Tag Archives: 1928

Waiting for Rosie’s Cafe

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Note: What were the chances I would find the word Willy-nilly (daily post) in one of my writings? As my kids used to say, “Random!” But here it is!

 

Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket by C. Dennis-Willingham

Mr. Leonard, Scooter, and Frank have already left the house for Rosie’s. It’s part of the plan. Mama squeezes her hands together while Miss Helen make-ups her face.

“Stop being so willy-nilly, Bernice. This will be a perfect evening. And for heaven’s sake, stay still!” Miss Helen says, winking at me.

Mama plants her hands on Miss Helen’s vanity. “I know. It’s just, well, there’s so much to say.”

“Then say it and put it behind you.” Miss Helen stands back and eyeballs her work. “You look beautiful, Bernice.”

“Better than beautiful, Mama,” I tell her.

“I’m in my slip for Christ’s sake. At least wait to compliment me until after I’m dressed.”

When Mama puts on her new dress, a pink taffeta with frilly layers, she says it’s too fancy for Rosie’s café. But she can’t stop looking in the mirror.

Still stupid

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Now, the Charleston ends. Victor Victrola’s needle ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch’s searching for something that’s already been used up. Like my memory at the end of carnival night. And Beauty was wrong. My worries are still here.

Big Chief Tablet glares at me from the kitchen table. I tell it to shut up, that homework can wait till I’m good and ready.

I’m extra careful when I plant the needle on the beginning of a different recording. I turn the crank again. The green and yellow squares of our sitting room rug melt together as I spin, and my braid pings one shoulder then the next like two different suitors asking to be my dance Partner. My skirt puffs up like a wild mushroom and it’s swoosh seems to say, “Everything will be right again, Emma June.”

“How do you know that when I can’t even remember?” I yell. Then I jump up and down trying to stomp out my stupid. It’s still there.

Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket by C. Dennis-Willingham

 

daily prompt: Partner

Don’t lick your dog

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In the last fourteen hours, I’ve seen more scenery than a turkey vulture. I tell Daddy I can’t wait to go. For the most part, it’s true. I won’t have to think about the vulture’s nest – a tangled up shack were Frank lives.

I put on a nicer dress, the blue one with Sailor pockets, brush through my hair tangles, and think about chopping it off. I stare at the scissors when the familiar voice calls out.

“Emmy! Emmy!”

I twist my hair into a braid.

“She’s in the house, Scoot Bug,” Daddy yells from behind the house.

“Emmy! Emmy!” he yells again.

I find Scooter outside. He’s hugging Choppers and licking his fur.

“Scoot! Your mama doesn’t like for you to lick dogs.”

He gives me a devilish grin and spits mutt hair from his mouth.

If he asks me to whirly-bird, this time I’ll say no. I’ll show him the still-in-the-carton Tinker Toys instead.

“Ba-boom-ba-boom. Ba-boom-ba-boom. A hullabaloo!”

He’s doing it again. His few words tell me he’s been with Frank.
“I thought you couldn’t leave without your parents watching over you.”

“I am watched over.”

“Yeah? Where?”

Scoot points toward his house, but I know his parents can’t stand on their front porch and keep an eye on him a good hundred yards away.

Halfway between Scoot’s house and mine, I see him waving under the clump of live oak trees. My arm’s too heavy to wave back.

Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket

Sail – Daily word prompt

School’s out, but …

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“Class dismissed.”

After Miss Primrose’s words, the students Dash outside to breathe in the real world.

“Scoot? Want to go to the swimming hole to look for Frank? If he’s there, we can’t stay long. Your Mama will have a hissy fit if we’re late coming home.”

His eyes light up. “Grab your muskets, boys!” he shouts. Then, for the first time today, he pulls out his blues harp. As he plays, his cheeks puff out and suck in, puff out, and suck in like what I picture a blowfish doing.

As we walk to the swimming hole, I think about my birthday even though I don’t want to. Without Mama, it wouldn’t even be a birthday. It would be a few friends, a cake and presents without promise. Now I have to talk to The Secret Keepers, Miss Helen or Miss Delores. If they know where Mama is, maybe they can send word that I refuse to turn twelve without her.

Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket

 

daily word prompt: Dash

Missing Letters

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Saturday is family day, if only two people count as a whole family. We’re not a complete three-legged dog family anymore. Without Mama, Daddy and me have turned into a kangaroo that hops on two feet with sorrow poking out of its pouch.

Daddy and me climb into Ol’ Bess. His knuckles are white on the steering Wheel as he drives us into town, and I don’t want to ruin family day by asking questions about Mama.

Every Saturday, Rosie’s Café has roast beef and mashed potatoes. We always split a slice of apple pie three ways. This time, I’ll get more than my fair share, but the thought makes my stomach hurt.

Five minutes of quiet later, we pull up in front to the café on Holly Gap’s main street.

“What in tarnation?” Daddy points. “Wonder what happened.”

One of the workers is sweeping up glass on the sidewalk. Just above his head, there’s a big hole in the front window. Now, instead of saying “Best café in Texas,” it says, “Bes… exas.”

Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket

Daily photo prompt: Wheel

What poverty looks like

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All I hear is the rotting porch creaking from the wind.

“It’s the right thing to do,” I say over and over while pulling open the screen door that has more holes than a liar’s tale.

The house is crowded with litter. I step over a broken radio with its back unscrewed, a screwdriver next to it. The one chair in the tiny sitting room lies on its side, wood glue next to its broken leg. Papers torn from a Big Chief tablet, marked with music notes, are scattered across the floor. A tattered pillow sits on a mattress in the corner. Beside it, Frank’s harmonica. I picture Frank sleeping here. My eyes get watery.

