Listen Here (18 page)

from
Meridian
(2000)

“Adults find hosts, suck blood, and mate…. Mating usually takes place on the host before feeding.”

—from
Ticks and What You Can Do About Them
by Roger Drummond, Ph.D.

Harpoon-lipped wicked French kisser,
you near-do-nothing fattening
at someone else's board. How come
no heart beats all that blood, heat drop,
balloon thirst, all lust? If our lives
are wrought by curse, who thought up yours
and for what crime? You do not ask
not to be hated, but approach
with galley-slave rowing motion
to your stubble legs, your slowness
not from indecision, not fear.
You scale the biggest predator,
risk a six-figure inflated
desk-bound mammal same as the cur
he's just kicked, and grip your beach ball
bodied mate, a mangy hide bed
as good to you as my white skin
for fornication. You'd bite God!
Not daunted by coagulant,
not ashamed to hide your head
in rusty rivers everyone shuns,
you spit cement instead of fire,
a neat eater for a glutton.

Homely stigmata non grata,
we are not spared the cruelty
of mashing you with a brick edge,
a letter file, or, with tweezers
holding you to the thin match flare
until you pop. You do not go
easily, but ride the toilet's
tipped flush, upright as a captain
around and around, out of sight.

A wasp dangles legs delicate
as kite tails, the spider crochets
circular doilies, why do we
see in you nothing to admire,
nothing of ourselves? Heat seeker,
the places sweet to us are sweet
to you: neck, waist, the feathery
clefts of the crotch, taut soft hinges
where you plunge, hang head down, succumb.

(June 22, 1955–)

Amy Tipton Cortner is a writer and a teacher who grew up in Johnson City, Tennessee. She is the daughter of Anne Grafton Tipton, a homemaker “whose profession continues to be caring for all of us—not an easy task,” says Cortner. Cortner traces her maternal heritage to South Carolina from the 1640s and her paternal connections to East Tennessee from 1768. Her father, Kermit Tipton, is a retired coach and teacher.

She has an undergraduate degree in American Studies (1977) and an M.A. in English (1983) from East Tennessee State University. She has taught Tennessee literature and traditional dance in the Tennessee Governor's School, and, since 1985, has taught a variety of English courses at Caldwell Community College in Hudson, North Carolina.

A popular essayist about her home region of Appalachia, she says that “being an educated, middle-class woman from Appalachia garners exactly the same reaction Samuel Johnson had to the ‘woman who preaches.'” [He said, “a woman preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”] She goes on to explain that “Walker Percy once said, in essence, that writers have to get mad about something before they can strike a lick. That isn't always so, but much of my writing has sprung from a profound irritation at those who will not let me have a say in defining who and what I am.”

She is the author of a number of essays about living in the region; “Eminent Domain” has often been reprinted. She is the author of a poetry chapbook,
The Hillbilly Vampire.

Poetry:
The Hillbilly Vampire
(1990).
Selected essays:
“Fred Chappell's
I Am One of You Forever.
The Oneiros of Childhood Transformed,”
Poetics of Appalachian Space
(1991), ed. Parks Lanier, 28–89. “Eminent Domain,”
Now & Then: The Appalachian Magazine
(summer 1989), 6–8. “How I Lost My War with
National Geographic,” In These Times
(14 December 1997), 39–40.

from
The Hillbilly Vampire
(1990)

Many people
are confused about hillbilly vampires.

They think:
a hillbilly vampire should look like
George Jones in a cape
or Ricky Skaggs with fangs
or Lyle Lovett, period.

They think
the hillbilly part comes first—
the feeder, not the fed upon.

They do not understand
that this
is another outside industry
come down to the hills in the dark
for raw material.

from
The Hillbilly Vampire
(1990)

The hillbilly vampire lived in a condo
called Mountain Heritage Estates.

He had many degrees
and many publications in small magazines.

Garlic didn't faze him, nor did the crucifix;
pintos and streaked meat and kraut would, however,
turn him in an instant.

