Aunt Sookie & Me

by Michael Scott Garvin

  “Hush up your mouth, Sookie Wainwright. I swear, you’re Savannah’s own Scrooge,” he replied with his bulbous red nose. “I hope one of these giant magnolias tumbles over and crushes your bones.”

  Sook snickered.

  Admiring our Christmas tree in the front window, the green garland trimming the porch and a wreath adorning our front door, Mr. Turnball quipped, “Sook, have you gone and found Jesus? Are you born again?”

  She grunted her displeasure.

  Turnball grinned. “This year old Sookie Wainwright has herself a Christmas tree. Come next year, you’ll have your very own nativity scene right dab in the middle of your front yard.”

  “Never!” She protested. “Besides, Jesus could never be born in Savannah. You can’t find a single virgin or three wise men in all of Chatham County!”

  “You’re a blasphemous creature.” Daryl poured Sook a cup of steaming hot cocoa. “Poppy, what do you say we try and fit your old aunt Sookie in a chimney?”

  I laughed, “Yessum. She could slide right down like old Saint Nick.”

  “No, no,” he answered. “I was thinking we’d just stuff her decaying carcass in a chimney stack and concrete her corpse in there for good.”

  Sookie went to chuckle but swallowed wrong, and hot cocoa came squirting from her nostrils like the gushing water fountain over in Ellis Square. “Daryl Turnball, you’re good people, despite you bein’ a homosexual and all.”

  The smiling ice cream man leaned over his counter. “Sookie Wainwright, you’re a real hoot, despite you being a royal pain in my arse!”

  One chilly December night, the McAllister boys and their buds snuck out from their bedroom window and went about stealing all the plastic baby Jesuses from the mangers of Savannah’s many nativity displays.

  The ornery boys then proceeded to string up the dozens of baby dolls by their plastic necks on the flagpole over at the high school. After the principal discovered who the culprits were, Carl McAllister summoned the unrepentant boys to his study, where he proceeded to beat the two within an inch of their lives with a leather belt.

  For Christmas, Dixie bought the rowdy boys boxes upon boxes filled with matching shirts, britches, belts, and bowties. The twins were paraded to the Christmas Eve Sunday service in identical, horrendous, red knit sweaters, with the baby Jesus’s nativity scene meticulously stitched in every minute detail—grazing camels, donkeys, the three wise men, Joseph, Mother Mary, and her baby Messiah were all woven with picture-perfect detail. In fine script across the back of the boy’s silly seasonal sweaters was embroidered “We Live for Jesus.”

  Refusing to step out onto their porch, an embarrassed Timmy and Tommy wanted to boycott Sunday service. When Aunt Sookie spotted the humiliated boys outfitted in their holiday sweaters, she was so gloriously gleeful, she cobbled her way across Digby, calling to me, “Poppy, grab my camera!”

  The boys adamantly refused, but Sook insisted that the shamed twins pose with her for a holiday memento.

  The wiry old woman stood grinning like a giddy possum who had just eaten a sweet potato, the frowning boys flanking her sides.

  I aimed the camera lens at a joyous Sookie with the humiliated twins.

  My aunt gushed, “Come next year, I believe I’ll use this precious photo for my annual Christmas card!”

  Dixie piped in, “Sookie you ain’t never sent out Christmas cards in your entire life.”

  “I’ll start!” she quipped. “Say cheese, children!”

  For my Christmas present, Jackson gifted me a gold bracelet with tiny ivory pearls. As he clasped the link around my wrist, he proudly announced, “These are guaranteed, authentic, ocean-grown, bona fide pearls. They’re the real deal, Poppy! My mom helped me pick it out at Levy’s. There was another bracelet under the glass counter that caught my eye ’cuz it sparkled just like diamonds, but my momma explained, ‘Proper girls prefer real pearls over imitation rhinestones because it’s not about cheap glitter.’ She said it’s about the fella knowing that his gal is deserving of something real. I told Momma, ‘My Poppy deserves genuine pearls, not second-rate cut glass.’”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I do believe it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Jackson’s cheeks blushed red.

  CHAPTER 27

  Days turned like so many fluttering pages, and winter gave way to March. The azaleas were in full bloom—red, orange, and yellow. I’d never witnessed such a wondrous, radiant sight. Spring arrived to Savannah with a lovely breeze blowing off the ocean, hinting of warmer, longer days.

