Tag Archives: family

Waitin’ for the Gunshot

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Instead of Uncle “No-Account” Red taking young Cono to buy a donkey, he takes him to a bar in Sweetwater. Cono doesn’t know it yet but he will soon return with his pistol-toting Aunt Nolie. (1930’s)

No-Account gives Sunshine a pinch on her round butt and she lets out a sound somewhere between a squeal and a giggle sound. It sounded stupid.

Sitting there by myself doesn’t stop me from staring, disgusted-like at their carrying ons. She whispers in his ear, he gives her a little smooch, he whispers in her ear, she lets out another harebrained giggle. I get so fed up my belly starts to twist around and I think I might just puke. Standing up I say, “I’m gonna wait in the truck.” And that’s what I do.

I look around the truck, but it’s not there. Not one rope. That sorry son of a bitch never intended to buy me a donkey.

I watch people go in and come out and think about the loser I’m with, the jackass full of bullcorn. My hard-earned-honest-days-work-seed-selling money had gone straight towards something to do with that blonde haired giggly eye winker named “Sunshine.”

No-Account finally gets back in the truck and starts jawing again about more things that don’t make no sense. The difference is, this time he’s swerving around the road like a drunk man, which he is.

He seems to have forgotten about buying me that donkey since we’ve driven past the donkey field for the second time. I look over at him. He’s got a shit eating grin on his face that tells me his mind is sitting on something else. Wink, wink.

That grin flipped over real quick when we got home.

“Where ye been so long and where’s that donkey?” screams Aunt Nolie.

“Couldn’t get one today,” he says.

Aunt Nolie looks at the mad on my face and yells, “What the hell were ye doin’ then?”

No-Account whistles himself into the other room and ignores her.

“Cono, where ya’ll been?” she asks, her tone a little softer now.

“We went to Sweetwater to the Lucky Start beer joint.”

“Why didn’t ye get a donkey?”

“He wouldn’t stop fer one,” I tell her. Then I add more of the honest truth. “Red had some beers and started kissin’ on Sunshine.”

“He was, was he?”

“Yep.”

“Com’on, Cono. I’m gonna get my pistol and I’m gonna drive right back over there and shoot that no-good hussy.”

“Ye know who she is?”

“Everybody in Sweetwater knows that slut.”

I decide right then and there that another ride to Sweetwater to shoot Sunshine didn’t make no never-mind to me. I don’t have a donkey and nothing to strum but and idea.

After Aunt Nolie gets her gun, we’re back in the truck. She puts on some kinda girly scarf and ties it under her chin. Then she takes out her lipstick, looks in the rearview mirror and smears it on her lips. Aunt Nolie must want to look good when she shoots No-Account’s girlfriend.

Here I go again, on the way back to Sweetwater. Not to get a donkey but to shoot Sunshine, My Only Sunshine.

Driving down the highway, Aunt Nolie doesn’t talk much, at least not with her mouth. She clutches that steering wheel like she’s about to squeeze all the Texas sand and grit out of it and that’s a whole conversation in itself.

We finally get to Sweetwater and park in front of the Lucky Star Bar.

“Cono, ye wait right here.”

“OK,” I say, since I’ve already met the woman, who’s about to be shot anyway.

I sit in the car, again. I watch the people come and go, again, except this time, the ones that had been going were coming and the ones that had been coming were now going. I wait for the sound of a gunshot, the sound I’ve become familiar with when I hunt with my dad. I wait alright ‘cause there’s nothing else for me to do.

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper

NO NOOSE AROUND THIS NECK!

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Once again, my sister has come through. (And wait for the “punchline!”)

Pat bought me the perfect gift for Christmas. (She has read my historical fiction novels, the last one set in 1901.) Upon closer inspection, it became even better!

First, this: 

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Then: 

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THIS, MY FRIENDS, IS NO NOOSE. THIS IS MY BADGE OF HONOR!! 🙂 🙂 🙂

Sincerely,

Bad Ass Carolyn

 

My wish for YOU

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After my sweet mom died, I made this shadow box for my heartbroken father. (These are paper doves, not stuffed!) Together, Mom and Dad had always enjoyed the sweet sound of mourning doves and kept their bird and squirrel feeders full. Now, my parents live together in a softer place.

