by Mary Monroe
“But he’s harmless,” Rachel whispered in my ear. “You’ll get used to him,” she added, speaking in her regular tone of voice. Then she turned to her mother. “Where’s Janet and Aunt Hattie, Mama?”
“Janet’s taking a nap, and your auntie is still at the Piggy Wiggly, getting a few things for dinner,” Mrs. McNeal explained, turning to me with a huge smile. “Seth, I am so glad to finally meet you. I always knew Rachel would land a man like you. God sure is good.”
“Who’s out there making all that noise?” The voice coming from another part of the house was so loud and angry, it made me jump. “I know y’all out there talking trash about me!”
“That’s my sister, Janet,” Rachel said, whispering again. Then she quickly left the room.
While she was gone, Ernest remained on the couch. He lifted a magazine off the coffee table, flipped it open, and began to stare at a page without moving his eyes.
“Seth, from that blank look on your face, I suspect you can’t wait to get some food into your belly. It’ll be a little while before dinner’s ready. I just put the corn bread in the oven. I started cooking last night, all for you and Rachel. I hope you like deviled duck eggs and poke salad,” Rachel’s mother told me.
I had never eaten a goddamned duck egg before in my life. And I had no idea what poke salad was. I had a feeling I was not going to enjoy either one. Since I couldn’t say what was on my mind, I said what I thought Mrs. McNeal wanted to hear. “Yum-yum . . .”
“Good. I know you must be tired, too. Why don’t you sit down and rest your legs?” Mrs. McNeal waved me over to a wing chair facing the couch.
I didn’t bother to tell Mrs. McNeal that Rachel and I had eaten a huge lunch, and I certainly didn’t want her to know how terrified I was to hear that she had prepared duck eggs and that mysterious poke salad just for us. The last thing I wanted to do was get on my future mother-in-law’s shit list. I was still thinking about Ernest’s odd behavior and the menacing voice of Janet, but I managed to sit down with a smile on my face.
A few minutes later Rachel returned. Shuffling behind her was a young woman, also in her twenties, in a brown corduroy dress and men’s house shoes. She looked a lot like Rachel, too, except she was slightly taller. There was a dazed expression on her face as she looked me up and down.
“Honey, this is my baby sister, Janet,” Rachel said, introducing her.
I leaped up and stumbled over to Janet with the biggest smile I could manage, even though all kinds of questions, concerns, and disappointments were bouncing off the walls inside my head. “I’m glad to finally meet you, Janet,” I said as I reached out to embrace her.
“Don’t you tetch me!” she yelled with a Southern drawl that was so thick, it sounded fake. “I know you the one that’s been sneaking into my room in the middle of the night and playing with my titties!”
“Janet, this is my fiancé, Seth. He’s never been here before.” Rachel didn’t even bother to hide her exasperation. She turned to me with an apologetic look on her face. “Honey, my brother and my sister were both born with a, uh, few problems. But they’re just fine, as long as they take their medication.”
“Okay,” was all I could think to say. Medication? Both of Rachel’s siblings have to take medication? For what? My chest tightened, and my brain felt as if it had frozen. Uh-oh. What have I gotten myself into? I wondered.
Chapter 2
Rachel
SETH OFFERED TO TAKE OUR LUGGAGE TO MY OLD BEDROOM, BUT Mama insisted on taking it herself. Naturally, I followed behind her, because I could tell from the look on her face that she had something to say to me that she didn’t want Seth to hear. I was right. The moment we got inside the neatly organized room, with its roll-away bed, mismatched dressers, and frilly yellow curtains, she set the luggage on the floor, shut the door, and lit into me.
“How come Seth is looking like somebody knocked the wind out of him?”
“What do you mean, Mama?” I asked dumbly.
“What’s wrong with you, girl?” Mama snapped, shaking her finger in my face. “Didn’t you see the look on his face when Ernest refused to shake his hand?”
“I didn’t notice.”
“Well, I know you noticed the way he looked when Janet yelled out and then when she came into the room. You ain’t blind.”
“Now that you mentioned it, Seth did seem a bit surprised, I guess.”
