During one of their honeymoon phases, Mom and Mo take me to his family reunion in Virginia. The number of people is staggering; it feels like a small-town gathering. I know a few of them as acquaintances; most are strangers to me.

When the yard games and mingling fizzle, the music starts.

Whatever interests and activities divided this group throughout the day, the beat unites them all. I stand back; no one else seems shy. The joy in the room is palpable and intoxicating. My hesitation melts away. I dance within the mass and notice our nucleus forming. We open up, and those closest encourage each other to take their moment in the center. My body burns with excitement.

These are my people.

I move my body where the beat beckons. The brave ones step into the spotlight with finesse. I watch in awe. Before I could protest, my neighbors pushed me into the ring. It’s my turn. I freeze with intimidation for what feels like an eternity. They invite me to let go; I reluctantly give myself to the moment.

I feel the beat, the earth, and the bounty of our collective movement. It’s as though I could vibrate out of my body; the tension, the release, the excitement, the high. Someone begins a chant, and I hear my name spilling from their mouths.

“Go, Katie, Go, Katie, Go!” Their smiles and voices cheer me on.

I feel alive. I feel seen.

All the things I couldn’t say earlier in the day come bouncing out of me in wordless communication. I ride the wave of belonging as though I’ve always known how to surf. Giving someone else their turn, I melt back into the family taller than before.

The energy burns itself into my being.

© Katie Pendergast 2022

Kev sends me a text, “listen to this song when you get a chance.” I feel it might be heavy, so I put it off until I head to bed. It’s a song called “Darling Be Home Soon,” and three chords in it hit me like a ton of bricks. I sit in my bed, bawling as Joe Cocker’s voice trembles and quivers in my ears with raw emotion to match mine. The backup singers balance it all out with the perfect amount of soul, and I can’t help but smile as I crumble.

The song transports me back to the feels and memories of my Sunday drives with Dad.

We’ve done this drive so often; I’m confident he could do it with his eyes closed. Daddy lets the car coast in neutral on the down slopes; we wait with wide eyes and smiles to see how far the momentum will take us. I dance my hands through the open window air, the sun, as it sets, paints the world a magical hue, hills roll by, and unforgettable tunes spill from the speakers. I hold out hope that the road will never end.

We turn onto a quiet country road, the last turn before Mom’s apartment building, and I ask him to stop at the crest of the hill. We watch the sun sink below the horizon. He leaves the car running while we say our goodbyes; I watch him drive away.

The Sunday blues wash over me as I open the door to greet Mom.

_______

On longer road trips, I usually exhaust all of the patience of my fellow car dwellers’. When I have nothing more to say, I rest my head on the window and fix my gaze on a guardrail or a power line.

My eyes drift slightly out of focus, the way one does when trying to make a magic-eye poster appear. Eventually, the lines fall into a dance; they undulate and intertwine in a seamless flow. The guardrails slither along with smooth rises and falls. These animations vary in length and intensity, often ending abruptly but always promising an esthetically pleasing performance.

The roads are my freedom, and the car, my loyal friend. I get my license as soon as the law allows. If my 1991 Mazda 626 could talk, she’d divulge incriminating secrets. I drive for the catharsis of it, for the music, the cigarettes, the downshifts, and the apexes. My thinking twists and turns back on itself like the country roads I navigate with mindless ease. The scattered playlists burned onto compact discs weigh down my visor and fuel my angst. My tendency to overthink everything propels me to stay lost on back roads, my happy place.

I’ll always prefer the drive over the destination.

Be home soon, darling.

_______

I’m taking a shuttle from Reading to Philly. Dad and I say our bittersweet goodbyes, and I jump out of one van and into the next. I sit shotgun next to a balding middle-aged man named Tim. I’m expecting to fill this short trip with a phone call, but I quickly realize that I’ll spend it getting to know my co-pilot.

Tim is relaxed, easy-going, and slightly guarded. Unlike myself and most of my family, Tim is not a speeder. With no sense of urgency, he creates a comfy ride. We discuss my destination. I explain that my Soul Sister, Bestie invited me on an adventure in Italy. I had turned her down in college when she offered me free room and board overseas; I couldn’t pass up the opportunity a second time around. I tell him of my plans to visit the town where Dad was born. Tim inquires, so I give him a brief history of how Dad’s family immigrated from Italy and settled in America. Inevitably, we land on my family’s restaurant, the Temple Hotel, and as I’ve heard so many times before, Tim says,

“Oh, you’re dad is Perry! I know Perry.”

Tim’s connection to Dad is through his late father, Tom. His father worked the third shift at a local factory, and he often found solace at my family’s restaurant. After working into the wee hours of the morning, Tom and “the boys” would shoot pool, play shuffleboard, and drink their worries away.

Tim is in mid-story when my phone rings. With uncanny timing, it’s Dad. After his concerned parental advice, I ask if he remembers Tim’s father. He sifts through his memory as Tim eagerly awaits the answer. After 30 seconds, Dad lands on it,

“OH YEA, Tommy! I remember him; he worked the third shift. I played pool with him. He died young, didn’t he?”

I relay Dad’s reply; Tim smiles with a nod. We all share the same sentiment of how small the world is; I send my love and hang up the phone.

Having lost his dad at the age of 16, I can tell Tim is touched by this connection. I wonder if he is picturing our fathers playing pool together back in the day, as I am, or wondering how their children, thirty-some-odd years later, have found themselves sitting in a van together.

We fall quiet.