  Jackson and I flew his kite off the shores of Tybee Island. The skies were clear, and tourists arrived on the cobblestone sidewalks in droves, strolling in Bermuda shorts and posing for snapshots in front of the live oaks dripping with hanging moss.

  Pearl and I were like peas and carrots. After school, she’d come by the house, and off we’d go exploring Savannah. Under warming skies, we canvased Cumberland Island, rummaging through the ruins of the old Carnegie Mansion. Wild horses grazed on the grasses, and we ran like bandits through the trees. Picnicking on the salty flats of Skidway, we collected minnows inside mason jars.

  An old rubber tire was strung up by a long, frayed rope, suspended from an oak’s bough in the back pasture of mean Widow Walker’s place. When the old goat was off to a church social, Pearl and I would sneak about and take turns swinging.

  I’d push while little Pearl held tight, soaring out of over the reservoir. Back and forth, the swinging tractor tire would take her soaring out over the blue. As Pearl swung, the exposed backs of her bare legs showed signs of raised, red welts from a hard strapping by her momma’s belt, but little Pearl never made mention of the beatings.

  The tight, twisted rope strained under the weight as she flew through the air. I suspected our knowing that the weathered rope was bound to snap only caused us to squeal louder. The wild wind streaming through Pearl’s mess of red hair was a wondrous sight, but I worried Pearl’s momma would one day come completely unraveled, finally breaking, sending her little one flying with no one to catch her fall.

  Spring came skipping in with colorful bonnets and bright bouquets of April’s colors on Digby.

  Aunt Sookie once told me that Mother Nature doesn’t favor any one youngster over the other. “Before blossoming into a lovely flower,” she said, “every child must dig their way up through the muddy dirt.”

  Apparently, this was true for even Miss Constance White. It seemed she, too, was susceptible to the cruel march of Mother Nature. Puberty arrived that spring to a particularly pretty thirteen-year old with hair the color of corn silk.

  One Saturday, Pearl and I took ourselves to Franklin Square. We pedaled our bikes under the shade of the oaks, where the cluster of girls had encircled a weeping Constance. She sat on a patchwork blanket in April’s rye grass. As Pearl and I approached, we noticed the murmuring girls were tending to a bawling Miss White.

  Pearl asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Is she OK?” I wondered.

  The others made room for us on the blanket, where Constance had completely covered her face with the palms of her hands, crying an uncontrollable jag.

  “I’m gonna die. I swear, I’m just gonna die,” she sobbed. Her slight shoulders shook violently with each sniffle and snort. “I just wanna crawl into a deep, black hole and let the earth swallow me up!”

  “Calm yourself, Constance,” Tallulah said. “It ain’t that bad.”

  Slowly, she withdrew her hands from her face.

  Tallulah winced, but with a forced smile, replied, “There, there. You’re crying over a few silly spots of imperfections.”

  When I first laid eyes on the crop of pus-filled pimples populating Constance’s face, I lost my breath. Gone was her perfect complexion. Gone was her supple skin, smooth as one of Lainey’s porcelain dolls.

  “Holy moly!” Pearl’s gasped from over my shoulder.

  Another girl attempted a compliment, “Constance, you’re
still pretty as a picture. Ain’t no blemish gonna ever change that.”

  The milky-topped boils seemed to be on the march, traveling from her left cheek, up over her perfectly pugged nose, and invading her opposite cheek.

  Pearl asked, “Has a doctor seen them there zits?”

  “Shuddup, Pearl!” Constance snapped.

  A concerned girl with straight brunette bangs that covered her eyes, remarked, “Try a tablespoon of lemon juice with a pinch of oatmeal. That will take care of them lickety-split.”

  Little Tallulah wasted no time, rapidly scribbling the recipe for the oatmeal concoction in her private pad. The rest of us girls gazed on in disgust—but also with a teaspoon of glee at the sight of the blooming bumps ravaging Constance’s once-pristine complexion.

  “They’re just zits,” Pearl declared. “My older sister, Nedra Sue, had plenty of pimples. They were gone in no time at all.”

  “Really?” Through tear-filled eyes, Constance turned to Pearl with the slightest glimmer of hope. “Pearl, did Nedra’s complexion ever clear up?”