“Surprised? The way that man was looking, you could have knocked him over with a feather. If I didn’t know no better, I’d swear you ain’t told him about our family.”
“I haven’t told him everything,” I muttered. “I didn’t want him to get the wrong impression about Janet and Ernest before he met them. I wanted to wait until we got here.”
Mama gasped so hard, she choked on some air. I clapped her on the back, and as soon as she composed herself, she continued. “Oh, my Lord in heaven! All this time he thought we was just a typical American family?”
“Mama, as far as I’m concerned, we are just a typical American family.” I began to wring my hands and pace the floor.
“Stand still, because you making me even more upset.” I stopped in my tracks, but Mama still seemed just as upset. “There ain’t no such thing as a ‘typical American family,’ unless you count the one on Leave It to Beaver. This is a new day. Even Bill Cosby’s TV family and his real-life family had problems, but they had problems most people can relate to. You can’t hide things from Seth before y’all even get married!”
“Mama, you are overreacting. I didn’t try to hide anything from Seth.”
“Oh, yes you did! You hid something important from him about the family he’s going to marry into. By not telling him, that’s the same as hiding it! Oh, Lord! How come you didn’t tell Seth about your brother and your sister before now?” Mama hissed. She placed her hands on her hips.
“Uh . . . uh . . . it never came up,” I said, fumbling.
“What do you mean, ‘it never came up’? How could you not bring it up? The problems we got ain’t the kind you can hide for too long.”
“I was waiting for the right time to tell him,” I said, sitting down hard on the bed, wringing my hands some more. They had begun to sweat, and so had my armpits. “But I’m sure it won’t be a problem. Seth is a very understanding man. And he’s in the church.”
Mama looked at me and shook her head. “Lord knows how his family is going to react when they hear. All the stuff you told me about how uppity they are . . . lawyers and such. And with him having a mama that don’t do nothing but play bridge, suck up daiquiris, and socialize, I can tell you now she ain’t going to ease into this.”
“Mama, why are you so concerned about what Seth and his family will think about Ernest and Janet? They won’t have to deal with them.”
“Rachel, I didn’t raise you to be no fool. You know how folks around here have always looked at our family like we was all crazy,” Mama said gently.
“Crazy? Nobody in our family is crazy, Mama,” I protested.
“You can call it whatever you want, but when it comes to most of the folks in this town, crazy is the first word out of their mouth when they talk about the McNeal family.” Mama snorted and shook her head. “Speaking of crazy, how is that baby brother of mine doing out there in California?”
“Uncle Albert is doing just fine.” I saw no need to say more, but Mama wanted to know more.
“Is he still fornicating with men?”
“He is still dating men, Mama. He lives with one, and he’s very happy. He said that he hopes to get married someday.”
Mama looked elated, but not for long. “Say what? Do you mean to tell me the boy is going to come to his senses and marry a woman someday? See there! I knew if I prayed long and hard enough, Albert would straighten hisself out!”
“Uh, yes, he wants to get married. But . . . to a man. The politicians keep talking about making same-sex marriages legal in California, and he’s real excited about it.”
&nb
sp; Mama stared at me with her mouth hanging open, as if I had just turned purple. “I thought I had heard everything, but I never thought I’d hear something as ungodly as men marrying men, and women marrying women. Lord, have mercy! What is this world coming to? Lord knows what my friends will say when and if Albert ups and marries a man!”
I shook my head. “Mama, stop worrying about what people will say. These narrow-minded, ignorant, countrified folks in Coffeeville don’t know any better. I’m sure our family is not the only one you know with a few simpleminded people.”
Mama shot me a hot look. “There’s a lot more to it than a ‘few simpleminded people’ in this family, girl.”
“What I meant was—”
Mama silenced me by waving her finger in my face. “I don’t care what you meant. Hush up and let me talk! You can stand here in them white sandals if you want to and act like you don’t know no better, but I know you do. The problem in our family goes waaay back. I can remember your great-granddaddy doing some of the same outlandish stuff your sister and brother do. I’ll never forget how he showed up naked at my high school graduation.”
