Fanny Says

by Nickole Brown

  Pepsi was a bitch who knew how to ash with two taps from a two-inch filter,

  not one nicotine stain on her manicured hands.

  Pepsi knew how to stroll in Italian heels, how to pin a hairpiece

  at her crown and let it waterfall into an aerosol nest

  of natural, how to glue a strip of lashes to her you-got-that-right wink,

  knowing just how easy it is to get a man

  and just how hard he is to keep.

  2.

  Because the sound of the first can

  in the morning was the sound

  of nectar

  firecrackered,

  sugar sent up

  to the sky, dull liquid

  kissed with foam, the sound of ready oil

  excited by flour, your gravy being made.

  Because in a sweating glass,

  it cooled

  her knot of hot sleep

  to the same crisp

  as the air-conditioned room.

  Because it was the secret

  of lemon and orange and vanillin

  tickling the air, a fizz that

  whispered,

  Wake up now, Fanny,

  your bad flashing night is through.

  3.

  Because she was loyal—downright militant—to things she loved, Pepsi was all

  she would drink. Rarely water, not juice, not milk, and damn straight, no trailer-trash

  beer. She might have coffee later, before her shows came on, but this was the drink

  that woke her, the drink that kept her up.

  Should you fix her a glass, you might get the full Pepsi Lecture, her obsessive

  counting game, because there was a hell of a lot she couldn’t control, but she could

  control this:

  Make it four pieces of ice—not three, and not five. But four. And I don’t want it too full;

  don’t make me spill it all over myself. And use a six-ounce glass, not some big suck-o jug,

  not a little old juice glass, but six ounces, that big. I want that glass to be plastic and pretty,

  something with flowers, maybe in pink; now, don’t give me no ugly cup.

  It better be clean too; don’t give me no dirty glass, pull it hot from the washer if you have to,

  but just four—count them, four—cubes of ice.

  4.

  Because years later

  in the hospital

  we lost her

  in the deep folds

  of a coma

  for days,

  and when she finally

  woke, she was

  confused, looked

  around, asked,

  What are you all here

  staring at me for?

  Her oldest answered,

  Because,

  Mama,

  we need you.

  Well,

  okay then,

  she said.

  Quit

  being so useless,

  standing around.

  Somebody pour me

  a fresh Pepsi?

  5.

  Because it was not water pulled from the well, water from a place with no pipes,

  because it was not so rich in iron that washing was like taking a bucket shower in blood.

  Because it was not a chipped Mason jar lukewarm from the neighbor’s tap.

  Because it was not milk with a layer of unhomogenized creaming the top,

  because it was not tea her mama set out on the porch to brown in the sun.

  Because it was not Bowling Green, not western Kentucky, and there’s no need

  to ever wait again for the mule pulling the ice man.

  No, you have a pocket full of change now, Fanny. It’s 1944 again, no sense

  scuffling your feet, standing outside on the hussy corner of the dime store.

  You walk right in, order straight from the fountain if you want.

  You’re in Louisville now, you have yourself a man, you’ll never have to choke down

  anything flat again.

  Fanny Says Sometimes It’s Worth the Whupping

  I remember the first time I seen the sign: Air Conditioned. It was at the movie theater, the one for all the rich people. And I said to myself: What’s that? Well, I didn’t know what it was, but I said to myself, Well, we’ ll just find out then. And so I stole the eleven cents from my sister Evelyn’s purse to get in, and after school, I walked in and just couldn’t believe it . . . it was a double feature, and all that cool, crisp air. It felt so good on my body I thought I was gonna die. And I sat in the middle, right like now in front of the tee-vee—a straight line—not too far to one side or to the back or the front where I had to bend my head all back or I’d walk out—I was a bitch now, always was—but sat right in the middle. And boy, did it feel good.

  Now of course when I got home, Mama asked, Fanny (they called me Fanny, never Frances, even then). She said, Fanny, did you steal that eleven cents from Evelyn? And I said, Yes, Mama. And she said, Well, if you don’t give it back, you know you’re going to get a whupping now? And I said, Yes, Mama, I’ ll pay it back. And so the next morning, I went across the street to Miss Peterson’s (she was kind of snotty and never did pay no attention to us), and I stole three milk bottles off her front porch. You see, I knew I could take them up to the store and sell them for three cents a piece, and so I did.

