Aunt Sookie & Me

by Michael Scott Garvin

  “Some folks have to find their own way to salvation. The clear path can be right in front of them, but they’ll ignore the signs and forge their own way to find Jesus,” Donita said.

  I commented, “You have a lovely home, Mrs. Pendergast.”

  “Thank you. I just love it out here. It’s so peaceful and quiet. When the day is done and I’m alone, I feel so tranquil and close to the Lord.”

  Donita and I chatted until the sun was setting low in the pasture across the way. When she saw the jet-black pickup rumbling down the gravel road, Donita hastily began clearing the plates and silverware. “That will be my Rodney coming,” she announced. “He’s been playing football with the boys, and he always comes home hungry.”

  The pickup pulled up the driveway with shiny chrome wheels and bumpers. When Rodney Pendergast came up the porch steps, he was more handsome covered in dirt and sweat than he was all spit-polished from the framed photographs hanging on the walls inside. He wore frayed, patched jeans and a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. A soiled baseball cap rested backward atop his head, and greased black hair peeked from beneath the bill. He had broad shoulders, and his two big-barreled arms were tanned and had wisps of dark hair down his forearms.

  The striking fella sauntered up the stoop. “So, we have company?” He eyed me.

  “Rodney, this is Poppy,” Donita introduced us. “Remember, I mentioned I’d met Poppy a few weeks back at church. She’s new to Savannah. She’s come to live with her aunt, Sookie Wainwright over on Digby. Poppy, this is my husband, Rodney.”

  “So, you’re old Sookie’s kin?” His dark eyes were as black as coffee grinds. He wore a half smile, but I still felt uneasy with Rodney’s direct stare on me. His teeth were perfectly straight and pearly white, and his handsome face was covered in scruff.

  “Yes. Sookie is my grandma’s sister.”

  “Welcome to Savannah.” Rodney passed on by, disappearing into the house. “Is my supper ready?”

  “Baby, I’m going to deliver Poppy home, and then I’ll be right back.”

  He called from the other side of the screen door, “Jesus Christ. Supper ain’t ready? I’m starvin’.”

  “There’s a pot roast in the oven.” Donita attempted to pacify him. “By the time you shower up, I’ll be back home.”

  He reappeared at the screen door. “So I’m gonna go hungry cuz you two women have wasted the day away having a gawd-damned tea party?”

  His words hung like a heavy smoke on the air.

  Rodney set an angry stare on his young wife. She turned her eyes down to the ground. He exhaled and returned inside.

  “Honey, please, mind your language. We have company. I’ll be right back,” she called. “Black-eyed peas, your favorite, are simmering on the burner.”

  She leaned in closer to me and whispered, “Rodney always returns home hungry, growling like an old grizzly bear. Why don’t I run you on home now?”

  On the drive back into town, Donita told me that she’d met Rodney during their last year in high school. She had attended Franklin, while he was enrolled at Savannah High.

  “Everyone in these parts knows of Rodney Pendergast,” she boasted. “Rodney could’ve had any of the prettiest girls in Savannah. All those snooty debutants had set their sights on him. One Friday night, at a school dance, I was standing with some of my girlfriends, and the band was playing the Everly Brothers. Rodney came strutting right up to me, took my hand, and led me on to the dance floor. I just about fainted. He comes from a well-established family here in Savannah. He is his momma’s pride and joy, and she wasn’t none too pleased when Rodney chose me over all those syrupy Southern belles. The day he marched up to his momma at the Fourth of July picnic at the courthouse and announced, ‘Donita is gonna be my wife, so you’d best get used to it,’ I thought I was just gonna die. I don’t mind telling you that Mrs. Pendergast was ready to pitch a fit. The fireworks flew. Lordy, you should’ve seen his momma’s face.” Donita giggled. “Rodney has got two older brothers, but he’s the jewel in his father’s crown. My poor folks can’t find two nickels to rub together, but Rodney’s kin come from old Savannah money. Of course, my Rodney is too proud to accept a dime from his father.”

  “He’s a mighty handsome fella,” I said. “He’s got the deepest, darkest blue eyes I’ve ever seen.”

  “Yessum.” Donita smiled. “He’s a looker, all right. I know the local gossip. Folks believe Rodney married below his pedigree. They’re spiteful and eaten up with envy because he’s all mine.”

