More Sweet Tea Page 10

—Scarlett O’Hara, Gone With The Wind

  Y’ALL KNOW what a hellmouth is, don’t you? It’s a dandy little term I learned from my extensive study of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Think of a hellmouth as the convergence of dark forces. A horrific concentration of evil in the midst of sunny southern California. An evil that can only be battled by Buffy, the Chosen One. One tiny teenager against all the world’s evil.

  To my way of thinking, Buffy—and California—got off easy. What’s a vampire or two compared to raising a son in the South? What’s sitting on a hellmouth of evil compared to not having a maternal bone in your body while sitting on the hellmouth of maternalism? Because the South is nothing else if not maternal.

  Think of me as Scarlett surrounded by modern day Melanies, women who are born knowing how to nurture. Women who have created the legendary sons of the South. Women who make you feel inadequate at something as simple as kissing boo-boos. (Yes, that’s an art form in the South. Takes years of practice. You have to start with dolls and move onto baby cousins which are usually plenteous.) I never played with dolls and had no baby cousins.

  That shouldn’t have mattered. I had the “Mother Of All Mothers.” The woman could bring a bad handyman to his knees while simultaneously diapering an infant, churning homemade ice cream, and bottle feeding an orphaned newborn hound dog. I was supposed to get those genes. I didn’t need to practice. I was Southern, from a long line of Southern.

  How hard could motherhood be?

  We are often foolish when we are young. I didn’t know that when the time came, I’d be flying by the seat of my pants and that all the stress and friction of motherhood would catch my damned pants on fire. If I had known, I’d have paid more attention to motherhood practice.

  Instead I frittered away my practice years, eschewing dolls and boo-boo kissing for puzzles, books and kick-the-can. Why play with dolls when you could be out playing an advanced hide-and-seek game involving an empty beer can, older boys, and the heroic rescue of your “jailed” friends? All of this misspent childhood added up to an independent, fairly intelligent (all those books), not-so-sentimental adult.

  Then what did I do with all that intelligence? I promptly married a Southern man who thought seven children would be a lovely-sized family. Fortunately size was negotiable. We decided to get pregnant and play it by ear. The saint (as he was and still is dauntingly called by all) was thrilled; I was worried. How in Heaven can you live up to the inevitable comparisons with a man referred to as a saint? I knew who our children were going to love and it wasn’t me.

  Suddenly I regretted leaving Chatty Cathy out in the rain and pulling the arm off the ancient Betsy Wetsy. Neither accidents were particularly good omens. I wisely kept those omens to myself.

  Really . . . who among us would actually admit publicly they suck at motherhood? In the South it’s tantamount to saying, “I don’t know how to make sweet tea.” The whole room gets real quiet and people swivel to look at you with mouths agape. The Women’s Circle at the church pats your hand while saying, “Bless your heart.”

  That might sound kind but that phrase is usually anything but kind. It’s more the kiss of death. You find it preceding the blunt horrible truth of a situation. As in . . . “You haven’t met JoElla? Bless her heart. Poor girl. If she fell in a bucket of butt ugly and you’d never be able to find her again.”

  So instead of confessing my embarrassing lack, I turned to books, my friends of yesteryear. By the time the little baby made an appearance, I was ready to attend to any possible physical need and could quote long passages of baby-psycho babble. I could spout all the important Southern truisms—

  “The best birth control for a first date is ratty underwear.”

  “Beer is not a food group.”

  “Make sure the deer in the back of the SUV is really dead before you start the drive home.”

  Regardless of whose yardstick you used, I was ready. Still, as we left the hospital with a blue bundle, I said a little prayer and asked God to steer me clear of redneck territory. Redneck tendencies crop up all too often in the South. I was worried. Especially since our son, William Richard, had a name which was perilously close to “Billy Dick.” To make matters worse, his father was fond of flannel shirts and cowboy boots.

  I don’t mean to criticize rednecks. It’s just that I’m not a redneck kind of girl. I’m white-bread middle class. I don’t like confederate flag bumper stickers, shirts with the sleeves ripped off because it’s hot outside, ball caps with permanent ring around the crown, gun racks in trucks or beer cans rattling around the floorboards.

