Chimes from a Cracked Southern Belle

by Reinhardt, Susan

  She clutched a dingy, enormous, drawstring cloth sack.

  “You want to borrow one of my black or gold pocketbooks?” Mama asked, careful to say it sweetly so as not to set the woman off. Anything could fire Aunt Weepie’s engines.

  “No ma’am, I do not. I plan to put fried chicken in here and whatever else I can fit inside without having grease stains and spills. If the meatloaf’s hard enough, like some of them can be, it’ll go in nicely, too.”

  “I’m not going if you carry that old sack.”

  “Lucinda, my mouth’s just a watering,” she said, waving to the children and me but not bothering to hug us. Her mind was on food. “Suit yourself, but I can’t wait. Ain’t it wonderful that you and me can go and get us some home-cooked food and don’t have to drive across town or to a funeral?”

  Mama nodded and forgot about the cloth sack purse.

  “Lord, I thought I’d died and gone to that big covered dish in the sky when I read a home-cooked diner was coming to our end of town. Hallelujah.”

  We all piled in my Accord because no one wanted to move the carseat and redo all its buckles. Mama sat in the back with the kids and Aunt Weepie scooted up front with me.

  “You doing okay, Miss Prudy?” she asked.

  “I’ve got a heartbeat,” I said and laughed.

  I cranked the car and began backing down the driveway.

  “Don’t hit our mailbox,” Mama squawked. “See the flags we got rigged up on it. Our neighbors are Communists and don’t have a flag so we got two of them to make up for their anti-patriotism.”

  My parents remind me of Archie Bunker, the way everyone who’s not a Baptist or a Republican must be, for goodness sakes, an atheist or an Episcopalian.

  “Prudy, Lucinda?” Weepie said, turning the attention back to herself where she was happiest. “I had to make Tony a list of things to buy at the grocery store while we’re having our yummy home-cooked lunch.”

  I knew he did all the shopping where food was concerned. Aunt Weepie hated grocery stores. If a store didn’t sell clothes or jewelry, furniture or something ready-to-go, she didn’t bother shopping there.

  “He needs to know what he has to buy to fix for our suppers this week. He can’t cook a lick. Why, my first husband was the cook and so was my second. I tell all my husbands before I marry them that I don’t cook, I don’t put gas in my car or cut a blade of grass. If you want me, that is what you get. I can barely choke down a bite Tony throws together and calls a meal, but he’s a good lover and makes me—”

  “Winifred, there are children in this car,” my mother snapped. “This isn’t subject matter to discuss in front of children or anyone with any decency for that matter. I don’t care to hear about Tony in the bedroom.”

  “I was just trying to make a point. That I am able to tolerate his cooking on account of his good lovin’. Get a grip. Get your A-S-S some Astroglide.”

  “What’s Astroglide?” Miranda asked.

  Oh, God. “It’s toothpaste,” I said. “Toothpaste for your privates.”

  “Prudy,” my mother said, “turn around. Turn around right now. I’m not going anywhere with your filthy talking and your aunt’s gutter mouth. She thinks these children can’t spell three-letter words. Turn around, Prudy! You heard your mother.” I flipped on the blinker.

  “Come on, Lucinda, I was only kidding. Prudy, keep that car pointed straight toward home-cookin’ and ignore your mama. Where was I in my story? Oh, yeah. I make Tony take me out a lot because his meals are downright depressing. Everything’s always one color. If he fixes meatloaf, which is always black as a roach, he’ll have it with some black-eyed peas and other brown or black food. If he fixes fried chicken, he’ll stick with the yellows, adding corn and macaroni on the plates. I don’t think I can eat another one of his dinners. That’s why I’m so thrilled about ‘Ma & Pa’s’ opening. If it’s as good as the ad says, we can come here all the time and get those Styrofoam ‘go’ boxes.

  “My goodness, I can just taste those veggies,” she continued as I drove in silence, gritting my teeth as Mama squawked for me to watch out for this and that from her backseat post. “Mercy,” Weepie said. “Tony fixed me something last night and I couldn’t figure out what it was. It looked like one of my cat’s coughed-up hairballs. He said it was made from leftovers. Lucinda, what am I going to do when he loses all his testosterone?”

