’d seen her pop more than one mouthful of
antacid pills. Back at
Tallulah she had awakened long enough to take off her make-up and wrap a
scarf around her hair, and she brushed and flossed her teeth.
I wondered whether she took off her high tech bosom erector.
I sure couldn’t stand something like that.
I looked over at her. She
was holding the glove compartment door up with her knee.
It stubbornly refused to latch.
“If
we had some duct tape, we could tape that thing shut,” I offered.
“We
should have taken my car. It’s
more reliable.” Mother
owned an ‘81 Cadillac. I
hated it. It was a road
yacht and made me as sick as an ocean-going yacht probably would.
I didn’t care for big, smooth cars.
“That
would kind of defeat the purpose. This
is a trip of nostalgia. We’re
supposed to embrace whatever happens.
Don’t you feel Mama and Papa’s presence?”
“I
could feel more nostalgic if I were safe.
And no, I don’t feel Mama and Papa in the car with us.”
Mother and I hadn’t talked much lately.
We were on two different wave-lengths.
I guess I hadn’t turn out anything like she expected.
“I’m surprised this car doesn’t still stink after Papa
lived and died in it the way he did.”
Chance
took the wheel somewhere around Baton Rouge.
It was nearly four o’clock when Mother and I took the back
seat. Where had we lost so
much time? I listened to
Grandma and Chance awhile before nodding off.
“You
want me to drive. I’m not
a bit sleepy; I’ll drive.”
“That’s
okay, Mrs. Farquarson. I
feel fine.”
“Well,
at least have a bite to eat,” Grandma said rummaging through the big
brown grocery bag. “Let’s
see. You don’t won’t no
chicken, or baloney,” she had teased.
“Here! Let me make
you some peanut butter crackers. Do
you want a coke?”
“That
sounds good. Thank you.
I can’t wait to have some benets.”
“What?”
“Benets.
You know those little French donut-type things.
Only they don’t have a hole, and there’s powdered sugar on
top.”
“Sounds
like a fancy name for French toast.”
“Yeah.”
There
was a long silence. I may
have fallen asleep for awhile. When
I awoke, they were talking religion.
“I
bet you’ll enjoy Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Mrs. Farquarson.
It’s beautiful.”
I
heard Grandma spit. I
winced more at Chance’s choice of topic than Grandma’s crude habit.
“Them
Catholics think too much about their statues and saints.
It’s just like idol worship.”
“I
think they just use those statues and ceremonies to help them remember
the Bible stories.”
“Well,
they pray to those saints, and that ain't right. Mary is just a woman. She
don’t deserve no special treatment.”
“See,
that’s what’s wrong with Judeo-Christian religions. They leave women out of the good and important roles.
Or else they just make out like their contributions aren’t a
big deal. Camels and goats
were worth more back in Old Testament days. Except Eve. Now
she’s notorious, but not for being the mother of the human race, but
because she talked her man into taking a bite of an apple.
Women still do that, feeding their men: the way to a man’s
heart... It wasn’t that
she was defying God, she was simply seeking knowledge.
What’s wrong with that? What
is philosophy? What is
education? Isn’t that what most people strive for? Knowledge.”
“Now,
hold on a minute. God
specifically told them not to eat of that tree because then they would
have knowledge of good and evil.”
“That
doesn’t make sense. Were
they living in nothingness? How
can you know what’s good without evil?”
“Well,
it was Paradise, and she’s the one who made the mistake.
Here’s you a cracker.”
“Thank
you. Anyway, I’d like for
women to be portrayed in a better light.
We are the ones who give birth; we grow life.”
“Some
of us do.”
I
was glad Grandma thought I was asleep because at the ages of thirty and
thirty-one, Chance and I were on the downhill slide, and we should each
already have a couple of kids.
The
next time I awoke, we were in New Orleans, and Grandma was saying,
“One a y’all is going the wrong way.”
“Ohhhh.”
At that, Chance maneuvered the monstrous car around in a jerky
u-turn in the middle of a one-way street.
