Aunt Sookie & Me

by Michael Scott Garvin

  Mrs. Tucker’s eyes remained locked on Pearl. “You’d best keep it that way.”

  “Momma, I ain’t mentioned Daddy,” Pearl sniffled. “I promise.”

  “Mom, they’re just playin’.” Nedra pulled Pearl to her side, wrapping her arm around her little sister’s shoulder. “Dad is gone! It don’t make no difference who knows the truth. All your lies are gonna catch up with you. They’re all gonna come tumbling down. You hear me?” Nedra Sue held her mother’s stare. “All your lies are gonna come crashing in on you, and I ain’t gonna let it bury me and squirt. Do you hear me? Aren’t you tired, momma?” Nedra Sue’s voice broke. She swallowed hard and wiped a runaway tear with her forearm. “Aren’t you tired of all the lies? They’re gonna bury us, Momma.”

  Mrs. Tucker studied her eldest daughter’s eyes and then turned to Pearl. She crossed her arms tight across her sunken chest. For the slightest moment, I thought Mrs. Tucker was conjuring up a kind, forgiving word, but then she demanded, “Pearl, you got chores to do. They ain’t gonna get done by themselves.”

  Mrs. Tucker’s hand gripped the top of my shoulder as she led me directly to the front door, disposing of me on the welcome mat. “You run along home now.”

  Pearl cried out from her bedroom, “Momma, Poppy can’t ride her bike home. Nedra Sue has gotta take her home. It’s too far for Poppy to pedal all the way to town!”

  “I’ll be just fine, Pearl,” I called to her. “Don’t fret!”

  With a stern nod, Mrs. Tucker slammed the front door in my face.

  I mounted my bicycle and started off down the gravel road toward town.

  A watercolor Savannah sky was fading behind a field of green and gold. Pedaling toward Digby, it occurred to me that this old world wasn’t made for the likes of little girls like Pearl. It’s a mean, unforgiving place that is hard as stone—ain’t no proper place for fragile, tender things. I reckon that’s why the Lord don’t let us remain youngins for too awfully long.

  I bicycled past acres of cotton fields. A crooked wire fence followed alongside the lonely stretch of road. Dogwoods shaded some grazing cattle that watched me with lonesome eyes. A family of sparrows rode on the wind beside me, fluttering low before lifting on the air and flew from sight.

  The day was dimming when I heard the rumbling of a truck’s engine approaching from behind me. I slowed my pedaling and stuck to the shoulder as it sped on past, turning up dust. I recognized Rodney Pendergast’s jet-black polished pickup as it rumbled by. The truck followed the gravel road up further ahead, and before it disappeared into a grove of live oaks, it slowed with the red glow of its brake lights.

  The truck reversed its course and slowly began backing up the twenty yards toward me. When the Ford moved alongside my bike, the passenger’s window cranked down. Smoke and loud music escaped from the pickup’s cab.

  “Well, little lady, good afternoon.” The passenger greeted me.

  He was a gnarly fella, bare chested, with hair the color of muddy straw. His green eyes reflected in the setting sun. His teeth were crooked and stained with coffee and chewing tobacco. He leaned out the window, closer to me. “What do we have here? What’s a pretty young thing like you doin’ out in the middle of nowhere, all alone?” He smiled like he was conjuring up trouble. I could see black grinds of tobacco pinched between his bottom lip and teeth. There was nothing hospitable in his grin. He gazed at my padded blouse.

  I felt conscience of his inspecting eyes.

  “I’m just riding my bike home,” I replied. I saw Rodney sitting behind the wheel of the idling truck, staring through the front glass. “Good afternoon, Mr. Pendergast. I’m Poppy. Poppy Wainwright. I’m Donita’s friend from church.”

  He acknowledged me only with the slightest nod.

  His grimy bud leaned even further out the window, like he was ordering something from a drive-thru. From the short distance, I could smell his foul breath. “Well hello, Miss Poppy Wainwright,” he snickered. “You’re a pretty young thang, aren’t you?”

  Rodney sat silent, his wrist rested on the top of the steering wheel, looking up the long road ahead of him.

  The shirtless man asked, “Why don’t you let me and Rodney load your bike in the tail bed of this truck? We can go for a little joyride.”

  Mr. Pendergast finally glanced across the cab, calling through the open window, “Aren’t you Sook’s kin?”