  “What’s testosterone?” Jay asked.

  “It’s something you get when you’re bigger,” Mama said and told Weepie to nip the racy chatter.

  “I want some tessyroni,” Miranda said. “I like cheese on mine. Too much cheese will ruin your heart. They said that at school.”

  “All right, sweetie,” Aunt Weepie said. “We’ll all try to watch out for evil dairy products.”

  We were almost to the restaurant, maybe another mile, when Aunt Weepie wouldn’t let the subject of her fourth husband rest. “I know you don’t discuss your sex life,” she said to my mother, “but my goodness you have been married 40 years and you do the cooking. The only way I can take Tony’s cooking is to have two or three martinis before he spreads the mess on the table. Ooooh, I can’t wait to taste those fresh, home-cooked vegetables. Aren’t we there yet, Prudy?”

  I saw the sign on the left, a hopeless pitiful hardwood sign that looked like someone’s child had painted a few vegetables with watercolors.

  The line was already out the door.

  “My goodness, Luce. Look at that line. Why, this has got to be great. Everyone in town is here. Prudy, park over by that red Toyota. It’s closer to the door.”

  We got out and stood in the sun that was heating up to 400 degrees and getting hotter by the minute. Aunt Weepie began her fellowshipping with all the strangers, and I figured at any moment, she’d offer to do a split or a handstand to entertain them as they waited on the best vegetables anyone had ever cooked on this planet, according to all the hype.

  “I’ve been waiting weeks for this moment,” she told people as the sun highlighted all her gold and freshly dyed red hair. The line finally moved into the restaurant and we waited to be seated.

  Total chaos ensued as a madhouse of people rushed for the tables. Children shrieked and cried and the waitresses seemed in a state of mass confusion. Aunt Weepie couldn’t take it. The restaurant was small and pitiful. “Rinky-dink,” she said. “Looks like a hollowed out shell with some yard-sale tables and chairs.

  “But, you just know the food in these dumps is always delicious,” she added. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to relieve my bladder. If by some miracle this place gets its act together while I’m gone, order me the fried chicken, the fresh creamed corn, a batch of those turnip greens, a hot biscuit and a piece of cornbread for my greens. Tea with no sugar. Tell them I’ll get my sugar in some fresh sweet peach cobbler. Tell them I like it warm with ice cream on top.”

  She sashayed off, pausing at various tables to spread and sprinkle her beauty dust around the joint. My mother sat defeated, once again ordered around by her big sister. She handed Miranda a crayon and she and Jay talked about his chemistry class. I sat there quietly until the waitress came, a plump young woman who had an overwhelmed cast to her face and body movements. She twitched and fidgeted while Mama gave her Weepie’s order, and we managed to squeeze in our orders before the waitress lost eye contact and wandered off to the next set of diners.

  Aunt Weepie finally floated out of the restroom, trailing a fresh cloud of White Rain. She was almost at our table when our waitress bounded from the kitchen carrying a huge tray of delicious-smelling home-made biscuits. The smells overpowered even my aunt’s perfume and the crowd of people beamed with approval, stomachs growling left and right.

  As soon as Weepie sat down we heard a loud crash. I peered around to see the waitress on the floor, writhing and epile
ptic-like, biscuits scuttling like scattered crabs. She hopped up and put every one of them back on her tray and ran into the kitchen.

  “Lucinda,” Weepie hissed. “I’ll bet one of those will end up on our plates. Don’t eat the biscuits,” she said to the kids. “There were at least 40 on that plate. They will be served, so I will say this one more time: We will leave them intact and untouched with a Post-It note on top that says, ‘We are onto your game.’ Y’all hear me?”

  We all nodded and agreed to leave the biscuits alone.

  “I was looking forward to a good old biscuit, Weepie,” Mama said, clearly upset and growing more so by the minute. Something must be troubling her. She typically put on a good face, even when mad or nursing an inner wound.

