The boy began to poke at his mother, who was intensely reading the labels on frozen diet meals. His mother was my kind of cook.
I figured that I must have seen them around the beachside community and that’s why her son seemed familiar. Yet I still couldn’t shake my feeling of dread as I looked at the boy. Harry Potter, he looked like Harry Potter. With shock, I remembered. That’s the kid from the middle school!
I ducked around the frozen food aisle. It was too late.
Here came his mother. “Mrs. Newberry, please forgive the interruption, but my son has talked so much about you and your visit to his school. You know, his school in Atlanta. Henry tells me you are down here writing your new novel.”
“Yes, and I really must be getting back to work,” I said sheepishly. Another lie. I had hit an all time low. Not only was I lying to schoolchildren, but I was also lying to their mothers.
“My son is not the only member of our family who is a fan of your work. I’ve read several of your books, Mrs. Newberry, the ones geared more for adults.”
“That’s lovely to know. Thank you.”
“Why yes, in fact, my book club has reviewed your novels. We girls always identify with you, and I, for one, love the way you make us find humor in the most human of things, particularly concerning our families.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Yes, indeed. Doesn’t everyone have an eccentric aunt? You make us feel, well almost normal!”
“I wish I felt normal.”
“We don’t mean to keep you, but there is just one more thing. Henry, here, is something of a writer himself. Perhaps you would enjoy reading some of his work?” Before I could utter a single word, she went on, “In fact, Henry, go out to the van right this minute and gather up your theme papers. I’ll chat with Mrs. Newberry while we wait.”
Henry wouldn’t budge.
Good boy.
“Henry? Go on, dear,” warbled the mother, as she attempted to push her son from behind. “Oh dear, you know how children can be. Henry is a bit shy, you understand.” Ever hopeful, the woman raised her chin, and, pointing her eyes toward the parking lot, she urged him with her head.
He didn’t yield.
Thank goodness.
I jumped in. “Yes, of course, I understand. I have two grown children. It really might be a good idea to let Henry share his work is his own good time.”
“Perhaps you’re right.” By then, she was frowning at the boy.
I wanted to embrace the young man with gratitude, but decided it was best not to give away my relief at being let off the hook. Reading theme papers was not my favorite form of recreation.
“Mrs. Newberry, my son and I do wish you the best of luck on your next book. We’ll both look forward to reading it.
The boy piped up. “Are you coming to my school, again?”
“If I’m invited,” I chirped. He likely wants another free period; anything but algebra.
I felt like the biggest fraud. I thanked the endearing mother but couldn’t look her straight in the eyes. Henry extended his hand. His long, dark eyelashes swept the back of his glasses.
What a nice kid he is, I concluded. I, on the other hand, was an absolute jerk.
His mother sighed. “Thank you for your offer to read Henry’s work. Maybe he’ll be more enthused when next we meet.”
“I’m sure he will be.”
As I hurriedly gathered groceries and pushed my cart to the check-out line, I felt lower than dirt. First a liar, now a hypocrite. I reviewed our conversation in my mind. Should I have explained to the mother and son that I simply have very little to say just now? Nothing is worse than writing simply because you think you should. Yes, that’s what I should have said. I could have sounded lofty and profound.
Why is it that one always thinks of a perfect response five minutes after the opportunity passes?
I loaded my supplies in my car and drove from the parking lot.
The truth was, it was well past time for me to get back to writing, if for no other reason than to please Henry and his mother. A sudden clap of thunder rallied my attention. Drat, it was looking as if I would be stuck inside the condo for a while. Or was God Himself now speaking to me? Was He sentencing Honey Newberry to a writer’s prison? Perhaps He was. For whatever reason — the Lord, Henry and his mother, Beau’s absence, Beatrice, or my sister’s prodding, I decided to pay heed.
Creola, I hope you’re pleased, too.
I opened the closet door. Somewhere between the extra towels and my just-in-case winter sweater, I reluctantly dug for my laptop. Found! I plugged it in. The blue screen came into focus. Admittedly, there was something exhilarating about my computer’s booting up.
I opened my files. “Short Stories.doc” jumped out at me. Here were some stories I’d never quite finished. They might end up in the landfill, too, but I might as well give them a chance.
Go on, Moonbeam, work on that story.
All right, Crellie, all right.
I began to type.
Roofers from Hell
by Honey Newberry
We needed to put a new roof on the house. Immediately. I could tell that from my vantage point in the middle of our bed. Beau was in Chicago on a business trip. It was close to midnight and I was holding an umbrella in one hand and the telephone book in the other. Rain soaked our comforter. I balanced the umbrella’s handle with my chin and shoulder as I fumbled to put on my glasses. Roofing contractors. I dialed.