  I sensed Donita was pleased as punch that Rodney had chosen her from the line of eager Southern sweethearts.

  She confessed that in their early years it was enough for her just to walk by his side.

  “When he wrapped his arm about my waist and we strolled along the sidewalks downtown, I could feel the admiring eyes following us. Sure, we’ve fallen on hard times,” she admitted. “Rodney and his buddy have gotten into some difficulty with the law, but with the Lord’s help we’ll get through this troublesome time.”

  I said, “Tonight I’ll say a prayer on it.”

  “I begged Rodney not to keep the company of those rotten boys down at the pool hall, but he doesn’t listen to no one. I swear, he’s as stubborn as a mule. I’m not sure what I’m gonna do with him.” Donita’s voice broke. “With God’s grace, I’m sure he will see the error of his ways. Every night, I pray that Rodney will come to know the Lord.” There was an uncertainty in her voice, as if she didn’t believe her own words.

  As she spoke, it dawned on me that perhaps Donita Pendergast dared not ask for anything more than dime-store cut carnations, because she didn’t believe she was worthy of a dozen long-stem, velvety roses.

  “Sure, my Rodney wrestles with his demons,” she admitted. “I imagine every hard-workin’ Southern man does. But down deep in those places where folks can’t see, in those places where only the Lord and me know of, he’s a good, decent man.”

  We followed the gravel road until it turned into pavement and back into town. She pulled to the curb and honked at Sook, who was rocking on the front porch.

  “Howdy, Mrs. Wainwright!” Donita waved. “I hope you’re enjoying this lovely evening.”

  Sook acknowledged Donita with the slightest nod.

  “How’s your phlebitis?”

  “Aww, fair to middlin’,” she answered back. “I reckon it’ll be the death of me.”

  Donita grinned. “Well, I’ve got just the cure for what ails you. How about one of my coconut-cream pies?”

  From her rocker, Sook hollered, “I ain’t interested in none of your gawd-damned pies!”

  “Pay her no mind,” I said. “My aunt is at the advanced age when her mouth and her heart ain’t hard-wired to the same outlet.”

  Sookie shouted, “I can hear you, Missy!”

  “Thank you so much for spending the afternoon with me, Poppy,” Donita said. “I truly love my little house, but it can be a lonesome place.”

  “Thank you kindly for your hospitality, Mrs. Pendergast.”

  I took my bike from Donita’s trunk and waved her off as her Galaxie pulled away.

  Grandma Lainey once said to me, “The Lord waits at the end of every road. You must have an abiding faith and know deep in your heart that he is always there, just patiently waiting.”

  I thought about Mrs. Pendergast for the remainder of the day.

  It seemed to me that she was heading for a dead-end and didn’t know that Jesus was waiting for her around the next blind corner.

  CHAPTER 12

  A yellowing photograph of Miss Loretta with some mystery fella sat next to my bed on my nightstand. The framed image was my favorite of my momma. She was young and as pretty as a peach. She sat on the hood of an automobile. The fellow stood near her side. He leaned against the polished Chevy with his arm wrapped around Momma’s slender waist. In sienna shades of light, the two posed for the camera. Miss Loretta’s head was slightly tilted. Her smoky eyes smoldered, but
she shared not a hint of a smile. Posing for the camera’s lens, she gazed expressionless. The young boy’s hand rested on her hip. Between his fingers was a lit cigarette.

  For as long as I could recall, Loretta’s smoldering eyes in the framed photograph had bewitched me. I knew without a word that those haunting eyes captured in the black-and-white photo knew more about this old world than I would ever understand. Her eyes had already seen more than mine would ever behold. I’m certain Miss Loretta was already giving poor Grandma Lainey plenty of grief during the time of the old photograph.

  The young fella’s face in the image had been scratched clear from the glossy paper. Someone had taken an ink pen and scribbled until his face was torn from the paper. I hadn’t a clue who’d done the damage—maybe Grandma Lainey. Maybe Loretta. Maybe me. Sometimes I imagined the faceless admirer was my pops.

  In the dark of my room, lying in bed, I believed if I stared at Miss Loretta’s photograph for a spell, I swore I could bend her solemn expression into a smile. If I gazed at Loretta’s picture long enough, I believed with absolute certainty that I could make my momma happy.