  I smiled. “Yessum.”

  But Rodney was wild-eyed. His handsome face was gaunt and pale. His watery eyes nervously blinked, and he repeatedly wet his parched lips with a nervous tongue. His hand trembled when he ran his fingers through his greasy, black hair.

  The shirtless man spoke again, “Sweetie, you shouldn’t be out here.”

  “I’m just out for a ride on my bike.”

  “What do you say?” His bud repeated the suspicious offer. “You can hop in the truck with us, and we can go over yonder in the trees and have ourselves a soda pop.” The fella gestured to a grove of oaks and then laughed out loud like he had said something funny. “Why don’t you let us show you a good time?”

  “No, thank you, sir,” I answered. “That’s awfully kind of you.”

  The straw-haired man leaned in to Rodney, whispering something out of my hearing. He turned back, giving his door panel a hard push. It swung open toward me. “A pretty little thing like you shouldn’t be out here in the boondocks all by yourself. Who knows what could happen? Some unsavory characters could drive up on you.”

  A few of the cows off grazing in the meadow trailed over slowly to the barbed-wire fence along the gravel road, pushing their heads through the gaps in the wire. Their low, aching moos called to me. Their lonesome eyes watched on.

  “What do you say?” He patted the truck seat. “Hop on in here, and we’ll make sure that you get home. And, maybe we can have ourselves some fun on our way back into town.”

  “No, thank you.” I started to push my bike further down the road, but he swung his door open wider.

  “You’re not being too neighborly, are you, little one?”

  “I just want to go home.”

  “I ain’t sure I can let you do that, missy.”

  The corralled cattle cried a low mournful sound. I looked to Rodney, but his eyes were fixed on the dirt road before him.

  “It’s a lovely evening,” I said. “I was enjoying my ride.”

  Again, I tried to push my bike, but the man reached out and with one hand, gripped my handlebars. “I can’t with a clear conscience leave a pretty, helpless little thing out here in the middle of nowhere. It wouldn’t be gentlemanly.” His half grin chilled me.

  From the corner of my eye I scouted a possible escape route - - under the barbed wire, dashing across the meadow and trying to lose the men in the grove of oaks.

  “Little lady, you’re gonna climb up in this here truck and go for a ride with Rodney and me.” His tone was no longer accommodating nor hospitable.

  “Let it be,” Rodney muttered. His eyes still fixed on the winding road ahead.

  His bud looked over his shoulder, back to Mr. Pendergast.

  “Just let it be.”

  The shirtless fella deliberated for a minute. He eyed me once again but this time without the grin. Spitting a mouthful of tobacco on the ground near my sneakers, he snickered, “You’d best be careful, little lady. The next time, maybe it won’t be two proper gentlemen like Rodney and me who come up on you on a lonely backroad.”

  He climbed back inside the cab, slamming the door. The jet-black truck accelerated, kicking up dust and gravel, and sped on up the road.

  I slowly started pedaling back toward town. The sun was setting, casting long shadows reaching from the groves of live oaks into fields of meadow grass. The bending horizon burned orange like a raging fire as the sun slipped from sight.

  This old world ain’t made for little girls, I thought to myself. It’s a mean, barren place—too hard for anything tender to thrive and flourish.

  CHAPTER 17


  Sook was fit to be tied when she beckoned me into her sitting parlor. With a crooked finger, she summoned me to the side of her rocker.

  Having stewed in a foul mood all through supper, Loretta and I knew the old wiry woman was not to be trifled with. When I walked into her chamber, the television sat dark, and she was rocking at a determined pace.

  “Missy, we need to have us a conversation about the tomfoolery with you and the Taylor boy. You two dunces have all of Savannah talkin’.”

  “I don’t understand, Sookie.”

  “Today at the Piggly Wiggly, Loma Skousen was flapping her gums about this nonsense. I will not be made the fool!”

  “We ain’t done nothin’ improper,” I said. “Jackson is a fine, decent fella.”

  Miss Loretta called from the foyer. “Oh, Sookie. They’re just kids. Let them be.” Momma stood at the foyer mirror, chomping on a mouthful of chewing gum, primping herself for a night out. “I think they’re adorable,” she smacked.

  “Shut up, Loretta. It’s bad enough that you’re out every evening, walkin’ Savannah’s streets like some floosy. This child needs a good talking to, and you certainly don’t behave like any self-respectin’ momma that I’ve ever seen.”