  “It sure did!” Pearl encouraged her. “You’ve seen Nedra Sue. Her skin is as clear and smooth as a baby’s butt.”

  “How long did it take?” Constance asked. “When did her pimples clear up?”

  “It took no time at all. It was a breeze.” Pearl smiled assuredly. “It was the better part of a year.”

  “A year? A year? An entire blessed year?” She began bawling once again. Her sniffling nose was as red as the pimples, populating her face.

  All of us tried to settle her.

  Tallulah confided to the gaggle of us girls, “This morning, Constance heard that Derek ain’t gonna escort her to the Savannah High Formal because of her skin’s ailment. Derek is gonna take Brittany Cleveland instead of Constance.”

  “That’s a lie!” Constance shouted. “Derek is not taking Brittany to the formal! That’s a bold-faced lie!”

  Tallulah spoke in almost a whisper, “It’s true. My brother, Brody, is on the junior varsity football team with Gordy Mull. His momma works at Levy’s. She was behind the register in the young ladies’ fashion department when Brittany was trying on dresses. Mrs. Mull said Brittany was admiring herself in a full-length mirror, and confessed, ‘I’m buyin’ me a dress for the May Formal. I’ll be escorted by Mister Derek Bledsoe.’”

  “Shut up!” Constance countered. “That ain’t true.”

  Tiny Tallulah pushed her spectacles up further onto her nose. “Constance, I wouldn’t lie about such a thing. Brody said Derek fancies Brittany ’cuz she has sprouted herself a respectable pair of breasts, and her pa has a really keen fishing boat.”

  Indignant, Constance clinched her perfect fists. “Well, let Brittany have him. Good riddance! My momma always taught me to give my used toys to the less fortunate! Brittany Cleveland can have my leftovers!”

  It was the first week of April when news came from Memphis that the Reverend Martin Luther King was killed, shot down in cold blood. Townsfolk walked the sidewalks with lowered heads and solemn brows. There was a heaviness hanging in the air. Even the visiting tourists riding in the horse-drawn carriages and strolling through the squares seemed to wear uneasy expressions.

  Nedra Sue said that the killing of the minister from Montgomery was all part of a dastardly conspiracy. “There’s no stopping them killers. Those men who done this to Mr. King ain’t gonna stop until they’ve gunned down every last colored man who is courageous enough to speak up.”

  “Why so?” Pearl asked. “What business does anyone have bringin’ harm to a man of God?”

  “The bigots, racists and bureaucrats are scared of any negra man who is smart enough to see clear through all of their intolerance and ignorance.”

  I never spoke a word to Sookie or Miss Loretta, but the gunshots over in Memphis left me frightened and running for cover. Always watching and waiting, I looked over my shoulder when I passed a pair of suspicious eyes on the sidewalk or if a pickup full of riled up rednecks drove by.

  One afternoon standing near his ice cream truck, I asked Daryl about the loss of Mr. King. “These are vexing times, child. It seems it used to be that decent folks could be quiet and go about their own business,” he replied, “but nowadays if common folk remain silent on such issues, they are as guilty as the loudest among us who are spewin’ such vile hatred.”

  Pearl and the other kids were dismissed from school the first week of May for summer vacation. We celebrated by sneaking out a pack of Nedra Sue’s cigarettes and a mason jar of Sook’s moonshine.

  In an abandoned boxcar, me, Jackson, Pearl, Tallulah, the McAllisters, and Constance got liquored up and puffed on ciggies.

  Little Tallulah sniffed the jar’s contents and then put the hooch up to her lips with one hand and pinched her nose closed with the other. She took a single sip and then covered her face with both hands. “I’m drunk!” She declared and fell to the floor.

  Pearl shook her head. “Tallulah, you just drank it. Get up. The liquor takes some time before it can work its magic.”

  She stood up, dusted herself off, and walked to the corner of the train car. She took a seat and began scribbling in her journal.

  Pearl guzzled the clear alcohol like it was sweet tea and then wiped her mouth with a swipe of her forearm. She handed the jar to a leery Constance, who tried a taste, then grimaced. “It’s disgustin’! It’s like drinkin’ petrol from the pump.”

