A Southern Place (3 page)

“For shame, Delores, stop cussin’ in front of the child,” he said in a Baptist preacher kind of voice.

“Me stop cussin’?” she cried. “You can’t say two sentences without—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he laughed. “And besides, I was just exercising the pinchers. Have to, every day, to keep um in shape and not rustin’ up on me.”

“You have to exercise your pinchers?” I blurted out. This was news to me.

“Don’t listen to a word he says,” Mama said.

“Twice a day, every day, more if possible. If I was to go three days without grabbing a fanny, the damn thing might just close up on me. Couldn’t have that, now, could we?”

I laughed. Mama did too, though she tried not to.

“Well, are ya’ll ready to hit the road, in a
road
vehicle, this time, to tour the sights of Nolan?”

Mama grabbed her purse and keys, and we all piled into Uncle Cal’s truck.

The outside smelled different—not wet like before, but still kind of musky and sour, with a whiff of nastiness like outside the boys’ restroom at school. Brick and cinder block buildings in the town square were dirty, coated in a brown film from street level to three feet upward. Even the grass yards seemed soiled, rinsed in a filthiness that was now part of the landscape.

And everywhere—even in the street—were random pieces of garbage and refuse. Rusty cans, an old tire, Sunbeam bread wrappers, dirty plastic flower arrangements once anchored in a cemetery. And lots of torn green garbage bags with little to nothing spilling out, like a trash truck had left them, one or two per address.

No one said much as we rode through our sad little town.

Turning at the water tower, Mama cried when we saw the bare patch of wet red clay that used to hold our house. A rusty piece of chain link fence and a mangled lawn chair sat in the corner of the lot. We’d never seen either before. There were bits and pieces of trash scattered about the small yard, but the space where the house had been was oddly vacant and clear of debris.

“I’da thought there’d be—there’s not even a hint of the foundation. It’s like it was never here,” Mama said.

“The foundation, as you call it, was a few concrete blocks on each end. The house didn’t sit on the ground, you knew that from the holes in the floor. This may be the best thing that ever happened to this poor little lot,” Uncle Cal said.

“But it was our home, Calvin,” Mama said as her chin quivered.

Uncle Cal put his arm around me, wrapping the hook arm around Mama. He nuzzled her ponytail and shook his head.

“Come on, Sis, use the sense God gave you. What’s there to miss? Walls covered in newspapers and plumbing that works maybe half the time? I say good riddance to this dump. The Lord knew what he was doing on this one.”

“Easy for you to say, Cal. What about us? What’ll we do?”

“Exactly what you’ve been doing—stay with me. Save your money and maybe with any luck, you can move from this rat hole town, get Mojo to a better place. Get both of you a better life—things can only move up from here.”

“Uncle Cal,” I said from underneath his shoulder, still caught in his bear hug of me and Mama. “Maybe the Lord
did
know what he was doing—”

“Mojo, don’t get involved in this,” Mama said. She was particular about what I said about God and was full of advice on how to live holy, although we seldom went to church.

“I’m not, Mama,” I explained. “I was just gonna say that the Lord destroyed the earth by water, but he kept the good people in Noah’s Ark, to start over again. Uncle Calvin was our Noah, and his funny house was our ark.”

They both laughed, and we went back to the house on stilts.

Me and Mama stayed on for over a year. She put up with the animals and even seemed to like them when she thought no one was looking. Uncle Cal’s card playing friends came a couple of times a week, just like my uncle was gone a couple nights a week as well. We kept the house clean, and Mama did the cooking, but she always said our living there was “temporary.”

The grocery store, and then the panty factory, reopened and Mama went back to both her jobs. Saying we’d be moving soon, she took a third one on weekends, being a waitress at a bar. It was the closest I ever had to a normal family; me and Mama cooking supper together before she left for the bar, listening to music or watching The Three Bs (
Branded, Bonanza
, and
Bat Masterson
) with my uncle until bedtime.

Then Uncle Cal was drinking more, a
lot
more, I realize in looking back.

My uncle hadn’t had a full time job in my lifetime, but he’d worked odd jobs around town and on farms so much it seemed full time to me. I’d never known him without the hook, and as far as I could tell it never held him back. It was just part of him, like red hair or a big nose or needing glasses, the kind of things that make folks different from each other. Looking back, I remember how he used to laugh and make fun of himself, especially when his buddies would hassle him about not having a wife or a girlfriend. There were other things he’d shy away from—swimming, water-skiing, stuff like that. I remember he got really mad one time when his friend told him he was lucky, that he’d never have to worry about the draft or getting sent to Viet Nam—that was the shortest card-playing night he ever had, threw ’em all out.