  “If you still want one after we eat, Prudy can stop by Hardees and get you one. From the way things are going, we should have gone there in the first place. Listen at that, would you?”

  We could hear the manager fussing at the waitress from behind the flimsy kitchen doors. A few minutes later we saw the woman crying.

  “In addition to carpet crud, there will also be tears on the biscuit,” Aunt Weepie said. “If you eat one, you’ll end up with a vile disease.”

  Finally, the poor waitress came lumbering along with our food, tray bearing down on her much in the way life was. The plates were small, food running over the edges and all over the waitress’s forearms and apron—the chicken plopped on top of turnip green juice. The cornbread was burned. The tea tasted good. The waitress was sniffing and the only thing that smelled homemade were the biscuits, which we were instructed not to eat by Boss Weepie.

  Aunt Weepie grinned and shimmied, excitement coursing through her veins. She lifted her fork and took the first bite. Her face bunched into an expression of disgust. “This food isn’t fresh!” she said, loud enough to attract the interest of other diners. “It’s frozen. Lucinda, it’s awful. My corn niblets are still hard and half ice.”

  Mama took a few bites and agreed. Miranda started crying for a Happy Meal and Jay sulked and scratched at his face.

  “Let’s get out of here right now,” Aunt Weepie ordered. “You leave that pitiful waitress a tip. I only have a hundred dollar bill.” While Mama hunted a tip, Aunt Weepie shot from her seat and made a beeline for the manager who was standing at the cash register, a smug and greasy-looking man.

  “I want to talk to you,” she said, as he counted change, not looking up.

  “Fifty-two, fifty-five, sixty—”

  “You can put that money down and give me your full attention.” He slammed the register shut and stared horrified at my blazing-mad aunt. I glanced toward my mother and saw she had grabbed the children and left the table; they’d sneaked to the back of the line, wanting to listen but pretending not to know Aunt Weepie.

  “Can I help you?”

  “You sure can. Now, just tell me how you can advertise fresh homemade food when all I put in my mouth was Campbell’s or Stokely’s, maybe even the cheaper stuff like Margaret Holmes’s unseasoned offerings. Explain all this to me,” she said as he stood transfixed, eyes darting about to see how many customers were listening to my aunt’s rant. “Explain, please, and while you’re at it, tell me why you haven’t trained these poor waitresses to serve people. This is the most unorganized place I’ve ever set my size-6 feet in. Why, my husband can cook better than this and he serves hairballs!”

  The restaurant’s patrons began laughing, and the man turned redder than the hothouse tomatoes he was pushing off as vine-ripened.

  “Ma’am, I am sorry you aren’t satisfied,” he boomed in a deep voice. “We will gladly not charge you.”

  “Listen here, mister,” Aunt Weepie said, pointing a finger near his thin and scraggly mustache. “I didn’t come in here for a free meal. I’ve seen enough low-class no-goods pulling that old trick. I pay for my meals, and I’ll surely pay for my LAST one here. After we leave, you go on over to our table and read our biscuits. We left you our calling cards on top of those hairy, tear-soaked biscuits. I just may have to call the Better Business Bureau.”

  Mama hurried out of line and to the car, Aunt Weepie following us and saying to my mother, “What’s wrong, Lucinda? You ashamed to know me? Why didn’t you come up there and help me out?”

  “Weepie, what did you expect for $4.99? And by the way, you haven’t seen a size-6 shoe since junior high.”

  “Can we go to Hardees?” Jay asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  While we ate burgers and fries, served hot and nothing plucked from the ground, Mama began to tell me about the date she’d found for me.

  “If you agree to go,” she said, “you won’t be sorry. And I’ll buy you a VCR for your room so you won’t have to watch Snow White every day on the one in the living room.”

  “Thanks, Mama, but I have a VCR. Remember, my yoga routine?”

  “Well, then we’ll upgrade you to a DVD player. How’s that?”

  I bit my nails and thought for a moment. “Who is he?”

  “That’s the surprise. I can’t tell you. He is going to pick you up tonight at 7.”