I soak up the sweet silence as we stare fondly ahead at the open road.

© Katie Pendergast 2021

I eat my subsidized lunch in the guidance counselor’s office during Banana Split Club twice a week. I sit among my fourth-grade classmates, who can relate to having (un)wanted stepparents, feeling like a ping-pong ball in the game of custody, and to the aching feeling that maybe, somehow, it’s all our faults. When the counselor takes an interest in our emotional well-being, the world becomes blurry. Tears stream from my eyes like melting ice cream on a scorching summer day.

My parents got married when they were nineteen and expecting their firstborn, Michael. He’s funny and rageful, like mom. Eight years later, Kevin came along; he rebels against the status quo and has a kind heart. Lastly, I ripened in a womb laced with stress as my parent’s marriage transitioned from bad to worse.

Three years into my life, my parents go their separate ways; and like a ship with a slow leak, we all go down with them. I’m a walking compilation of a pair who feel more like a strange dream than a reality. I swim in the grey muck between them, wondering how I ever came to be.

My nails take the brunt of my worry - brittle, damaged, and rough around the edges; they depict my inner world. My expectations for perfection have already started. Later on this year, I’ll go to therapy, and like Mary Poppins’ carpet purse, my bottomless baggage will take decades to unpack.

It’s no wonder that when I’m grown, my bookshelves house many titles urging me to live up to my fullest potential.

------------

I’m six when Maurice enters the picture. He is fresh out of jail when they meet. I wear a mauve-colored dress at their wedding, Mike walks mom down the aisle, and Kev stares spitefully at the ceiling of the church during their vows. The wedding cake topples over during transport to the reception, foreshadowing the mess to come. Mom and Mo’s honeymoon phases come and go with his sobriety.

I’m sixteen when mom becomes Born Again, and she meets Marvin. Per Mom’s request, I wear her first wedding dress at their wedding, as in the dress she wore the day she married my dad. Mike gives mom away one last time. Kev lives in Seattle now and declines the invitation. Of the three of us, Mike has the unique experience of attending all of our mom’s weddings.

A man with a teardrop tattoo on his face sanctions Mom and Marvin’s marriage. The bizarre ceremony melts away as I get lost in the teardrop; has he lost someone, killed someone, spent time in jail? Maybe he loved Cry-Baby the movie as much as I did.

A banner hangs above our heads, “People are sinning, and dying, and going to hell, what are you going to do about it?” I ponder the question; the answer is obvious.

I’m going to hell.

During their mission hall reception, I study Marvin like a cold case detective. It doesn’t take long for me to notice he treats women as the subservient sex. I trust him as much as I trust my mom.

I listen intently to a story told on Marvin’s behalf; it’s one of addiction, desperation, and a “coming to Jesus moment” where Marvin runs straight into the arms of salvation after finding a dead body in a trashcan. I look around the room to gauge the response.

Am I supposed to clap?

I tether myself to the dysfunction; I don’t realize that I’m holding scissors the whole time.

© Katie Pendergast 2021

#YourStoryIsTheScript #InnerChild #InnerChildWork #ChildofDivorce #WaitingforKatie #ReturnToYourself #BeBrave #StayWeird #KatiesaurusBlog #Autobiographical #Divorce

Rewind.

I slide a chair to the counter and grab the pack next to the glasses. I sneak my treasure to the second-floor bathroom, break them in half, and watch the pieces fall from my hands. The tobacco swirls around like paper confetti as it’s flushed. My heart beats hard, livened with power, waiting for the explosion of anger. I giggle with nervous satisfaction in this unconventional game of hide and seek.

“They’re bad for your health, ya know!” my pint-sized self sasses back.

The smokers of my family find the same escape and release that I’ll grow to know and love. Calm in, stress out. I can’t possibly grasp the impossible need for them yet. The cunning tentacles of addiction will dig deep into my asthmatic lungs and hold me hostage for twelve years.

Thankfully, my dad will quit, not long from now, when it becomes hard for him to skip down the block with me.

When I’m twenty-eight, I’ll know how hard that must have been for him to quit when you’re living hour by hour, learning to cope without the fix. You quit cold turkey because nothing ever worked the first three times you tried to kick it. You dread the morning commute, the after-dinner urge, the while-drinking need, and the weight that might come back.

You start chewing gum, and food, to quell the urge; you avoid the stoop and the smoking buddies. Judgment is more accessible than admitting struggle.

They smell now.

In my thirties, I’ll know how easy it is to want to better myself when looking into my child’s eyes; I do not want to miss a thing or do anything that could cut my time short - skydiving, smoking cigarettes, helicopter rides, etc. Exercise becomes slightly more appealing when you become a parent.

I said slightly.

You’re a role model put on the spot like a hired motivational speaker. Don’t fuck this up. They’re always watching. Happy to tell you that your tummy is growing a baby, even when it’s not. They’re brimming with existential questions like, “what are people for” and “what is heaven?” to keep us on our toes.

As a single dad and a restaurant owner, my dad pays Tammy to do the groceries and keep the house together. A housekeeper seems glamorous, but in single parenthood, it’s a lifeline—a means to maintain sanity and put some color back into the knuckles.

Tammy is a dancer, but not the kind I think she is and not the kind I want to be when I grow up. She has a hairless dog named Creature. I grow a fondness for the weird little guy. The off-putting feel of his skin is oddly soothing, like fine-grit sandpaper on a dry heel.