Prowling the bars and back roads
looking for fresh informants
whose heart-blood of mountain lore
had not yet been discovered
and sucked dry,
tape recorder fanged and to the ready,
he worked hard at blending in
while maintaining the mystique
of his authority.

He bought sharp work pants from Sears
plaid flannel shirts from Woolrich
shoes from L.L. Bean and Timberline.

He didn't fool anybody.

As soon as he sat down
they pulled their collars up
and started talking copyright
and photo-session and P.M. Magazine.

His bitterest complaint
as he moved from place to unsatisfying place
pale and eager to feed
was of how thoroughly the folk
had been corrupted by
electronic media.

from
The Hillbilly Vampire
(1990)

There is no name
(so she was told)
for what you are.

Two generations into town
is one too far.

One generation still
retains some authenticity:
a measure of—veracity.

Legitimacy, if you will.

It's either or—it's town or hill.

Just listen to the way you speak.

You bought a book to learn to play.
You took a class to learn to dance.
That hardly is the mountain way.

No. There isn't any more to say.
There is no name for what you are.

It is, however, plain to see
that you are no
minority.

(March 13, 1913–)

Born in Washington County, Virginia, Lou Crabtree has spent most of her life in Appalachia. She credits her mother for teaching her to love words. “She loved to read and she taught me to love literature when I was real young.” Her father attended Milligan College in Tennessee. Although he never went to law school, he served as a “squire” who officiated over local disputes and trials for forty years.

Lou Crabtree explains that her father had two families. The children from his first marriage lived with her family, though, she says, “we never got along.” She graduated from Greendale High School and from Radford University (B.S., cum laude). Then she left for New York, where she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and the Faegin School of Drama. She served for years as regional auditioner for the American Academy.

She married a farmer, Homer Crabtree, and without a doctor, gave birth to “five children who grew to be adults.” After her husband died in 1960, she moved to Abingdon, where she retired after teaching in Virginia public schools for thirty-five years. During that time, she also taught adult education classes for Venuzeulan, Indian, and Vietnamese students working to earn G.E.D. high school equivalency certificates. She also worked with the Mount Rogers Area Commission on Aging.

From 1975 to 1985, she directed and performed with the band Rock of Ages, a group of musicians over age sixty-five. After Lee Smith helped her to get her stories published,
Sweet Hollow was
nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and it won the Highlands Festival Award for Creative Writing.

“During the first sixteen years of my life,” she said, “my company was mostly the animals and the flowers and the trees,” and she delighted in their company. “We named everything. I tried to get that feeling into my stories. I have the little girl in ‘Homer-Snake' do that, because that was what we did.”

Drama:
Calling on Lou
(1984).
Poetry:
The River Hills & Beyond
(1998).
Short stories:
Sweet Hollow
(1984).
Autobiographical essay:
“Paradise in Price Hollow,” in
Bloodroot
(1998), ed. Joyce Dyer, 81–86.

Timothy Dow Adams, “Juxtaposition, Indirection, and Blacksnakes in Lou Crabtree's
Sweet Hollow.
A Review Essay,”
Southern Quarterly
23:4 (summer 1985), 90–93. Edwin T. Arnold, “Lou Crabtree Addresses the Mysteries of Life,”
Appalachian Journal
14:1 (fall 1986), 56–61. Joyce Dyer, “Lou V.P. Crabtree,” in
Bloodroot
, 80. Roy Hoffman, review of
Sweet Hollow, New York Times Book Review
(March 4, 1984), 22. Judy K. Miller, “What Kind of Egg Are You? A Profile of Lou V. Crabtree,” in
Her Words
(2002), ed. Felicia Mitchell, 85–93. Jean Tobin, review of
Sweet Hollow, Studies in Short Fiction
22:2 (spring 1985), 243–44.

from
Sweet Hollow
(1984)

Old Marth claimed all the blacksnakes as hers. She tongue-lashed the roving Murray boys, who went into people's barns and caught snakes and took them by their tails and cracked them like whips. This cracking broke the body of the snake and sometimes snapped off its head. It was terrible to see the Murray boys wring a snake around a few times, then give a jerk and off snap the head.

