“What?” I said, wrinkling up my nose.
“You’re hedging, that’s what.”
“No, I ain’t,” I said.
“Yes, you are, young lady,” she said, pointing a finger at me. “You’re talking around an issue, instead of talking about it. Now, I’m going to ask you again. What scares you about going home?”
I became really quiet for several seconds, sat very still, not saying a word, breathing in tiny wisps of air, my chest barely moving, then mumbled, “I’m afraid I’ll start acting crazy again. Jerking, twitching, and popping out my eyes. I’m afraid I’ll start cussing and bring so much shame on my family that they’ll quit loving me.”
“Icy, I hope you’ve learned at least one thing here.”
I nodded, biting at my lower lip.
“People don’t just stop loving people. You’ve got to do something really bad for that to happen.”
I thought about Mamie Tillman, about the bad thing she had done and how I had failed to do what God wanted me to, but I didn’t say a word.
“All of us in the Sunshine Building love you. We haven’t stopped. Mr. Wooten, Miss Emily, and your grandparents still love you. No one has stopped caring about you. And do you know why?” I didn’t say anything, just shrugged. “Because you’re a lovable person,” she declared.
“Me, lovable?” I said.
“Completely,” she responded.
“Even the bad me?”
“We all have good and bad parts,” said Dr. Conroy. “Some of us can just hide the bad parts better.”
“Even you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dr. Conroy said, “even me.” She leaned back in her chair and smiled. “But I can teach you ways to hide your bad parts, too.”
“All the time?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “Probably not,” she went on. “But some of the time my ways will help.”
“What ways?” I asked her.
“Like breathing in deeply and counting to ten before you let go of your anger.”
“But that doesn’t work,” I said. “Even when I wait, it always comes out in a conniption fit.”
“Then try doing something less instead of something more.”
I wrung my hands together and whined, “I don’t understand.”
“If you feel like jerking your arms,” explained Dr. Conroy, “change tactics and do something smaller. Wiggle your fingers. No one will notice your fingers wiggling. If you feel like popping out your eyes, don’t. Blink them instead. That’s less noticeable. If you feel like cursing, choose words that sound bad but really aren’t.”
“Dag nab!” I said proudly.
“That’s right.”
“It sounds easy,” I said, “but it won’t be.”
“I didn’t say it’d be easy,” Dr. Conroy said. “It’ll be hard work, almost impossible for you. But if you can do it once, just one time, you’ll be able to do it again.”
“Swapping one urge for another,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, clapping her hands together. “Substitution.”
“Substitution,” I repeated.
“So you say ‘Dag nab it’ instead of something else,” she continued. “You crack a knuckle, instead of swinging a fist. You’ve got to learn when to suppress your emotions and when not to.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, nodding.
“And right now,” she said, “I don’t want to suppress my emotions. I want you to know two things.” Rising from her chair, she came over to me and tenderly took my hand. “Icy, I’m very proud of you and who you are, and I give you my word that everything is going to turn out just fine.”
At that moment, I substituted the doubt and fear I felt about my future for a little bit of hope. Then, smiling broadly, I squeezed her hand.
Red, white, and blue streamers hung from the ceiling in the dayroom. A banner saying WE’LL MISS YOU, ICY was taped to the wall in front of me. A jam cake sat in the middle of the dining room table, and a punch bowl filled with vanilla ice cream was next to it. I was leaving tomorrow, but today I was having a party!
“Everyone’s here but Ruthie,” Delbert said. “She’s been sent back home.”
I looked up and down the table and saw that he was right. All of them were there, all of them except Wilma. Like Maizy had said, her behavior at the Christmas party had been the last straw, and finally the staff had taken courage and complained. Standing beside their seats were Delbert, Tiny, Maizy, Dr. Conroy, and Nurse Polly from the infirmary. Rose, Reid, Ace, Deirdre, Mary, Stevie, and even Gordie were seated at the table.
“I made you a jam cake,” Delbert said. “Hope it’s as good as Matanni’s.”
“And I snapped the picture,” Maizy said. “We don’t want you to ever forget us.”
Rose gurgled and grinned in her wheelchair at the far end of the table.