My dad’s architecturally uninteresting box of a house is an unfortunate color, the shade of roadside filth. The stucco exterior looks like the builders didn’t finish the job. On Holidays we sometimes take family pictures in the neighbor’s yard. My dad positions the tripod and runs into the shot.

It never seems odd.

Every other weekend and every summer, Kev and I share bunk beds. When I can’t sleep, I stare at the life-size Boyz N The Hood movie theater cut-out that commands our medium-sized room. If my bladder wakes me up in the middle of the night, I’m often shaken awake by toilet water greeting me with a splash. The toilet seats are usually up.

On Sundays, I track down my woobie and pack the rest of my belongings into my Minnie Mouse duffle bag.

They outnumber me, Little Katie, three guys to one, yet it feels like home.

© Katie Pendergast 2022

Fresh out of college, jobless, and five months into living with my parents again, I questioned if my photography degree would get me off their couch. A newspaper ad, of all things, is what led me to the next open door. It advertised a product photographer position at a men’s clothing company twenty minutes up the road in a small town. It seemed out of my league, but I applied anyway. Art school touched briefly on commercial photography and focused more on the starving artist’s life path. I found myself in the middle, on the more confusing ground between the two.

With naive and unsteady confidence, I gave the interview my all. And I got it.

I became the new in-house photographer for a men’s clothing company.

I had an oversized desk in an empty studio that my employer entrusted me to fill. Tasked with making a list of everything I’d need to get the studio up and running, they assured me that I would be in touch with the right people to help me do so. The company purchased a twenty-five thousand dollar camera and told me to use it well. My twenty-something brain could not even comprehend that amount of money. Next, they introduced me to the young woman, the studio intern, a photography student at a nearby college. She would fulfill the Digi-tech duties and help in whatever way she could. What the hell would I teach her?! We were peers. I didn’t know it then, but she would become a life-long friend and a gift to my life in many ways.

It seemed I had “arrived” at adulthood, yet I didn’t feel so adult.

Behind the company’s namesake stood an endearing CEO. I liked to say he took flying lessons - literally and figuratively. He showed up for work with a goofy grin and an equally goofy golden retriever in tow. At the Holiday party, he danced with a chair, rapping homemade rhymes about the company’s performance and people. A page straight from Michael Scott’s playbook.

When the CEO went through a divorce, he tearfully announced the news at a companywide quarterly meeting and gave an awkward yet sweet speech about family. He eventually became well enough to date again and asked for my help setting up his dating profile on JDate, a dating site for Jewish singles. He asked me to keep that last part between us. Sometimes, if he saw me in the hallway, he would run out of a meeting to tell me his progress on the site. I adored him and the humanness that he let spill so freely. He owned a successful company, yet he made me feel like an equal.

My three years with that company made me realize one of the biggest secrets of adulthood - that no one has it figured out, and life is complicated, especially as a grown-up. Big salaries and fancy titles don’t obliterate the clicks and pettiness; they don’t inspire the slackers or alleviate the ass kissers, tame the cheaters, or disarm the bullies. I thought it would be different, but I started to see that adulthood could be even messier than high school.

I digress; let’s return to the words bleeding through the napkin part.

Less than a month into this grown-up job, I found myself in New York City, studying with a studio of freelancers that had been shooting this company’s products for years. I felt alive, like a big girl navigating the city alone. I became an observant student for three days, soaking up as much as possible from these big leaguers. I enjoyed the fancy catered lunches, the lessons on styling, and the veteran photographer’s lighting tips.

Everything I witnessed seemed enchanted - painted in gritty elegance.

Fall of 2007, I didn’t have a Facebook account yet, Instagram didn’t exist, and the iPhone debuted months before. I had a flip phone that functioned in the simplest of ways; it required three minutes of my time to text a friend, and it never tried to sell me anything. Life seemed a little simpler; back when I still had stashes of MapQuest directions stuffed into the nooks and crannies of my car, when I didn’t capture a photo of every shiny thing that thrilled me. Back when I took in my surroundings. Back when I interacted with strangers often.

After my first day at the NYC studio, I drove to the neighborhood where I stayed with a friend. Needing to kill some time before he got off work, I walked around the block and stopped at a small restaurant, claiming a barstool near the windows. The bustling sidewalk behind me contrasted the sleepy vibe of the dank and narrow establishment. I noticed my closest bar neighbor, a man of few spoken words. So few, he talked to the bartender via napkin. He grabbed one of the many bar napkins within reach and wrote messages to her. Intrigued and thrilled by this peculiar communication vehicle, I sat and waited, periodically gazed at my not-smart phone, and did my best not to stare at him.

All the while hoping one of those napkins made its way to me.

Hunched over the bar, he glanced about. After a pause, he’d turn back to the napkin and continue to compose a message thoughtfully. When complete, he’d slide the napkin gram down or up the bar, carefully delivering his messages while bypassing puddles from clumsy drinkers.

A couple of sips into my second beer, the first napkin arrived.

In my mind, I called him Napkin Man. He seemed to have walked right off a page in a book. Was he a method actor preparing for a role? His slightly bizarre movements and way of communicating fascinated me. I could almost see the pixy dust swirling around him.

We conversed via napkin for a while; each exchange required more napkins than the last. Napkin Man asked poetic and slightly defensive questions that beckoned me to look past the status quo and see the absurdity in it all. I didn’t always know how to answer him. His messages were saturated and heady; they cut through the fluff with shade. Even so, I couldn’t help but find joy in our conversation.

