One afternoon, Grandma asked, “Samuel, did you learn anything from Doctor Penn today?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And what did you learn?”
“Doc Penn is also mighty partial to yellow.”
Grandma Lainey went pale and hurriedly pulled me along the sidewalk. “It’s time we get on back to Mountain Home,” she replied.
“I’m gonna wear my yellow dress next week for the doc. I’d hate to disappoint him.”
“Heavens to Betsy, child, these times are vexing enough without you flaunting such blatant sin right out in public.”
“I’m sorry, Grandma.”
It was a fine sunny day as we made our way back to Grandma’s Ford. The sun reflected in the glass of all the shops along Main Street. In the brightest pink letters, above the tall glass windows of one of the fashionable boutiques, a sign read: The Poppy Seed. Through the window glass, I could see all the racks of pretty skirts, blouses, and dresses displayed in the store front.
“Grandma?”
“Yes, Samuel.”
“I ain’t Samuel no more,” I announced. “My name is Poppy. Poppy Wainwright.”
“Goodness gracious. Don’t be ridiculous, child.” Tugging my arm down Main Street, Grandma insisted. “Your name is Samuel Lee. You are named after your late grandpa, God rest his soul.”
“No, ma’am, it ain’t.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it ain’t. It’s Poppy.”
Lainey huffed and puffed, pulling me down the sidewalk.
“Grandma?”
She sighed, “Yes, child.”
“Next week, can we go shopping in that store?” I pointed behind me to The Poppy Seed.
“Absolutely not!” She snapped.” We won’t never be returning to Little Rock ever again!”
Grandma once told me that redemption was only a single, solitary prayer away. She said, “The black, burnt souls of the unforgiven can be made light when redeemed in his blood.”
I reckon my grandma Lainey believed my soul was polished as black as my Sunday church shoes. No matter—she loved me just the same.
CHAPTER 10
Walking a straight line was a trying task for old Sookie. The tremors that had wrecked her bones caused her unsteady feet to shuffle on a wayward path. Sook advanced at a snail’s pace. A simple stroll down Digby was an arduous expedition.
The short walk to the Piggly Wiggly would begin at the front gate, but our journey inevitably included visits to both sides of the street. With her eyes fixed to the ground, Sookie watched the passing pavement and paid no never mind to her forward trajectory. She kept her pace up, but her shuffling always veered to the right and then back to the left, heading far off course until she’d realize that we had drifted, Sook would then overcorrect, and off we’d go zigzagging in the other direction. Relying on her walking stick, she’d grab a firm hold of my arm when necessary.
Behind the steering wheel of Sook’s big maroon Buick was an entirely different matter. Aunt Sook drove right down the dead center of any street. It seemed to me that she was of the belief that all roads, bi-ways, and boulevards of Savannah were paved solely for her alone. No painted centerline could fence in Sook and her big Buick. Instead, she opted to cruise down the middle of any street. I’d grip to the side panel with white knuckles, silently praying for God’s safe passage through Savannah. All the while, ignoring the honking and cursing from the passing cars, Sookie concentrated on the task at hand.
When Sook agreed to deliver me to Pearl’s place near Dixie’s Sugar Mill, I was over the moon. I couldn’t contain the sheer joy of being released out into the big wide world.
Surviving the harrowing journey in her Buick, God delivered me safely to the curb outside of Pearl’s place.
“Child, I ain’t sure about this.” She nervously surveyed the meager house with a barking yellow dog behind the chain link fence. “I don’t know nothin’ about these folks. Don’t look like they got a pot to piss in. Could be cold-blooded killers for all we know. And if they discover your peculiarities, there could be a heap of trouble.”
“No need to fret, Sook. It’s just Pearl.”
“Exactly!” Sook hollered over the spitting exhaust of the Buick’s engine. “Redheads are the bane of civilization. Every calamity and catastrophe throughout history can be traced back to a deviant redhead.”
“Oh, Sookie, that’s foolishness!” I slammed the car’s door shut and waved to her disappearing taillights.
Pearl greeted me at the door with a toothy grin. Inside, the little house was sparsely furnished with a dingy upholstered couch and recliner. Paper blinds hung from the windows. When Pearl introduced me to her momma, Mrs. Tucker was wiping off the kitchen counter and didn’t take the time to lift her eyes to greet me. She was a thin, haggard woman with pockmarked skin and gray hairs weaving through her lopsided, black bouffant. It seemed to me that Mrs. Tucker must have woken on the wrong side of the bed and then resolved from that day on to greet every day with a scowl.