I guess it all started going downhill at the same time, though I can’t for sure remember it that way. The odd jobs got fewer, and Uncle Cal spent more time at home. He started to drink more. Then he was always sad, moody-like. If Mama tried to talk to him about it, he slammed doors and then left for days at a time. He took to bringing folks home with him, some loud and some quiet, but all dwelling in the same, sadly passive world where he lived.

Mama finally gave up on him, and we moved out.

Our new home was a single-wide trailer behind a fire-condemned gas station. It was smaller and nastier than our first house, but Mama said it was the best she could do. I missed the dogs and Uncle Cal and looking out over the river at night.

Uncle Cal came by to visit a few times, trying to laugh and joke and be the guy he used to be, but he wasn’t much of an actor. I could tell something was wrong, so I knew Mama had to know it, too, but we acted like everything was fine. When my uncle was there, Mama never stopped talking about how she was doing better, saving up to move us to a better place, find me a better school, maybe even prepare me for a college scholarship. Uncle Cal would smile that fake smile with the sad eyes, hug us, and leave.

His visits became further apart until we rarely saw him at all, even though he lived just a couple of miles away. By the time I turned twelve I’d learned to sneak over on my bike after school a few times, finding my uncle alone and barely awake in a stale-smelling house in need of a good picking up and cleaning. The dogs were usually outside and starved for attention, greeting me with powerful, sloppy kisses and following me up the stairs and inside. His truck was always in the driveway, and if knocking did no good, the key was under the mat.

Whether Uncle Cal laid on the couch, in his recliner, or in bed, two things were always the same: the television was on, and Kawliga lay on his chest, softly purring. From the shows flickering on the screen (soap operas or game shows) I figured my uncle simply never turned it off; when we lived there, he only watched the weather, old westerns, and
Hee Haw
. I’d try to make conversation with Uncle Cal, but he was different—reluctant; it was almost like he was ashamed to talk to me, like I’d walked in on him in the bathroom or something. Only one time can I remember a visit being less than awkward.

It was a late fall afternoon, overcast when I started out but already beginning to sprinkle when I first saw the house on stilts. Uncle Cal opened the door before I was halfway up the stairs.

“Cajun girl!” he cried. “Get your little butt in here before all that sugar starts to melt.” He grabbed me in a hug as the dogs, already wet and smelling, slid by us and settled themselves on the couch. “Does your mama know you’re out gallivantin’ in the rain?”

“It wasn’t raining when I left,” I told him, leaving out the fact that Mama didn’t know I was out at all.

“Well, take a load off, girl,” he said, motioning towards the couch. “Tell me ’bout how life’s treatin’ you these days.” He sat in the recliner, and I nudged between the two dogs. An old shoebox, big enough for a man’s work boots, lay open on the coffee table. A faded green lid with a Thom Mcann logo lay on the floor beside it. From my seat I could see yellowed papers, something bound in black leather, the corner of a framed photograph, and a plastic baby toy.

“What’s all this?” I asked, nodding toward the box.

“This,” he said as he reached for it, “is our family, condensed down to a shoebox.”

I didn’t say anything at first. It was like Uncle Cal drifted into another time and place, and maybe if I just let him, he’d take me there, too. He took out what I thought were two books, their bindings identical and old, but not really used. The black covers were brittle and dusty, but the spines bore neither cracks nor lettering.

“You know what these are?” he asked. “You’ll have one, too, one day—maybe more than one, your mama hopes.”

I had no idea. “Books?” I offered.

“Close but no cigar,” he laughed. “These are our high school diplomas, mine and your mama’s.” He opened the first one. The spine made a crisp crackle followed by the soft wisp of the thin tissue he removed from inside.

“Delores Virginia Mullinax,” he read, handing it over to me.

I stared at the off-white paper glued inside the book-like covering. It smelled old, like clean linens left too long in an unopened drawer. “Dumas County High School” was printed in fancy old English lettering across the top with “1957” centered below. My mama’s name was underneath the date, and a paragraph in the same style, but smaller, in the middle. At the bottom were three names, signed in blue ink, then typed in black underneath. There was a blue seal reading “FHA” in the left hand margin, and a yellow one reading “Beta Club” in the right. It was the fanciest piece of paper I’d ever held in my hands, and knowing what it was made me feel proud but funny inside. Uncle Cal opened his own, and we both stared at the diplomas like they were crystal balls with special instructions inside.

I broke the silence. “What does FHA on this ribbon mean?” I asked.

“Y’all don’t have FFA and FHA anymore?” he asked, turning the paper around in his hand and looking at the backside.