  It wasn’t no time after her arrival in Savannah that Miss Loretta was up to her mischief. On her fifth night at Sook’s, after supper, she disappeared upstairs to her room. Within an hour, she descended back down and hollered, “I’m heading out for a bit. I’m gonna go plain stir crazy in this house.”

  Sook and I were watching The Lawrence Welk Show when Miss Loretta sauntered into the sitting parlor. She had lined her lips the color of licorice and ratted her yellow hair to heavenly heights.

  Adjusting her two bosoms, which were wrestling to make a surprise appearance from the top of her cinched dress, she asked, “How do I look?” With a satisfied smile, she modeled her scandalous red dress in the middle of the room. Every curve of her voluptuous body seemed to be busting the seams of her skimpy frock.

  Sookie glanced above her bifocals. “Missy, that dress is so tight, I can see your religion.”

  “Don’t pay her no never mind, Loretta,” I said. “You’re pretty as a picture.”

  Sook remarked, “You look like a wanton jezebel.”

  “Thank the Lord. That’s the look I was going for.” She admired herself in the mirror over the credenza, running her hand along her hips and bosom.

  Miss Loretta was, indeed, all woman. Mother Nature and a sturdy girdle from a Sears Roebuck’s catalogue had perfectly positioned all her curves and feminine assets exactly where the Almighty had intended.

  Sook remarked, “Loretta, dressing immodestly is like wallowing around in mud. You’ll certainly get noticed, but most likely from pigs.”

  “Hush up, Sook. I’ve met me a new beau. A burly hunk of a man,” Loretta squealed. “A real cowboy. He’s got himself a big, long, shiny Cadillac with polished chrome hub caps and a set of bull horns mounted right there on the front grill. He says I’m his sweet cowgirl.”

  “Bullshit, Loretta. Do you know what a cow pie and a cowgirl have in common? The older they get, the easier they are to pick up.”

  Loretta attempted a pleasant expression, but her eyes reflected a flint of hurt. “Sook, go ahead and make fun, but he’s got real potential.”

  “Miss Loretta, don’t ya listen to her,” I said. “I think you’d look mighty smart in a cowgirl’s hat.”

  “My new beau is gonna take me on a picnic over at Lake Mayer and gonna teach me to shoot a rifle.”

  “Good Lord,” Sookie sighed. “Heaven help us all.”

  I asked, “Sookie, did you know that the kids over at the park suspect that you go around shootin’ them with a BB gun just for sport?”

  “That ain’t true. It’s a lie!” Seemingly incensed, Sook vehemently denied the accusation. “That’s a bold-faced lie. What kind of hideous creature would aim a loaded gun at an innocent child? Mind you, some of them varmints are deserving of a hard paddling, but it’s a vicious rumor that I would go shootin’ at little ones.” She held out her quaking hand, “Lookie, my bones are wrecked from the shakes. I certainly can’t aim no pistol!”

  Loretta searched her purse for a ciggy. “For the likes of me, I just don’t see how you two can sit here, night after night, staring at that dreadful TV set. I’m goin’ out to see the sights of Savannah.”

  I asked, “Can I go?”

  “Absolutely not!” Sook interrupted.

  Miss Loretta wrapped herself in a ratty fur stole and checked her reflection one last time in the mirror of her powder compact. “You ladies enjoy your evening.”

  “Missy, the front door will be locked and bolted by ten o’ clock sharp,” Sookie announced. “If you’re not home by then, you’d best locate yourself another mattress for the night.”

  Miss Loretta checked her wristwatch. “I’m just going for a stroll. I’ll be home with plenty of time to spare.” She placed her purse strap over her shoulder and took her leave.

  Aunt Sook glanced over in my direction, rolled her eyes, and then turned her attention back to the set.

  I said, “Miss Loretta told me a woman’s appearance is all she has that sets her apart.”

  “Is that what that silly woman believes?” Sook sipped her coffee from a mug, never lifting her eyes from the television. “I reckon a sinking woman can commit no bigger blunder than believing her beauty is a life preserver.”

  “I don’t understand, Sook.”

  “Missy, no matter how dolled up she may be, a drowned woman never floats to the water’s surface lookin’ pretty.”