I could feel the evening creeping in and my time to move on. I closed out my tab and put a halt to our napkin convo. I asked Napkin Man one last question, “can I bum a cigarette?” He hopped off his barstool and gestured for me to follow. I stuffed all the napkins in my purse and made my way to the door.

On the stoop, my hunch affirmed, he talked. His soft mumbles kept my ears bent to hear the fragmented wisdom he spewed. He paced from the curb to the stoop while we smoked our cigarettes together. I watched him dance amongst his fellow New Yorkers as they passed. I don’t remember much of what we shared when our conversation turned from napkin to audio. I remember the magic in his peculiarity and the rawness of his spirit.

A few drags left on my cigarette, and my phone rang. I said goodbye to Napkin Man and left him weaving his hypnotic dance amidst the busy walkers. He left me with a purse full of napkins and an excellent story that would sit with me for the rest of my days.

I later got rid of most of the napkins except for one. I glued it to a notebook and carefully preserved it. Nowadays, the sentiment on that particular napkin has more weight - much more than it had back then. I’m often left wondering what I did before my smartphone helped me do everything I could imagine.

And every day, I dance between letting go and reigning myself in on the busy sidewalk of adulthood.

© Katie Pendergast 2021

My name is really Bud, but you can call me Sally. I’m the other woman.

You lie, sneak and cheat for me. I’m in your blood. You need me and love me more than your wife and family. I always win.

She cries and begs you to leave me as I sit back and laugh with my feet propped up waiting. She worries and I don’t care. You’ll always come to me.

She can smell me on you, I’m in your every breath and pore. Its fun when you lie and hide me. It’s my favorite game. You say “I’m done with you”, but I toss my head back and laugh. You’ll be back. I know.

I’m even familiar to your friends. They love me too. I’m a whore. I get around and I am everywhere. I don’t even have to be near, and you think of me. You think of me every minute of every day. Your mouth gets wet for me. You need to taste me. You want me. I bring you comfort. I put you to sleep. Who needs a wife when you have me. I’m always within reach.

I have seduced and murdered your family, and yet you still love me.

I cause heartache and grief, it’s my joy. You need me and want me so much. I am elated to know that I will be in your blood when you say your final goodbye. I will move on.

You have kids that need me too. I’m working on one right now. He’s thinking of me too. There’s enough of me to go around. I’m not faithful to anyone and I love men, women and children. Maybe a little part of me will worm into the brain of the tiniest ones. That is my hope. I’m not selective. I’m a whore.

I’m shameless. You can use me any time, anywhere and I will always come back. I’m always here for you. I will love you and come to you. Hold me and bring me to your lips. Again and again. I’m all you need. I’ll follow you anywhere. I’ll help you drive, I’ll go to work with you. I am always here. You love me.

I’m waiting patiently for you to leave your wife. I love you more. She’s no match for me. I am winning. You love me more.

Sally❤️

2020

2:00am musings of a post menopausal insomniac mind

Beverlie’s eyes were blue. That’s really all we knew.

She could hear and understand, but could not participate. The constant thought I had was how true it is that the eyes are windows to the soul. I could see through her eyes of baby blue.

Full of emotion with no hope of expression. One day melts into another. Days turn into weeks and months and then years, she remains stuck in her living shell, unable to move.

“God please take me home, why did you leave me this way”. She cannot say it, her heart cries out but her lips don’t speak. She’s stuck inside a body that betrays her.

She can hear life all around her and she lays in bed motionless except for a beating heart, breathing lungs and seeing eyes.

She can’t even tell you what she likes to eat. She can’t tell you if she’s too hot or too cold or that she has to go to the bathroom.

The hands on the clock continue ticking as they always do and life goes by for others as usual.

She is all alone inside this body that refuses to listen to her will and her hands freeze, nails digging into her skin and cannot cry out. It hurts and no one knows.

Her children visit and bring flowers that she can’t touch, longing to hug them and can’t.

Looking at the flowers, thinking about what a good mother she was to receive such a beautiful gift and again blue eyes well up, full of tears now sliding down her cheeks. Two daughters and a son, loving them, but unable to express it.

Simple things amused her, I loved her giggles, still able to smile her face would light up.

I knew her so briefly and I could see her reality. I spoke to her often and I could feel her through her blue eyes. She could both hear and understand, this was clear looking into her eyes. That was the sadness of it all.

I thought of her today. She had blue eyes. Beverly had blue eyes. ❤️

02 May 2019

2:00am musings of a post menopausal insomniac mind

“mmm”

“Im gone go bump th doe man and see if he got a piece.”

Letty smiled a ray of rancid rainbow.

5’1 or 5’3 he guessed. Wadnt no 5’2. Tatted up like her momma didn’t give a fuck. A little bump in his chest somewhere reminded him of another girl, another stripper, another piece of meat in the wily trades of men.

She caught his eye and may have winked, which sent Letty whom everyone called Lessy to the potty to laugh in the stall.

Men with huge dicks walk a bit different she whispered to a man sticking a 10 in her g. Lets the whole world who cares to know. The roxi’s in her were turning everything a little less than, like life was amped up but she was at regular speed. She kept seeing > signs. In the glass of the bowl, in her reflective panties, in her eyes in the cracke john mirra. Pulling his head she thought momentarily of licking his ear but these was Halliburton boys, fresh oft the rig and in Hub City to be jackass’s but not to take a good shower.

When she threw up the front row moved toward anywhere that wasn’t there. Same time a rukus in the commode and a gunshot out the back.

