Oh, how the music drew me once –
a cadence with my own –
the perfect pitch, the unison,-
the Harmony of tone. –
But change of keys, a sharper chord –
A melody postponed –
That left behind a requiem –
of death from whence it’s grown
– CD-W
“Shut up, Betty. You’re drunk.”
“Not enough. I thought this would be easier. I would never have told you except, except, well, now we need your help. The money’s dried up. You’re my only friend.”
“Friend? You’re not my friend. You’re a liar, a traitor. How could you?!’
Mama’s crying now and I think I have to upchuck again.
“But Bernie, I’m all he’s got. And if I don’t have help, I’ll be forced to, to tell everyone. Everyone!”
My head hits the back of Beauty’s seat. Mama has screeched the Model T to a halt.
“You’re threatening me now?” Mama’s words are Spikey like cactus needles. She never yells like this. “Is this why you befriended me in the first place?” Mama sobs. “For money? For …”
It still doesn’t make sense. The only thing that does is being home with Daddy.
I stumble through my front door trying to breathe.
“Emma?” Daddy says. He rushes to me with arms wide enough to hug all of Holly Gap. Choppers licks muck from my face.
“Oh, Daddy, Daddy.” I let him hold me.
He lifts my chin and stares at my dirty, scratched face. “What happened, Emma June? Tell me.”
His voice is worried. But there’s no truth I can tell him. Not now.
Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket, 1928
An Opaque look at life won’t get you anywhere. Search until you can see the light. Look out the window. You might see a woman walking steadily on one leg. 🙂
He tries to avoid the draft in 1945, battles a Nazi goat in 1943, hits Adolf Hitler’s head with a giant mallet in 1943, and outwits Hitler from a plane in 1944.
Happy Birthday, you wacky Daffy Duck. Good work.
Mama liked Miss Helen’s moonshine, but only when she drank with Beauty. Once, when the summer was too hot for anything else, Mama, Scooter and me, took Beauty to the swimming hole. Mama spread out a red blanket and plopped a picnic basket on top. Scoot and me ate cheese and tomato sandwiches and crunched apples while Mama and Beauty drank Miss Helen’s hooch out of paper cups. Beauty got so ossified, she stripped naked and jumped in the creek. It Jolted me a bit, but Scooter didn’t care on iota.
“Betty Bedford, get out of the creek before you drown,” Mama said, laughing.
Then Beauty stood up in water only waist deep, her bosoms shining with moisture. She’d laughed and said, “Hard to do unless something pulls me under.”
No matter where we went, Mama and Beauty always had fun together. Except when everything went wrong.
Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket
Sadie threw her arms around me and buried her face in my shoulder. “I’m so grateful you’re here. Maybe it’s time for me to go out. I think Miss Fannie won’t mind as long as I’m with you. I could take you to Brackenridge Park. It’s supposed to be beautiful. It’s named after one of our citizens, George Brackenridge. You know, the waterworks magnate?”
George Brackenridge, Mary Eleanor’s brother.
“I can’t today, Sadie. I’m going to visit Aunt Amelia. Another time, perhaps?”
Sadie withdrew her hug and narrowed her eyes. “I thought you just saw her. Truly, Meta? A visit every day?”
Her sarcastic wrath unwarranted, I clenched my hands into fists. “She is the reason I came here, Sadie. Did you forget?”
Sadie took a step back and glared at me. “I’ve changed my mind about going downstairs. You don’t like me because I’m a prostitute. I know that now. You’re only here so you can play your precious piano.”
“Sadie—”
“Please, do go down without me.”
Veins pulsed in my neck. “And you are only using me to ameliorate your guilt. Your insouciance for others is heartless.”
“You realize, don’t you, that you rely on your big words to puff yourself up. It’s unbecoming.”
Thoughts of Uncle Dirk reappeared. Why? Because Sadie had spoken to me with arrogance and superiority? Because she questioned my intelligence? My stomach churned.
“Let me know if I should move into Etta’s room.” Bitterness dripped from my tongue. I felt happy to descend the stairs alone.
Excerpt from The Last Bordello
Reblogging about reblogging. 🙂
Young Cono Dennis
Mr. Pall thinks he’s tougher than a pair of old leather boots, probably because he used to be some kinda wrestler or something. He isn’t nearly as tough as Dad, who last week had beaten a man unconscious on Main Street just because the man spouted off to him. I walk into his office, where’s he’s sitting behind his desk looking puffed up with importance.