  Already drunker than a skunk, Tommy McAllister serenaded all of us with a swollen tongue,

  “Row, row, row your boat,

  Gently down the stream…”

  Pearl climbed from the train car and waltzed about, all by herself, in the field of summer grass along the tracks. She whirled and pranced about like an inebriated ballerina. Falling onto her back, she disappeared in the meadow grass and watched the spinning world.

  “Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily…

  Life is but a dream.”

  Tanked up and tender, a sappy Jackson confessed the depths of his love. “Deeper than the ocean,” he whispered to me. “Poppy, my affections run deeper than the ocean.” A breeze off the water blew stray strands of his yellow hair into his green eyes.

  A few of us formed a line in the deserted train car and Constance tried to teach us the steps to “Do the Choo Choo” by Archie Bell and the Drells, but we weren’t attentive students—Tommy McAllister tripped over his big feet, Tim was mining for gold with his index finger, and Jackson and I weren’t paying attention to our dance instructor.

  Finally, Constance, frustrated with our shenanigans, threw her hands in the air. “I give up! You’re all hopeless cases! You’re never gonna be permitted into the circles of the hipper kids at Savannah High!”

  Little Tallulah, who kept returning for another sample of moonshine, gripped the empty mason jar in one hand and a ciggy in the other and announced, “I’m an alcoholic.”

  “No, you’re not, Tallulah,” I said. “It takes more than a single sip.”

  “Well, I’m either drunk or it’s hotter than Hades in here,” she complained. Her cheeks were flushed red. “Poppy, I can’t see clearly. The world is all catawampus.” Drunk and dizzy, Tallulah stumbled about the abandoned train car. Attempting to focus her magnified eyeballs, she declared, “I reckon I always knew that one day I’d turn to a life of fast livin’ and drinking Satan’s moonshine.” She staggered about until she fell on a few abandoned gunny sacks of cotton in the corner. She plopped on the stuffed cargo and passed out. Her little notebook slipped from her loose grip, dropping to the planked car floor, its pages left exposed.

  The McAllister boys looked over the open notepad. One of the twins moved in closer to investigate. Constance, too, lingered near Tallulah’s binder. Jackson looked over to me for any hint in my expression.

  Pearl arrived back to the train car. Blades of yellow straw had collected in her wild frizz. “What the heck has happened to Tallulah?”

  “She’s passed out cold,” Timm
y replied and then signaled with a nod to young Miss Banks’s open notepad.

  Pearl turned to me. I shrugged my shoulders up to my ears.

  Tommy gave her journal a slight kick with his sneaker.

  “Don’t you dare touch it, McAllister, or I’ll kick your ass all the way into next week!” Pearl threatened. “It’s none of our business! I’m certain that diary contains all of Tallulah’s most intimate secrets and darkest desires. She may be small in stature, but I reckon she’s a mountain of wisdom behind those round wire spectacles.”

  We all gazed upon little Tallulah, who slept soundly on the bed of cotton sacks. A steady stream of syrupy drool leaked from the corner of her lips, down her chin, and drizzled onto her blouse.

  “She’s a deep thinker,” Pearl added.

  “Dunno. I’ve always suspected that she’s a secret agent for the FBI,” Tommy declared. “She’s got those magnified shifty eyes. I’ve never trusted her no how.”

  Timothy replied, “Yessum. She’s certainly involved in some kind of espionage. Maybe a communist? Those coke-bottle glasses and her meek and mousey disposition are just a disguise to throw us off her path. I have a hunch she’s got the nuclear codes scrawled on its pages.”

  “No way,” Jackson replied. “I’m certain that it’s Tallulah’s private journal. I bet she composes beautiful sonnets and lovely poems. I reckon that there book is filled with some of the most profound and tender words ever written on pulp.”

  “Naw. I’ve always suspected that Tallulah is an artist,” Constance surmised. “I bet she draws the most beautiful pictures on its pages. I see her sketching in it all the time. I just know Tallulah is itchin’ to ask me to pose for one of her portraits.” With one flip Constance corralled her golden locks over one shoulder. “Sketching someone of my beauty would be a thrill and honor for an aspiring artist like Tallulah.”

  Pearl took possession of the mystery notebook. “It’s none of our dad-gum business!” she replied. “Until she sobers up, it’s in my safekeeping.”