  Seemingly unaffected, Miss Loretta continued to rat her bleached follicles with a teasing comb to an unearthly height. She exhaled, “Oh, stop it, Sookie. You’re gonna bust a blood vessel.”

  “Tend to your own affairs. This child must learn what it means to be an appropriate young woman.”

  “Sookie Wainwright, you’d cut a fart at a funeral if the spirit moved you,” Loretta quipped, smacking her wad of Bazooka. “You lecturing my sweet Poppy on proper etiquette just don’t seem right.”

  “Poppy, your momma ain’t got the sense of a dim-witted goose.”

  In the foyer mirror’s reflection, Miss Loretta lined her lips and powdered her cheeks with peach blush, appearing to ignore Sook’s harsh words.

  “Missy, you must quell this sordid affair with the Taylor boy immediately!” My aunt demanded. “Lord help us all if he discovers that pecker under your lace panties.”

  I stood at the arm of her chair as she wagged a strict finger in my face.

  “What did we do, Sook?” I asked. “What have we done wrong?”

  “Missy, you’re wrong as rain. It’s disgustin’—a child of your age runnin’ around town with that boy, like two love-struck fools. I won’t have it! I won’t be made the laughing stock of Savannah because you two are carrying on like an Okie variety of Romeo and Juliet.”

  “When I arrived to Savannah, Sook, it was the first time folks saw me for who I really am. I wasn’t the misfit from Mountain Home no more. Everyone back home in Arkansas looked at me like I was a sideshow at the Baxter County carnival. But when I got off the bus at the depot, I was just a girl. Sure, I was an orphaned, homeless girl, but I was finally just a girl.”

  Sook snickered, “You look as ridiculous as your momma!”

  Turning from her reflection, Miss Loretta stomped a direct line into the sitting parlor. She arrived in the room, boiling mad, seething in anger. Pointing the sharp end of her teasing comb at old Sook, she shouted, “Go ahead and throw your stones at me, Sookie! I’m easy pickings for your spiteful nature! You can take me out to the barn for a whippin’ as often as you’d like. I reckon I got the licks comin’. But you be sweet to my Poppy! You hear me?”

  My old aunt stood from her chair, readying to speak her piece, but Miss Loretta wasn’t quite finished.

  Such an ire was roused inside my momma that her nostrils flared, and her eyes went red. “I was raised by a hateful daddy and a momma whose neglectful eyes were always turned to heaven. But a little bit of kindness can be a soothing, healing balm.” Loretta moved in even closer. “Sookie, love don’t always have to be about right or wrong. And love don’t have to sting like a leather strap. You remember that, old woman!” The two stood nose-to-nose. “Be good to my precious little girl. I know I ain’t got no room to speak on such matters. I know I’m a tangle of a mess, but you’d best love her strong. You hear me? I’ve made a vocation out of failing all my blessed babies. Don’t you fail my Poppy!”

  Sook was stunned by the scolding. She returned ever so slowly back into her seat.

  “Now, I’ve said my peace.” With that, Miss Loretta adjusted her bra strap and blew an enormous pink bubble with her gum.

  The balloon of Bazooka burst, covering her nose, mouth, and chin. She giggled like a giddy school girl and went about clearing the sticky goop from her face with her fingertips, “Now, excuse me, ladies. I’m goin’ into town and having myself a night cap with a fine gentleman who I met at the lounge. I believe he’s got real potential.”

  Sook sat quietly as Momma shimmied from the room. Draping her fur stole around her bare shoulders, Miss Loretta winked and blew me a kiss from the foyer. “Sleep tight, baby girl.”

  With the slamming of the front door, Sook and I were left listening to the clicking of Loretta’s heels as she trotted down the path and out the gate. Silence filled the sitting parlor. The two of us sat facing each other. I couldn’t recall a time when my aunt missed an opportunity to fill an empty silence with her opinion on one subject or the other.

  I waited for old Sook to bridge the hush.

  Finally, standing upright, bones stiff from the sitting, she announced, “Well, I’m off to bed.”

  “Night, Sook,” I said. “I’ll shut off the lights.”

  As she waddled from the room, she grumbled, “The day that Miss Loretta Jo Nell Wainwright is the voice of reason, I figure the entire gawd-damned world must be going to hell in a hand basket.”

