Weedeater

by Robert Gipe

  I said,

  Hazel said, “I do.”

  I said I did too.

  Hazel said, “My daddy thought witches came from outer space.”

  I said, “Do what?”

  Hazel said, “He thought that’s how witches could do stuff other people couldn’t. Because they came from other places, other atmospheres.”

  I said, “Hunh.”

  Hazel said, “He used to read everything he could about witches. And about outer space and about time travel. He used to take me down to the mall and the public library in Kingsport and them places looking for books on witches and things. He’d have loved the Internet.”

  I said, “Do you think he really believed all that stuff?”

  Hazel lit another bowl. She said, “He liked to believe anything can happen. He liked to believe there weren’t no real rules. He used to tell me everything bends. There aint nothing fixed.”

  I said, “What did your daddy look like?”

  Hazel said, “He wasn’t tall. And he didn’t have a big belly. But he was big up top. His shoulders were huge. And he kept a moustache, a big silver moustache. Had him a full head of silver hair. He never touched it after he got it fixed right, and never let nobody else touch it neither.”

  I said, “Did he work in the mines?”

  Hazel said, “Worked at the tipple. Worked there his whole life, till the day a man he worked with fell into the coal processor and they didn’t see him, and then they couldn’t get it cut off and he went through the whole processor and ended up spit out into a coal gon full of coal. Daddy said that man was twisted up like a wrung-out dishrag. Daddy walked off the job that day, never went back. We lived on what his pension paid and what he got from disability.”

  I said, “What’d he do to get on disability?”

  Hazel said, “Got his arm pulled off trying to save that man.”

  Hazel hit the pipe again, pointed in the kitchen, said, “He sat right in there, in his pajamas ever day for the rest of his life, smoking White Owl cigars and reading about spacemen and witches.” Hazel offered me the bowl. I shook my head. Hazel said, “One day, Daddy got up from the table, said he was going to Mars to get more cigars. I thought he was fooling, so I said, ‘Which of your cars are you taking to Mars to get you some cigars?’ And he said, ‘Buddy, them Mars cigars is ten times better that what they got in Cuba.’ Then he walked down the steps and got in his vehicle, fired it up, took off, and we never seen him again.”

  I said, “Are you serious?”

  Hazel said, “As a heart attack.” Hazel got up and said, “Everything bends,” and went upstairs.

  While she was gone, I thought about how I had more friends in heaven or wherever than I did on earth. Hazel come back downstairs. She had on satin pajamas cut like the kind Lucy and Ricky Ricardo wore. Hazel’s satin pajamas were real dark blue, like the night sky, and they had planets and shooting stars and suns and moons on them, all embroidered in gold. All real fancy.

  Hazel said, “You want to go to the store?”

  I said, “Can Pharoah go?”

  Hazel said, “Sure.”

  I let Pharoah off her chain right when two dogs started fighting in the pen outside. Pharoah peeled out across the wood floor, across the broken paint of the concrete porch, down the steps and up to the edge of the fight. There she stopped unsure what to do. Hazel and I followed. The evening had turned to night, and the darkness soaked the hillsides. By the light of Hazel’s flashlight, we saw the fighting dogs’ yellow teeth and gums mottled pink and brown.

  I gathered up Pharoah. Put her leash on. The night clouded over. The stars disappeared.

  Hazel said, “Are you ready?”

  I said I was and Hazel went out to her Astrovan and slid back the side door. Pharoah jumped right in. I got shotgun. Hazel got in, kicked off her slippers, said, “Put your seatbelt on.”

  We both did. Hazel started the van. And we took off, into the night,

  NICOLETTE

  The summer before I turned four, my mother saved two grown men from drowning. Saved them both at the same time on the same day. I’ll never forget how strong she looked in the water. She looked like she might rise up like a dolphin and fly away, soar out into space with a man under each arm, plunge right into the sun, come out the other side, mega-strong and huge, super-tan and with the two men gone. I would watch her circle the earth, my giant super-tan mother, proud and solar-powered and titanic. And I would wave at her, and she would wave back at me with both hands, and then flap her arms and fly in circles and figure eights and loop-de-loops in and out of the clouds. Then she would fly down through the window of her house and fix me chicken and dumplings, her hair sparkling with mist from the clouds.

  I’ve heard about the summer of 2004, especially that July, my whole life. So much happened—people dying, people going to jail, Momma getting in trouble with the judge and the president of the United States—that I understand why Momma wasn’t able to keep her promise to teach me to swim.

  My mother did a bunch of other things for me. A bunch. My mother told me about our family, told me what a hero my Granny Cora was, what a good sweet man my father had been, and all kinds of stories about her daddy’s family. She taught me not to be scared and she told me I was smart and she’d ask me to sing for her and always told me what an amazing singer I was. She kept me out of trouble and talked to me sweet when I didn’t understand something. She always remembered what my favorite things to eat are and always made me feel like I came first.