  That evening at suppertime, I had nine cents, but it didn’t matter, because I got a whupping anyways. But it wasn’t no big deal now, really, cause Daddy didn’t really want to do it . . . he told me that, later, said that he had to do it—for Mama—and he’d fold a belt over, like this, and swat at my legs, never above the knees or at my butt or nothing, he wasn’t like that, and I’d run around him in circles, screaming, Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! And he’d swat, but just barely, and it didn’t hurt.

  You know, one time, when I was about six, I forgot to cry and Mama said to him, Topa, look at her face, she didn’t even cry, and he said, Fanny, come here so I can whip you again but he didn’t really, but I worked up the best tears I could so that I wouldn’t get no more.

  Go Put on Your Face

  is what she said, and what she meant was

  a little somethin-somethin, a little dunka-dunk,

  a little mascara and blush, gloss and perfume,

  and best conceal that stork bite, that hot V that flared

  between my brows, that red check pointing down

  to my pink gum-flavored gum, chewed and blown and popped

  with a flirt, me pulling it to string and twirling it with the tip,

  just like a dumb blonde should.

  Spit that gum out now, and hurry, go put on your face, we got to go,

  she said because who knows who might see me at

  the grocery eyeing glossies at the checkout, studying women

  on the cover who don’t let their self go, no, not for a second,

  they keep their pretty selves up, they know how to contour,

  how to highlight, how to erase their face into a foundation

  to build new, how to shadow deep-crease shadows

  in their come-sit-your-handsome-ass-down-here gaze.

  I was taught: without your face put on

  your face is a turnip jerked round and pale from mud,

  that your face without your face put on is flat-footed,

  a gal fanning herself with her own apron, a daughter

  with eyes too far apart that don’t know no better,

  bless her heart. And what girl don’t need a little color?

  What girl don’t need those tiny boxes of pressed powder to catch

  sparks, those applicators and brushes and wands to change

  her, saying you came from something even though you ain’t from

  nothing, saying a good man, he’s gonna find you,

  gonna keep you, and someday, yes, someday, even a kitchen

  all your own.

  You see, child? You listen to your
grandmama.

  Someday a kitchen all your own, the air so high

  the cool will crank through the vents like money,

  your husband coming home any minute now cause he works hard

  for you and he’s coming home to sheets

  hot from the dryer and all that cool inside. He’s

  honey-I’m-home through the door and you’re there, feet up,

  cared for as a hothouse orchid,

  pedicured and manicured and foil-bleached bright,

  and if you want to keep him, best put on that face

  every damn night.

  For My Grandmother’s Teeth, Pulled When She Was Thirty-six

  You wanted teeth the color of milk

  warmed in a pan and wrist-kissed,

  teeth like tended white roses

  cured of black-spot leaves,

  but instead got bad gums,

  a loosened, receding

  smile not all the fluoride

  in Louisville could save.

  So by the time I was born

  all your teeth were nibs of bone,

  dead seeds scattered to the nostalgic

  strata of iodine and Wonder

  Bread bags, of glass

  baby bottles, metal

  highchairs, wooden

  dairy crates—artifacts

  of your era idealistic,

  heavier, even your disposables

  seemingly more permanent but now

  shattered to shards, splintered and bent

  to intricate lace of rust.

  Look: the blown television tubes that

  brought the farce of Father Knows Best

  rest next to those faithful chewers,

  your molars, and the front teeth

  you worked so hard to grow

  when you were still a child,

  the ones knocked loose

  when he pushed you down the stairs,

  they are there too. But because landfills

  can be a place for cut grass and garden

  slop, I also see your teeth bound by

  a sweeter rot, netted into veins

  of wet leaves that remember

  spring, mulched into bulbs

  of spent iris, those tall, old-fashioned

  ladies that while appearing

  used up and gone from

  this world always

  come back.

  Fanny Says She Got Saved

  Now, you listen here, fucker. I won’t hear no blasphemous talk of Jesus. That old uncle of yours is Italian and married into the family and don’t believe like we do, so don’t pay him no mind. Now, I was saved in Bowling Green, off Cemetery Pike Road—baptized the way Jesus was, in a river—Barren Creek River. That wasn’t too long after I made some money off a the church. . . . See, they paid you three cents for memorizing a verse, and so I memorized one: And God said, let there be light. I bought a Snickers and saved a penny donation for the revival. Yes, I’d go every time; we liked to listen to the piano and the woman with the tambourine. . . . My first cousin, Elizabeth Harris, now she never was quite right in the head, but somehow I just a listened to her, and I let her take me up to the altar that night, and I never would let anybody else take me up there.

