Sweet Tea and Jesus Shoes

by Various

  “She wanted to learn how them Thais cook,” Aunt Wesma explained while hosting a family potluck dinner of eighty or ninety relatives, “so me and her Daddy said if she was gonna hunt turkey, she oughta go straight to the turkey’s gobble.”

  Uncle Hoyt and Aunt Wesma did not scrimp on fineries on the basis of general principle, but spent their money generously where it pleased them most. Which was why Aunt Wesma had decided, after reading an article on steeplechases in Southern Living, (our magazine of Martha Stewartish lifestyles below the Mason-Dixon line) that she might invest a little money in a steeplechase horse. When Aunt Wesma was a child her family had raised mules and Tennessee Walking Horses. Horses of the non-jumping variety had always been in her blood. She was ready to expand her interests.

  And so it was decided that I would escort Uncle Hoyt and Aunt Wesma to their first steeplechase, so they could study Aunt Wesma’s idea. I got VIP tickets for the event, and ordered a handsome picnic lunch from a local caterer. I packed wooden tray tables, linens, and colorful plates and glasses (the kind of Wal-Mart plastics that decorators call “festive,” but only if used outdoors.) I had my snazzy little BMW washed, polished, and detailed. I was a young professional woman and a modern southern-belle hotshot, all the way.

  I didn’t stand a chance with Uncle Hoyt and Aunt Wesma. They arrived at my townhouse in their sparkling, cherry-red pick-up truck, a muscular and deluxe model with leather seats and state-of-the-art gizmos, including a booming CD player for Uncle Hoyt’s George Jones collection.

  “Oh, honey, you got the tickets for us; we couldn’t let you do the food, too,” Aunt Wesma insisted when I showed them my neatly packed wicker hamper. Uncle Hoyt slapped a hand on a huge blue ice-chest in his truck’s bed. “We brung enough eats for us and the neighbors,” he bragged. “Now, get yourself in the truck and let us show you a good time. That’s all there is to it.”

  I was defeated and knew it. Trying to explain the world we were about to enter would only have insulted them. We drove out of my suburban enclave into the green rolling hills of the spring countryside, George Jones singing loudly on the truck’s high-tech speakers, Uncle Hoyt driving with one hand and adjusting his cheek full of chewing tobacco with the other, Aunt Wesma catching me up on family gossip as she crocheted an orange afghan for a University of Tennessee nephew, and me gazing out the truck’s passenger window with a worried headache between my brows. I did not want my favorite aunt and uncle to be humiliated.

  The steeplechase was held in an enormous pasture; it resembled a modern medieval tournament with colorful tents scattered about. A white wooden announcer’s booth rose from the center of the temporary steeplechase course, which was outlined in white wooden barricades and stacks of baled hay. Several thousand people had already arrived, channeled into outlying parking areas by stern off-duty state patrol officers hired for the event. They were setting up picnics on the grassy slopes surrounding the race course.

  Thanks to my VIP tickets, we rolled past the less fortunate citizenry, with Uncle Hoyt nodding politely to the officers as if they’d granted him some special favor (which he was accustomed to getting, back in his own stomping grounds.) They directed us into a cordoned-off area in the middle of the course’s infield, and we parked amongst a long line of fellow VIP vehicles. Prime viewing. Prime, period.

  “Oh, my lord,” Aunt Wesma sighed. “Will you look at this fancy crowd?”

  We were surrounded by Rolls Royces, Jaguars, Mercedes, and enough luxury antique roadsters to start a car show. The owners—or their servants, because sometimes it was hard to tell—were setting up small personal compounds in front of their cars.

  The silver Rolls beside us was the most lavish of all. Its tables were draped in fine white linen and anchored by silver candelabra or sterling vases bursting with fresh cut flowers. On them were feasts of fine finger foods, miniature quiches, fruits, fondues, and crudites, all on silver serving dishes or warming dishes. Circling these small banquets were teak or mahogany camp chairs, cushioned with tapestry pillows. A young man spread an oriental rug on the ground and set up his small feast. He was accompanied by several other well-dressed people, all of whom turned wide stares on us and the truck. I expected exotic women to appear at any moment, fanning our neighbors with ostrich feathers.