  My momma gave me everything I ever needed.

  Acknowledgments

  This is my second novel. I wrote it in between readings and workshops and interviews in support of my first novel, Trampoline. Having a book in the world has illuminated for me the abundant but fragile ecology supporting the written word, and I’d like to call by name people and places I’ve encountered over the past three years that are making the world safe for books and thank them for the joy and energy they bring to their work. In particular, I’d like to acknowledge Brent Hutchinson with the Appalachian Writers’ Workshop in Hindman, Kentucky; Darnell Arnoult and Denton Loving at the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival in Harrogate, Tennessee; Pam Duncan at the Western Carolina University Spring Literary Festival; Jesse Graves at the East Tennessee State University Creative Writing Festival in Johnson City, Tennessee; The Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, Tennessee; the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville, Virginia; Books by the Banks in Cincinnati, Ohio; the Kentucky Book Fair in Frankfort, Kentucky; Jessie Wilkerson and the Oxford Conference for the Book in Oxford, Mississippi; Maurice Manning and Liz Corsun at Transylvania University; Sherry Stanforth and the Words Festival at Thomas More College in Crestview Hills, Kentucky; Gillian Huang-Tiller at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise; Silas House and the Appalachian Symposium at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky; Jesse Van Eerden, Marie Manilla, and Doug Van Gundy at the MFA program at West Virginia Wesleyan College; Alice Jones at Eastern Kentucky University; Emily Satterwhite and Jordan Laney at Virginia Tech; Rachel Terman, Chris Chaffee, and Geoff Buckley at Ohio University; Glenn “Trenchmouth” Taylor at West Virginia University; Wes Browne at Apollo Pizza; Jennifer Mattox at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in Lexington, Kentucky; Carol Grametbauer and Tennessee Mountain Writers; Crystal Wilkinson and Ron Davis at Wild Fig Books in Lexington; Jay McCoy, who was then at the Morris Book Shop in Lexington but now operates Brier Books in Lexington with Savannah Sipple; Union Ave Books in Knoxville, Tennessee; Erik Reece and Kathy Newfont at the University of Kentucky; Mark Neikirk and the Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement at Northern Kentucky University; Nicole Drewitz-Crockett at Emory & Henry College in Emory, Virginia; Jessica Maunz Salfia and her students at Spring Mills High School in Berkeley County, West Virginia; Natalie Sypolt at Pierpont Community & Technical College in West Virginia; Shawna Kay Rodenberg at Big Sandy Community & Technical College; Jenny Williams at Hazard Community & Technical College; El
izabeth Glass at Jefferson Community & Technical College; Sandy Ballard, Zack Vernon, and Susan Weinberg at Appalachian State University; Eric Sutherland and Holler Poets at Al’s Bar in Lexington, Kentucky; Deanna Bradberry and the Wytheville Chautauqua in Wytheville, Virginia; Carter Sickels; Jennifer Haigh; David Joy; Sheldon Lee Compton; Mark Powell; Rita Quillen; Leah Hampton; Marianne Worthington; Theresa Burriss; Malcolm Wilson; FunFest, the Friends of the Kingsport Public Library, and I Love Books Bookstore in Kingsport, Tennessee; The Washington County Public Library in Abingdon, Virginia; Roxy Todd, West Virginia Public Radio and Inside Appalachia; 98.7 The FREQ, in State College, Pennsylvania; the journals Bloom, Chapter 16, Electric Literature, Still, Chattahoochee Review, Appalachian Heritage, and Southern Cultures; and all the people who worked with these people and on these projects.

  Pat Scopa, Elana Scopa Forson, Carrie Billett, Carrie Mullins, Wes and Valetta Browne, and Amelia Kirby all read and commented on earlier drafts of this novel. Thank you. Rick Brock, Kenny Colinger, Nick Cornett, Lisa Frith, Donna Collins, Debra Lynn Bays, Clifford Pierce, Cassidy Wright Hubbard, and Devyn Creech offered great advice. Thank you. The Ohio University Press—Gill, Samara, Jeff, Sebastian, Beth, Nancy, Sandra, and the rest—have been a pleasure to work with. My brother William and his family, Stacey, Will, and Laura, and my uncle John and his family have been a great support, especially when my mother Barbara passed. Larry Gipe and his family, and in particular my aunt Jo Ann, have been in my corner all the way, as have my Buckeye cousins Susie and Jimmy Silver and all their family. Thank you. In Harlan, my Higher Ground family and Southeast Community College family are always there and I am deeply appreciative. Thank you all.