The poem is Emily Dickinson’s:

Hope is the thing with feathers

that perches on the soul

and sings a tune

without the words

and never stops at all.

(excerpt)

For this coming new year, my wish for all of you is to feel the love, peace, joy and hope in the soft tickles of feathers.

Blessings all,

Carolyn

Hopeful Mama Still Loves Me

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Scoot and me are late to school. I don’t like being late because everyone stares and Miss Primrose expects a ‘reasonable excuse for tardiness.’

Scooter pulls out his pocketknife and strolls to the front, his happy eyes aiming at the wood he’s about to shave into invisible.

“Emma June?” Miss Primrose says.

“I’m sorry, Miss Primrose,” I say, glancing at Frank who’s giving me a half smile. “Scooter had himself a bit of an adventure.”

The class giggles and I want to punch them all in the face. What’s wrong with an adventure? At least the ones that don’t make someone carry a grudge. Daddy said Mama still loves me. There’s hope in that.

I try so hard to remember what happened toward the end of the carnival, but everything is jumbled up like bad scrambled eggs. Carla was in better shape than me, but she fell asleep on the ride home when Mama and Beauty had the fight. I remember fading in and out while they argued. I remember upchucking more than once. There’s nobody to tell me what happened except Mama.

So many questions I wanted to ask Daddy that morning when  I woke up to find Mama gone. The only answers were Daddy’s tears. “We’ll work this out. Don’t worry. We’ll work this out,” he had said. And then his words faded as he shuffled away to his bedroom and closed the door.

I don’t know how to help him work things out any more than I know how to make Mama come home. I might as well try picking up shadows.

 

Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket (1928)

Hopeful

Renewal or Regret?

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Cono, age eighteen, travels back home to confront his father.

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Getting on the train, I’m thankful it’s not crowded. Too many people too close to me is something I’ll never get used to. I find a seat toward the back like I always do. A back up against the wall is a back protected. I need to see what’s going on around me at all times. And like always, when I hop on a train, I hope that my head is still attached when I get to where I’m going; not like our friend, Wort Reynolds who hopped on that train to Clyde Texas, the train that grabbed his head and kept right on going.

         “Ticket please.”

            I turn my eyes from the curved tracks outside my window to the ticket taker. Handing it over, I watch him punch the hole without even looking into my eyes. How many years has he done this, I wonder, and does he like the shoes he’s wearing?

         Home, a place that’s sometimes as hard as cement that you can’t pull your shoes out of. Nevertheless, that’s where I’m heading.

            My ears focus on the sound of the train’s idling, but eager-to-go engines. Where the hell would I be today if I didn’t have those railroad memories chugging along with me, some good and some anything but?

         Just as I’m feeling comfortable that I won’t be crowded, I feel something settling into that worn seat next to me, making itself comfortable but making me anything but. It nudges me. I ignore it and then tell it to go away. It doesn’t listen. The memories want me to pay them a little attention. I know this train is about to pull out. I know this train is taking me to Temple. But my mind and my uninvited seat companion start to take me somewhere else, somewhere I’ve already been before, somewhere I don’t care to go back to. It starts speeding me down the track a lot faster than this train is accustomed and a whole lot faster than I can put a stop to.

         The first memory is safe. It makes me wish, “If only it could have all been this easy.”    

         But past wishes were reserved for the other folks with good seats.    

         Not for me.

 

Renewal – Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper

Missing my chocolate boy

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It was two years ago today and I still miss my sweet chocolate boy. I named him Luther Martin,  after Martin Luther King Jr. A hard name to live up to. But, in my mind, he did.

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Even as a puppy, he tried to retrieve my eight-year-old daughter out of the pool.

He loved cantaloupe. He knew he was loved.

And when the new “kids” came around, he accepted them, too.  img_3504

We took him to our homestead in the Texas Hill Country where you can look far into the distance. I didn’t know it would be his last time. But Luther knew.

Because he stared at the sunset, then into the darkness.

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Two years ago yesterday, he celebrated his last Christmas with the family. He ate a full plate of “Christmas”.

Two years ago today, as Luther lay on a pallet at the vet’s office, I fed him two McDonald’s cheeseburgers so he could rise up and meet his sunset.

And so, he did.

 

 

The truth about my blogging “friends”

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I blogged many years back and stopped. Maybe I didn’t understand it or maybe I just didn’t care. But I came back into “your” fold this past August because  I was on a mission. I had a goal and I haven’t done such a good job achieving it.