  “Tonight! Seven? I don’t have clean hair and I have nothing to wear and I haven’t started my diet yet. I have to clean toilets at the radio station, and I need to sanitize my squirrel’s cage.”

  “You still have that varmint? That’s sick. How come I never see it when I visit? I’m calling the Terminix people.”

  “Why don’t you call this mystery man and say make it 7:30 or 8?”

  “I might. So. Guess where we’re going?” she asked.

  “Where?”

  “The mall. I’m going to buy you a beautiful outfit and have your hair done. It’s been looking awful for months, long and stringy, and that last woman who highlighted your bangs made them look just like Linda Tripp’s.”

  I stared ahead as I drove, feeling as if my life was out of control, my movements coordinated by strings woven through the deft fingers of Lucinda Millings’ hands. What could a girl say? The out-of-nowhere rejection from Croc Godfrey certainly made me more willing to try out my mother’s suggestion.

  We were almost at the mall when I heard a wail from the backseat. I checked the rearview mirror and saw that Mama was having a fit. A full-fledged hissy fit.

  “Good God,” Aunt Weepie said. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Mama boo-hoo’d louder than I’d ever heard Weepie sob at a funeral. She grabbed her head and shook it, stomped her feet into the car mats.

  “For shit’s sake, pull over, Prudy,” Aunt Weepie said.

  I turned into an Exxon and parked, leaving the air-conditioning running. My children’s faces were like those coming out of a morgue. My mother howled and stomped some more, kicking the seat with her clompy shoes.

  Aunt Weepie reached back and popped her on the leg as hard as she could with her open hand. “Snap out of it, woman. There are children present.”

  Mama lifted her head. Her face was red and swollen, puckered in spots like when you blow something up and the air spreads out unevenly.

  “Mama,” I said in my most soothing voice. “What is it?”

  She sniffed and blew her nose on a Hardee’s napkin.

  “It’s Amber. She’s moving ba . . . ba . . . back home,” Mama said, trying to speak and melt down all at once. “First, you,” sniff, sniff, “nearly get yourself killed and come home and take up again under my roof, then your little sister ups and marries herself a big old homosexual and is coming back to roost in my peaceful nest, and I’ve already raised you one time and don’t have it in me to do it again. I’m tired. Where’s the good life? Where are the golden years of travel and freedom from your children’s bad decisions?”

  Aunt Weepie and I sat in total shock. No one seemed to breathe. I finally asked, “Why is Ambe
r coming home?”

  She looked at me with that red, puffed-up face, smoke all but curling from her nostrils, that chin in full jut. “Her husband prefers fannies. Men’s fannies. Is that all you need to know, Miss Prudy, or shall we go into great detail in front of these poor children who have no F-A-T-H-E-R?”

  “They can spell, Mama.”

  “I got a daddy,” Jay said, his ears bright red with anger. “He’ll kick your ass, Mama Millings.”

  “Oh, take me, Jesus,” she sighed and collapsed against the door, her face splatted against the window, streaks of Revlon on the glass.

  “I’m not sure who Jesus is about to take, but I’m going to take these kids in for a candy bar,” Aunt Weepie said, unbuckling Miranda and telling Jay to hop on out.

  “Candy’s bad for you,” Miranda said. “I don’t want any because it rots the teeth.” They went inside while I waited for Mama to finish her massive fit.

  “I’m too old for this. My blood pressure was 150 over 98 the other day at Eckerd’s. Your murder nearly killed me, and now your sister’s husband is running off with a male stewardess. Those poor twins. Not a tooth in their infant heads. And her 4-year-old. Three boys with no decent daddy. Five grandchildren with no male influence. What in the world have I done wrong to deserve these pathetic statistics?”

  “What do you mean, statistics?”

  “What I mean is this. Two children. Several divorces. The records show 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce. But here I got two children and three or four divorces. Oh, lawsy, what are my bridge biddies going to think? I’m ruined. I tried to be a good mother and teach you two girls right from wrong. Look at this. You’re poor as white trash and your sister may have AIDS.”

  “AIDS? Just because he likes fannies doesn’t mean he has AIDS. For God’s sake Mama, calm down or I’m taking you home.”