The next street was also a one-way, and again she was going the
wrong way. No one was
coming, so she kept going and took the next available road and parked.
“Here we are.”
It
was close to six in the morning. Not
many people were stirring; it was warm and misty. “What do we do now, this early?”
I asked.
“I’d
really like to freshen up. I
wouldn’t dare be seen in public like this,” Mother said looking into
a compact mirror while gently dabbing the sleep out of her eyes with a
tissue.
“I’d
like a hot shower to wake up my bones.
Grandma, I bet you’d like a nap.”
“Maybe
we ought to find a motel.” Grandma
was tucking her spit can safely into a garbage bag. She had stuffed it full of paper towels so it wouldn’t
spill.
“That
sounds fine,” Mother and I both said.
“No,
no, no. We can stay at
Squeaky’s. She’ll
probably be gone most of the day. It’s
no problem. She’d be mad
if she found out we were here and didn’t stay.”
“Well,
I hate to put someone out ...” Grandma
was so tired she probably didn’t really care if she put out the Queen
of England.
Chance
had already started the car, and we were on our way. Squeaky didn’t live too far from the French Quarter.
I knew her neighborhood looked a little questionable to Mother
and Grandma, but in little more than twelve hours we’d adopted a
chicken off of the highway, run off the road in a deluge, had supper
with a black family in the Delta, gotten lost in the woods in the middle
of the night, and gone the wrong way down one-way streets. What could possibly top any of that? One good thing about arriving so early, we were bound to
catch Squeaky at home.
It
was a duplex, neatly painted white with green wooden shutters.
There were hanging plants and potted plants everywhere.
We parked in the alley. As
Chance approached the back door the rest of us hung back.
We didn’t want to overwhelm her friend with our tired and weary
huddled mass. Chance
knocked and motioned for us to approach.
A very tall–six-foot-two-inch–woman in curlers answered the
door. There was something
queer about this woman, and I figured it out pretty quickly.
“Uh,
Girl! What are you doing
here? It’s so good to see
you,” said the Amazon with the high cheek bones, thin lips,
broad shoulders, and bloody tissue stuck all over her face.
“My
friend Harley Jane and her folks and me are visiting New Orleans.
We had an interesting time getting here, but here we are ... just
arrived.”
“Miss
Thang. Y’all come on
in.”
Ooooh,
I was giddy with the nervousness of knowing what Squeaky was, and I was
wondering if her voice would soften up and get any higher as the day
wore on. So far there had
been no clue as to why her name. As
we walked in, I punched Chance. “She’s
a ...”
“Shhhh.”
Squeaky
was already accommodating Mother and Grandma.
“Mrs... Farquarson, did you say?
The bathroom’s right this way, honey.
Bless your heart. I
bet you are just worn to a frazzle.”
So
far, I couldn’t tell that Mother or Grandma had a clue about Squeaky.
While Grandma was in the bathroom, Chance made introductions.
Mother took up Grandma’s role in assuring our hostess that we
did not want to impose.
“Oh,
girl, you are not imposing one bit.
I love company. Y’all
make yourselves at home: shower, eat, sleep.
I want to hear all about this trip when I get back.”
With that, our hostess disappeared into the bathroom for thirty
minutes, and when she emerged ... she didn’t look much better. Her hair was like dry grass, the curl was limp and sagging,
her lips were obviously painted on, her shoulders were broad and square,
and her tight blouse was smooth over a flat chest save for two pimples
making bumps where her breasts should be.
She wore a tight black leather mini skirt;coming from beneath her
skirt were two thin muscular, albeit smooth, legs.
On her feet she wore clogs.
As she left I was waiting for Grandma and Mother to throw a fit
about rooming with a transsexual.
“She
seems like a nice girl,” Grandma said as she dug through her purse
looking for her pill bottle. “Must
come from Norwegian stock with that big frame.”
“She’s
kind of homely.” Mother
looked at Chance. “Do you
think she’d be offended if I offered to give her a make-over?
I really think I can help her hair a lot.
And that make-up. Oh,
that was hideous. Her
mother must not have taught her anything about make-up.
