WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1) (59 page)

I discovered a lot of farmers and bootleggers in our tree, whom Papa Hart called business professionals. The most highly prized possession was not corn, beans or potatoes, it was corn whiskey, no less, which was cleverly hidden and properly disguised behind the corn patch. It was then, I learned about the highly sought after art of manufacturing. He explained how to make a steel to brew the liquid gold, measurements, temperatures, mechanical ups and downs, all right down to the last precise detail. He assured me I could be successful if all other business adventures fail. Papa Hart said “It was a great contribution to society.”

“But isn’t it illegal and can’t you go to jail?” I was taking mental notes and didn't see myself looking good in stripes so I had to be sure, down to the last detail.

“Well then, don’t get caught.
” He said laughing. 
Our conversation went back to the tribal fathers, where one bowl of beans produced generations of heathens. Maw Sue said the Amalekites are still around today causing havoc, the labeled ones, Hellenistic who drink, curse, gamble or associate with the likes of women named Jezebel. People doomed to eternal hell and damnation in the lake of fire according to pulpit preachers. Their tribe produced offspring that was cursed forever which in turn, always lead to famine, tent living, catfish eating and forced tribal marriage to cousins. The only redemption left for these heathen tribal renegades is a water ritual. One must be purged by being dunked under water. Around Pine Log, back in the day, a lot of baptisms were done upstream at the river’s edge where the water is rushing downstream, right towards the Saw Flats community. This is also the white trash of Pine Log. A large, impoverished village, barely there shanty shacks, no plumbing, men with no teeth, shirtless with no job and living off welfare. They sit in lawn c
hairs on porches holding rifles.  Half
dres
sed women stand behind them with an inflated belly and a child on each hip and a cigarette dangling out of her mouth.  M
alt liquor cans
pelt the landscape like hail stones.  Being a community right on the river, t
hese poor people have no choice but to swim in the sins of Pine Log's finest.

If Papa Hart isn’t telling a tale of some sorts, it is quite plausible that you’ll find us stuffing our guts with something sweet while we listen to the sounds of porch silence. 
Our silence.

“If you have a story to tell, then tell it. If not, then shut up and listen to someone else.” He'd say. Papa Hart believed you could learn a lot more with a shut mouth. “Time and place.” He’d say, “Time and place.” I thought he was the wisest man on earth. He’d been to war and survived. Through the great depression and survived. Bootlegging outlaws and survived. Maw Sue’s rants
and survived. 
The porch was simply a passing of time wrapped with love, simplicity and contentment. An inner peace between jaw crunches.
Storytelling or silence
.

While we sat in our silence, someone would honk. We’d wave. Swing. Crunch. At other times, Papa Hart would get deep in thought, caught up walking a road in the mind, thinking
about this or that, who knows.  I watched
him real curious, w
ishing I could travel with him, but our mind roads are places only we can travel. 
Maybe he was thinking about war, or times spent with Dell. I’d get lonely, so I’d start walking down my own road, in mind, in memory, in travels. At other times, my head would be spinning with questions, so I’d have to talk to keep from going crazy inside, inside the house that doesn’t exist. I couldn’t help it, I just blurted out a question that had gnawed at me for months. Especially since Dell left.

“Papa Hart. Where you going when you die?”

He never looked up. He didn’t stop the swing from swinging. He didn’t pause or think. Without hesitation, life kept moving on the porch. The answer rolled off his tongue like slobber dripping from a dog’s mouth in the hot afternoon sun. 
Expected. Normal. Routine
. In one swift motion his chin jutted upwards towards the sky, and his forefinger pointed towards a cloud.

“Straight up…Willodean.” He said. “Straight up.” He had a glow about him as if he saw things I couldn’t. Something in me shifted. I lost focus of all surroundings. The ri
ft left me transcended in time.  With his boots, he lifted the swing back and then let it rush forward. 
For a split second, I felt the energetic hand of connection, the divine powers that be, and the dirt dancer. Papa Hart swung higher and high
er. I grabbed hold of the chain to hold on. 
My stomach did a flip-flop and we rushed backwards again
, then forward pressing the air with our cheeks. 

“I’m just waiting on my escort, Willodean.” Papa Hart glanced towards the horizon.

Escort? I dove into
my library room of information inside the house. 
Did I miss something? What in the world is an escort?

“Willodean, everyone has an
angel to lead us home.  An escort to come get us and take us to our eternal home.  A place where we belong.
”

“What? Really?” I said a little delighted but also puzzled. “Are they like the angles Maw Sue talks about?  The Rectors?  Is it
the same thing?” I
grabbed some whoopers out of the carton and ate a few, my chomping growing loud in my ears. 

“
Rectors?” He sighed and looked at me strange.  Kinda like he does Maw Sue. “I tell you what, that woman, I swear…” I couldn’t imagine Papa Hart having to deal with the fact that Dell was dead but her mother was still alive, and pestering him to death.   The anger in each of them was fluidly felt by all. 
It had gotten worse, way worse than all the back and forth banter
everyone was used to. 

“Rectors? What in tarnation is a Rector? What kind of hogwash is she telling?”

“Ummm, the old stories.” I said.  I wasn’t
sure how much I should sha
re considering it was our secret. 
“According to Maw Sue, Rectors are angels.”

“Well, then I guess it’s the same thing…escorts, rectors, angels…hell, I guess it doesn’t matter none as long as you get there.”

Papa Hart didn’t fully agree or disagree because that would mean getting on her good side, which wasn’t going to happen.  From my view of things, both of them are hard headed and more alike than they are different. 

“I don’t like to say goodbye.” Papa Hart said ou
t of nowhere. It was unexpected.  My heart stung.  The swing eek’d a shrill.  His face turned and
his eyes shifted.