A week later a tall boy walks in and politely asks after Robert-Earl. No one really wanted to tell him.

Everything I did the hardest I ever done. I worked all my life with Daddy at whatever we was doing then so I always knowed I could throw a bale a bit harder than most. I was always taught to be polite even if they weren’t, so I thought Id just ask after Katys old boss. Figured with his lip Id go on ahead. His eye popped out with that first one, his ocular cavity crushed, and I walked toward the back looking at the mirrors for boys coming up on me. I know I punched some girls and I hope to high hell they aint no videotape a me but when it started in earnest it couldn’t be helped. I know one of em kissed me on the back of my neck while I was stomping on this colored boys. Heard later he got paralyzed some. Gottim a check anyway.

I learned that night why mama said them Carthage boys is hard. Robert-Earl. I had a drown his brother in front a him and it wernt no easy thing.

Amocitea

Your Daddy aint gonna recognize you.

Still that little girl. When under all of it, peach flame tripped along at the word. She wanted so much for him to swoop, it was pure. A clean thing, her vision of Daddy just doing what all real animals did. Maybe he was too human.

That golden blanket that she just expected to keep on being, didn’t; and she stepped out really believing that they was gentlemen in this South, in this here state. One night looking deep in her own eyes while everyone elses in the room were on her crotch she realized that this southern thang was a crock. She spected Margaret Mitchell probably just cold wishin like every other Dixie brat split-tail. It was a precious pity that she thought in that manner, she thought…probably affecting her self-image or the like.

She’s hurt I felt. Hurt people, hurt people but with such a swirlin tide, a man just got to decide when to jump in, not if.

Once I heard that Grady involved everybody in his business, I knew I hadda get us outta town. I didn’t really think Momm’d come wit her doctors here and whatever else she was into. Since Id come back from the Wilderness I had taken to wearing full length skirts and not shaving. I know my flesh well and I knew that just like this skirt, I could put it back on rrrrrreeeeeaaaalllllly quick. And that’s the plan, back to the hotel to make us some money.

Half-way from the bus-stop to the club I thought just maybe I was being a bit drastic, but I cant remember what my next thought was after that.

Bo adjusted the mirror on the 91 Olds to see if he’d indeed gotten dip on his collar. A birth canal in the back seat caused him to blink for a second longer than average. The strip-club owners Daddy used to be a Marine and it showed. Punching and biting his way out of the trunk into the car was a feat, Bo’d be the first to tell ya. He’d blindfolded, zip tied and hit the man with 75000 Watts but this Minotaur was now in the backseat. Fucking Carthaginians.

They realized quick they’d done fucked up with this one. She prayed aloud all day long, was unfailingly polite and every chance she got she tried to kill em. Lessy had knocked her tooth out purely on accident but after he reckoned the diamond to be fake, he sent it on to the boss. Almost all his spare time went to kittens. More had received some care from a witch the Dixie Mafia used for dogs. Little bitch had fought harder than any man ever would. In the end she’d ripped off a testicle and with that they put her in box. She calmly told em she couldn’t breath.

I hada shoot him through the seat and we wrecked. He was hurt even worse, so I lit a floor mat afire and ran off in the other directin than Angola, Fuck that, Daddy’d worked there as a guard for 3 days till they done found out he’d been in Parchman for vehicular homicide. Mamma said that great clouds a nephalim hung over those places. I couldn’t see them but I smelled em. Mamma and Katy-Rob always had eyes for that type of thing. Maybe they both lyin though.

I figured theyd run they dogs from around the car so I needed to get gone.

Did not like taken anything from white folks, I did not know how I was gonna pay for that ladies car I done wrecked but it’d get done. The little Kawasaki three wheeler cranked up nice and I left them my hunting license to show good faith.

You aint gonna believe this shit.

Francis-Jean Prichideaux III really could have done without hearing another person say that. It seemed to preface every comment. As a boy he’d felt something akin to the feeling he had now when other nut-brown Acadian boy’s ud say, “Wanna see something…hold my beer.”

Nothing good eva come outta dem type a commentary’s.

What?

Claudius came over with a note. Says here that Similies had another big da-doo.

Whan?

Last night.

Itd been 2 weeks since they colored boys come up in that terrible place and Blanc Bebbette got taken, now what dis shit?

Dixie Mafia used for dogs. Little bitch had fought harder than any man ever would. In the end she’d ripped off a testicle and with that they put her in box. She calmly told em she couldn’t breath. More heard, “I feel free.” thought long and hard about that medicine Melodina gave him, the plan was he was, of a time, to go back. ER out the wustion. She told him he could still sire a brood, if he chose.

Right now the chose was in nose. That moment, eternal, universal, when you know for certain that thing are bout to get lit.

I hada shoot him through the seat and we wrecked. He was hurt even worse, so I lit a floor mat afire and ran off in the other directin than Angola, Fuck that, Daddy’d worked there as a guard for 3 days till they done found out he’d been in Parchman for vehicular homicide. Mamma said that great clouds a nephalim hung over those places. I couldn’t see them but I smelled em. Mamma and Katy-Rob always had eyes for that type of thing. Maybe they both lyin though.

I figured theyd run they dogs from around the car so I needed to get gone.

Did not like taken anything from white folks I did not know how I was gonna pay for that ladies car I done wrecked but it’d get done. The little Kawasaki three wheeler cranked up nice and I left them my hunting license to show good faith.

You aint gonna believe this shit.