The kitchen smells like the sandwich I made Frank – moldy and spoiled. Plates and bowls are caked and crusted with old food.

I walk the few steps to her bedroom. The door is open. I concentrate on the body beneath the covers and see the slight rise and fall of the life underneath.

Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket

Daily Word Prompt: Paper

We can’t find Scooter!

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article-2017054-0cc18ad400000578-245_634x692Miss Helen paces and says, “We can’t find Scooter. I even went to the swimming hole.” Now she’s sobbing. “The water’s deep and violent. What if, what if …” She blows her nose on the handkerchief she brought with her.

There can’t be a world without Scooter Hutchings. A world where things Blossom if you believe, and where everything is so good, you can’t see any of the moldy parts. I try not to upchuck.

“What was his fit about?” Frank asks.

Miss Helen shakes her head. “He kept yelling ‘broken bones and bad ladders, broken bones and bad ladders.’ I know my Scooter was mad at the ladder after Leonard fell and broke his leg. A few days after the accident, Scooter took a hammer to it and used the rungs for whittling.”

“That’s where he got those pieces,” Frank mumbles to himself.

“But Scooter never yells. Ever.” Miss Helen keeps going. “So, I told him to go outside and play the harmonica. It helps him relax. But I forgot to check on him. I was—”

“The Eveready Hour,” I say, knowing it’s her favorite show.

Frank stands up and fidget’s a stare out the front window.

Miss Helen nods and keeps crying. “The song, It Ain’t Gonna Rain No Mo, came on. I was thinking about the night in the storm shelter, how we were all together.”

“Well, we can’t just sit here,” Mama says, thinking my thoughts.

Think like Scooter. Think like Scooter. He’d heard Brandon’s words, knew Mr. Foley broke his kid’s bones. He took revenge on the ladder. Could he be after Mr. Foley for breaking Rachael’s arm? But Mr. Foley was on the other side of the creek, not our side. Scooter couldn’t get to him. Would he try?”

“Oh, God.” I stand up. My hands shake first, then my body.

“Emma June?” Daddy pulls me toward him and stares in my eyes. “Tell us what you’re thinking.”

So, I do.

Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket

daily post word prompt: Blossom

Why shear a pig?

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I look out at the monster contraption in the moonshine thicket. A coiled snake-looking tube sits on top of a barrel and is attached to a copper boiler pot.

Two of me could fit inside the barrel that I tap. “What all’s in here, Miss Helen? Besides prunes and yeast.”

“Corn, rye, and a few other secrets.”

“It smells stronger? How come?”

She stands straight and proud and looks me in the eye. “Fermentation.” She smiles. “And ready to be poured.”

“I bet you wish prohibition was over so you didn’t have to work so hard at moonshining,” I say.

She lifts one eyebrow and glares at me. “Why shear a pig? I like seeing Ulysses S. Grant smile at me on his Crisp bills.”

I look at the scars on the insides of her arms. “Even if you burn yourself?”

“Those are nothing but hard work kisses. What’s important is temperature, filtration and whether or not the beading’s right.” She sets down a box of Mason jars. “Besides, what would the Mayor give his constituents if I didn’t do my job?”

Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket

Daily prompt: Crisp

Drinking to Dead Relatives

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Great Gatsby Franken-Farter stares at the creek. “I saw my aunt die.”

“I saw my grandpa die, too.” I remember Mama crying when she pulled the bed sheet over him and Daddy hugging her for a long time after. When they buried him, Scooter kept going back to the cemetery to see if Grandpa was sprouting from the dirt.

“Your grandpa. Was he run over by a get-away gangster, too? Like Aunt Sissy was? She didn’t Survive like your dog,” he says.

It sounds too horrible for truth. “Phonus balonus.”

“Suit yourself. You’re next?”

“Okay,” I say. But I won’t mention Miss Helen. I think for a while then decide to tell him another truth. “I’ve been Cooter Browned before,” I say, and almost taste the vomit-varnish from that night.

“Who?”

He’s not so smart after all.

“You know, I’ve been blotto before.”

His eyes crinkle when he laughs. “Let’s drink to that. Plenty of mornings I’ve had to chew my water. Tomorrow might be one of them.” He hands me the Mason jar.

I take it thinking it’s his way of making peace. I pretend to drink then hand it back.

“Where were you when you got drunk?” he says.

“At the carnival. Last weekend. The night Mama left.” I didn’t mean to say the last part. “I gotta go.”

Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket

 

Body Removal

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Betty doesn’t look like Betty unless you stare long enough and Miss Helen’s too busy with body removal to take a good look.

“What’s she got, Miss Helen?” Frank asks.

“I have an inkling and, if I’m right, she needs medicine right away.”

They carry her to Moonbeam like soldiers hauling the injured.

“Open both back doors,” Miss Helen snaps at me.

I open the near door first then scramble around to the other side.

“Now come back over here and hold her the front corners long enough for me to go on the other side and pull her in.”

“I …”

“You’re strong enough to hold her up for three seconds, aren’t you?” she squawks.

I take Miss Helen’s place. Now, it’s me who’s keeping up the top half of Betty, but she’s sinking in the middle. Frank stays quiet holding the corners next to his ma’s feet.

Miss Helen climbs in the back seat and grabs the sheet corners by Betty’s head. She pulls Frank’s ma inside Moonbeam like threading a human Yarn through the eye of the needle.

 

Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket set in 1928