Do you think she’d let me give her a hairdo at least?”
“Well,
I ... sure she would.”
I
punched Chance.
“What
do you want me to say?”
We
took our turns taking a hot shower.
But by the time it was my turn, there was no hot left. A cold shower was not enough to wake me up, so I found a
place to sleep next to Chance on Squeaky’s bed.
Squeaky said Mother and Grandma could make themselves comfortable
in the other bedroom as her roommate had recently left, without paying
his share of the rent.
Before
taking a nap, Chance cleaned Zora’s box, no easy task with two curious
house cats stalking nearby. I
could hear the bird crying or singing to herself.
I wondered if she felt thankful for being saved from certain
death on the highway or in the chicken processing plant or if she felt
just as close to death in that dark, confining box.
How long had it been since she’d seen any of her kind?
I figured she would die soon.
We
got ourselves together by two o'clock and went out looking for some
lunch. “Let’s just
walk, stretch our legs some,” I suggested.
I knew I could get a muffaletta at any number of places in the
Quarter. I loved those huge, spicy mixed deli meat sandwiches.
We
probably looked like tourists, except for Chance. With her dread locks, nose ring, overalls, and sandals, she
looked like a Jackson Square regular.
Mother
wore white peddle pushers, a black sleeveless button-down blouse (with
the first three buttons unbuttoned to prove her expensive bra really
worked), and shiny gold sandals with colorful jewels encrusted on the
straps. The strap of a
black, gold, and white purse fit comfortably in the crook of her elbow.
The purse looked like it was made for the outfit.
Mother’s flowing red hair was teased and curled–she was all
that Squeaky only hoped to be.
Grandma
tried to pin her coarse hair back with combs, but they kept
popping out all day long. She
would just sweep them back through her hair lodging them some way or
other so that they held most of the mass out of her face.
Grandma wore simple navy blue cotton pants, ugly-yet-comfortable
orthopedic shoes, and a light cotton blue and red plaid button-down
shirt–the last button was left undone over her woman’s belly.
My
35 mm camera gave me away as a tourist, but I wanted to record any
interesting images in this strange land.
I was a famous southern woman writer doing research.
I wore a long cotton pieced-together skirt Grandma had sewn for
me, it was mostly in blue. With
a man’s white T-shirt and a blue and white striped button-down blouse
over that, I looked and felt comfortable.
I took care with my feet, opting for well-worn, cork-soled brown
leather sandals.
“My
lands! You know I haven’t
even thought to call home once. I
bet Rand is beside himself worrying about us,” Grandma said.
I
doubted my uncle Randall even thought about us. I guess I had a dubious attitude when it came to my
relatives. When Grandpa
died, they swarmed like flies on fresh road-kill.
Grandma was tougher than any of us gave her credit for though.
She told them that she was not dead yet and that anything that
was Grandpa’s was hers and if she wanted anyone to have anything
she’d let them know. But
she would need someone to come around regularly to help with
different things like the yard, the car, the house, and so on.
Oh, they helped out, for a couple of months. They were just waiting around to see what she’d give them,
or maybe they were waiting for her to die.
She took Grandpa’s clothes to the church, so they could be
donated to the needy, and she kept everything else just like it was.
Grandpa’s shaving cup and razor still hung by the medicine
cabinet.
Rand
was a Viet Nam vet, a carpenter, and when riding his Harley Davidson
Sportster, he looked like a Hell’s Angel.
He acted like one too. I
think Grandma held a soft spot in her heart for him.
I heard her talking to one of her church friends about Rand
coming home from the war after the accident.
I never asked him about the war because everybody acted like it
was a sensitive subject with him. Grandma
was saying, “When that grenade blew up in the back of that truck, he
probably thought his life was over.
You know men think they’re nothing without that.
Yes. I think that’s why he acts the way he does, to prove his
manhood.”
Anyway,
he was not always reliable.
“I
left the cell phone at Squeaky’s.
We can call when we get back,” I said.
“Don’t
let me forget. Look at
that. Is that a church?”
