The air stirred. A warm breeze of jasmine and neighboring tobacco crops comforted us like a welcome-home hug. I rested my head on Bobby’s shoulder and watched as the moon cast bluish slivers of light across our joined hands, disappearing into the wooden slats along the length of the porch.
We stood when a car’s headlights bounced off the trees and watched as its beams illuminated the bottom of the drive.
“That’s my folks.”
“Guess you better go.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.” I shifted.
“Yeah,” he whispered, and slid his hand into his pocket and jiggled coins.
“ ’Night, Bobby.”
“Good night, Mudas.” Halfway across the porch, he glanced back. “Girl, are you gonna kiss me good night or not?”
I lit across the boards. “I am.” I laughed, pressing my lips to his—a lingering kiss that became a deep embrace. He lifted my hand, studying the cameo ring on my finger. “Tomorrow, I’m going down to Peck’s and buying up all their Cracker Jacks. When I get my super-duper decoder ring, will you go steady with me?” He grinned a little sheepishly, waiting.
I felt my heart burst with happiness. “My Lucky Star wish comes true.”
Bobby pulled me to him. I rested my head against his chest and snuggled in closer, inhaling his scent, savoring. The “good” scent, the one Grammy Essie had told me about. The one I’d been searching for. The one that curled toes and brought a dance to the eyes. The one that squeezed the heart, sweetened the tongue, and Tilt-A-Whirled the brain in sweet rays of warm sunshine.
In Bobby’s arms, the world and all her cruelty slipped away, and the heaviness of my recent days disappeared on the night breeze.
28
To Each Is Given
It could’ve easily been left unnamed, but unlike most small towns carved out from the back roads of Anywhere, USA, that had their staples of folklore and history, Peckinpaw, Kentucky, had its Crow’s Perch—a bench commemorating the benevolence of one of its most honorable daughters, Frannie Crow.
Used for both the telling of tales and for courting, the bench sat nestled between two pansy-filled copper pots that rested on the curb in front of the town’s diner and leather goods store. And in western Kentucky, a good epilogue is the happily ever after of any tale, just as sure as the bench’s weathered planks of oak and wrought-iron arms were the support.
Less than four weeks after we found Mrs. Anderson’s diary, and a little more than a century after the hanging of Frannie Crow, I stood beside Daddy in Peckinpaw’s packed, smoke-filled courtroom, with Genevieve cozied tight to my hip.
Daddy petitioned the judge to posthumously exonerate Frannie of her crimes, presenting Evelyn Amaris Anderson’s journal as evidence—his only evidence—and two teens as the only eyewitnesses to its discovery. In closing, Daddy argued that the ruin of truth through cruelty only serves to weaken the very marrow of a town.
Three weeks later, the mayor delivered a proclamation to the townsfolk, dedicating the old Liar’s Bench to Frannie Crow.
The summer after our senior year, Bobby headed to Boston, and I stretched my runner’s legs to Louisville. I’d gotten my full track scholarship. Even Coach Grider smiled and congratulated me. I reckon Southern minds can bend with time, though not enough of them, or fast enough.
After the pleas and sentencing of McGee and the others, and after the deeper investigations and media reports had all died down, and folks’ talk turned church-mouse-quiet when I happened upon them, I began to understand the part that would never leave me—that would never go away: two hangings more than a hundred years apart, as different from each other as the standing oak is from the sunflower in the field. But connected, too—connected by the fertile Kentucky soil and the evils they foretold.
Sometimes still, if I sit on Crow’s Perch and cock my head just so, I can hear Grammy Essie quoting old St. Jerome, her words blowing through the Osage leaves like pieces of paper rattling around in a Dixie cup: “The scars of others should teach us caution,” she whispers.
And somewhere, whether in Heaven or Hell or in between, the ghosts of Frannie Crow and Ella Mudas Tilley are smiling.
Below are old family recipes from mother-in-law Gladys Richardson’s recipe box that you may want to try.
Red Cabbage Apple Casserole
5 or 6 slices bacon
3 tablespoons melted bacon fat
2 tablespoons apple jelly
2 tablespoons sugar
1 medium onion, chopped fine
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Dash of nutmeg
Sprinkle of cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 large head of thinly sliced red or green cabbage
2 to 3 apples (use River Wolf for sweetness
or Jonathan for tartness), peeled and thinly sliced
½ cup water
Salt (to taste)
Pepper (to taste)
Cook a few slices of bacon in skillet, set aside, save the bacon fat, and mix it with the sugar and jelly. Stir. Add onion and sauté. Stir in vinegar, nutmeg, and caraway seeds; then heat five minutes and set aside skillet mixture. Layer the thinly sliced cabbage and sliced apples in a lightly greased casserole dish. Pour on skillet mixture. Mix in crumbled cooked bacon. Add salt and pepper to taste. Pour in ½ cup water. Cover dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 75 minutes or until cabbage is tender.