  Today, twenty-one years later, I am proud to say my son is only three-fifths redneck. (His truck has no gun rack and his beer cans make it to the trash.) If I had to attribute my success in the redneck area to something specific, I’d credit the pie chart—although I didn’t know at the time the chart was an anti-redneck charm. I just thought it was the best way to do the “mommy job.”

  Everything I’d read said that babies like a familiar routine, a schedule. Well, that’s great in theory, but babies are way too young to do the job of scheduling themselves properly. So, I analyzed the kid’s waking, sleeping, and eating times. Next I juggled feedings a little here, a little there until his longest sleeping period was at night. Easy as pie charts.

  I know because I made the pie chart. Color coded. It’s in his baby book.

  Did I mention that I’m intimately acquainted with overkill? I only know how to do something 120%. And that’s how much I loved that baby from the first moment I saw him. In the second moment I realized that I’d have to be a better person if I wanted this incredible little creature to love me back. Compared to the Saint, I was a shallow, selfish twit.

  The good news was that I had nowhere to go but up.

  I thought sons loving their mothers was a given. Half the newspaper advice columns you read are about a wife who’s mad because her husband still has apron strings attached to his belt loops. Besides everyone knows sons aren’t like daughters. Sons don’t become unhinged during their teenage years and hate their mothers for no apparent reason.

  Heck no! In the South, sons clash with their fathers. In the South, you aren’t a man until your daddy says you’re a man. It’s all about the Daddy. Saint or not, tradition is strong. I thought I was safe. All I had to do was a reasonable job of it, go to every soccer and baseball game I could and teach him to say please and ma’am and put Miss in front of ladies’ names. (I don’t care how many times you’ve been married in the South, you’re still Miss Betty if you aren’t actually related but are important to a child.)

  Yes, indeedy. All I had to do was raise him to be a strong independent young man, who respected women for having brains as well as boobs, and he’d thank me for it. Maybe even love me back.

  It seemed like such a good plan. A doable plan.

  I made it through the baby years without a problem. Except for that incident with the car seat. Yep. That was bad. No getting around it.

  I’ll never forget my pride at being ready to take that first outing, just me and the baby. I loaded half the nursery into the trunk of the car, packed two diaper bags, and buckled him into the car seat. It really is a shame that I didn’t buckle the car seat into the car.

  I can tell you from personal experience that when you turn a corner and hear the unexpected thud of tumbling baby and car seat, the only two thoughts in your head are:

  Huh . . . what was—oh God please let him be okay!

  and

  His daddy is going to kill me.

  While you’re thinking these thoughts, your body is functioning on muscle memory. Your hands steer into the first parking lot your eyes locate. No thought goes into it. You just do it. I ended up in the parking lot of a little gro’.

  A “gro” is a dying breed of non-franchise, mom-and-pop, get-your-pickled-eggs-from-a-big-old-j
ar-on-the-counter country grocery store. They dot the smaller towns and feeder highways leading into the cities. You’ll even occasionally find one with warehousing and industrial sprawl grown up around it. A gro’ left standing in a city has either cheap beer, simple but good eats for lunch or both. This little gro’ seemed to have had both judging from the crowd.

  There were ten or twelve of them that day. Rednecks at lunch with beers in hand. I count myself lucky. There could have been thirty standing there pointing and rushing over to see why I was praying so hard and flinging car doors open to get to the baby.

  The guys were a little puzzled about why I was carrying on so and jiggling a happily slumbering baby to wake him up. Bill cracked one eyelid as if to say, “Hey! Cut it out. I’m trying to get a nap here!”

  When I started crying in shaky relief, they thought I’d been overcome by the stress of motherhood. As I painfully explained that I’d been overcome by an attack of stupidity, I heard a chorus of snickering and a couple of outright guffaws. Then being good Christian men, they sobered up and tried to offer comfort.