“I don’t think so,” I said. The couch was minus its springs, and it felt silly sitting with my knees near my chin, but I didn’t care. I was learning about my family. “I mean, I don’t really know. We don’t have many clubs at school, now.”

“That’s a shame. Probably went to the wayside with desegregation, when they put the two public schools together and so many folks left.” Uncle Cal looked at his shoes and shook his head. “Don’t know what they were thinking, pulling out nearly all the white children and sending them to those little private schools. Drove the numbers down so low I guess there just ain’t enough funding for things anymore, or maybe it’s just no one cares. It’s a damn shame, though. FFA is for Future Farmers of America,” he said, taking a drink off a beer bottle on the crate he used for an end table. “And FHA is for Future Homemakers of America. Back when we were in school, there was a pretty darn good chance we’d end up being one or the other.”

“I guess so,” I said, not really understanding. The rain pounded harder on the roof and I watched it slant sideways against Uncle Cal’s front window. “Don’t most people go somewhere else when they graduate, to get jobs? ”

“Nowadays sure, Cajun girl. Small farms are becoming a thing of the past, and on them big plantations, they’ve replaced man with machine.” He reached down and scratched Jerry Lee behind the ears. The dog grunted and licked his chops. “But years ago, they hired labor, lots of it. Callin’ a boy a Future Farmer of America was an honor.” He paused for a moment, his scratching dropping dander on the rug. I could smell dog more than ever now. “And a hell of a lot of fun,” he said. “I learned more about life in FFA than in any readin’ and writin’ class.”

“What’s a homemaker?” I asked. “A construction worker?”

“No, sugar.” He laughed and ran his finger around the empty beer bottle. “Homemakers, women who worked at home. FHA taught girls to sew, to cook and can, freeze, pickle, all that stuff.”

“So that’s why we have to grow all those tomatoes every summer, and buy that stuff from roadside stands to put up and eat in winter?” I thought about Mama’s raw red hands when she hulled and peeled things to can. “Thank God they
don’t
make us learn that in school anymore—when I’m grown, I’m gonna buy my food at the store. I hate putting up all those vegetables.”

Uncle Cal chuckled. “Store-bought won’t taste half as good.”

“Sure,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“You’ll be like my daddy, and that story about the first light bread,” he said, peering out the window at the gray rain on the river as though it showed him a film clip from long ago. “Your mama ain’t never told you?”

I shook my head. Jerry Lee raised his snout to look for Uncle Cal’s hand; he brought it down on the dog’s stomach and commenced rubbing again. “Our Daddy was raised on the family farm, probably never left Dumas County a dozen times in his first twenty years.”

“Wow.”

He nodded. His beard had grown into a gray stubble and he touched it while he talked. “They didn’t have a lotta money, but they ate good—killed a hog every winter, cured it themselves, kept chickens for eatin’ and eggs, and enough spring and summer vegetables to eat all year long.”

Uncle Cal’s green eyes lit up from behind while he talked. It was as if he spoke to the rain and the dogs, in a faraway voice I remembered from when he used to tell me stories as a kid, sitting on his lap on the porch of the house on stilts, watching the fireflies light and go black. “This was back in the Depression,” he said. “And most everybody was poor as Job’s turkey, so it’s not like they were the only ones. Daddy was seventeen or so, been up to Arlington to trade some hogs. He stopped at a general store to maybe get a cold drink. The man behind the counter had a loaf of light bread, fresh off the truck. Told Daddy it was the latest thing, everybody’d be buyin’ it ’fore long.”

“He’d never
seen
any light bread?” The idea was crazy.

Uncle Cal looked over at me and shook his head. “Never in his life,” Cal said. “He had biscuits and cornbread, maybe even some homemade loaf bread once in a while, but never any store bought bread. Ever.” The dog was breathing regular between us, his black nose moist. “The feller behind the counter gave him a piece, hoping to sell a loaf. Daddy ate the whole thing and then told the feller thank you, but he’d pass. Said to him it was what paper would taste like if you tried to eat it.”

I laughed. The rain slowed down, sounding gentle on the roof.

“The funniest thing was what he told his family when he got home, ‘It’ll never catch on,’” Uncle Cal said. “Folks’ll never pay good money for something like that.” Uncle Cal pulled out a small gold pin in a clear plastic square of a box. “Your Mama won that,” he said, passing it to me.

A tiny emblem of a needle and thread and the word “4-H” were embossed on a green four-leaf clover, stamped in the center.

“Mama got this for sewing?”

“There’s more medals in here and probably as many more gone to the wayside. Your mama got awards for sewing, cooking, planting trees, and growing a garden. She took to sewing most.”