  Fanny Linguistics: Nickole

  What people don’t know about my name

  is that my grandmother gave me that “k”

  —my very own unexpected

  consonant—

  those two strong arms and two strong legs,

  that broom-handle spine—

  that letter about no one with a name

  same as mine has.

  A mis-

  spelling, really—

  the same botched phonetics of all her

  girls’ names,

  misspelled but fancy

  as chandeliers—Latonna Lee, Candies La Rayne, Lesi Annett

  —names that know never to drink

  lemon water from a silver fingerbowl

  but names that can be bobbed with a “y”

  and cheerlead.

  Now, she called me Koey, so don’t expect me to respond

  to the first nasal tone of my name

  but the harsher cough

  that follows, that typo tambourined

  from the back of the throat. I’ll answer to cold & coal & coke, sometimes

  even hear that sound as a scoop of coco, something dry

  from the tin, but warmed with a little sugar and milk, a name snowing

  while it’s safe inside.

  Fanny Says How to Make Potato Salad

  Alright now. What you got to do is get some potatoes, I used to buy them big bags of Idaho potatoes, and you need to wursh them real good and boil them whole. Now, you know how your mama cooks, like this—plom, plom, plom—so just drop those fuckers in the water and don’t worry about them till they get soft enough to just peel with your thumbs, but not too soft, cause we’re making salad here, not mashed potatoes.

  So then you’ve got to get you one stalk a celery, the whole thing now, and peel back them big strings, cause nobody wants to have to pick their teeth while they trying to smile at you telling you your salad’s any good. And chop up that celery, and then you do the same to one green pepper, not the green onion, now, but the pepper, round-like and overpriced in the grocery store.

  Boil and chop you four eggs. Also you need you about six a them sweet pickles I love so much at Thanksgiving on the Lazy Susan. You can chop them up, or if you want, you can use a bit of that canned pickle relish your uncle always slopped on them nasty-ass hot dogs of his.

  Also add one onion, chopped, and try to use a white one, especially them good old Vidalia onions, they not nearly as strong as the yella. Besides, you don’t want to blow nobody out with your breath.

  You need one a them big bowls, you know, about this big around, and mix it all real good with your hands. Now you know you got to have a little salt and pepper, and three tablespoons or so a mayonnaise, or if you want to make it the real way I used to like, use Miracle Whip. Now, be careful now with that mayo, make sure that shit’s fresh or you’ll ruin the whole batch and have everybody in the house running to the bathroom. Also add in about the same amount a plain yella mustard. You know, the kind that’s yella as a gourd and comes in one a them round bottles.

  While you’re mixing it with your hands, bring the bottom to the top. You might even want to add a jar a pimentos for color. Now, be sure and take a bite in your mouth before you serve it—it’s gotta have a little wang in it, it can’t be dull. If it is, add a little bit a sugar or vinegar to it.

  Cover it up and let it sit in the fridge for one hour. It should be enough to last you three or four nights, and of course, if your husband’s coming home, you might want to make it all pretty by putting it all on top a some lettuce leaves and dusting it with a little a that paprika.

  Fanny Linguistics: Superstition

  In Fanny’s house, there were ways of killing

  someone by walking alone: I could step over

  my youngest uncle sprawled watching TV,

  could step over his boy heart or leg or arm—

  it wouldn’t matter which—because unless you step back

  over him, right quick, by morning he’ ll be

  gone.

  Same goes for a bird let in the house—a sparrow

  in the laundry room had wings

  of the Great Scythe, and a black crow

  tangled in the living room curtains could well wipe

  the whole family out. And should you dream

  of losing your teeth—that meant death

  coming sure as an owl shits

  tiny bones of mice in the middle of the night;

  it was a full-on omen, start baking

  the funeral casseroles now.

  Funny, all that hoo-doo about dying with no intent

  to remember the dead—how Fanny hated photographs:

  I don’t take pictures, she said. It just makes me sad,
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  and if anything ever did happen

  to one of the kids, I don’t want to be left

  staring at their face.

  The Dead

  It was the ones no one remembered who pulled at me.

  —Dorothy Allison

  So tell me, who remembers Topa, her daddy, his face marked with smallpox

  or his two sisters, one that died one day, the otheren the next?

  Who remembers quarantined houses marked with a red card, the brain

  fevers and blood fluxes, or the uncle who found a rafter in the tobacco barn

  for his neck? And wasn’t there a second cousin