by Paula Deen
Then Jimmy went to work for Zep, a company that sold cleaning supplies, and we damn near really starved to death. By then we’d left Terrible Villa and moved into Nottingham Way, another set of apartments not far away, but one that seemed to have nicer people. Money was so short, I don’t even know how we paid the rent, but somehow we managed.
We became real good friends with our next-door neighbors. Their door was just half a minute away from ours. They had two little children and we did also, so our doors became revolving doors. They had a son about Bobby’s age and a little girl who was about three.
We got real close to this couple. Loved them to pieces. We talked and played cards and I was in heaven because I was either in my own home or right next door to home. When we went over to their place, six steps there and six steps back—not that I was counting—and I could be in my own house. I was starting to get real crazy by then.
I tried to talk to Jimmy about this ever-growing terror, but being afraid of anything was completely foreign to him: he just could not understand because he was scared of nothing, not even a two-headed snake.
“For God’s sake, get over it, Paula,” he’d say. Of course, I thought I was the weak one and he the strong one. I thought I didn’t have a whole lot of value. But what was really necessary to being a good wife was being cute, I thought, and that was still pretty easy. I was fun to be around. I faked cute every day of my life back then.
I tried not to complain about being scared all the time. And, I got cuter and cuter. That I could do.
Occasionally, I was put on the spot. If the nice next-door couple would say “Let’s go to a movie” or “Let’s go out to eat,” I had to make up a lie. However, when someone is living right next door to you, how many times can you say you’re busy when they see you there—very unbusy. I was never free of the thoughts about death, but sometimes I could live my life pretty normally, and I was such a good actress, people would have said “You’re shittin’ me” if I’d ever told them who I really was. But, I never told.
The husband—his name was Dale—was slowly catching on to my tricks. One day, I will never forget, he said, “Paula, pardon me for interferin’, and you won’t believe this, but I had what I think you’re sufferin’ from—like when your heart runs away with you? It’s terrifying! I had panic attacks for a long, long time, but you know what, I’ve gotten over it.”
What a thing that was to hear! What a gift to me even though I was a zillion miles from getting better—if that could ever happen.
But something did happen soon afterward that was a pure miracle for me. It didn’t make me better, but it gentled my heart. I finally had to “fess up” about my problem to these sweet people living next door. We’d become very good friends with them and I couldn’t lie one more time about being too busy for a movie. It felt good to tell about my panic: I resolved then to try and share my secrets with everyone for whom I cared. Tell a secret, get one back. Telling secrets is a great gift you give to others. And I simply felt so good about having gotten it off my shoulders with these darlin’ neighbors.
I was particularly close to Dale, who’d become like a brother to me. One day, the phone rang after Jimmy and the kids had left the house, and Dale said, barely able to contain his excitement, “Paula, turn on Phil Donahue. You’re going to find out what’s wrong with you.” I turned on the TV, and I sat on the end of that bed and I cried. Bless that Phil Donahue.
Finally—it finally had a name. Agoraphobia. I thought nobody else could be this crazy, and here was Phil Donahue devoting a whole program to it. It turned out that about two million Americans had agoraphobia—almost 1 percent of the population.
He said that agoraphobics had horrible anxiety about being in places or embarrassing situations from which they might not be able to escape. That was me.
He said that symptoms included being chilled to the bone yet clammy with sweat, shaking, rapid heartbeat, numbness in the arms and hands, feelings of choking and not being able to breathe, fear of dying, vomiting, fear of losing control. That was me!
He said agoraphobics only felt safe in their own homes. That was me!
He said they had a fear of crowds and public places. That was definitely me!
He said it was first diagnosed before the twentieth century and most of the people who had it then were men. But he also said that most people who had it today were women. That was me!
And most of them were homemakers. Oh, that was me!
I sat speechless while I watched Donahue’s guests, all former agoraphobics, tell about how they’d been unable to leave their homes and now they could go on elevators and even fly in an airplane. They could go up escalators.
