Aunt Sookie & Me

by Michael Scott Garvin

  Little Tallulah snuggled in deeper into the sacks of hay and slept the summer afternoon away.

  CHAPTER 28

  August arrived to Savannah, oppressive and unforgiving.

  Aunt Sook said August in Savannah is like a fat Southern woman—they could never get comfortable and were impossible to get around.

  Folks ran for cover from the oppressive sun and swarming mosquitos. The most you could hope for was a whimper of a breeze off the shore. The afternoon heat hung heavy in the air, like the moss dripping from the oaks. The ancient ladies moved their rockers nearer to the oscillating fans, and the lazy hounds hunted for sympathetic shade trees.

  Jackson and I lost afternoons on Tybee Island. The sweltering days passed like rioting sparrows, always flying just ahead of us. They moved in a flurry, staying just out of our reach. After our chores were done, the gang would meet up on Broughton Street at Leopold’s for a cone of tutti-frutti ice cream. In a vinyl booth, we conspired, pooling our money. We bought Tallulah a single ticket over at Avon’s Theater for the afternoon matinee. Terrified by the prospects of incarceration, little Tallulah stood nervously at the ticket window and purchased her single ticket. Once safely inside, she snuck about, letting the rest of us kids slip in through the back door off the alleyway.

  Jackson and I sat watching Mr. Charlton Hesston in Planet of the Apes in the darkened theater, sharing a popcorn and an orange soda pop. He’d steal a kiss when no one was looking. All the gang emptied out onto the street, and the McAllister boys went about grunting and beating their chests like angry gorillas and terrorized little Tallulah and Constance by picking at their scalps like feeding chimpanzees.

  Those warm afternoons with Jackson, Pearl, and the other kids allowed me to forget all the fighting and fussing going on back home. My momma wasted away her days with me, squandering them with mean men, moonshine, and more poison.

  Earlier that spring, Mr. King was shot dead. In June, the young Mr. Kennedy’s life was taken. Silenced with a single bullet. Like his brother before him, the young fella was slaughtered like some hunted animal.

  Watching the news reports on television, old Sook shook her head. “Poppy, there’s a fire comin’ on,” she said with absolutely certainty, like she was forecasting the coming week’s weather. “The assassins who took the life of the minister from Montgomery and now murdered young Mr. Kennedy from Massachusetts, have started a mighty fire.”

  I asked her, “You mean like the forest fire near Moody’s swamp?”

  “No, child,” she replied. “A fire is comin’ to our city streets. I suspect the blaze will burn so red hot that folks in this country won’t recognize themselves in the ash and destruction.”

  Just a few weeks later, Sook’s premonition came true. The Democrat’s rally over in Chicago burned like a blazing bonfire. Jackson and I sat cross-legged in front of Sook’s TV, watching the reports from the Democratic convention.

  Jackson turned to my aunt with a hint of fear in his green eyes. “Mrs. Wainwright, do you suspect downtown Savannah will be torched?”

  “Ain’t no tellin’, son,” she answered. “But the smothering smoke from these fires will cover this entire country like a blanket of shame for decades to come.”

  It was a long, hard summer on Digby. Miss Loretta had come unhinged. She no longer attempted to camouflage the tiny puncture wounds dotting up and down her forearms with a lace shawl or wrap. Momma had come clear off the rails. Like a runaway wheel on a track, she was spinning further away from me and her sanity.

  With skin as pale as a ghost and with weary, hollowed-out eyes, she roamed the rooms of Sook’s place, stumbling about, talking nonsense to no one. When I’d call to her, she’d turn with a lost expression. On some nights, she’d study my face and refer to me by the name of one her other youngins, who were spread out like seeds all over the South.

  Sook and Miss Loretta battled around the clock. A war was being waged on 22 South Digby Street. Angry, hateful words were thrown across the rooms like shattering plates. Shards of cutting words left Miss Loretta bawling and old Sook weary from the fight.

  As for me, I tried my damnedest to steer clear of the flying debris. Miss Loretta made hard promises in the sober light of morning and broke them all by nightfall. She’d go missing along with another piece of Sook’s jewelry or another dish from the family silver. She’d return home at night wearing someone else’s smile, laughing too loud, dancing about the house like some lunatic. Wanting to hide from all the quarrelling, I’d ascend the staircase to my room after supper and use a pillow to smother out the sounds of my family tree tumbling to the ground.