  “Howdy,” Uncle Hoyt called as he got out. They offered wan smiles and turned quickly to their gourmet nibbles and to glasses of champagne they poured from a tall bottle nestled in a silver ice bucket. Aunt Wesma snorted. “They’ll get headaches, drinking outdoors like that before lunchtime.”

  “Good lord,” Uncle Hoyt said, “I don’t care about watching the hosses run. I just want to study this crowd of peacocks.” We set about unpacking their ice chest, and within minutes had set up enough cold fried chicken, potato salad, baked beans and biscuits to feed an army, along with pound cake, pecan pie, and two jugs of iced tea. Aunt Wesma lowered the truck’s tail gate, then spread her half-finished orange afghan across it like a tablecloth, and arranged the food, which was mounded in her best Tupperware. Next to it she set out paper plates, cups, and plastic utensils, all of it plain white, not festive. Uncle Hoyt unfolded three of his favorite striped lawn chairs, turned up a fresh George Jones CD on the truck’s music system, then announced, “Time to take a walk to the barn,” which was code for visiting the nearest toilet. After he wandered away, Aunt Wesma settled in a chair beside me with a napkin and a chicken leg.

  The first sign of trouble came from the neighbor to our left. She was an elegant woman in silk pants and a sweater embroidered with horses jumping fences. Her tiny white poodle, wearing a jeweled collar, wandered over to Aunt Wesma and looked up eagerly at the fried chicken leg.

  “Here, baby, you just help yourself,” Aunt Wesma said to the poodle, then stripped the meat off and gave the miniature dog the leg bone. Aunt Wesma’s family had raised hunting dogs for generations. Those hounds had prospered on table scraps. So would a poodle, she figured. I watched worriedly as the pint-sized dog dragged the bone next door.

  The poodle’s owner gasped. “What have you got! Oh!” She wrested the bone from the tiny dog’s disappointed mouth and marched over to us, waving the illicit treat. “I’m sure you didn’t mean any harm,” she said to Aunt Wesma with condescending charm, “but I don’t feed my dog garbage.”

  “Neither do I, honey,” Aunt Wesma said with a placid smile. “Your poor little dog looks as hungry as a termite hunting for a plank to eat.”

  “I assure you, she’ll get her own plate of gourmet dog food at lunch.”

  “That’s nice, honey. But it ain’t fried chicken.”

  “Please! This is not a stock car race!” The woman flung the leg bone on the grassy ground beside the truck. I glanced angrily around us, watching a flicker of smug smiles as others nibbled their caviar on toast points. The only exception was one dapper old man with a topknot of fine gray hair, which made him resemble a curious leghorn rooster with its head craned. He scowled at the poodle matron as she swept away.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Aunt Wesma. “These people are uppity.”

  “They don’t bother me none,” she said with a laugh, and spooned potato salad on a paper plate. “You can tell which people are fine and which just got money. Money can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

  A few minutes later a pair of well-dressed men walked by. “How quaint,” one said loudly, and grinned at the truck. Not long after that, a pair of small children peered at us from behind the fender of a Rolls Royce. “Hillbillies,” one whispered.

  “Good morning, Sweetie Pies,” Aunt Wesma called to them. They shrieked and ran away.

  Aunt Wesma had a vulnerable nature when it came to children. Her unshakable good humor began to fade. “I reckon we don’t fit in here,” she said. “I ain’t never been somewhere that the little folks were scared of me.”

  I said a half-dozen polite things to reassure her, at the same time growing angry over the stupidity of the silver-spoon socie
ty we’d entered. I fixed her a plate with another chicken leg on it, but she sat without eating.

  “Ma’am?” a reedy voice called. It was the little old man nearby. He held a forlorn china plate dabbed with some sort of delicate yellow sauce and a pile of anemic-looking grilled shrimp. “Mighty fine looking bird leg you got there,” he said to Aunt Wesma. To my surprise, his drawling, high-pitched voice was as country as sorghum syrup.