Around that time, knowing my problem had a name, I became what you’d call a “functioning agoraphobic.” If what I had was shared by others, I would learn to deal with it also. I was not real happy when I wasn’t home, but I could finally leave the house for short periods of time, particularly if I was with someone. There was a store in the Albany mall, and if I was with Jimmy, I could go to the ground floor but I could never go up that escalator to the second floor. I was afraid I was going to have a panic attack in front of folks. How horrible would that be? I just loved the housewares on the second floor. I loved anything that had to do with the kitchen and the home and decorating, but I couldn’t get up to those damn housewares.
Still, it was a blessed relief to be able to put a name to my problem and know that I wasn’t the only one. But knowing about it didn’t cure it. I longed to understand why it happened to me; I felt I could shake it if I only understood.
Listen—we were so poor. My illness got on all our nerves. I didn’t have any way I could even help to support us. And Jimmy was so frustrated: he was getting angrier and angrier, which meant he was drinking more and more. It also meant that verbal violence seeped more regularly into our lives.
I remember Christmas of 1981. Every single Christmas Eve, Jimmy would have too much to drink, and I’d get so mad that we couldn’t have a peaceful and loving Christmas. Could he not put down that damn drink and let us enjoy ourselves as a family? Apparently not. This Christmas Eve, I couldn’t stand it any longer and I really got in his face.
“I hate your guts,” I told him, “and the children and I are leaving as soon as Christmas is over.” He grabbed me, threw me over his lap, and he spanked me so hard, like I was a really bad child. I wanted to kill him. I had a gun I kept without any bullets, and I just grabbed it and, I’m ashamed to say, I pointed it in his direction—that’s how desperate I’d become. I wanted to get his attention. But he just laughed—he knew the gun wasn’t loaded, and anyway, he never, ever listened to me. He never heard what I said about the kids and me leaving. That won’t do wonders for a woman’s self-esteem.
Little by little, I crept out of the house. Always feeling frightened, always worried about dying, I still knew I had to find work because we were desperate for money. Food and rent money was getting tighter and tighter. Whatever Jimmy touched in the work world soon fell apart. Although I’d had many different kinds of starter jobs, I was then very limited in what I could do. Finally, in the mid-eighties, I got a job at the Albany bank, which seemed like a relatively safe place to be. The boss put me up in the front lines as a teller because I loved people and was good with them. Although I was not having my attacks on a regular basis then, I still carried my brown paper bag in my purse in case I hyperventilated. I still worried about having a panic attack in public, but at least I was out in the world, and I wasn’t dead yet.
Seems as though Jimmy Deen couldn’t stay at a job for any longish period of time. He wasn’t lazy and he was very hardworkin’, but he was like a rolling-stone man where the grass always looked greener somewhere else. He had these pipe dreams of glory days and he got uninterested in his present work when he was dreamin’ of glory. More than just havin’ pipe dreams, he’d follow them, and drag us all along. One day in 1986, Jimmy came home and said we were moving to Savannah. I was deva
stated and sick with fear. I didn’t know a soul there, and we’d all have to move so far from home and everything we knew. Impossible. But we had to go, said my husband. He’d heard of a car dealership that needed help. Later, he said it was the worst thing he ever did, but you know what? For me, Savannah was the best thing Jimmy ever did. But before we moved, I had to go through the fire in yet another way.
Jamie was away and Bobby was a high school senior. I’d given my notice at the bank in Albany, and was at home, packing boxes. The bank called and said, “Paula, we hate to ask you, but we need a favor. Would you come out to the East Albany branch and work Friday?”
I was nothing if I wasn’t cute and agreeable. “I’d be happy to help y’all out,” I said.
I had never worked at this branch. When I pulled up, got out of my car, and walked into the bank, I said to myself, “Holy crap!”
This young woman who had been there just two months asked, “What’s the matter?” And I remember saying, “This is a perfect setup for a robbery.”