The roofers arrived two days later. The crew was made up of one of the most outrageous bands of people I had ever encountered. They didn’t just arrive, no; they rolled in like a gargantuan human tumbleweed. Their pickup truck looked as if it may have turned over a few times on the way to our house.
Don’t be judgmental, Moonbeam.
They headed my way.
One tattooed, bearded beast with a well-cultivated beer belly burped with every step he took. Another was stick-skinny. His fingers were magnetically drawn — almost in a rhythm — from his nose to his groin and back to his nose. I wondered how he’d manage to free his hands long enough to nail the shingles.
A third was neither man nor woman. Its face was pointed toward mine. Was it ogling me? I couldn’t decide. One eye faced east, the other west.
More judgmental stuff. Just quit.
Then I saw the most curious person in the group. He was a small ragamuffin of a boy with a mop of carrot-red hair. He leapt out from the cab of the truck. He picked his nose with the enthusiasm of the thin man. Ah hah, I figured, those two were related. I worried that the boy would ultimately turn into one of these frightful men. Inevitable. Sad.
I watched through the kitchen window as the crew prepared to start the job. Shingles, black gunk, hammers, and boxes of nails were unloaded. Experience told me that this project was going to make a major mess.
I couldn’t get my mind off the little boy. It was quite early on Saturday morning. Our children were sleeping comfortably in their beds. There was this little guy being dragged along with those horrible men. He was destined to sit in the increasingly hotter sun — all day long. Oh, my heart.
I awakened our children. “Come on guys. We’re going out for breakfast!”
“Oh boy!”
“Mom, what’s all that racket?” asked Mary Catherine.
“Just the roofers. This is going to be a noisy day.” I started to explain that this meant it wouldn’t be raining in Mom and Dad’s room anymore, but that wasn’t much of an issue for grade-schoolers. However, I did say, “I’m going to invite someone to come along with us.”
“A roofer man! Great! Can I climb up on top of the house and watch him work when we get back?” pleaded Butlar.
“No! No climbing on the roof! And, it’s not an adult who may go with us. It’s a little boy. He must be eight or so. He’s with the roofers. I think the little guy deserves a treat.” I tried to encourage the children to reach out in kindness to other people.
Butlar looked concern
ed. He had a soft heart. He was, after all, his father’s son.
“Does this kid stink?” Mary Catherine asked. She was more like her Aunt Mary Pearle.
Going outside, I looked for the person who was in charge to see if it would be all right to invite the boy. The boss man shouted loudly up to the rooftop. The nasty nose-picker replied. He was the child’s adult cousin. He immediately gave his enthusiastic, “I reckon.”
Our children charged out of the kitchen door, ready to go.
“Where’s the kid, Mom?” asked Butlar.
The boy was relieving himself on an outdoor bench. As he zipped his fly, he challenged, “Over here, but what’s it to you, asswipe?”
The two boys bristled. Mary Catherine looked at me and rolled her eyes.
Somehow — it’s a blur — I got everyone loaded into the station wagon and headed out to the children’s favorite playground-restaurant. I repeated to myself, “This will be fine, it’s a kind thing to do. This will be fine; it’s a kind thing to do. This will be fine, it’s a kind thing to do.” All the while, I kept my eyes fixed on the rearview mirror and focused firmly on our guest. Like a mother lion, I knew instinctively, to fear for my own.
My second mistake was in going to an establishment with a playground. We ordered our breakfast and sat down at a picnic table to eat. The meal lasted maybe four minutes. On an up note, the boy’s table manners made the Newberry offspring appear almost Victorian in demeanor.
I gathered the trash and mopped up the spilled orange juice.
“You’re messy,” Butlar told our guest.
“Eat my dust, butthead,” replied the urchin.
“Don’t even think about it,” I warned Butlar, who looked at the boy with lethal intent. ”Go play.”
The two boys leapt over tables and chairs en route to the play area. “Last one there’s a fart face,” said a young male voice sounding oddly like my darling son.
Another mother glared at me. I blanched. “Sorry, we’re just real excited.”
Mary Catherine rolled her eyes and followed the boys at a discreet distance. Sitting back down, I sipped my coffee. Okay, I can see them. Besides, what can happen? It’s a fenced-in area with safe equipment and several of us adults are watching.
For the moment, the boys seemed to be playing together in a civilized manner. Mary Catherine was swinging quietly. The coffee was pretty good for fast food.
Not twenty seconds passed. “Maamaa,” shouted an unfamiliar voice.
I, along with all the other grownups, made a mad dash toward the sounds of distress. I found Butlar pulling our guest off of a pleading child.