Old Marth lived in her cabin next to our cabin down in the hollow of the river hills. She pinned her gray hair with long wire hairpins. I watched her stick the wire hairpins into her hair with little flicks of the wrist. It hurt her head, I thought. Only when she was bothered did her hair escape the pins and fall in gray wisps about her face. Bud, my brother younger than I a few years, thought it his mission in life to trail me, to spy, and to report on me to Maw. Some things Bud would tell but not many. Only things on me. Bud said I told everything I knew. Maw said it, too. Because of this, Bud never let me trek over the hills with him.

He said, “She just can't keep from talking. She talks all along the trace. If you talk, you don't get to know anything.”

Old Marth leaned down close to Bud. “Blacksnakes are best of friends. Come down to my house and I'll show you Homer-snake.”

I had seen Homer-snake many times. Bud had, too. Homer had lived for years back of Old Marths house in the corner of the outside rock chimney. A hole was visible, where for warmth Homer crawled in the winter.

I once asked Old Marth, “Did Homer-snake dig his hole by himself?”

Old Marth replied, “I expect it is a once frog hole.”

What Old Marth told Bud next was not news to Bud or to me. We had both seen it a million times.

“Homer-snake likes milk to drink. I put out milk for him in his saucer every day. Best of all he likes cream, which I don't give him but ever once in a while. He might get too fat to go in his hole.” Old Marth laughed, then fiercelike advanced close to Bud. “Don't you ever come to be tormenting blacksnakes. I'll be wastin' my breath if you come to be like them rovin' Murray boys. Come to my house soon and get better acquainted with my Homer-snake.”

Old Marth wouldn't have liked what Bud was carrying around in his pocket. I asked him what the small white rocks were that looked like they were rolled in salt.

“Blacksnake eggs. I found them under a rock up the ridge.”

Old Marth was always asking me to go home with her to spend the night. She never asked Bud. He tried to devil me behind Old Marth's back.

“How would you like to turn down your bed covers and there would be Old Homer all curled up warming your bed?”

Then I accused Bud of being jealous, and we got into one of our many spats until Maw moved in, saying, “Old Marth just don't like boys. She is suspecting on account of them Murray boys.”

Bud never was known to give up. He used to slink around the house as I was leaving, and peep around the corner, and hiss, “Don't sit down on Homer-snake.”

Behind Old Marth's house and up a little rocky path was her vegetable garden. To one side was her little barn where she kept her cow, some hens, and a red rooster. The rooster did not like Homer and gave him many a good flogging. He raked Homer with his spurs until Homer fled from the barn, leaving the rooster and hens alone.

Nevertheless, on the sly, Homer would steal into the barn where he unhinged his jaws and swallowed whole one of the hen's nice eggs. Then off he would sneak, toward the rocky path, where he knocked and banged himself against the rocks until the prongs on his ribs crushed the shell of the egg. Once I saw Homer with a huge knot along his body, and I rushed to Old Marth, alarmed.

Old Marth answered in a knowing way. “Most likely an egg. Could be a mouse or a baby rabbit. Homer-snake is having his dinner.”

Once the Murray boys were out “rogueing”—knocking off apples and stealing eggs. Homer was in the warm hen's nest where the hen had just laid a nice egg. Homer liked the warmth and was nestling down and warming himself before swallowing the egg, which was sort of an ordeal for him. A rude hand, reaching into the nest, and pulling out Homer, let go quickly. Even the Murray boys didn't like surprises like Homer.

“Homer is my protection,” cackled Old Marth as the Murray boys skirted her place, skulking about carrying an old sack they put their loot into. Old Marth guessed that the Murray boys were out to get Homer. Twice they were almost successful.

Homer loved to climb trees. There were young birds and other delights. He played hide and seek up in the sycamore tree down by the little springhouse. He climbed to the very tiptop and out of his snake eyes viewed the world. I liked to watch him hang like a string and swing in the sycamore tree.

On this particular day, Old Homer had left the sycamore and was up in the tree that had the squirrel's nest. It had once been a crow's nest, but the squirrels had taken over for the summer. In the winter they had a fine home in a hole just below the crow's nest.