“Cono, were you smoking in the schoolyard?”
“No sir, I wadn’t.”
“Were the Allridge boys smoking?”
I think, Why didn’t ye just call them in here like you’ve done me?, but I don’t say that. Maybe it was Mr. Pall’s brother-in-law, who Dad had beaten up last week.
“I have no idee, sir,” I say. “I reckon you ought’a ask them.”
His right eye stares a hole in my left eyeball. His left one kinda wanders around on its own, like it’s been punched one too many times. Maybe he grunts with Mrs. Berry on occasion.
He opens up his desk drawer and pulls out a rubber hose. He thumps it on the desk a few times and says, “Well, I need to whip you with this hose.”
I stare back into his bad eye with both of my good ones and say, “Go ahead, sir. But I jes’t half to tell ye that my daddy said if you ever laid a hand on me, he’d have to come up here and whup you.” I say it real nice though.
He sits real quiet in his principal’s chair, like he’s picturing himself drawing a crowd on Main Street while my dad beats the tar outta his one good eye. While he’s chewing on that idea like a piece of gum, I’m busy staring at him, thinking that his front teeth stick out so far he could eat an apple through a keyhole. After that picture in my mind, I’m not scared one little bit.
Finally, he says, “Git on outta here, Cono.”
“Yes, sir,” I say, ’cause there’s no sense in not being polite.
At lunchtime I’m eating my sandwich, minding my own business, when Tommy scopes me out and says, “Cono, what’cha got fer lunch?”
Even though he’s five times bigger than me I say, “It don’t make no difference ’cause ye ain’t getting none of it.”
“Cono, you shouldn’t a’ stuck that knife in me that time.”
I look up at him with a face as serious as Dad’s and say, “Tommy, if ye mess with me in any way, shape’r form, I’ll cut yer head plumb off with the same pocketknife I used before.”
And just as I’m picturing his dead body without a head like Wort Reynolds, Tommy Burns walks away.
School’s out for the day, and it was another discouraging one. I grab Delma’s hand and start walking back home, now having a little time to think about what happened.
The Allridge boys had been smoking like a bunch a chimney stacks, but I ain’t one to rat on somebody else when it’s none of my business. And, I like to think that Dad would beat the tar outta Mr. Pall if he laid a hand on me. But Dad never said that. If Dad ever finds out that I lied, I might as well curl up in a ball and prepare myself—or maybe just grab my axe.
Lying isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes, we have to lie in order protect ourselves and the people we care about.
An “eye for an eye” is what I did today. Maybe that part of the Bible makes sense after all.
From No Hill for a Stepper, the story of my father growing up in poverty during the Great Depression.
On this day in 1912, first, second and third class passengers of the RMS Titanic were filled with hope and excitement. It promised to be a grand adventure — not just the travel itself, but the thought of docking in New York City. They had four full days of entertainment and hopefully, fun. Then we all know what happened on the 15th. Of the 2,224 passengers and crew, more than 1500 died. The people in third class had a higher rate of casualties. To see an interesting collection of recovered artifacts, check here.
photo credit
Ike, my great-grandfather, and Cono Dennis, my dad
Even though I didn’t get a donkey or a new guitar, I knew Aunt Nolie was in my corner, wiping off my brow between rounds and telling me to “Get up!” at the same time. I’ve since learned how to “get up” from many of the folks around West Texas. In that rugged terrain, if you don’t stand your ground, you’ll be bitten into hard, chewed on for a long time, and finally spit out just like Granny Dennis’s snuff. You don’t give up in West Texas, you get up.
It’s strange the ways people stick up for others and how they don’t. Sometimes they do it with yelling words, soft words, or even no words at all. Sometimes they do it by fighting, like Punk Squares did. But most of the time, the people in your corner just tell you to suck it up and go back at it. That’s what I’ve learned to do.
On that no-account day I did get a good reminder of what Ike taught me later on. Never trust anybody but your own self. I’d decided that from then on, I was going to protect my hard-earned money, hold on to it real tight in one hand and clutch the handle of my axe even tighter in the other. An honest day’s pay should be just that and nobody—nobody—should ever take that away from you.
Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper, my father’s story.
Be Tenacious!
Carolyn Dennis-Willingham 