But, as I like to say, “there goes that universes again” — because blogging has taught me things I didn’t expect.

I have to tell you. A few people in my life, including an attorney friend of mine, worries that “exposing” myself to the cyber world could be unsafe. That “many of those bloggers are not true to who they really are.”

If that’s the case with any of you, back up, Jack, and hit the unfollow button.

(But I think I “know” you.)

Unless I’m traveling, my world is a bit of a bubble. You know, routines and such. Not that I’m complaining. For the most part, I like my sac of familiar air.

But now I have cyber friends like you, who come from all over the world, who tell me through words or photographs about their life, and interests. Many of you share the same thoughts and ideals as me. And the ones who differ, teach me.

You are writers, strugglers, rebels, photographers, dancers, chefs, visionaries, travelers, poets, doctors, animal lovers, readers, humorists. You are mothers, fathers, new adults, aging adults, “in-between” adults.

And, here is the common thread: You are all thinkers who ponder and share the world as you know it.

So what’s not to like?

It’s not you. It’s me. I’m not so good at promoting my novels to make a “difference” in sales while sitting at this particular table.

But I like this wooden table. There is plenty of room for everyone.

And it’s round. 

 

 

(And yes, it’s an electronic cigarette)

 

 

Emma June remembers

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I don’t feel any different after gulping Brandon’s swill. All I feel is happy to be away from him and doing something new.

Carla points to the sign.

‘Madam Zola’s Expert Fortune Teller

Past, Present, Future

Crystal ball gazing, Palm reading

Tarot Cards.’

We don’t care there’s a line waiting outside the door. We sneak to the back where no one will see us then lay on our stomachs. Carla peels up a side of the canvas so we can have a good listen to what Madam Zola’s tells her paying customers.

The first customer asks where she can find her lost dog.

The second voice is Beauty’s.

 I hadn’t thought about Mama all day.

Now, I have to poke my arm to keep from crying.

 

From my upcoming novel, The Moonshine Thicket.

Uncle Will’s fortune

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Cono’s pony, Polo

I ride him up to the front of the house, but start slowing down when I see a car pull up in front of Ma and Pa’s. Not just any car, but a brand new four-door 1931 Cadillac that I know Uncle Will paid through the nose for.

         “Cono!” I hear Aunt Nolie yell, “Come say ‘hello’ to yer Uncle Will.” I ride Polo over to Uncle Will, as he’s getting out of his fancy car wearing his fancy suit, five dollar Mallory hat and carrying his fancy walking stick. Since he’s married to Ma’s sister, Aunt Oler, I know I need to be polite, but it’s hard to be since he’s always such a horse’s butt. His money never helps us out none. I’m not sure it helps him either ‘cause it sure doesn’t make him a nice feller. Last time he came over he looked at me and said, “Why Cono, ye haven’t grown an inch. You better watch out or yer little sister’s gonna catch up with ye, Ha ha ha.” I didn’t like it when he said that, not one little bit.

         Polo and I ride up close to him he says, “Well, hello there Cono..”

            I’m just waiting for another report about how I’m not growing and I’m about to say, “Hello sir” but don’t get the chance. He walks over to me and pulls me right off Polo with his fancy walking stick. “Well, I’ll be damned” is what I’m thinking; the shock of it all doesn’t let me think of anything else. Uncle Will laughs. I can’t believe it, but he reaches in his pocket and thumb-flicks me a shiny penny.  

         “Save it up fer a rainy day there, young fella.”

            I pick it up off the ground and mumble, “Thank you, sir.”

            Aunt Oler and Aunt Nolie don’t pay me no mind, they just go on talking. I get up, grab Polo by the reins and walk slowly back towards the house. I don’t want Uncle Will to know that underneath my hat, my dander is up. So what if he’s got an oil rig named after him? So what he just gave me a shiny new penny? It ain’t like I’ve never seen one before! As far as I’m concerned, Uncle Will’s just a short, fat, King’a Fancy Man and I wish I had his Cadillac and he had a wart on his butt. I’m just gonna go put that penny in my cigar box until I think of something to do with it.

            Probably buy some paper to wipe my butt with.

From my novel, No Hill for a Stepper.

Fortune