  “Well, bless your heart.” A tall, forty-ish man offered. He wore faded denim you had to earn, not purchase. He pulled a pouch of Redman from his back pocket, got himself a pinch, and said, “You ain’t very good at this, are you? But don’t you worry. This ain’t no problem.”

  Another good ol’ boy stepped up to add his helpful two cents. “That’s right ma’am. He’s right. Your little Bubba’ll be okay. Hell, I been puttin’ my seven in the back of my truck since they was knee-high to a grasshopper with nary a problem.”

  Faded denim guy nodded at the baby, “He don’t seem to mind.”

  Right on cue, Bill threw up on my shirt.

  Et tu, Bubba?

  AS BILL grew past toddlerhood, which was a miracle given my lack of maternal instinct (see car seat story above), we taught him life skills, convinced people not to call him Billy Dick, and we patted ourselves on the back for a job well done. We taught him to cope with mosquitoes and humidity, how to fish (despite my redneck reservations) and gave him structure. Well, I did that last part about structure because the Saint doesn’t do discipline or confrontation other than to say, “Yes, your mother is right.” (The Saint may be irritating but he is not stupid.)

  We figured we’d done so well with this one, we ought to stop at one. Sort of quit while we were ahead.

  It wasn’t until Bill was about twelve that I began to suspect my lovely plans for a doting son and perfect parenthood were going awry. The day was gray and wet and ordinary except for the nasty cutting wind. We’d played dozens of soccer games like this. He trotted in from the muddy field toward the bench, face smeared with bloody nose residue, rain, snot, mud and grass bits. I walked over to tend his wounds, and he shrugged me off.

  His meaning was quite clear. Mom not required, thankyouverymuch.

  “Hey, coach,” he said. No urgency. No emotion.

  “Yo?”

  “I don’t want to play goalie next half.”

  The coach came over and summarily looked at the mess on Bill’s face. “You injured?”

  “Nah.” Bill pulled up his jersey to his forehand and wiped casually downward, blood and all. “Too much pressure.”

  Coach snorted dismissively. “Then suck it up, boy, and get the hell back out there.”

  I bristled at the coach’s tone and language, but Bill shot me the look before I could intervene. You know “the look.” The one that says, “I’ve got this covered.” I stumbled to the bleachers and plopped down. Stunned by my superfluousness. Where was the child who wanted only Mommy when he broke his leg?

  Apparently gone with the wind and toting a soccer ball to kick off the next half.

  Shortly thereafter, on a night that will live in infamy, I finally made the trip back from the land of denial. I realized that the legendary attachment between mothers and sons was just that—a legend. There is no guarantee. In one heart-stopping moment the future became clear. I was going to be in a nursing home at ninety-four with no one to come and visit me unless Bill married and I managed to make his wife adore me. (And, honestly, what are the odds of that happening?)

  In one defining moment of my motherhood, I realized that my son would go blithely off to his own life in a few years with nary a thought of me or a Mother’s Day card coming my way. My son’s wife certainly wouldn’t be writing to the advice column about her husband doing too many chores for his mother. If I did get a Mother’s Day card, she’d be the one writing it.

  How did I know all of this in one moment? I’d better start at the beginning . . .

  THE SAINT travels. A lot. I’ve never managed to adjust to being alone in the house when he’s gone. I know I’m a grownup but it’s just not something I can do—sleep well if I’m alone in a house. Especially in an old house. Our house is an old house. It makes noises. Creepy noises. The kind of noises that have you carefully peering out your bedroom door down the hall for evil-doers.

  Plus we have trees. The kind with long branches that tap the windows and make eerie screeching-scrabbling sounds against the glass. Or drop magnolia cones on your roof. There is nothing like a thud to make you bolt upright in bed when you’re alone.

  The cats don’t help. They come sit in your lap while you’re watching TV and then peer oddly over your left shoulder as if there is a serial killer standing behind you. You turn to look and there’s the shadow of . . . of something so you gasp, throw the cat and run for your life before realizing you’ve been “had” by the cat again. Then you have to hunt down the cat and torture them in some way to get even.