“You children don’t make a mess in this house. I’ve been cleaning all afternoon,” she chided Pearl. “I swear, you and your sister are filthy pigs. You weren’t raised in a barn. I better not come home from work and have to do it all again.”
“We won’t, Momma. I promise,” Pearl replied. “Poppy and I are heading out. Nedra is drivin’ us to the park.”
Mrs. Tucker shrugged her slight shoulders and walked from the kitchen.
When we entered Pearl’s older sister’s room, the record player wailed Jefferson Airplane through its speakers. Concert posters were taped to every wall. The Grateful Dead, Joan Baez, The Who, Arlo Guthrie, and Janis Joplin papered every inch of her small chamber. Incense burned, creating a thin, dancing trail of blue smoke that dissipated into the ceiling. An assortment of candles was lit on her dresser, next to mason jars full of seashells.
Sitting on her bed, Miss Nedra Sue Tucker was a wondrous sight, almost seventeen years old, with a crop of freckles that covered her face and bare shoulders. Crowned with the same mass of glorious red mop top as Pearl’s, Nedra braided several strands about her face and adorned them with strings of random wood and plastic beads. When Nedra shook her head, the braids rattled like a baby’s toy. She wore an oversized tie-dye T-shirt, and frayed jeans hugged her hips and were patched at the knees. Her dirty bare feet had toes painted the glossy color of a candy apple, and each one of her fingers were stacked with an assortment of rings, bejeweled with glass rubies, plastic opals, and rhinestone diamonds. Nedra’s skinny frame appeared to be existing on the nourishment of the single cigarette that dangled dangerously loose from her lips.
When we walked into the room, Pearl jumped on the bed next to her older sister. Hollering over the music, Pearl called out, “Nedra Sue, this here is my friend, Poppy.”
With her eyes shut tight, Nedra was lost in her music. She rocked her head to the pulsing rhythm, and with her hands, she kept time, beating invisible drums with imaginary drumsticks. I glanced over at Pearl, who shrugged her shoulders up to her ears. When the singer bellowed his final note, Nedra arched her back, tilted her head, and wailed along with the singer. She then raised her hands high into the air like the pastor when the spirit moved deep in his soul.
Pearl waved her arms in attempt to bring her older sister back from her trance. She hollered again, “Nedra, this here is Poppy.”
Nedra Sue grinned and flashed me a peace sign.
“Howdy. I’m Poppy. Poppy Wainwright.”
The lanky teen sat cross-legged on the bed. Her sleepy almond-shaped eyes had long black lashes resembling spider’s legs. She took a deep drag off her ciggy and blew a great plume of gray smoke into the air.
“My sis believes music can heal the world,” Pearl announced. “Nedra believes in free love and the power of the people.”
“What people?” I asked.
“Don’t know.” Pearl shrugged her shoulders again.
Nedra shut off her phonograph. “H
ey, squirt. So, I’m chauffeuring you two numbskulls to Calhoun Square?
“Yessum,” Pearl replied.
“Cool.” Nedra slid the record into the paper sleeve.
“Are you a hippy?” I asked.
“Kid, I don’t believe in labels,” she replied. “When common folks are scared and ain’t willing to look any deeper, they’ll stick a label on it.”
I looked back over to Pearl, who again shrugged her shoulders up to her ears.
“There is a revolution comin’ soon,” Nedra Sue announced. “When the bureaucracy is overthrown, we won’t put labels on what we are frightened of. I’m heading to San Francisco to join the uprising and fight the man.”
I hadn’t a single clue what she was speaking of, but I knew with absolute certainty, I wanted to join any alliance in which Miss Nedra Sue Tucker was a member.
Pearl added, “My sister is a flower child, and she believes you gotta let your freak flag fly.”
“Right on, little sis. Spoken like a true revolutionary!” Nedra slapped the open palm of her little sister’s small hand. “Squirt, when you’re old enough, I want you to ditch this lame town and hop on the first Greyhound to come join me, fighting for the cause in California.”