Homer liked young squirrels almost as much as young rabbits.

The Murray boys almost got Homer that time. They spotted him up in the tree that had the squirrel's nest. Climbing a tree was nothing to the Murray boys. They could climb to the top of any tree in the Hollow. Homer-snake was in a predicament. The leanest of the Murrays was coming right on up the tree with no problem. Homer couldn't see Old Marth anywhere. It would be too late in a minute. A rough hand would be reaching for him.

There were some small limbs, too small to hold the weight of a boy, and farther on, still smaller limbs that just possibly could hold up a snake. Out crawled Old Homer and with great care coiled himself round and round the smallest ones.

The Murray boy was plain mad. The limb would not hold up his weight. He ventured out as far as he could and leaned out and down and stretched his arm toward Homer.

“Shake him loose. Shake hard.”

Round and round the tree looking up, calling louder and louder, went the rest of the boys until the red rooster brought together his pack of hens and they all set to cackling, which caused the hogs to trot around the pen, grunting. Just in time, out of the house, like a whirlwind, came Old Marth. The Murray boys knew to make themselves scarce and they hightailed it, except the one caught up in the tree who tried to skin down fast. Old Marth got hold of his hair and yanked him about, and when he left, he left a piece of his shirt with Old Marth.

Laughter floated backwards as the Murray boys hightailed it, putting distance between them and Old Marth's screeching.

“Rogues! Torments! Thieves!”

So Homer was saved this first time.

Another time, the Murray boys were watching Old Marth's house and knew she was away. They were walking around looking at the roots she had tied up to the rafters of her porch. They had been down to the hogpen and down to the springhouse and had drunk out of the gourd. They spied Homer, who was coming from the garden. He barely got halfway in his door when one of the Murrays got him by the tail, straining and tugging to pull him out. What they did not know was that no one, not anyone, can pull a snake out of his hole, once he gets part way in. The snake swells up and spreads his scales and each scale has a tiny muscle. The snake may be pulled into two parts, but he will never be moved. The Murray boys did not give up easy as they pulled and tugged.

“Pull harder. Yank him outa there.”

Homer was about to come apart when he felt footsteps coming along on the ground. Old Marth, home early, came upon the scene and chased off the Murrays with a tongue-lashing they would remember. Homer-snake was saved the second time, but there was to be a third.

In the late summer, Homer got a new skin. He molted. He had a bad case of lassitude. Then his whole body was itching so he could not rest. His lips began to split and his eyes turned milky. He was milky-looking all over. He made trip after trip up into the garden, ate a big lunch of snails and bugs, and lazed back down over the rocky path.

One day there was his old skin beside the path in the rocks. Of course he knew all along what he was doing and just how to do it. He rubbed and rubbed himself against the rocks until his old skin loosened and he rolled it off wrong side out. Just like Bud shed his clothes.

Old Marth found the skin and tied it with several others to the rafters of her porch. When the wind rattled them, they scared me, but not Homer's old enemies, the Murrays.

Old Marth said to Bud after Homer shed his skin, “I will make you acquainted with the new Homer. Don't you like him? Ain't he handsome? Like a new gun barrel, he is.”

With his new skin, Homer was so shiny and new, I think Bud almost liked him. Homer looked “spit shined,” like Paw said about his shoes from his old army days.

Homer got along real well with the cow. She ignored him and never got ruffled if she came upon him suddenly. Homer only had to watch her feet. She did not care where she stepped. Four feet were a lot to watch and one day Homer got careless. One of the cow's feet came down hard on about three inches of Homer's tail. When Homer looked back, the end of his tail was broken off and sticking out of the mud in the cow's track. His beautiful tail. So for the rest of his life he went about trailing his blunted tail, and after a while he didn't seem to miss it.

Bud said, “I can always tell if it is Homer trailing through the sands and dust. Among the squiggles you can see where his old stepped-on tail went.”

Down in the springhouse Old Homer guarded the milk crocks. He would curl around a crock like giving it a good hugging. Old Marth had to keep the lids weighted down with heavy rocks so Homer wouldn't knock the covers off and get in the milk.