“What do you mean Papa Hart?” My heart was beating in my ears waiting on him to answer. All our talks were like this—him talking, my ears excited to hear him,
listening and then asking questions. 

“Everybody says go in.” He said motioning with his hands.
Go in? What is he talking about?

“Go on…go on in there, they say
.” His hand pointed to nothing again. 
“Go ahead, say your goodbyes, speak your last words. Stand at the coffin, say goodbye. Done. That’s it. Why do they say that? Who started this goodbye thing?” I fell into a hush listening to his tone of voice, dark and disturbed unlike his stories before.

“I just ain’t gone do it.” He said bluntly shaking his head. “There IS no goodbye.” His vowels were ripe and sharp. “There ain’t. Why should I say goodbye when there ain’t one…just ‘cause people say you should.” His fingers fanned the air. “Where did that nonsense come from anyhow? There is no Goodbye Willodean. No goodbye.” The fluidity of his words had me spellbound. I sat deep in thought for a minute or so, soaking in the reality of his words, feel
ing them burn in my chest. 

“I feel the same way.” I said.  And it was true.  Now that I thought about it, we were alike in many ways. 
“Maybe I get that from you, huh?”

“Maybe so.” He said. “Dell leaving—well…” He sighed real long
and emptied until I was sure I lost him.  It was easy to lose himself thinking about Dell. 

“I
don’t know how to live without her Willodean.  It seems my whole life existed around her, didn’t exist without her.  I
t change
d me is what it done. 
A piece of me was encased inside that c
asket, just like those biscuits. 
She took it with her…and some of me too. Maybe that’s why I did the biscuit thing, in a way, you know, as a token. Cause the other half of my soul was attached to hers, someway, somehow and there just wasn’t any separating that. Sometimes, it’s strange ‘cause I feel it in my gut, that feeling that she is just waiting. Waiting on me to join her. That’s why I refuse to say goodbye. ‘Cause Willodean.” He nudged me on the leg. “There is no goodbye, only reunions, and until then, just waiting. Waiting on my escort.”

He pressed his back against the plank boards and pushed off with his feet. It sent the swing rushing forward. “Straight up Willodean.” He said pointing upwards. “Straight up.”

The swing whooshed forward then back again. I hung on for dear life. The divine dirt dancer made an appearance in my mind, inside the house, stirring up wind and storms and debris. His breath filled me with immeasurable intensity.

“When the time comes, I’m going straight up!” Papa Hart’s voice fell into a soft misery. A spark of his eyes longed for the grave and then he began walking the lonely road of his past, the well-worn road of his memory, where everyone was and everyone is, as they always were—and no one says goodbye. It was a minute or so later, and I was on the last of the whoppers when I felt him poke me in my tickle spot.

“Don’t worry yourself so much.” He said.

“Heeeyyyyyyy!” I squirmed and fought his tangled fingers. I laughed till I had no breathe.

“It ain’t time for my escort yet, missy. I ain’t dying an
ytime soon. Why all the seriousness? 
This porch ain‘t gone be silent if I have anything to do with it. Not yet anyway.”He got up and stretched. “Lord. I got work to do. Don’t you have a tree to climb?” He turned and swatted me on the leg. “And don’t break my limbs.”

He disappeared inside and I went back to my tree climbing, pondering life and death, Escorts and Rectors.
How will I die I wondered? 
What will it feel like? Did we float in the sky like a balloon or fly like a bird? Do we vanish and go poof? 
Eek, eek.
 The swing
let out a violent squeal I didn’t care to imply what it meant. 
Death warrants rambled through my head as if God himself was handing out tickets.

CRAWFISHING

Mag is my true blue, no imagination sister. Just bling and dollar signs. She
did exactly what she wanted as a child, to grow up and get the hell out of this town.  She centers her life in material things, social status and money and left us southern sap
squatters behind. She got a degree and spends every dime she has to look and play the part. She may fool a lot of people but I see right through her shiny diamond disguise.
Besides, she’s only twenty miles over in the next town, it’s not like another country or something. 
I liked her best when she was a Greek goddess
of destruction creating storms when least expected. 
At least she was true to herself. 
Her childhood self.
 
I wonder what happened to Mag?
Sometimes, on rare occasions, across the room we lock eyes, blue to blue and I see it—the lost empty shell of Mag and I want to ask her. 
Do you feel it too? The empty void?
 
Are you trying to touch the fingers of God like me? 
If she is—she hides it well and handles it a lot better than I do.
I’ll give her that much. 

Lena never worries about Mag. She never looked at her in the way she looked
at me. Sometimes, I am jealous and I shouldn’t be.  I shouldn’t care really, but I do. 
I have an inkling to go climb the wondering tree right now. It’s right outside the door.
It would be easy to do.  And
I could take Mag with me.
Would she go?
Or is she too good, too grown up for that now. I wonder about these things without the wondering tree. I hear Lena in her element, her kitchen lair, rattling dishes and cabinets.

Mag and I are sitting in the living room, cross legged on the old rug
.  The same rug we made pallets, watched
roller derby, midnight special, cartoons, and
played with dolls.  Mag dumps an old cedar box full of pictures on the floor.  We prepare to engage in the death ritual. 
It’s what all families do when someone is taken from them.
When they are left behind, numb and have to fill in the void with whatever pieces they can.  I
can barely accept what it means.
To participate means he’s gone.  To look at each picture means he’s dead. 
My heart is beating in my ears, growing hot. Scattered remnants, blocks of paper, people pieces lay on the rug. Canvas faces, days, minutes, hours of life captured in a single moment, forever held on a 4x6 print. Each one stings me. All these years I longed to die, to be put ou
t of my mindless misery and yet, death leaves me alive, and instead takes the ones I love. 
Twelve words.  Three lines
. 
 
Knife to the heart. Bitter crumbs.