“That’s
St. Paul’s Cathedral. Do
you want to go in?” Chance said.
“It’s
Catholic, aint it? Well,
I’ll just pretend it’s a museum.”
After
we toured the church, we saw Squeaky working in the Square.
She was doing a caricature of a rather large woman who was trying
to keep vanilla swirl ice cream from dripping all over her hands.
We
bought carry-out lunch along the street and ate it while sitting on a
rock wall near the French Market. Chance
bought some nuts and fruit in the market.
Mother ate a cup of red beans and rice, and Grandma shared a
muffaletta with me.
“We
better get back and rest up before your friend gets home,” Grandma
said dusting the crumbs off her lap.
She fished her snuff and snuff spoon out of her purse and dropped
a little of the black powder down her lip in front of her gums.
Chance
pulled me back as Mother and Grandma walked back toward Squeaky’s
house. “Think we can get
a Hurricane or some Voodoo Beer sometime.”
“Uh,
sure, maybe later.”
“Come
on. Be adventurous.”
“Okay,
okay. Later. They’ll go to bed early.”
I was hoping they’d go to bed early because a beer would sure
do me good. Grandpa used to
tell me I was wound tighter than a $2 watch.
When I got older, I figured out a cure for that.
Besides, a lot of famous writers liked to take a nip of hooch
once in a while.
When
we got to Squeaky’s, she was already there.
“Hey, girls, look what I made.
Virgin strawberry daiquiris with real strawberries.
Ummm.”
Chance
told me later that Squeaky was a recovering alcoholic.
Lucky for us. Even though the drinks were non-alcoholic, I could see
Grandma doing battle with her religious conscience.
Her graciousness won out, and it was amusing watching my grandma
sip a frozen cocktail.
The
real amusement was my mother. She
began to act absolutely giddy. Did
she not know there was no alcohol in her drink?
She and Squeaky became fast friends.
Here was someone Mother could do so much for. “Miss Squeaky,” Mother cooed in her best Southern belle
drawl. “Would y’all
like for me to do y’all’s hair.”
Oh,
I was so embarrassed. Chance
sat on the couch like a Cheshire cat watching the scene play out.
Grandma had fallen asleep in a chair.
“Oh, Miss Adelline, would you!”
Squeaky was game for playing too.
While
Mother took Squeaky into the bathroom, Chance and I scoured the cabinets
for some vodka, rum, anything to blur the vision a bit. Nothing. We
watched music videos on television until Mother and Squeaky appeared
from the bathroom. “Just
remember, Sweety, you want to make sure your base is real even and
smoothed out, even under your chin.”
“Miss
Adelline, you are a wonder. Look
y’all. I am gorgeous!”
Boy,
she did look much better. Mother
had outlined her lips and made them look fuller, and her over-all
make-up looked natural while covering her manly rough skin.
“Now,
here’s the conditioner I use. And,
well, you just take this one so you’ll know what to look for.
No, no, take it. I can get all I want.”
She pinched and pulled at Squeaky’s hair, like hair dressers
do. “Your hair will be
healthy in no time.”
After
the rest of us freshened up, we went out to eat and took a ride on the
trolley car. The city was
so romantic at night. You
could ride the trolley or a carriage through an old neighborhood and
travel back in time. Fences
and balconies with wrought iron trimmings and small yards with huge
trees dripping with Spanish moss, took me to a fantasy place.
It was the twenties and I was a flapper, an independent woman and
...
“Oh,
foot.”
“What’s
the matter, Grandma?”
“I
plum forgot to call Rand. It’ll
probably be too late by the time we get back.”
I
wasn’t worried about ol’ Rand, but I felt like I needed to reassure
Grandma. “We’ll call
him first thing in the morning. He’s
probably already gone to bed.” Or
out drinking.
When
we got back to Squeaky’s, it seemed like it took forever to get Mother
and Grandma to go bed. Squeaky,
Chance, and I went out for a little night life.
“Doesn’t
it seem unusually calm tonight, Squeaky?” I asked. I’m not sure what my expectations were.