Reid was cooing, while Ace was drawing something invisible in the air.
Gordie eyed me and leaned forward in his chair.
“We all love you,” Tiny said.
“Even me,” Polly said, “and I just met you.”
“We wish you the best in life, Icy,” Dr. Conroy said. “We wish you the good parts, the leaves and stems.” She motioned me over. “Come here and sit down!” she ordered, pulling out a chair. “To the end of striped snakes,” she said, and raised her glass.
I strutted over and sat down. In front of me, on the table next to my plate, was a black and white photograph, as big as piece of notebook paper, filled with the faces of the people around me.
“To the end of striped snakes!” Dr. Conroy repeated.
“To the end of striped snakes!” they toasted, each of them—Delbert, Maizy, Tiny, and Polly—lifting up a glass.
“To the end of striped snakes!” I said, reaching for my apple cider, raising it high into the air. “To pasture roses. To going home!”
As we were drinking our cider, all of us talking and laughing, I glanced around, took in all of their smiling faces, and spotted Gordie. He was standing by his chair, looking straight at me. Then, in one clean, smooth movement, he saluted, grinned widely, and unobtrusively sat down. No one else had seemed to notice.
Part III
Chapter 25
“Icy and me gotta go to Stoddard’s for some thread. I need to hem that skirt we gave her for her birthday,” Matanni announced one morning, as as we passed through Poplar Holler, nothing more than a blink in the road, on our way to Ginseng. Lute’s Grocery, a country store with two gas pumps out front, sat across the road from where three lonely country roads met. Peaceful Valley Baptist Church, a white wooden building with a steeple and a bass-toned bell that chimed each Sunday, was situated one-fourth of a mile down the road from Lute’s. Its six stained-glass windows—three on each side—were the pride of Poplar Holler.
“You best ask Icy if she’s gonna go with you or if she’s gonna sit in the truck,” Patanni said, turning his head, staring down at Matanni as he drove. “Or, I reckon, she could go to Miss Emily’s. You know she don’t like to be around folk.”
Loudly, I cleared my throat. “You’re talking about me like I’m not here.”
“Icy,” Matanni said, shifting toward me, “are you coming with me?”
I hesitated for several seconds. It had been years since I’d ventured inside a place as public as Stoddard’s Five and Dime, years since I’d tried to do what others did, what others took for granted. In fact, it had been two and a half years since Dr. Conroy had talked to me about substitution. After failing time and time again to trade a wiggle for a jerk, I felt all kinds of contradictions roosting inside me. I was afraid of having a spell in front of people, but also afraid of being cut off from the world. I was terrified of the malady plaguing me, yet also frightened by the calm I felt when I was alone.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Please, Icy dear, just this once,” my grandmother urged. “You been feeling so good lately.”
“If all goes well, and it will,” my grandf
ather added, “each outing will get easier.”
I drummed my fingers against the dashboard. “I-I don’t rightly…” I stammered, “I ain’t sure it’s—”
Patanni interrupted, “Sugar darling, it’s the right thing. Ain’t nothing ever gained from not trying.”
I sat quietly beside Matanni, my mind still dizzy with worries, and turned my thoughts to more positive things: Poplar Holler, a white, cushioned stillness in the dead of winter; toe-tapping gospel music on the radio; Matanni’s deep-dish apple pie, steaming hot from the oven, with a dollop of vanilla ice cream on top; and ros’n ears, fresh ears of corn, roasted in the ashes of a fire, massaged with butter, and eaten—teeth nibbling like fingers playing scales up and down a piano. “Okay,” I ventured, breathing in deeply.
We rounded the curve and I caught a whiff of Ginseng. It was the smell of coal dust hanging in the air. You could taste it on your tongue. Along the road in someone’s front yard, ugly car engines lay on their backs like turtles dozing in the sun. Car seats were sprawling on their stomachs, their spines arched high. Remnants of coal company housing rotted, gray and yellow, beside the road. Every so often, I spotted brand-new black seams of coal in the sides of mountains where roadwork had been done. Occasionally, a tipple, like a huge black mangled grasshopper, dotted the side of the road, and a stitch of railroad tracks was etched into the ground beyond it. Tenton trucks, filled high with coal from the new strip mine, groaned as they passed us.