I’ve got pretty good gut feelings. There were no officers in that branch—just me and this girl. It was in a pretty iffy neighborhood. And Friday was a busy day, being payday. We went about getting ready to open. I had not emptied the vault, but I had finished filling the drawers with cash. There was plenty of money because by five we would be cashing some big payroll checks: probably ten thousand in the other teller’s bank drawer and ten or fifteen thousand in mine.
I heard somebody coming in the door, and I looked up to see a guy in a green mask that completely covered his face. Did I mention he had a gun in his hand? I had to figure that this one had bullets. My heart just about came out of my chest, but I was so frightened, I didn’t have enough time to think about a panic attack. That green-masked guy did not pay attention to that other girl. He came straight to me and put that gun to my head. That gun was dancing around my head because the robber guy was so scared, his hands were shaking.
To myself I said, It’s over. It’s finally gotten here. I’m dead, today. My worst fear is happening. He’s going to shoot me by accident simply out of his own fright.
What would you have done? Well, I didn’t do that. Instead, I started scooping out the money. I started with the ones and was working my way over when he hissed, “Only large bills.” So I got the large bills. And that other little teller next to me, she finally saw what was happening and started gathering up her money. He took it all and walked out, simple as that.
I told the young woman to call the police but I went straight to the phone and called Jimmy, who was already in Savannah and working at his new job. I told him what had happened.
Jimmy said he’d be with me the next day. He told me to hang on. I prayed that I could. I prayed that it would be one of the times that I could get in my car and just leave; I knew it was very important that this robbery didn’t set me back to the worst years when I couldn’t leave my home. I had to be very careful that I didn’t relapse. This robbery could have turned me back into a limp dishrag.
But it didn’t. Something in me, some inner strength, some Paula stubbornness that maybe my folks had instilled, took over. I went home after the robbery, got Bobby from the high school, and I went to Bubba’s and said, “I’m so sorry. I just can’t stay at home. I would be too frightened.” Bubba, Jill, and Jay took us in. When it’s family, they gotta take you in.
Every time I closed my eyes for the next month, this robber man would jump in my face with the gun. I was never free of the thoughts.
After Jimmy moved us all to Savannah I went into my bed for two full months. I was relapsing—I just felt it. Back to square one.
Again, I couldn’t tell if I was on the right side of the dirt.
Baked Savannah-Alaska
When you feel relief, when you want to celebrate a getting-well—even if you’re not all well yet—you need a celebration recipe, and there’s nothing more celebratory than a traditional baked Alaska with all its peaks and snowy sweetness. There’s not much snow in Savannah and I ain’t never been to Alaska, but the South sure knows about that state’s most famous dessert. My personal baked Alaska gets to be called Baked Savannah-Alaska because I garnish my serving plate with edible southern magnolia or hibiscus petals. If you can’t find those, try crystallized violet or rose petals.
For starters, we’re going to take a yummy piece of cake—any kind of cake, actually. It can be a chunk of your Mississippi Mud Cake—before you add the marshmallows and the icing. It can be a piece of your own sour cream pound cake, your carrot cake—whatever kind of cake you want, even store-bought cake. You could even use a blueberry muffin. Place the cake in an ovenproof dish.
Next we’re going to make the meringue. You need 3 egg whites at room temperature, ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar, and ¼ cup sugar. We’re going to beat those egg whites together with the cream of tartar with a handheld electric mixer until they form soft peaks. Then we’re going to gradually beat in the sugar until the meringue is really stiff.
Then we’re going to ladle into the center of the cake a big old scoop of ice cream—probably vanilla, because that would go with any kind of cake. We’re going to frost the whole thing, every drop, no cake or ice cream exposed, with a thick layer of meringue and press some ripples in the meringue with a spoon, a knife, or a spatula. Then put what will become the Baked Savannah-Alaska in a 425°F preheated oven and just brown it quickly so that the ice cream won’t melt. You need to watch the baking process closely, because you don’t want your meringue to burn.