  So you can see it’s perfectly reasonable that I was unable to sleep when the Saint traveled. There were “things” out there waiting to get me and my son. I was the last line of defense. Mother protector and all that. Bill didn’t have to be scared of the dark when Dad was gone. He had me.

  When Bill was small, a gun wasn’t an option. We put in an electronic security system, which makes a nice beeping sound if you enter by a door and a horrid blaring alarm if you break glass or raise a window. Of course once the alarm beeped or went off, my only recourse was to shout, “Stop. I’ve got an axe handle!” (I thought that sounded more threatening than “Stop. I’ve got a big stick!”

  A gun would have put more fear in the bad guys but in Bill’s formative years, we kept the gun in the locked file cabinet under “g” and the bullets under “b.” As Bill grew up we had gun safety talks and got my dad, a retired law enforcement officer, to add some “fear of God” to the mix. Finally, when Bill reached his teens, we left the file cabinet unlocked when the Saint traveled.

  No one thought I’d ever need the gun. Which was good because the gun was 9mm automatic. You had to put a round in the chamber by putting the bullet clip in and then ratcheting back the top of the gun. That’s pretty hard for my hands. I’m short and have hands that match. This whole automatic pistol thing is a lot harder than it looks. The guys in movies are 6’ 2” and have really big hands. Handling the gun is like a toy to them. To me it’s like trying to learn Braille with calluses on your fingertips.

  However unlikely and difficult using the gun for protection was, the concept was mildly comforting. At last I had a real chance against the bad guys. If I could get to the gun first, if the bullets weren’t mis-filed, if I remembered what to do and could actually do it.

  Not long after the soccer incident, the saint was out of town and I had occasion to use the gun. It was one a.m. Earlier I’d set the alarm, closed the long hallway door going back to the bedrooms, and tilted a chair so that the back snugged under the door handle. The chair was a new piece of security technology I’d discovered. I liked it. I felt safer somehow. Enough safer that I drifted off to sleep before the usual three a.m.

  Then the beeping started. OhmyGawd! Someone had opened the front door. The actual alarm wouldn’t go
off for two minutes, but those early warning beeps pumped as much adrenaline through me as any blaring alarm.

  Being an intelligent modern woman, I calmly grabbed the portable phone, headed to the file cabinet, and dialed the number of the Saint’s hotel in Miami. He was so pleased that I thought of calling Miami in my time of emergency. I wanted him to walk me through the whole gun thing. He wanted me to call 911. Since the alarm was still beeping, I thought it might be an alarm malfunction and I didn’t want the police to think I was stupid.

  Sensing a losing battle, the Saint got with the program and began instructions. I had the phone tucked against my shoulder so both hands were free. What I discovered is that ratcheting back the slide of the gun to chamber a round wasn’t the hard part. Nope. The hard part was gently settling the hammer back into place as part of this process of getting the gun cocked, ready and on safety. You have to let the hammer down easy after you cock it. Real easy. Or the gun fires.

  Have I mentioned that I have small hands? Short thumbs?

  The hammer slipped.

  All the poor Saint in Miami heard was, “No!” BOOM! Click. Dial tone.

  I heard the boom. After that I didn’t hear much of anything except inner ear ringing. I was in a long hallway. Doors shut. Trapped with the percussion of the gunshot. Once again I experienced one of those only-two-thoughts-going-through-your-head situations.

  “Where are the cats?”

  and

  “His Daddy is going to kill me.”

  God bless redial buttons. I hit that redial button for all I was worth. Couldn’t hear a thing but I figured if I said, “Room 1343 please” enough times in a row that I’d eventually get to the Saint.

  Oh, I got to the Saint in more ways than one that night. Once he discovered I was alive and well . . . his language was less than saintly. After finding out that the beeping was my cell phone battery asking for a charge, he was laughing so hard I thought I just might have to shoot him when he got home.

  It wasn’t until I got off the phone (after promising to call 911 in the future) that I realized my son hadn’t come out of his room to check on me. He hadn’t shouted to see if I was okay. Hell, probably hadn’t even woken up. Before you people try and excuse the poor boy, keep in mind that I made the fateful shot while standing beside his bedroom door.