“I’ll drop you two off,” Patanni said, “’cause I got some business of my own to do.”
“Such as going to the barbershop,” Matanni snapped, “and swap-ping tall tales with that bunch of ne’r-do-wells.” Patanni didn’t answer her. Scrunching up his eyes, tightly squeezing the steering wheel, he made a display of focusing on the road. But Matanni didn’t buy it. “I know what that kind does,” she went on. “You’d better not spend all day playing checkers, wasting money on your luck.”
“You tend to your business,” Patanni said. “And I’ll tend to mine.”
No one said another word. We sat back and let the sounds of June—crickets snapping through the grass, the breeze whistling through the windows, birds twittering in flight before the midday heat—argue things out.
“Why, they’ve put a fresh coat of paint on the courthouse!” Matanni blurted, pointing as we drove down Main Street.
“Samson Coal is still doing good,” Patanni said, turning right, driving up the narrow street. “I sure hope we’ll be spared layoffs this summer.”
“Now, don’t you go forgetting us,” Matanni added, as the truck came to a halt in front of Stoddard’s Five and Dime. “We need no more than an hour, you hear?”
Looking straight ahead, Patanni nodded while I opened the door and slid out. “Give me a hand, will you?” Matanni asked.
“You been around Miss Emily way too long.” I leaned over, extending my arm. “Since when did you need help getting out of the truck?” I asked. But Matanni didn’t answer; she was too busy latching on to me.
The minute I saw all those heads bobbing up and down so early in the morning, my breath caught in my throat and my palms began to sweat. “Dear Lord,” I whispered, “please don’t let me go making a fool of myself.”
Matanni must have heard me, for she grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard. “Just think calm thoughts,” she said. “Just like Dr. Conroy taught you. Ain’t nobody looking at you.”
But just as she said those words, I spotted Joel McRoy at the far end of the store. He was at least four inches taller, but it was him, all right; I could tell from his oval-shaped mouth—the way he kept it open, as though ready to plunge a Chilly Dilly between those wide, thin lips. Ducking my head down, I sidled up beside Matanni and crept forward. At the same time, my head seemed to detach itself from my body and to float three feet above me. My breath whizzed in and out; and although I tried, I was unable to gulp down a single breath of air. Immediately I started to tremble. Every inch of my skin was shivering.
“Who’d use this?” Joel McRoy snorted, appearing all of a sudden just a few feet in front of me. “Clearasil!” He laughed, holding up a tube, waving it above his head. “Only sissies use this stuff!”
Right then, Irwin Leach, with a smattering of pimples across his forehead, appeared. “I don’t like my pimples!” he mocked. “Please, Mama, buy me some Clearasil!”
“Matanni!” I whispered, nervously tugging at her dress.
“Irwin, hush up!” came a voice. A woman in a beehive hairdo, thin as a broomstick, scurried forward. “Irwin, put that down!” She snatched the tube of Clearasil from his hand. “I’ve already warned you that I ain’t putting up with nonsense.”
“Gosh darn!” Irwin whined. “We weren’t doing nothing.”
“Matanni!” I repeated. But she didn’t hear me, so distracted she was by the scene ahead.
“We was only funning,” Joel McRoy pouted.
Alarmed, I slipped behind Matanni’s round form and hid there.
“Keep your funning on the farm!” Irwin’s mother scolded. Then she stomped forward, brushing past Matanni and me.
“Yes, ma’am!” both boys said, snickering, as she reached the front of the aisle and whisked around the corner.
“We’ll behave ourselves!” Irwin Leach said.
“And be good little boys!” Joel McRoy said, giggling.
“Icy?” Matanni said, twisting around.
I held up my finger, pressed it against my lips, and shushed softly.
“Are you feeling poorly, child?” Matanni asked, wrinkling up her brow, bending down.
Frantically, I began to shake my head. “No!” I murmured. “No! No! No!”
