Daring Adventures

There were lots of daring adventures growing up on Pungo Creek. Like the time the REA cut off our electric. Mama came in one night to find Aunt Blanche, Addie and me sitting in the dark staring at a blank television.

“Why are you idiots sitting here in the dark?”

Aunt Blanche didn’t move her eyes from the screen.” They came out this morning and turned off the electric, Frankie Mae. Said we were three months behind.”

“Shit!” Mama went into the front room and got the kerosene lanterns from the top of the piano. She put one on top of the television and one on Aunt Blanche’s Bible table. “Well at least we ain’t sitting in the dark, but how do we get the television to work?” Mama looked at me as she spoke like she expected me to answer her.

Lucky for me I’d been trying to figure out what to do. “Well, we could run extension cords across the branch to Uncle Roswell’s house and plug them in to the back of the television set.”

Mama lit her cigarette and stood there for a minute like she was thinking about my plan. She took a long drag on her Chesterfield and blew the smoke out before she said anything. “Where are we going to get an extension cord long enough to stretch all the way to Roswell’s?”

I’d thought about that too. “There’s lots of them out in the brooder house.” We used them to run electricity out to the heaters in the winter.

“Well I’ll be damned. I like it. It just might work. Let’s give it a shot. Come on and help me, Brenda. This was your idea.”

I think the thing that appealed the most to Mama was the notion of stealing from Uncle Roswell. We piled all the cords into the skiff and rowed over to Uncle Roswell’s boat house where we plugged in. Then we rowed back, stretching the cords along his dock and through the branch. “I think we are just going to make it, Mama.”

“That’s my girl. I swear and be damned. This is something your Daddy would have dreamed up. He would have been proud of you.”

...hopelessly flawed; shot through with rot

I climbed up the crumbling steps to what was once the front porch of the decaying, old house. There wasn’t a single unbroken windowpane, but the front door was padlocked. I stood on a rusted glider and crawled through a window. The floor of the entry hall was shot through with rot. Nothing moved but the dust motes that danced in the streams of light from the late afternoon sun. The only sounds were my own inhalation and exhalation and the pounding of my heart. The house smelled like liniment and snuff and something else I couldn’t place. Something sweet and pungent. The world on the other side of the padlocked door suddenly seemed far away and unreachable. I took a step. When the floor didn’t give way, I took another step. What was that smell? It was so familiar. I had played here when I was a child. Always alone. This was my secret place. The house had been abandoned for years. The last owners had left suddenly. They had wired instructions to their solicitor to dispose of the furniture and put the house on the market but the solicitor was hopelessly flawed. Before he got around to following his clients’ instructions he was arrested for shooting a man in the back. Justified, he said, because the man was crawling out of his wife’s bedroom window at the time. The judge didn’t agree. “A man in your position should be setting an example for the community. We aren’t a bunch of savages, you know.” So I guess the solicitor had more to worry about than selling the house. Strange thing was that apparently the owners never made any inquiry about the sale of the house. No one ever heard from them again. Rumors circulated about the house. Most of the tittle-tattle ended with decapitation, disemboweling or hidden crypts. From the time I was old enough to disappear without setting off alarm bells I explored the house from attic to cellar trying to uncover its secrets. I never found anything more sinister than some letters written in a language I couldn’t understand and a chest full of rosary beads.

Dark Aroma

The dark aroma of strong coffee rose up to meet her as she fumbled for the light switch. For the hundredth time she thanked the coffee gods for her automatic Cuisinart grind and brew. Keeping her eyes closed she let her nose lead her in the direction of the coffee maker. Her left hand found the mug. Her right hand made sure the opening was facing in the right direction before she poured the coffee. Only when she had gulped down half a cup of the miraculous mud did she open her eyes. Just a bit.

Still dark. Were it not for the rumble of the garbage truck one might mistake it for midnight instead of 5:30 am.

Another ordinary Thursday morning.

She swallowed her vitamins and washed them down with another mouthful of coffee.

She placed the mug on the counter and bent over to touch her toes. Standing forward bend. Relax. Fly away.

Thursday morning. She would stop at the gym on the way to work. Shower and change after her workout. She could relax a while before putting on the workout clothes that were probably still damp from yesterday. Their dark aroma festering in her gym bag.

She poured another cup of coffee and walked into the front room. She sat down without turning on a light, hugged her knees to her chest and sipped her coffee. Bliss. Relax. Fly away.

Her peaceful interlude came to abrupt end when she was joined on the couch by her two always exuberant canines. The Samoyed circled clockwise several times before settling comfortably at her right knee. The Dalmatian straddled her and quickly delivered 22 Dalmatian kisses. “Too much tongue, Darcy,” she laughed as she hugged the liver-spotted dog. The dark aroma of last night’s Science Diet now mixing with her tepid coffee.

Spit

She learned to tread carefully around the little house on Pungo Creek. Grandmama and Granddaddy weren’t particular about where they put their spit cans. The spit cans had been around since before she was born and they had the right of way. Grandmama spit Peach Tree Snuff and Granddaddy spit Beechnut Chewing Tobacco. Both spits looked the same in the cans. When she wasn’t spitting Grandmama polished her three remaining teeth with a “toothbrush” she has gummed into a functional device from a green twig. “This is what the Indians used to clean their teeth,” she explained to her granddaughter who, as usual, was standing a safe distance away. When she wasn’t polishing her teeth, Grandmama kept her “toothbrush” in her Bible. She was never far from her Bible or her spit can. Granddaddy preferred Our Daily Word. It was more portable than a Bible. He kept a copy in the pocket of his blue chambray shirt. Unlike Grandmama, Granddaddy sometimes misplaced his spit can and when that happened he just spit. Sometimes at the woodstove. Sometimes in Grandmama’s can. Sometimes in the pots of cactus that lined the windowsills. Sometimes he missed. It was fortunate that Granddaddy spent most of his time outdoors.