“Nah,
it’s not that late really. It’ll
liven up.”
We
didn’t have the stamina to wait for it to liven up. After I drank a Fuzzy Leprechaun, it was all I could do to
keep my eyelids open, and I think Chance was having the same trouble
after a huge Hurricane. Squeaky
said she couldn’t let her fresh make-over go to waste, so she was
“going out, honey.”
“Squeaky,
you be a good girl, and come home at a decent hour.” Chance winked at
the primped up girl.
“Ooo,
girl, now you want me to have fun, don’t you?”
I never heard Squeaky come in, but I heard her get up to make coffee.
“Hey, sleepy heads.” She
was sitting at the table with Grandma and Mother drinking coffee.
“Where’re
the benets?” Chance croaked.
“Here,
Grandma, you can probably catch Rand before he goes to work,” I said
handing her the cellular phone.
“Rand?
This is Mother. We’re in ... What?”
Oh,
great. What kind of bull
was he feeding her to make her upset.
“Okay,”
Grandma’s voice quavered. “I’ll
call up there and find out. We
will. I love you too.” Grandma ran into the bathroom crying. The rest of us sat there.
I was no good with emotional moments.
I’ll just sit here and let her have time to herself, I told
myself. That’s what most
people want, to be left alone.
“Aren’t
you gonna go check on her?” Chance
prodded me.
Just
then Grandma came back out. Her
eyes were read and swollen around the edges.
“Henrietta’s dying of cancer.” She winced again.
Mother stiffly put her arm around her sobbing parent.
Aunt
Henry was Grandma’s only living sibling.
She had played on the women’s baseball league back during World
War II. Playing baseball
had allowed her to see parts of the States that she might not have
otherwise gotten to see. She
had liked a little more freedom than the South offered, so she moved to
Los Angeles, California. Aunt
Henry played in some small roles in few movies.
Ten or fifteen years ago, she and her long-time roommate bought a
bookstore/coffee shop. I
had only met Aunt Henry a few times, but there was some confidence about
her that I admired. She knew how she wanted to live and she lived that way.
Her having cancer was sad news.
“Well,
I guess we should head back home,” Grandma said. “Thank you for your hospitality.” She reached for
Squeaky’s hand and gave it a couple of soft pats.
“Grandma,
are you going to fly to California?”
Grandma had always had a fear of flying and had sworn she would
never set foot on an airplane.
“I’ll
have to see if I can get a bus ticket ... or one of them fast trains.”
“Mrs.
Farquarson, why don’t we just go from here.
You don’t want to take a bus.
That’d be miserable.” Chance was crazy.
Take this old car all the way to California?
She
was asking for trouble and I couldn’t let her influence my family this
time. “No. Absolutely no.” I whispered loudly. “This car will never make it.
We can’t chance it. There’s
too much desert and who knows what all from here to there.”
“It’s
not like the old Route 66. There’re
gas stations and garages all along the way.
That car can do as well as a bus.
I thought you were adventurous ...”
“Don’t
even. This is not about our
little adventure anymore...”
“Now,
wait a minute, Harley Jane. Chance
has got a point. And I
would like for you and your mama to see your Aunt Henrietta–it’d be
your last chance. That is
if we’re not too late. Oh,
but we cain’t.” Grandma’s
face reddened, and she dabbed at her watery nose and eyes with a tissue.
“Adelle’s got to get back to work by Monday. Don’t you,
Adelle?” Grandma was actually considering Chance’s crazy idea.
I was terrified at the thought and wouldn’t have it.
I knew Mother’s employment obligations would put her on my
side.
I
couldn’t understand why Mother was taking so long to answer.
“Well, now, this is a family emergency.
They’ll just have to be understanding over at the salon.
Besides, I might just start my own beauty salon when I get back.
Squeaky thinks I’ll do good business.”
She winked at Squeaky who was holding both Grandma’s and
Mother’s hands.
They were all
insane. How were four women
and a chicken going to make it all the way from New Orleans to
California in a 36-year-old car?
|