Pearl had already confided that her older sister was just biding her time in Savannah, staying locked behind her bedroom door until the day she would pack up her Volkswagen bug and escape to Northern California.
Pearl reported that the louder Mrs. Tucker hollered from the other side of Nedra’s locked door, the higher the volume was turned up on Nedra’s phonograph player. Jimmy Hendrix’s guitar wailed well above Mrs. Tucker’s rage. Free-spirited Nedra would drown out her momma’s fury and paid her no never mind.
“Pearl, haul your tail in here right this minute!” Mrs. Tucker yelled from the kitchen.
“Comin’, Momma.” Pearl ran from the room. “I’m comin’.”
Nedra and I could hear Mrs. Tucker’s rant in the kitchen.
“Pearl, look what came in the post. Did you see this? Can you explain your report card? Your math teacher says you’re failing your class.”
“It’s so hard, Momma. It don’t make a lick of sense to me.”
“You’re as stupid as your father. He was as dumb as a pile of rocks, and look where that got him. I won’t have it! You hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“If these grades aren’t improved, you’ll get your ass whipped until it bleeds. You understand me?” Mrs. Tucker threatened.
“Yes, ma’am,” she cowered.
“Pearl Tucker, you’re a complete embarrassment. You’re as worthless as your daddy.”
The sound of soft sniffles filtered from the kitchen.
Nedra called out, “Momma, lay off!”
“Young lady, shut your gawd-damned mouth!” Mrs. Tucker hollered back. “You ain’t too big for me to come in there and slap your mouth!”
Nedra Sue hopped from her bed, dropped her ciggy to the wood floor, and squished it under the sole of her leather sandal. She grabbed her purse from the dresser and motioned for me to follow her. We walked down the narrow hall and into the kitchen.
Pearl stood with her back against the fridge. Her little shoulders shook uncontrollably as she tried to restrain a sobbing fit. Her red eyes met mine and then quickly turned to the ground.
“Hey squirt, let’s get outta here.” Nedra reached for her little sister, but Mrs. Tucker pulled her youngest back over to her side.
“And where do you think you’re goin’?”
“I’m takin’ the girls to the park.”
Pearl kept her eyes fixed to the floor.
“The hell you are. This child is failing her math class.” Mrs. Tucker jerked at the sleeve of Pearl’s cotton dress.
“I’m taking her and Poppy to Calhoun Square.”
“You ain’t doin’ no such thing.” Mrs. Tucker slapped her hand onto the counter, and Pearl winced like a dog that’s always waiting for a hard kick from a familiar boot. “This is my gawd-damned house, and only I say who goes where and when.”
Nedra rolled her eyes. “Leave her be. You ain’t gotta be such a bitch.”
Mrs. Tucker gasped, “Just who do you think you’re talking to with that gutter mouth?”
The two stood, nose to nose, playing a dangerous game of chicken.
I remained motionless, holding my breath behind the kitchen table as they fought a battle without saying so much as a single word. Mrs. Tucker held Nedra’s unflinching stare for the longest while, until, with one blink, Mrs. Tucker seemed to concede victory in the test of wills with her oldest daughter.
“Come on, Pearl. Let’s get outta here,” Nedra said, never breaking away from her mother’s hard gaze.
Pearl stood still as a stone, uncertain if she should walk or remain at her momma’s side.
“Let’s go, squirt.”
When Pearl took the first step toward Nedra, I exhaled.
“Come on,” Nedra called. “Poppy, go get in the car.”
Mrs. Tucker warned, “Nedra Sue, if you think this matter is put to rest, I promise you, this discussion will continue on later this evening.”
Nedra snickered, shaking her head. She flashed her mother a peace sign. “Later.”
Pearl muttered not a word and walked to the refrigerator, opening the door and pulling out a brown paper bag.
“What the hell is that?” Mrs. Tucker asked.
“It’s a sack lunch for Poppy and me.”
“I don’t work my ass off all week to feed every hungry orphan in Georgia.”
“No, ma’am,” Pearl said and nodded.
“Oh, Momma, give it a rest.” Nedra pulled Pearl to her side and ushered her through the screen door.
We sped away from the little house, Mrs. Tucker barking at the car from behind the chain link fence, like their old yellow dog.