  I said, “I suppose it’s good that Loretta is being social.”

  “Child, common sense is like deodorant. The folks who need it most are the same folks who won’t use it.” Sook shook her head. “That foolish woman is gonna plop her ample rump on some barstool downtown and guzzle gin fizzes like she’s siphoning diesel fuel from a John Deere tractor.”

  “We can’t be sure of that, Sookie,” I replied, not fully believing my own optimism. “Maybe she’s not up to any mischief. Maybe Miss Loretta is just hankering to see the sights of Savannah.”

  “I’ll bet my last silver dollar that she’s out sniffin’ for trouble.” Sook turned her attention back to the television.

  “Grandma Lainey always said that Loretta was thirsting for love, but until she plugs up the big old hole inside her spirit, she’ll always be left empty.”

  “Your grandma was a foolish woman, but on this particular matter, she was right as rain.”

  Come early the next morning, before the crack of dawn, I woke to the ear-aching shrieks of Annabelle’s crying. I snuck a peek from the crack in my window blinds to find the violet-and-blue glow of the lifting horizon. I rubbed my eyes clean of sleep and tried to focus. Following Annabelle’s cries, I trudged down the stairs and onto the front porch. The anxious goat stood on the stoop, wailing up a storm. Attempting to hush her whining, I scratched her hide, but Annabelle continued her weeping in the direction of Sook’s vegetable garden.

  When I first saw the body, it was laid out flat in the garden bed. A pair of long, muddy bare legs were sprawled among the corn stalks, and two twisted arms were entwined among the creeping squash.

  I swallowed hard and attempted a yell for Sookie, but only air escaped.

  Her head was face down in the row of turnips. The familiar red dress was soiled and hiked up well above her hips, and Loretta’s bare white ass was blooming white in the early morning light.

  I nervously approached the chicken wire and whispered, “Miss Loretta? Are you dead?”

  Her heap of tangled yellow hair was caked in mud, and leaves and twigs had collected among the mangled mass like some great bird’s nest. Her left boob had slipped free from her dress and lay in the dirt beside her, like some ripe fleshy melon.

  She snoozed soundly.

  “Miss Loretta, are you dead?” I asked again.

  Nothing.

  I cleared the knot in my throat. “Loretta, if you ain’t dead, Sook is gonna kill you for trifling about in her garden.
”

  Her false eyelashes fluttered once and then again. Her eyes opened wide to the sky. She mumbled incoherently to herself and patted the earth to determine where she’d landed from the night before. Her head slowly lifted from above the radishes, and she looked in both directions.

  “Are you OK, Miss Loretta?”

  “I ain’t sure, just yet.” She slowly rolled over on to her muddy hands and knees and began rummaging about, her bare ass still exposed to all of Savannah.

  Cursing, she quipped, “I can’t find my gawd-damned pumps. They’re my favorite.”

  “Over here,” I called. “They’re on the stoop.”

  After a few failed attempts, she stood upright among the vines of squash and staggered over Sook’s prized tomato bushes. Loretta fought her way through the corn stalks, out from the chicken-wire enclosure, and then trudged across the muddy lawn.

  I helped her up the front steps.

  “Are you OK?”

  Miss Loretta appeared lost. “I’m fine, honey.” She spat a chunk of mulch from her mouth.

  “What were you doin’ in there?” I asked.

  She picked straw from her hair. “I ain’t sure, Poppy. Maybe I was huntin’ me a midnight carrot.” She grinned.

  I wiped the caked mud from the side of her face and placed her traveling tittie back in its proper place. I corralled the strands of her wild hair, picking manure bits from her lashes. “Sook is gonna to pitch a fit when she sees the sorry state of her garden.”

  Loretta scratched her forehead. “Best I can recall, I came home, and Sook had bolted me out of the house.”

  “Well, you’ve gone and done it now. Sookie will be loaded for bear when she wakes and notices the calamity in her corn crop.”

  Under the smeared mud on her forearms, I tried to spot if any new needle pricks were evident but was relieved to find only a ripe bruise on her wrist.

  “Loretta?” I asked. “What is this? It looks like you found yourself on the wrong side of a cat fight.”

  She examined the bruise like it belonged to someone else. Shrugging her shoulders, she replied, “Ain’t nothing that time won’t heal.”