Looking back, behind the springhouse, was a swath of daisies with bunches of red clover marked here and there, winding all the way to the top of the ridge. This swath was Homer-snake's special place. He liked to lie and rest and cool off among the daisies. He played all the way to the top of the ridge, got tired and slept, had lunch along the way, slithered down when he chose, spending the whole of a summer's day to arrive back home in the cool of the evening. The daisies gave Homer-snake a nice feeling.

The Murray boys were Homer's end. This was the third encounter.

“All things have an end,” Maw said later.

Maw sent me down to Old Marth's place to swap some quilt pieces. Going to her house was all right if I could locate Homer. Sitting on Homer or having him swing down from a rafter and touch me on the shoulder never got any less upsetting. But something bad was waiting for us all that day at Old Marth's place.

Homer was fat and lazy and full of cream.

“I'll put in a spoon of jelly for you, Homer.” Old Marth put the jelly in Homer-snake's saucer and went on her way. She was going over the hill to visit and take a sample of the jelly.

Homer loved the jelly. Then I know he began feeling lonely. Loneliness led to carelessness. He failed to notice that everything was too quiet. The birds were quiet like the Murray boys were in the vicinity. The chickens were quiet like a hawk was circling. Homer decided to slip past the rooster and go into the barn to rest.

The Murray boys were out “funning” all day all over the hills. They were stirring up bees' nests beside the trace and getting people stung. They were running the cows so they wouldn't let their milk down. They were riding the steers and tormenting the bull.

They saw Old Marth going over the ridge and grinned at each other and jammed down their old hats over their ears and hitched up their britches. Preparing themselves. Preparing to steal eggs out of the hens' nests, they went into the barn. Bud saw it all and told Maw.

Maw said to me, “There is such a thing as keeping your mouth shut.”

Bud was watching the Murray boys that day. He had trailed them and watched from the far edge of the woods on the top of the hill. Bud was always watching. I saw him in the plum grove. He was no partner in what happened.

The Murray boys went into the barn with their everlasting sack, stayed a few minutes, rushed out toward the hogpen, pitched the sack, and whatever was in it, over to the hogs. Then they laughed and shouted and hightailed it.

I saw it. Bud saw it. I ran to tell Maw.

“They threw the sack and Homer in it into the hogpen. The hogs will eat up Homer.” I was running, screaming wild, and blubbering.

I was so excited with telling the tale that I had not had time to feel sorry for Homer. The hogpen was one place Homer never fooled around. Even Homer knew that hogs ate up blacksnakes.

Bud had come up. “How are you going to keep her from blabbing?” Bud thought he was the world's best at keeping his mouth shut. He gloried in keeping secrets.

I wanted to talk about what I saw, and I wanted to bring it up ever afterwards and keep asking questions. There was so much to wonder about.

“She will tell her guts,” Bud said.

“Let Homer bide,” was what Maw said to me and meant it. I could tell for her mouth was a straight line across.

Old Marth came home, missed Homer and looked everywhere. Bud and I stood around and watched her. Her eyes were on the ground looking for some sign, trying to find a trail.

I mooned around and was about sick seeing Old Marth with her graying hair stringing and wisping about her face. Until one day, Old Marth said, “If Homer were alive, he would show up. I know when to give up hopes. I resign myself.”

Determined not to let anything slip about Homer, for a while, it helped to clap both hands over my mouth when questions began popping in my head. I didn't want ever to be the first one to tell about Homer being eaten by the—I must not say it now.

Maw kept saying, “Let it bide a while.”

Old Marth came back to our house to churn. Her hair like a cap was pinned up with long hairpins. Maw required neat hair around the butter, for a hair found in the butter made a bad tale up and down the Hollow.

I kept holding both hands over my mouth to keep from telling until one day Old Marth noticed and said, “You are acting funny.” Turning to Maw, she said, “The child is sick. Goes around all the time about to vommick holding her hands over her mouth. Just might be she is wormy and needs a dose.”