Francis-Jean Prichideaux III really could have done without hearing another person say that. It seemed to preface every comment. As a boy he’d felt something akin to the feeling he had now when other nut-brown Acadian boy’s ud say, “Wanna see something…hold my beer.”

Nothing good eva come outta dem type a commentary’s.

What?

Claudius came over with a note. Says here that Similies had another big da-doo.

Whan?

Last night.

Itd been 2 weeks since them colored boys come up in that terrible place and Blanc Bebbette got taken, now what dis shit? Least he didn’t have any crackers around to be yapping about…”oh what now you gonna do colored ssherrff”

The problem we have with God honey is related to expectations and not based in the hard VERITAS of life. See here, what happens when youo to church?

I listen to the preacher

Right, sure but when you’re singing a good Hallelujah song. Or something real once make you cry every time. That jut Him leeting us know that we are cared for.s like that one goes, “Lord You are more precious than silver…

Lord You are more costly than gold.

Together, “Lord You are more beautiful than diamonds.

And nothing I desire compares to You.”

Lord, honey you have a voice like angel blast-furnace. When you get that deep purple swell….

Purple and Gold.

Yesssa, and that is the real thing and it is a thing that belongs in this world yet has a hand fully in the next. But what you looking for there is that feeling to keep on keepin on.

Yessir.

But it don’t.

No.

Is that Gods problem or yours?

I feel like sometimes it is Him.

Cause you just go home and go straight to sinning.

And I wonder why in all His Greatness, I just can’t get a little help in that department.

But you care don’t ya?

I care a great deal. I expect it’s my conscience.

Yes. But a conscience ain’t a stopper, it’s just a fuse light indicator.

So then where’s the stopper?

That’s the catch.

Meaning its all up to me.

Honey, you ever look at a real life hero?

Maybe Rooster Carley?

Hmm. Ain’t none. He died 2000 years ago, therebouts. Now we just hunker down. Oh you gone sin. I’m gone sin. Yo Mamma, Lawd have a way. Its not about ‘not doin’ its about accepting your place in grace.

My place in grace.

From behind him mamma stepped, lightly, elegant specter. White on white on white, yet the air hovered lightly around it as if mistrusting. Mama’s essence was rebellion. Born with a dead twin boy, she lay never crying once in granny’s arms. Said she wouldn’t look nobody in the eye. They was alarmed from the get go. Mamma was said to have spent some of her teen years in Walnut Gove. She supposed to have found God in there, in the gladiator school. Once when she came home to the Shady Acres #3 after being out for a minute, she took me and we sat behind the dumpster; she told me about the first love of her life while she smoked up a cool bill a rock. Some people get all crazy scared of people on hard drugs, like they got special powers or summin. I ain’t but but a buck and change and I’m telling you I have cold knocked fuckers out who go too close. It’s best just to warn white folks up front, but when mamma slumming or Im at school and we dealing wit regular street niggas, I just stay loose, if mamma grab and go…then well, Im just down wit mine.

Oh Daddy.

I love my Daddy…

What are ya’ll ssscheming on. Lemme see your billfold.

Daddy’s trying to tell me all the war we got with sin is just an illusion.

Woman, that’s not what I said.

That we have to learn to accept our weakness as part of life. And personally for me, cause I listen to all them preachers and I read all them books and I pray on the Bible…I do it all with a knife in my belt and Im down for the clan but I do not wanna keep on living this way.

Ooh its one of them talks, you…what your daddy is remise in sharing is that there are other forces at work in this world.

NO.

Well talk later honey.

We never did.

I believe Mamma occupies some special place in this world, like a gold key that is made for just one lock, the most magnificent things await behind it; but you put that fucker in your back pocket with a handkerchief and they key is lost in the Misty Mountains. Myrrh and aloe and decay and female sex and the heat after summer rain and moss and Cyprus and dawn and linen white. Mamma mind was fine. Mammas body was the problem. She worshipped it to hurt her.

She saw a movie once at the Motel 6 in Latham Springs Texas called Jennifer’s Body, she said that though the metaphor was sloppy and the genre “totally LA” a poor excuse, yet she understood that somehow this connected us, because I was watching her becoming self aware.

Of an aspect only I believe, but a crack in the wall blinked a purple light in my eye and I realized that indeed “the affections of the heart are Divine”. If God dropped the veil once in a while, it somehow ran through my mother.

But even though I am slower than other folks, I can tell you that if Daddy believes that things are moving behind the scenes and mamma sees em too. Man, these things are making them worse…not better.

Bus trip in the none-to-crisp suit pocket, they stayed for the Wed. prayer meetin. “Lord, clarity!?” is all she heard.

She let em. In her mind she wouldn’t say any of them words, though she knew em all. Not anymore. School want ever much of an option. She imagined she’d gone some 86 days counting Sunday school. Down in Delta Daddy drove the pickers and Momma would help her people at the gin. She guessed they also make juniper liquor, but she had never seen anybody so much as talking too much.

Usually she let em. Long as Grady wasn’t in the county or parish.

Carthage

Inside of the pain management clinic Momma wagged a smidgen more than usual.

The Cave. Yeah she felt like she understood what that peasant man had been on about. Inside of her the beasts walked behind her eyes projecting outward before the flame. Spirit. It was in there, everyone cept the great harlot believed that, maybe the Jews too.

The connection with the nebulous. A shadow moving over the death waters. Spirit. All of us believed in it, we just didn’t know what it did exactly. People loved to say ‘god-bless’ or ‘Lord have mercy’ without any effect registerin’. To my mind that just made it a cuss word.