  Aunt Wesma brightened. “You just come right over and help yourself,” she replied. The little old man thumped his china plate down on a teak tray table and marched over to our camp, grinning. “Real folks,” he proclaimed happily. “Just call me Buck. Glad to meet ya!”

  We introduced ourselves and all shook hands, and he pulled up a chair. Heads turned. People stared with new interest. When Uncle Hoyt returned he found Aunt Wesma and Buck jawing merrily while the elegant crowd inched closer, ears cocked and attitudes humbled.

  Because Buck—his nickname—was a retired four-term state governor, one of the most notable politicians in the South.

  This is the power of southern life, and the magic of sports. Even the odd ones like steeplechase can’t keep us apart, and a sharing of southern soul food, uppity manners, and downhome honesty makes fans of us all.

  THE REUNION

  By Sandra Chastain

  When archaeologists discover the missing arms of Venus de Milo, they will find she was wearing boxing-gloves.

  —John Barrymore

  My sister married a man named Robby who came from the mountains of Appalachia. When Sissy married Robby, he was an outsider. That means we didn’t know his family; they weren’t from our part of the country. But Granny, with whom we both lived, was willing to take him in. Tennessee folks couldn’t be that different from the ones who lived in South Georgia, she reasoned.

  But Robby just never made any attempt to fit in. He fancied himself an artist, a creative genius who was always just about to make it big. In the meantime, it was Sissy who made the living and Robbie who “created” paintings of something. We were never quite sure of what because, according to Robbie, what a person saw was a personal message the painting had for him or her. In each case, he insisted, the message was different. Granny said, “He’d’ve done better if he’d put a stamp on it and used it for writing paper.”

  I guess we’re of a different time from Granny, but enough of her philosophy sunk in that when trouble between Sissy and Robby came, it wasn’t a surprise. After ten years and two children, the marriage was headed for divorce court. But a new family court law and a stern judge forced Sissy and Robby to see a counselor before he’d grant the divorce. The counselor insisted that, for the sake of the children, one last attempt at a reconciliation should be made. He thought the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday would provide the perfect opportunity.

  That’s how Sissy and the girls found themselves headed for Tennessee on a snowy Thanksgiving eve. Over the hills and through the woods took on a whole new meaning after six hours in a nine-year-old Ford with two cranky children, one adult anxiously trying to save his marriage while the other was killing it mile by mile. I told my sister not to go. But she thought she’d be able to hide in all the hurrah and not have to deal with Robby. They would have satisfied the counselor and she’d get out.

  Her first mistake was consenting to the trip, her second in agreeing to go a day early, the day before Thanksgiving. By the time they arrived, all she wanted to do was eat and go to bed—in separate beds. But Robby’s Grandma had invited her sister Bessie for dinner.

  When Bessie didn’t show up and didn’t answer the phone, Sissy and Robby were sent to find out why. Her car was still in the drive, the house dark and the dead bolt lock firmly in place.

  Robby, always willing to give up if a problem interfered with something he really wanted to do, was ready to forget about Bessie and do a little marital reminiscing in the back of the car—in the interest of reviving the marriage. Sissy, on the other hand, was not having any fooling around. It was the back seat of that car that got her into trouble in the first place.

  The hour was late and she was already regretting that she’d let guilt over depriving her poor children of a father force her to make the trip. Investigating the rear of the house, she found a window in the utility room unlocked and climbed in. Turning on the lights, she made her way to the front door which she opened, then turned and found Bessie dead in the hallway. Heart attack, the doctor confirmed later that night.

  At that point, Sissy had no idea that the burial would be delayed for days until all the family could gather, often from long distances and at great hardship. She didn’t know that it would be a time when they’d laugh, gossip and visit while they committed the loved one to those hallowed halls of memory at whatever cost to their everyday lives, then stay on for a day or two to comfort the bereaved—and laugh, talk and visit some more.