  From my room, I could hear Miss Loretta tearing about the house deep into the night. When only Savannah’s ghosts lurked about, Momma still haunted the rooms below, knocking over vases and tiffany lamps. She sang along to the records on Sook’s phonographs in the sitting parlor. Finding her way into the attic, she rummaged through the old dusty boxes and danced like some drugged debutante in the yellowing lace wedding dress. I secretly spied her from behind the stacks of boxes as she deliriously waltzed, a lost bride betrothed to Satan’s serum.

  On a few nights, I cracked open the door to my room to find Aunt Sook standing just inside her own bedroom door at the far end of the hall, listening to the rants and ravings of a mad woman below. Sookie would acknowledge me with the slightest nod of her head, silently pressing her index finger to her mouth, shushing me, and then slowly shutting her door. Latching her lock, Sook would surrender her home to the dope fiend downstairs.

  In a blink of an eye, Momma would go from being frantically high, tripping through the house, laughing like some crazed woman, and then suddenly, she would trudge from room to room, as solemn as a funeral procession. Miss Loretta would plod about with shoulders slumped low, back bent, like she was hauling some cumbersome load. The weight of her wicked ways was a heavy burden to carry for her diminishing frame. I wished my momma knew that truth was as light as a sparrow’s feather.

  Frightened by momma’s ever-changing moods, I took to hiding on the rooftop or behind the heavy curtains with Annabelle in the dining room. Quiet as a mouse, we waited for Loretta’s crazed parties of one to end or for her fitful furies to pass.

  Early one morning, Carl McAllister discovered Miss Loretta passed out in their lawn after Sook had locked her from the house the night before. Curled up like a weary stray, she slumbered in the McAllister’s azalea beds.

  Dixie provided Loretta with a cup of black coffee and a fresh Danish roll, and then Carl walked my momma back across the street before sunrise, delivering her to our front-porch swing.

  The next morning, I caught old Sook cobbling back across the street after delivering a basket of her most pristine vegetables to the McAllister’s front stoop.

  One afternoon, while rocking in her rocker, Sookie called up to me as I sat on my roof perch. “Child, you understand, your momma is knee deep in the weeds?”

  “Yessum,” I answered back. “She’ll come around, Sook.”

  “I suspect the time has come for me to request Miss Loretta to move on.”

  My aunt’s cumbersome words were too heavy to truly be heard high atop my shingled roof.

  “Just give her more time, Sookie,” I pleaded. “Please, just give her a little more time.” But, I knew my aunt had endured Momma’s outlandish behavior far longer on my account.

  Early one morning before sunrise, when the sheriff escorted Miss Loretta home in the back of his flashing patrol car, he and Sook spoke in hushed tones out by the front gate, while Miss Loretta sat locked in his backseat. She hollered from behind the glass, crazed and cursing. All the neighbors watched on from their porches. Sookie stood on the pavement in her slippers and terry cloth robe, thanking Bernard.

  I peeked from behind the curtains as Sheriff Delany opened the door to his patrol car, and Miss Loretta fell like a gunny sack to the hard asphalt. Sookie rushed about, trying to help her up onto her feet, but Momma tumbled into the myrtle he
dge, heaving and vomiting up her last meager meal.

  I reckon, the good Lord might never forgive me for my selfishness on that particular morning. As Miss Loretta lay in her own sick, my prayers weren’t for her soul’s salvation. Not once did I ask the Almighty for her restoration. Her redemption never even crossed my mind. The single silent prayer I repeated from behind the draperies was for the sheriff’s flashing red and gold lights atop his patrol cars to go dark. Carl, Dixie, the McAlister boys, the Atkinsons, the Hudsons, and the Calverts, all in their flannels and dressing gowns, watched the spectacle as my momma flailed on the ground like a tragic lunatic. From my hiding place, my only prayer was that his flashing beacons turn off. So selfish was my shame that my sole concern was that our tangled affair wouldn’t be illuminated for all the fine folks of Digby to witness.

  On Miss Loretta’s last night with us, all the useless angry words made matters only worse. Sookie followed after Loretta from room to room, shouting and cursing down the stairs and into the foyer. I trailed behind, attempting to stop what was inevitable, trying to keep balloons afloat that were always destined to pop.