Taking the cake from the oven, I’d garnish the dish with those organic or pesticide-free southern flower petals and perhaps put a little candle or flag on the very top of the meringue for a real celebratory sensation.
Bring this fabulous dessert to the table with a spoon (or two spoons, one for you and one for whoever is celebrating your victory with you). Then, all dig in together with cries of “Delicious!” or “Congratulations!” or “Well done!”
Chapter 6
THE BAG LADY
Rednecks know how to eat like kings ’cause they figured out how to cook food that don’t throw them in a new tax bracket.
When I was transplanted to Savannah, it was 1987, Georgia was starting to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of its statehood, and I could not have cared less. Televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker were in big trouble when he was caught in the middle of a sex scandal. Didn’t care. Sonny Bono started his campaign to be elected mayor of Palm Springs, California. News left me cold, honey. The world population hit five billion and little Jessica McClure fell down a well. Ditto about not caring. Danny Kaye, Jackie Gleason, and Ray Bolger died. I didn’t mourn them.
I was mourning my own losses. I mourned everything I’d left behind in Albany. First of all, I had to leave Corrie, Bubba’s daughter, who was only six years old. I was Corrie’s main nurturer and I just adored her. She needed me. When Corrie’s own momma told me she thought I was far more maternal than she was, it was the living truth.
Jamie had already left for Valdosta State University, but Bobby—oh, Bobby. When I moved to Savannah, I left my younger son as well. I’ll carry the guilt forever for leavin’ Bobby. Even though it’s what he wanted, I should not have left him for a minute. Bobby was a senior in high school and we up and told him in the middle of his senior year that we were moving and he couldn’t graduate with his friends. Well, he was devastated. In a way, I understood. I would have laid down and died if my momma and daddy took me away from my friends at that age. I didn’t want to do that to my child. Well, I guess it was about that time that Bubba remembered a certain sixteen-year-old kid who’d gone to live with his sister and her family when he was left an orphan; he said Bobby could stay in Albany with him. Okay, okay. I told Bobby that he could stay with his uncle as long as he was passing his courses, but if he started failing school, he’d have to come to Savannah to live with us.
Not that things were great in Savannah. Actually, they were the pits. I had been
living in terror of leaving my home for almost twenty years and now I was in a whole new town. My new home, a little house on Sixtieth Street, felt strange and unfamiliar, but I was more terrified than ever that I’d die if I went outside. I’d been on a roller-coaster ride for so long: sometimes I was functioning, but if something bad happened, I was totally stripped emotionally. Lately, I’d seemed to be making some progress, but now I felt as though I’d really relapsed. I’d been in Savannah more than two months, and I was just lying in bed, not getting up except to eat and go to the bathroom. I’d never been worse.
Then I met my guardian angel. Her name was Denise, her husband worked in the same dealership as Jimmy, and she looked more like a swift pain in the ass than a guardian angel to me. Relentlessly, Denise tried her hardest to befriend ungrateful me. She called me every day, two or three times a day, and she would get on my nerves so bad.
“You’ve got to get out of bed,” she’d say. “You’ve got to go outside. You can’t just stay in that bed forever. Let’s go shopping, let’s go have a coffee, let’s play cards, let’s let’s let’s …”
I wanted to tell her to go freak herself and leave me alone. I wanted to ask her why she didn’t recognize a basket case when she saw one.
Well, Denise saved my life. Got rid of my basket. She was a secret godsend. Maybe it was because I was finally ready to bloom, maybe it was because I sensed I was at the end of my rope and I had to save all our lives by climbing back up, but whatever the reason, Denise was the unwitting instrument of my salvation.
I feel like I need a drum roll here. One day, I was lying in bed, and, well—you know what? All of a sudden Denise’s words made sense to me. Simple as that. “Get out of bed,” she’d said. So, this particular morning, I got out of my bed, stood up, and looked in the mirror. I was only forty but I was stuck in my bedroom and dying inside. Out loud, I whispered to my mirror image, “I can’t do this anymore, I just can’t.”