Potato Candy
1 potato (size of egg)
1 pound powdered sugar
½ to 1 cup peanut butter
2 teaspoons Kentucky bourbon (optional)
Boil potato with peel on. When done, remove skin and mash. Mix in powdered sugar while potato is hot, adding sugar a little at a time. Sprinkle a biscuit board with powdered sugar and knead mixture like dough. Roll out and spread the dough with peanut butter like you would a slice of bread. (If using bourbon, mix in with peanut butter before spreading.) Then roll up like a jelly roll. Let the roll rest for 5 minutes before slicing.
A READING GROUP GUIDE
LIAR’S BENCH
Kim Michele Richardson
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The suggested questions are included
to enhance your group’s reading of
Kim Michele Richardson’s
Liar’s Bench.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. The South of 1972 was not far removed from Freedom Riders, police dogs, and water blasts attacking peaceful protesters. How does the Civil Rights Movement influence Mudas? How does it affect her actions, her fears, and her relationship with Bobby?
2. Kentucky straddles the “deep” South and the Midwest’s industrial heartland. Mama was torn between those two worlds. Bobby also feels the pull of the big city and dreams of “getting out” of Peckinpaw. Muddy also has high hopes for herself, but she feels a deep connection with her hometown. Do you think she will live out her days in Peckinpaw? Or will her aspirations take her elsewhere?
3. In the large majority of divorces, mothers retain primary custody of the children. In Liar’s Bench, Muddy remains in her father’s care, which would have been particularly unusual in the ’70s. Is Adam a good father? Does his gender make him ill-equipped to parent a teenage girl? How might have Mudas’s life turned out differently if she had continued to live with her mother?
4. Liar’s Bench is infused with descriptions of the plants, the sky, the soil, the birds, and their songs. Have we, today, lost the ability to see, feel, and appreciate our natural surroundings? Have we become disconnected from nature?
5. In relation to Frannie and Amos, it is difficult to live with the specters of our past. Is it possible to move forward? Does history ever allow a clean slate?
6. Today, we live in the age of information. Everything is accessible, right at our fingertips. With that in mind, consider how Muddy’s story would be different if it happened today. Would it be easier for her to find out the truth about her mama’s death? Or would the wealth of informa
tion be a smoke screen, making it harder than ever to distinguish fact from fiction?
7. Imagine being a seventeen-year-old. That scary twilight-gray area of youth. Close to freedom, but still so far away. The constant undercurrent of Liar’s Bench is Muddy’s desire to shed the skin of her childhood and take on the shiny new coat of an adult. Has that process changed for young women since then? How? Is it easier or more difficult?
8. Grammy Essie explained “true love” to Muddy through scent. Our sense of smell plays a powerful part in our lives. How does the sense of smell affect your life, and how does it influence us, either romantically or in our culture? How does smell trigger emotional responses? Are there any particular scents that evoke childhood memories for you? What are they?
9. Title IX is a portion of the Education Amendments of 1972 that states (in part): “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance . . .” Today, it’s hard to imagine there was a time when girls couldn’t participate in school sports because of gender. Are there any current policies that we will look back on, fifty years from now, and find unfathomable? Is this how we define progress?
10. “Most all of us kids were still riding on the coattails of the peace and love movement, trying to find ourselves, to let loose the flower child hidden in our barn-wide bell-bottoms,” Mudas tells us. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of boys, including Bobby’s older brother, are fighting overseas in Vietnam, brought there by choice or by the Draft. How does a war overseas affect life back home?
11. Do you have any family recipes that you treasure? Will you pass them on to the next generation in the same way that Mama gives Muddy the cabbage casserole recipe card and Grammy Essie makes potato candy? How are food and family linked?
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2015 by Kim Michele Richardson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-1-6177-3733-6
eISBN-10: 1-61773-734-8
First Kensington Electronic Edition: May 2015
ISBN-13: 978-1-61773-733-6
ISBN-10: 1-61773-733-X
Liar's Bench Page 26