  Sook hollered, “Miss Loretta, you’ve overstayed your welcome.”

  “No, Sookie!” I cried out. “Don’t do it!”

  “Poppy, you’d best go on upstairs to your room,” Sook insisted.

  “I won’t!” I shouted. “I won’t!”

  Sook gave me a stern gaze. “Yes, you will, missy.”

  “Poppy, you listen to your aunt. Go to your room.”

  I looked at them both. “I won’t! I’m telling you now, I won’t!”

  “Loretta, I don’t want to do this in front of the child.”

  “Sook, just say your peace. Just say what you’ve come to say.”

  Aunt Sookie followed Momma into the kitchen. Gripping the back of a chair with quaking hands, my aunt yelled. “Loretta, it’s no secret that you’re out mining for a vein every night. Look at yourself! You’re wastin’ away to flesh and bone.” Sook’s stare stayed fixed on Loretta’s hollow, graying eyes. “You’ve been warned, and I will no longer abide such behavior under my own roof. It’s time you gather up your belongings and clear out.”

  I shouted, “No, Sookie!”

  “Poppy!” Sook set her sights on me, burning a hole clean through me. “I’m too old. I won’t fight you, too. This ain’t your battle.”

  But it was my battle—a war I’d fought for as long as I could recall.

  I yelled at her, “I hate you, Sook! I’ll hate you forever!”

  “Poppy, your aunt Sook is right,” Loretta scolded. She then turned her weary eyes to the floor. “I’ve gone and overstayed my welcome. It’s time I move on.”

  “No, Loretta,” I pleaded. “No.”

  The room went quiet. A ceasefire had been called.

  “Then, I’ll go with you,” I said. “Let me come.”

  Loretta spoke to Sookie, but her every word were meant for my hearing. “Goodness, no. What would I do with a child taggin’ along? You’d only slow me down, Poppy.” Miss Loretta never turned, keeping her eyes fixed on Sook. “I ain’t got the patience to tote a child all about the country.” She slowly lowered herself into one of the kitchen chairs like the weight of her words were too heavy to bear.

  “You’re a gawd-damned liar!” I hollered. “I don’t care what either of you say, I’m comin’ with you, Loretta! I’m packing my case.”

  “No, Poppy,” she insisted. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere. I got no use for extra baggage.”

  I kneeled by her chair and took her hand. “But, who will take care of you, Miss Loretta? Who will tend to you?”

  She couldn’t meet my gaze.

  “Momma? I’ll fix you hot meals every day. I can take care of you.”

  Standing, Loretta smoothed her skirt with the palms of her hands. “I’m a grown woman. No one takes care of me.” She cleared her throat. “Besides, there’s a fella in Oklahoma City who fancies me. He works the oil fields. He’s got real potential. I wouldn’t stand a ghost of a chance if he finds out that I’m burdened with children. Especially a child with your peculiarities.” She attempted a laugh and turned to face me. “If he took one look at you, he’d certainly head for the hills.”

  “You’re a liar.” I said. “You’re a gawd-damned liar! There’s nothin’ waiting for you in Oklahoma City. You’re a gawd-damned liar!”

  Loretta adjusted the collar of her blouse and reached for her purse. She found a powder compact and checked her reflection in the small, round mirror. “Poppy Wainwright, you’ve gone and lost all your manners.”

  “You’re lyin’, Loretta!”

  Her eyes welled, but she fought back any tears. Straightening her spine, she replied, “Poppy, you’d best remember just who you are. You haven’t been raised to speak to your momma in this uncivilized manner.” Miss Loretta walked to the doorway. “Now excuse me. A proper lady knows when to leave a room.”

  A bloated, pale moon hung above the magnolias when Momma met the yellow taxi at the curb. I watched on from the porch as a young, handsome, obliging man helped her with her scuffed Samsonites. He tipped his hat and opened the car door for her, like a respectable gentleman does.

  I reckon, Loretta would never truly unpack her Samsonites for any time longer than the shortest spell. Instead, she’d keep traveling those empty miles, tempting fate at every turn. I wanted to call out to her, but I remained silent on the stoop. Like a river of stones, my momma would run wild through the countryside, bruised and battered from her journey down the rocky backroads—loving men without a vein of kindness, begging the night for any affection, and asking nothing of God.