She loved the swamp. Would try and draw it out on some papers she kept in a plastic sack. She would rub the expensive paper between her fingers and something stirred. The cicadas song was richer there, the air tugged back, weightier somehow. She felt like her house would one day be in the swamp, clapboard painted green with mesh to keep out the critters but not else.

It sounded like a side of deboned meat being hit with a Louisville slugger, he’d been there and few people went around with bats. Guns mainly. Breaking his hand had been a salvation. He thought he’d found religion but he’d found instead a boy from Colombia. Alerts rang. Grady felt drugs were a last option. Open but last on line. Everyone he grew up with said “in line” but Grady was careful with his mastery of what he considered the only separation betwixt man and dog.

Manfreid Israel Romele was Russian. Perhaps German. Older. Beautiful. Cement blonde. How is a fighter so beautiful? Grady knew.

Smoldering halogen incense prayed for them. Pissing on the carhood altar.

The boy was a fucking nightmare. Glowed. Darkness. He’d seen it before. Everything was loose when he prayed, like the boy standing feet away, steam roiling off of his neck, with “Molon Labe” tatted across the front of his windpipe, where he got hit 45 seconds later.

The Chevelle was purple and Grady wouldn’t lean on it. Surrounding the Big Red Barn choking the purity of the moment were the ‘chickens’. Grady had said, ”clucking foul” but his folk just spit out the gumbo. Grady did not respect a man who watched blood-sports.

Ancient and comfortable. It was more than he could bear, of at time he would sit in the pot till he’d eatin it. A marvel of his power, kneeling on the commode in communion. Particles of hay and heat, cicada’s his private herald. Easy 220. Easy. Against his knees fabric calmed his fingers, he thought of his sister; the smile closed. He thought of Teddy on his horse, the pompous, articulate fool.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood…”

So fucking obvious, like ham-in-hand. Natchitoches. Ham-in-Hand Festival 94. You could walk across the Sabine on boats, smells of the Cajun Microwave’s buried in the soft loam some 100 paces from the water. Whole hogs stuffed with chickens and doves. Grady wondered if dogs trusted smell the way humans subscribed to sight. It was over tween them and he should have seen it. Grady looked coldly at his need. Only the slightest of scowls. Chemicals he thought, chemicals and blips.

He didn’t think it much, to go to war. He was plied with Mozi, Xenophon and 1st Chronicles 4:10 early. Daddy leaning over him and pointing to sketches momma had drawn to go with the Gideon Bible which was in constant circumlocution with others of its ilk. He always walked hunkered down, tied firmly to many things that were not tied to him.

She scuttled over the grooved Cyprus, kaleidoscope of man reduced, he saw her; languidly absorbing the violence to come. Beneath her impressive multi-spectacled visage was her load, atwitter. Looked of fine hairs in a sharp breeze, her brood beneath her belly. She leaned back as if to sit or box or pray, front legs circling in the direction of the bigger man’s dead face.

Lawd have a way, boy you ready?

The man was a fat, suspender framing a whet shirt with nowhere to go came up on Grady’s boy Ara too fast.

Ok we ready?

Ill kill you ifin you don’t step back.

Things was tight, Grady knew all bout this here.

Aight then.

Theys a bit a nonsense bout that bet?

No. Straight up.

Mine’ll be in money orda?

Ara’d get it after the fight now, cause I’ll be on my way, Briar Rabbit style, gros cul.

Fat man took on a greasy bugger as backward he moved, “that man fittin to fuck you.”

Tingle. Mmmmmmm. Grady felt like Ehud preparing to assassinate the fat king Eglon of Moab.

Hear that Schvartze, eer dat fat man.

God give me a verse. He chewed a small hangnail.

Ha. He knew it. 2 Kings 9:20, 20 The watchman [a]reported, “He came even to them, and he did not return; and the driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi, for he drives furiously.”

The Lord gave this verse a lot.

Ehud and Jehu. Lawd have mercy son.

This boy was car black, and it really aint right, that type a black. That sheen of purple that made Grady think of dinosaurs and that painter Turner. Give em almost like invisibility at night. And nobody wants that shit. It’s like that shine you can see you’re reflection in… but it gives pause cause it’s a black you staring back. How fucking mad you’d be. Grady wouldn’t look at those shiny black cars, he even avoided dark purple.

Fat man giggled into his cerchief and sat down on a bale; he thought, looking toward the unimpressive white boy, that this’d be soon over.

Grady prayed a bit, squatted and thought of something like a dwarf star painted on a canvas the side of the barn.

He knew the boy’d come over the top and heavy, he knew hed move left and the boy’d come in with a quick step and a lunge at his knees. All the cat in that man was now cutting its way to the top. the breath was bull-like in intensity but shallow. The red rims mean he’s a drinker probably and he favored his left knee a bit. Grady felt sorry then. Sorry for his life and his momma, sorry for the man who was gonna try a kill him, sorry for the fat man who bet against his own kind, sorry that Mississippi water that he smelled on everything was growing less pungent. Sorry God was real and poetry was to hang him. Sometimes things seeded afor birth ripen when they aint wanted. He always felt tears was fine where laughter was.

They drummed him out of the military for being too young. Sure at that time it would be the catalyst for a life riding the dark horse, he considered killing himself but didn’t. Grady’d look in the mirror most days to check and see if it was time.