  This was an awakening to Sissy. Our irreverent family members have themselves cremated and their ashes sprinkled in various places around the world. If we wanted to go to the cemetery to pay our respects, we’d have to swim oceans, climb mountains, and dig in Granny’s rose garden. That’s where Gramps had his ashes scattered. “Might as well get some good out of ‘em,” he said before he went. Granny’s roses have won the blue ribbon in the county fair every year since.

  In Tennessee, Thanksgiving dinner plans were shelved immediately in lieu of the notifying and gathering of the family. Sissy, accepting that they’d have to stay an extra day, immediately offered her help—anything to pass the time and get through the ordeal.

  Never did she expect to be given a list of thirty-six family members to call. And she certainly didn’t expect that many of these people would have no phones; or that the numbers she would reach were neighbors and mountain stores that would send word of Bessie’s passing. But when she was told that the day and time of the funeral would be decided “later,” she knew that her hope to be on the road for home and marriage’s end by Saturday was growing dim. Sissy put away her suitcases and her video camera. This was not an event she ever wanted to relive.

  In the meantime, people came, some to stay and “help out,” others to bring casseroles. By the end of the day, they had tuna casserole, potato and sausage casserole, squash casserole and finally a chicken casserole made from a rooster killed and stewed that afternoon.

  The funeral home rushed over bringing folding chairs and wedged them in the living room, dining room and den. They put up book stands on pedestals by the doors where visitors could sign in, provided a white food record for the kitchen and a tasteful white and mauve notebook with gold embossed letters for the guests to sign. Robbie’s mama was given a choice of three different kind of thank you notes she could choose from to express her appreciation for the casseroles. She picked one with a Bible verse and a pair of folded hands that looked more holy than the others.

  Within thirty minutes of the discovery of the body, the local florist had opened up and delivered two pots of bronze mums and a pot of home-made vegetable soup to the house. The Women’s Missionary Society brought the coffee urn from the church and plastic cups and spoons.

  Sissy was finally informed, in hushed voices away from the children, that the day and time of the funeral had to be decided on “later,” not because of the weather—even though they were on the leading edge of an early winter blizzard—but because Bessie’s boy was in Federal Prison for “some little thing” he’d done. And the authorities had to be reached over a holiday weekend and convinced to let him out for his mother’s passing.

  When the snow began to fall steadily, nine children ranging in age from six to ten transformed into raging maniacs intent on turning the furniture into Mt. Everest and their little hands and feet into mountain climbing equipment. There was no quieting them, nor, my sister discovered, separating her children from the heathens they called cousins. But it became her job to watch them while the others planned the funeral. What Bessie would be buried in became of paramount importa
nce. The funeral director agreed to open on Thanksgiving Day so that they could select a casket.

  The madness finally ended when a pallet for her children was made on the floor of the bedroom Sissy was to share with Robby. After an hour of, “this floor’s hard,” and “I want to go home” from the children and, “Can’t you shut them up?” from Robby, Sissy seized the opportunity and planted their youngest in bed with Robby and herself on the hard, cold floor with their oldest daughter.

  The next day brought more family and the realization that such a thing as viewing the body at the funeral home was tantamount to an appearance before the queen. Trousers could be worn if she hadn’t brought Sunday clothes for herself and the girls, but running shoes and sweatshirts were “out of the question.”

  Sissy, already concerned about the state of their bank account, would have to go shopping. “I hope Robby brought a suit,” his mama said. “He’ll have to be a pall bearer.”

  “But he’s a member of the family,” Sissy argued, seeing the bank account dwindle farther. “I thought pall bearers were honored family friends.” Her statement was ignored. It was obvious that her experience was as foreign to Robby’s family as his family was to her.

  “For goodness sakes, not here in the mountains. Members of each of the deceased’s brother’s and sister’s family serve as honorary pallbearers. It’s always been done that way.”

  Robby, standing behind his mother, was shaking his head. That desperate look said that he was ready to bolt, except this time he couldn’t. This was his family, and he had to deal with them.