Little Pearl remained quiet all the way to the park, while Nedra’s orange Volkswagen Beetle buzzed along Taylor Street. I sat in the back seat, admiring the two sisters’ unruly mass of ginger locks. Strings of beads hung from the rearview mirror, and the radio played the Mamas and the Papas. The car’s vinyl seats had been painted with stripes of lavender and pink, and the back windshield was plastered with bumper stickers. I was worried sick about silent Pearl in the front seat. She sat solemn, shoulders dropped low.
When Nedra pulled up to the curb on Abercorn Street in front of the park, she turned down the volume of her radio and placed her hand on her younger sister’s knee. “Are you gonna be OK, squirt?”
Pearl kept her watery eyes fixed, looking down at the floorboard.
“Momma’s just messed up. Don’t you pay her no mind.” Nedra lit herself a cigarette. “You see, Mom has fallen victim to society’s definition of a woman. It’s all bogus propaganda that tells us women that we gotta keep a tidy house and cook a fine supper for our man, or we ain’t a real woman.” Nedra’s cigarette smoke clouded the interiors of the small Volkswagen. “Squirt, until Mom frees herself from the archaic indoctrination that’s keeping her chained to her stove, she’s always gonna be bummed out. You dig? She’s just a cog in the man’s wheel.”
I listened on, awestruck, hanging to Nedra’s every word.
“You understand me, Pearl?” Nedra brushed a single stray hair from her little sister’s wet eyes.
“Yessum,” Pearl sniffled. “I understand.”
Smothering in her haze of cigarette smoke, I swatted the plumes of gray, trying to clear the polluted air from the back seat, and remained spell bound by the wisdom from Nedra’s lips. I didn’t want to miss a single syllable of Nedra Sue’s insight. I hadn’t the slightest notion what system she spoke of, but I gathered a rebellion was heading to Savannah, and I needed to arm myself.
I asked her, “In this revolution, will we need guns and grenades and such?”
“Poppy, we will take up arms, but peace will be our rifles, and love will be our bullets.” Nedra assured her little sister, “After the revolu
tion, you won’t have to live under the tyranny of Momma’s backward, Republican hierarchy. You dig?”
Pearl mustered a grin. “Yessum.”
“Groovy.” Nedra rubbed the top of Pearl’s head. “I’ll pick you two up in a couple hours.”
Persuaded by Nedra’s conviction, I made a vow, right there in her Beetle’s backseat, to free myself from the chains that apparently were holding me captive and to join Nedra’s fight against the oppression.
Pearl and I climbed from the car and started into the park. We walked, shoulder to shoulder, along the cobblestone pathway.
“Your momma was really mad.”
“Aww, she’s just belly achin’,” Pearl replied.
But it seemed to me Mrs. Tucker was intent on dousing the bright spark that reflected in Pearl’s eyes. “It don’t seem right,” I said. “Your momma ought not be so hateful to her own offspring.”
Pearl stopped on a dime and pivoted. “If Pop hadn’t gone and left, I reckon Momma wouldn’t have such vile poison runnin’ through her veins. Poppy, she ain’t got nobody. And ain’t no stranger gonna stand around and listen to all her fussin’.” Pearl kneeled and tied the laces of one of her sneakers. “She ain’t always been like this. We once were a happy lot - - Momma, Pops, Nedra and me. He was always up to mischief. Pop came home from work one evenin’ and there, peekin’ from his shirt sleeve was just a hint of a lavender handkerchief. When momma gave the hanky a tug, out from his cuff came a long line of silk handkerchiefs, one after the next - - pink, purple, gold and scarlet red, like they was hangin’ on a clothes line. They were so pretty, Poppy.” Pearl smiled. “He surprised momma one night by pulling a long-stem velvety rose out from his shirt sleeve. Mom blushed redder than the rosebud. At the supper table, Pop waved his hands and said, ‘Abracadabra’, and made a white-winged dove appear from inside his work hat.” Looking up to me, Pearl sheltered her eyes from the sun with her hand. “Poppy, I just know that one fine mornin’ I’m gonna wake up and my momma will believe in magic again. But for now, she’s got some heavy burdens, and I got me some big shoulders. I will carry ’em for her.” Pearl grinned and pointed to the swing sets off in the distance. “I’ll beat ya to the swings!”
Aunt Sookie & Me Page 8