  I went about closing shades and turning off lamps. I scratched Annabelle’s ears as she followed along my side.

  From the balcony, Sook hollered, “Poppy, perhaps you should invite the Taylor boy over for supper.”

  I grinned. “OK, Sookie. I suspect Jackson would be mighty pleased with your invitation.”

  A trespasser had crept into Sook’s yard.

  Ignoring the Keep Out signs posted along the rickety picket fence, the unwelcome intruder, slowly and deliberately skulked into her lawn, casting a wide shadow over Sook’s prized tomatoes, her crop of collard greens, and rows of carrots. The shady, uninvited guest sent Sook’s squash vines crawling from beneath its shadow overhead, searching for any sunlight. Over the years, the mighty magnolia’s branch had extended well into her yard. Its silhouette shaded the patch of earth occupied by Sook’s prized garden below. This particular magnolia had invaded what Sookie believed was her rightful slice of the sky. The tree’s canopy had interrupted the sun’s rays, denying her sweet peas and celery the sun’s glorious warmth. Nearly every day, while tending to her rows of vegetables, Sook shook her fist to the sky, cursing the encroaching bough.

  She’d complained to anyone who’d listen, but the officials swatted her away like a pestering fly. She attended the monthly council meetings at the Township of Savannah and outlined her grievances, but her repeated requests for action were denied.

  “Poppy, wake up!” Aunt Sookie whispered in the dark. The blunt end of her walking cane jabbed into my side. “Get yourself up!” Her shadowy silhouette stood over me.

  “What’s the matter, Sook?”

  “Get yourself out of bed right now,” she demanded.

  “What?” I rubbed my eyes trying to focus. “What time is it?”

  “Hop up. I need you downstairs, lickety-split! Get yourself dressed, and hurry it up. Don’t dally, times a wasting’.”

  “I’m comin’, Sookie. I’m comin’.”

  I trudged down the stairs to find Loretta waiting in the dark foyer, her face smeared in white cold cream. She stood at the front door, wrapped in a pink terry cloth robe and a pair of pink, fuzzy slippers. Annoyed, she had her hands hoisted high on her hips.

  “Hurry yourself up!” Sook called.

  “Miss Loretta?” I asked. “What in the cat hair is goin’ on?”

>   She shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes. “Don’t ask, Poppy. Your aunt has gone and lost her marbles. She’s as crazy as a loon.” Loretta’s head was covered with a scarf. Her scalp was populated with dozens of tiny plastic pink curlers.

  “Shush up, you two.” Waiting at the front door, Sookie held a flashlight in one hand and gripped a rusted saw in the other.

  “Sookie, what are you up to?” I asked again.

  “Shh! Quiet yourselves!”

  I remarked to Loretta, “This ain’t gonna end any which way but badly.”

  “Hush up!” Sook inched opened the front door, and we three crept onto the porch and into the waiting night. Following the dim beam of Sook’s flashlight, we made our way down the path, to the front gate, and out to the sidewalk.

  Sookie peeked her head out to the street. Looking both directions up Digby, she announced, “Coast is clear.”

  The three of tip-toed along the picket fence. When a pair of headlights crossed, we ducked low and waited until the car had passed on by.

  Standing at the mammoth trunk of the invading magnolia, the three of us surveyed the sprawling canopy of twisted, gnarly branches.

  Sookie pointed the beam of light up to the trespassing bough. “That’s it! That’s the son of a bitch! It’s gotta go.” She snickered with giddy delight.

  “Sook, there ain’t no possible way I can climb up there,” I insisted. “Ain’t no way.”

  “Nonsense! If I was to tell you that hairy-legged Mr. Jackson Taylor was up in that tree, you’d be up there lickety-split! Me and Loretta are gonna hoist you up, and then she’ll follow behind.”

  “The fuck I am!” Loretta protested. “There ain’t no way in hell I’m goin’ up that tree.”

  “Oh, yes you are, Missy.” Sook gave Loretta a hard look. “You’ve been eating all my groceries from the cupboards for months now. I swear to God, you’ve been packin’ sufficient food to hibernate for the winter. It’s the least you can do.” Sook turned her flashlight back to me. “Poppy, once you get on up there, then I’ll hand Loretta this here saw. She’ll deliver it on up to you.”