I read somewhere that poor people typically name their kids names like Unique, Kandy, Sherry and Amber. Later, I read somewhere that girls with some particular names wind up being hookers and dancers and in the porno’s. It bothered me it took two studies to not say that poor girls went to stripping a shade faster than rich ones. Academicians are so fucking stupid. Not only this but everyone knew that strippers changed their names. I thought then and think now I should be in charge of a hair more.

I guess I followed her around some. I remember the taste of bubble-gum scented shampoo and her face. We were protective of each other as should be expected. Daddy woednt too much of a provider, nor a daddy. I guess she burned out that wild streak cause she came back directly.

“I wish I was in Dixie, hurrah hurrah

In Dixie land Ill take my stand to live and die in Dixie.

Oh way

Oh way

Oh way down south..... in Dixie.”

She loved the word Dixie, long as I knew her though I believe she thought it more of a state of being, like glory or honor. She may ah never known it was holding all our heads under water. Grady knew all about it and loved it anyway. Some things just don’t figure. Soon as I could I got out. Not sure anyone else ever did, not really.

I remember him takin pictures of her holding onto a lit lighter and a squeeze bottle a lighter fluid.

I remember when the men came in and he couldn’t protect us. He tried. Grady says, “tryin dyin.”

I read an article somewhere bad things happen to poorer people more often, it was more nuanced than that but that’s what I got.

“Katy-Rob, bring us that phone.”

“your cellular phone?”

“We aint go no…little smart-alec.”

She was always doin stuff like that. I couldn’t ever figure who she was making fun of, Daddy or this Democratic Republic. Maybe Jonny Locke.

Momma was a Rhodes Scholar, I do not know how.

The slovenly way she met my laughter got her a lick. She called herself red velvet, not a nickname, her color. Said mamma was white as the driven snow cept a little Cocoa and a dash’a red food colorin. At a certain age I started realizing that I was gonna be mostly for myself, like my cousin Fay. I took to strippin like anybody’s business. First night in, this little Indian girl told me we do private parties, all naked. I couldn’t see much difference anyhow. It was illegitimate and the girls were indifferent to the men sucking on their titties and stuff. It just suited me fine.

I told Grady that he was to keep my little sister outta my world. There was only room in Carthage for one Cobb stripper.

The striker clicked down and something happened but it sure did not fire a round. White slipstream stepped quickly and quietly inside and hit the man with the gun in the throat. That noise is a thing. Everyone knew he’d done killed him. Grady remembered Niccki Bercham getting punched just so and dying. He guessed he coulda just knocked the gun away. Somewhere, someone was probably holding a little nigglet, waiting on daddy to call. It’d be a wait.

There were eight Cobbs all said but they slithered off, most of em anyway, to Bama and Nam and Peru. Doesn’t matter too much because once they left sight of the Mississippi River, they was good as dead.

Why’d they decide to try and kill him? Grady had a small warrant out on him that left the Boss little choice. That’s what I heard.

Theys four of us around and we all came. Amber, Bo, Katy, and me. Grady stood up from a Shaker stool he loved.

Grady said they’d maybe come for one of us.

They got Katy Rob two nights later, sent in her fron tooth wit they diamond set in it. Fucked up but shed done talked about rippin it out her own self.

Similies was supposed to be a real swanky joint but it was not. Owner by strategery has built a damn motel in the back. Lord have mercy, sulphur factory. I went to pills in the first month. Once you have gonna church and believe, shit gets real hard to do…after the first couple times anyway.

Grady wasn’t blood related to all the girls and he knew to divide his attentions. You cant just go around fighting the whole wrestling team. Amber was neck-tatted and out from around at 14. Our older cousins had done some strippin down on the redneck riveria and I reckon it called her harder’n dope.

Katy took to the hard life too but came back to me and Daddy, Momma and her never cared to talk to one another. She came back quieter and only wore beige and grey. She wrote long letters to Amber and cried some but I would have had her cry all the time if’n she’d just stay.

You’se too young buddy.

I knew you’d say that shit.,

Amber drove up in a fucking Infinity with something clanking under the jappy hood. I knew Grady wouldn’t even look at her, not even one time.

Amber and me gonna go talk to Joe-Block. See if we can figure something out.

There wasn’t any reason to hate Grady for being what he was but I had me a weapon too.

I never knew a way to complete the things that others completed. I reckon I’m slow or I ain’t totally grown up yet. Somin’. When I saw those men take Katy and beat Daddy, there was some sort of wet click and I seemed of a sudden to be able to see it all. The vast expanse and the precipitous nature of the wealthy and the bright. left us all killing each other over a double wide and an abortion.

I watched myself, knowin somehow I had made a decision that was about being a man, about being a Cobb n’ a Toten but there wasn’t anything movie about it. I stole a ladies cruiser out front a the Winn Dixie and played with myself all the way to Biloxi. I felt greasy and popped a pimple on my back. Somehow the Ruger felt lighter the further south we went, like it was becoming less offended by its own.

I was in love with the purity of my little brother. He would never talk to me in front of other people but in private he asked after my girlfriends and me. Once I got a bit too graphic and he white’nd up so I was sure he was gonna kill me. I think he’s still a virgin at 24.

I had made 1200. I have no damn clue where that fucking money is now. Jessie and I were working on a routine, she had this idea for a ‘concept piece’ with Moors and an allusion to the Hearst family but we just wound up kissing and smoking cigarettes till it was our turn.

They could see her now. More whispers to Letty, “This place gone turn out.”