“Oh. I didn’t know about that,” I mumbled.
“And you didn’t know about your late grandmama’s late twin sister, who used to eat rocks and live grasshoppers.”
“No, I didn’t. But those people are deceased, and like I said, neither Seth nor any of his family will have to mingle with Janet or Ernest.”
“It ain’t just Ernest and Janet you’ll need to tell Seth about. The bad seeds in our family ain’t all dead. You got a cousin named Milton. He’s just three years younger than me. You was a baby when he was around, so you wouldn’t remember him. Anyway, he’s over there in the state hospital, wrapped up in a straitjacket, as we speak. He’s so bad, he’s been locked up in that asylum most of his life.”
“What did he do?”
“You name it, he done it. But the man finally took action when Milton busted into a white woman’s house and broke a claw hammer over her head. They tried to say he ravaged her, too, but Milton had never had no interest in sex, and they couldn’t prove he touched that white woman’s tail. And I bet she wasn’t even clean.”
I looked off into space. “Mama, I know what you’re thinking,” I muttered. I turned back to face her and gave her a sharp look. “My children will be fine. There are all kinds of medication and treatments and therapy available these days. If, and it’s a very big if, my children have problems, Seth and I will deal with them together.”
Mama gave me a pitiful look. “I sure hope you’re right, baby. If you ain’t, I can tell you right now that you can forget about living happily ever after with Seth. . . .”
Chapter 3
Seth
I WAS SO NERVOUS AND DUMBFOUNDED, I COULD BARELY REMAIN seated. Ernest was still sitting on the couch. No matter how hard I tried to get him to talk, he continued to act like a mute. A few more minutes dragged by.
My stomach was in knots, and my head was throbbing like somebody had attacked it with a paddle. The inside of my mouth was as dry as sandpaper. A belch suddenly flew out my mouth, and I tasted some of the heavy, greasy food we had eaten for lunch, mixed in with the bile that had risen in my throat. I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out a stick of gum and stuck it in my mouth. As soon as I started chewing, my bladder began to demand attention. It was a one-story house, so I knew that it wouldn’t be hard for me to locate the bathroom, but I attempted to get the information from Ernest, anyway.
“Which way is the restroom?” I asked, rising.
He looked at me and blinked a few times and didn’t say a word. He returned his attention to the magazine still in his hand.
I looked at my watch, wondering why Rachel was taking so long to return. I had no idea where Janet was, and I was in no hurry to find out. The last thing I needed was to run into her and have her say something crazy again. My head was spinning. Rachel had some explaining to do! Like, why hadn’t she told me that both of her only two siblings were mentally challenged?
The bathroom was just as neat and spotless as the living room. Frilly yellow curtains covered the window, and bright yellow towels and a shower curtain made the room look quite impressive. I wondered how Rachel’s mother managed to keep such a neat house with Janet and Ernest around. I had a feeling those two didn’t do much housecleaning, or anything other than what I’d seen so far.
It was hard for me to contain my frustration and the feeling that I had been duped into a relationship under false pretenses. I let out a few obscene words under my breath and balled my hand into a fist. I wanted to punch the wall as I wondered again what I had gotten myself into! Well, since I couldn’t hit the wall, which looked so thin I was sure I’d leave a hole, I just stood there for a moment, shaking my head.
I glanced at my watch and realized I’d been standing there, cussing to myself and shaking my head, for a couple of minutes. I unzipped my fly and stood over the commode and emptied my bladder with a groan. I rubbed the back of my head and chewed frantically on that stick of gum. Even after I had completed my business and had rinsed out my mouth, I still felt like hell. My head was throbbing even more now. This was a major concern for me, because the only time I ever had headaches as bad as this one was when I had to deal with my son’s mean-spirited mother.
“Get a grip,” I said to myself in a low voice. “Rachel’s the woman I love and plan to marry.” Somehow I managed to calm myself down, and I prayed I wouldn’t encounter anything else that would make me want to punch a wall.