“It’s okay, honey,” Matanni said soothingly. Her face was drawing closer to mine, her fingers stroking my shoulder blade, when all at once the faces of Irwin Leach and Joel McRoy materialized. All I could see were their smirking lips and scoffing eyes.
“Why, if it ain’t crazy ole Icy Sparks!” Joel McRoy said, pointing at me.
“It sure enough is!” Irwin Leach chimed in, the corners of his mouth stretching upward, his yellow teeth gleaming, a laugh spilling forth.
My eyes surged forward like freight trains.
Joel McRoy hopped back. “I’ll be damned!” he said, standing there with his hands on his hips. “Miss Frog Eyes herself.”
“Pimple on your chin!” I shouted. “Dammit!” I yelled as the jerk tore through me, wrenching my arms to the left, my legs to the right. “Pimple on your mouth!” I felt the muscles in my face twitching. “Can’t you just hush up!” I screamed as my eyes zoomed back. “Pimple on your ass!” I cried, jump-jacking upward, before slumping to the floor.
Confused, I lifted my head. Matanni was muttering something I couldn’t make out and gently rubbing my arm. In front and in back of me, people had gathered. On either side of the aisle, heads and eyes were emerging.
Irwin Leach stepped forward, his eyes gleaming maliciously, a drop of saliva in the corner of his mouth. “They should keep you at home,” he snarled. “Away from us normal folk.”
“Shame on you, boys!” my grandmother said. “Now scat!”
“The poor thing! Let’s not be witness to this,” I heard a woman say.
“Mommie, why’d she do that?” a tiny voice asked.
“I don’t know, baby,” came the answer.
“Let her pass,” a husky male voice said.
“Be glad to,” someone sneered.
“Let’s go,” my grandmother whispered. “I’m so sorry, Icy,” she said. “This was a big mistake.” Gently, she wrapped her arms around me. “Come on, sugar darling,” she urged, easing me upward. “Matanni will make it okay.”
In this way, with our arms cloaking each other, we walked slowly down the aisle toward the door. Their voices buzzing, their eyes stinging me, people parted slightly, moving out of our way. I looked up only once. A young mother was fiercely clutching her newborn against her, protecting the baby’s head with her ha
nds.
June 17, 1959
Dear Maizy,
I hope that you and Mr. Cunningham are doing fine. Thank you both for my gift! I love it so much I’m using it right now. My grandparents gave me some new shoes and a grown-up, pleated skirt. Miss Emily gave me a sterling silver ink pen, the kind that adults use, and you’ve given me this pretty stationery decorated with roses. How sweet of you to remember that I like pasture roses! So my birthday was great even though Matanni, Patanni, and Miss Emily were the only people at my party. Patanni kept calling me “his little lady” which made me feel confused, mostly sad because I’m not exactly “his little lady.” The truth is I’m not anybody’s “little lady” and probably never will be. Of course, he was referring to the fact that I’m a woman now. Thirteen, I reckon, qualifies me as such. And after I blew out the candles, Miss Emily said pretty much the same thing. “Icy,” she said, “you’re not my little girl anymore. In some countries, when a girl turns thirteen, she’s already married with a baby. So, you’re rightfully a little woman now.”
Matanni didn’t say much, just kept crying and carrying on, saying over and over she didn’t want me to grow up, that she wanted me to be her golden-haired girl forever. But I will grow up. That’s something we all have to do. Considering the alternative, growing up ain’t so bad!
By the way, when is your birthday? Compared to you, I’m kind of thoughtless. Since I left the hospital, you’ve remembered all three of mine, but I haven’t remembered one of yours. But you must admit I sent you a great wedding present. I hunted all over Ginseng for that potato masher. Matanni uses hers all the time, and she makes the best mashed potatoes in Poplar Holler, in Ginseng if the truth be known. I gotta ask you, what’s it like being married? What’s it like having someone to do for besides yourself? Do you like being Mrs. Maizy Cunningham? Are you two still making out those reading lists?
You told me in your letter that you’re thinking about going to college and studying nursing. What college will you go to? Have you started yet? I—myself—think you’d make a great nurse. You’re already my own Florence Nightingale.
Icy Sparks Page 21