  Aunt Sookie called from inside the house, “Poppy, come on, and I’ll whip your scrawny ass at a game of checkers.”

  I never knew where Miss Loretta was bound. Most likely another dusty town where liquor flows free and menfolk are as horny as toads. I’d have to wait for another day, when my momma tired of smoky taverns, calloused fellas, and useless desires.

  “I’m comin’, Sook,” I said. “I’m comin’.”

  I waved until the cab’s taillights turned off Digby.

  Sook hollered, “These checkers aren’t gonna play by themselves.”

  “I’m comin’, Sook.”

  It seemed to me, life never gifted folks all they yearn for. I reckon, you gotta just hold on tight to what is yours until it all falls away or until the red tail lights travel clear out of sight.

  For a string of nights, I dreamed that Miss Loretta was in the belly of a whale. God swore to keep her there until she got herself on the straight and narrow. My momma lived in the great beast’s belly for the longest spell, until one fine day, after she had healed herself of her cravings, the Lord smiled upon her. He knew Miss Loretta had truly changed her wicked ways. The giant whale then swam near the shore, belching her onto the beach of Tybee Island.

  I was there waiting for her with my grandma Lainey. We three walked along the sandy shores of Tybee. The repeating tides washed up on the beach to greet our bare feet. Loretta and Grandma Lainey sat side by side. Not an angry or cross word spilled between them.

  My momma’s war was over. Her eyes were crystal clear, and she folded into Lainey’s arms like a baby who longed to be held by her momma.

  “And so, she just left?” Pearl asked with a baffled expression. “She’s gone, just like that?”

  I shrugged my shoulders up to my ears. “It’s what she does, Pearl.” I said. “For as long as I can recall, Miss Loretta is either comin’ or goin’. I can’t keep track.”

  Pearl wished aloud, “Gee whiz, just once I’d like my momma to try and see if her luggage would fit into a taxi cab’s trunk.”

  We shared a laugh.

  “I’m real sorry, Poppy. I can’t see no good reason why a momma would do her youngins this way,” she said. “If the Holy Lord is just and fair, it seems he’d bring down an angry thunderbolt on any momma who would do such a thing.”

  I remarked, “Mr
s. Tucker don’t do you right by you neither, Pearl.”

  She thought on it for a spell. “I reckon not.”

  Turning my head to the open window, I replied, “I suppose, if I went searching deep in dark places, I could find a way…”

  Through my open window, a family of cicadas homesteading in the magnolias serenaded the heavy August night.

  “What?” Pearl asked. “What did ya say, Poppy?”

  In a hushed whisper, quieter than God’s voice, I said, “I reckon I could find a way to hate her.”

  Pearl’s green eyes opened wide, fixed on my mouth, like I’d muttered the filthiest words.

  She studied me for the longest while and slowly nodded her head up and down.

  Sookie called from the bottom of the stairs, “Poppy, it’s time for bed. Take your bath, and then shut them lights off!”

  “OK, Sook,” I hollered. “Can Pearl and me have a bedtime snack?”

  Sookie griped, “All y’all are eating me out of house and home. I believe all of Savannah must have a tapeworm!”

  Pearl asked, “Does Jackson know that your momma left?”

  “Nope. Not yet,” I answered. “We’re gonna go to the movies on Saturday.”

  Pearl inquired, “Poppy, you gotta tell me. Does Jackson ever get frisky at the picture show? Tell me!”

  “He’s a perfect gentleman.”

  “Dang! That ain’t no fun. Does he put his arm around you? Do you share a popcorn? Do you two get lovey dovey?”

  “Hold your horses. I’ll tell ya everything. But, first, I’m gonna take me a bath.”

  “Do you promise?” Pearl was downright gleeful with the prospects of some romantic gossip.

  “I promise. You go to the kitchen and fetch us some of Donita’s oatmeal cookies. They’re on a platter, next to the fridge, wrapped in cellophane. I’ll hop in the bath quick.”

  The rising steam from the clawed tub fogged the entirety of the small bathroom, clouding the mirror and tiny window. I slipped my dress from my shoulders, and it fell to the floor. I tossed my trainer and panties to the side and tested the rushing water from the tub spout with my big toe. Slowly, I lowered myself into the hot water and rested my back against the cast-iron tub. I shampooed my hair and with a bar of soap, then lathered up my face.