I flushed the toilet and made sure I put the seat back down before I returned to the living room. I was pleased to see that Rachel and her mother had come back and were now seated side by side on the couch with Ernest. I sat down on a bamboo chair, facing them. I was glad that my seat was close to the door, in case something really weird happened and I had to bolt. Ernest was still staring at a page in that magazine.
“How long are you two lovebirds going to stay with us?” Mrs. McNeal wanted to know, looking directly at me. Then she whirled around to face Rachel. “Brother Hamilton is killing a hog next Saturday. I’m sure he’d like to have y’all come to the cookout. He promised to give me the chitlins and hog maws to cook for y’all before you leave to go back to California.”
A hog butchering? A cookout with crazy people running around loose? I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to attend less. I could not imagine myself eating chitlins. I didn’t even know what hog maws were, but I had a feeling they were some part of the hog that was just as gruesome as chitlins, maybe even more so. I had never gnawed on such primitive items in my life, and I was not about to start now! I felt like I had stumbled into The Twilight Zone, and I wanted to get my ass out of this place as fast as I could. Did I really love Rachel enough to deal with all the horrors I had encountered so far? I wondered. I shook that thought out of my mind, because I was not ready for the answer.
“Mama, I already told you we can stay only until Sunday,” Rachel said, giving me one of her prizewinning smiles. “But if Seth wants to stay longer, I’m sure we can rearrange our schedules.”
“Uh . . . no! We have to go back home on Sunday,” I said quickly, throwing up my hand for emphasis. “I have several important meetings with clients on Monday.”
Mrs. McNeal gave me a disappointed look. “Well, we can all have a real good visit in three days, I guess.” She turned to Rachel. “Did I tell you that Maisy Thigpen died last week? That knot on the side of her foot wasn’t no bunion, like I told you. It was bone cancer.” She tilted her head to the side, then shook it and looked at me again. “Seth, I’m sure your mama done told you before that life is so short. Don’t waste no time, because that’s the only thing we can’t never get back once we done used it. Live each day like it’s your last, because one day it will be.”
I had no idea where this conversation was going. And since I didn’t want to sound as exasperated as I felt, I decided to say something simple. “You are so right,
Mrs. McNeal.”
“You can call me Essie Mae,” she told me. “As far as I’m concerned, you already family.”
“Yes . . . ma’am,” I managed to say, hoping nobody noticed the uncertainty in my voice. A sharp pain shot through my chest, because my thoughts were all over the place. The inside of my head was ringing like a steel drum. I didn’t even want to think about how my opinionated, outspoken friends would behave around Rachel’s family when—if—they ever met them. I’d be on defense for the rest of my life if they did.
Janet came back into the room and sat down on the arm of the love seat, staring directly at me. I couldn’t even imagine what was going through her mind, because the few times she’d spoken, she hadn’t made any sense. “Grandpa Alex told me you was going to go to the Devil,” she said, still looking at me.
“Now, you behave yourself, Janet. You know your granddaddy died when you was a baby,” Mrs. McNeal said in a gentle voice.
“I know he died, but he comes to me at night sometimes,” Janet said.
With all I had to deal with already, the last thing I wanted to be concerned about was a ghost!
“I’m going to go to my room and . . . masturbate,” Janet announced in a voice so loud, it made my ears ring. She leaped up from her seat and sprinted from the room, laughing maniacally.
My jaw dropped. Rachel gave me a helpless look and shrugged. “Don’t pay my sister any attention,” she told me. “She’s confused.”
We spent the next half hour or so listening to Mrs. McNeal go on and on about funerals she’d recently attended, who got divorced, who was cheating on their spouse, and her health. About ten minutes later Janet returned to the room in a white nightgown that was so flimsy, it left nothing to the imagination. The naked body of a woman I had just met was the last thing I had expected to see. Janet looked flushed and satisfied, the same way Rachel looked after I made love to her.
“I feel so much better and so relaxed now,” Janet swooned as she wiped her face with the back of her hand. Rubbing her crotch, she sat down on a footstool near a small television set in the front part of the room. “Masturbating sure takes the edge off me.”