“Good for you, Butlar,” I said with sincere gratitude and pride. I took the arm of the roofer’s child and commanded him to apologize to his hysterical victim.
“Hell no, ma’am,” he snarled.
In a voice that came from the deep dark depths of my anger, I gritted my teeth and strengthened my hold on his arm. “Oh, yes, little boy, yes, you will.”
His red hair on end, he steadied his feet. “I ain’t gonna.”
“You are, too, gonna.” I held him in a death grip in front of the sniffling child.
“Ain’t.”
Mary Catherine tugged on my sweatshirt. “Mom, our kid spit on that little boy.”
“Any clue why?”
“Our kid said ‘the jerk is talking weird.’”
“Weird?”
“I think he could be talking French or something.”
Our guest snorted. “Yeah, it was foreign talk, all right!” The boy tried to break free of my grasp. “Let me at him! He’s a weirdo!”
I pointed to our car. Emphasizing each word and all but spitting out my teeth, I commanded, “Go! All three of you, get in the car! And do it now!”
They obeyed.
I couldn’t drive home fast enough. Not a single word was spoken. Once there, my two children scattered to far reaches of our neighborhood, where they remained for the duration of the day’s roofing job. I watched as the small sociopath bragged about “taking care of the foreign dude” to his grown cousin, the skinny man, who puffed up proudly.
There must have been something harmful in the family’s water supply.
Later that night, Mary Catherine slyly asked if any more roofer kids were coming to play the next day.
“No, absolutely not!” Then I prayed I was right.
Sure enough, the roofers returned the next morning, short one boy. He must have had an appointment with his parole officer.
Two days — that’s two long days later — the job was completed. The crew took cash, cash only, and left in a hurry. Most of them were sprawled in the bed of the truck. All of them whooped and hollered as they screeched off down the driveway headed for where, only the Lord knows. Empty beer cans tumbled from the back of the truck. Three houses later, we could hear new cans popping open as the pack roared out of our subdivision.
Delighted to be done with the Roofers from Deliverance, I vowed to avoid doing any further business with that particular company. I always keep records in my special office drawer about any workmen or companies we have used. Lest I could possibly forget those people, on my list of references, next to their name, in bright red magic marker, I drew a skull and crossbones.
To my horror, there is a P.S. to the story. It came last month, when our roof had to be completely replaced, not just the shingles, but the whole blasted roof, right down to the house’s original studs.
In other words, this was going to be a big mess, which would cost lots of money. I didn’t know the technical names for all that had to be done, but it was crystal clear that a $1,300 gutter job — which was to be completed in one day’s work — quickly morphed into a $13,000 gutter-and-roof job with a still-escalating estimate. Along with that, the one-day plan was scratched with a completion date yet to be determined. We were looking at a month-or-longer project.
I inquired as to what might have caused the expensive problem. The roof man explained, “Well, Mrs. Newberry, I hate to tell you this, but whoever put on that last roof did a really bad job. You folks have probably had some leaking ever since.” With that, he walked the entire perimeter of our home poking a long stick at any given overhang I pointed out. Black rot belched to the ground, forming little piles of proof for his diagnosis.
I immediately began to plan a trip to the beach. Beau would be most adept at handling this construction job.
At least he wouldn’t have to deal with junior roofers from hell.
Everyone in the Cemetery Isn’t Dead
by Honey Newberry
Not always, but on occasion, the crazy things that happen to us at home pursue us beyond the city limits. Most dramatically, this phenomenon occurred during a trip to Memphis where we planned, that’s planned, to attend a family wedding.
Pleased that Beau and I had kept well to our schedule, we decided there was ample time for us to visit my family’s gravesite in Memphis’s historic Calvary Cemetery. Going to a cemetery may not be a festive idea for some people, granted, but for me it was something I felt compelled to do. My husband humored me.
It was 3:30 on Saturday afternoon. In just three-and-one-half hours, we would be sitting happily with my parents in St. Ann’s Catholic Church, enjoying our cousin Kathleen’s wedding to Jonathan. We’d looked forward to the event for months.
We had flown in to town the day before. Just barely. I’d managed to leave our tickets at the baggage check-in desk. The desk was located on the sidewalk outside Hartsfield International Airport, some thirty minutes of walking and train-riding away from where we stood, trembling and, as it were, short two tickets.
Our flight was preparing to board as the authority figure, the airline’s crack representative, steadfastly refused to let us check in simply because we were without the tickets. It needs to be said that the woman had confirmed the fact that the tickets had been recovered and were in the hands of the airline’s staff. We were told that a “runner” was en route. I prayed he was a
man with Olympian speed.
“Rules are rules, ma’am,” she kept repeating over and over again. We’d heard her the first time. And, this was well before September 11, 2001, and the strict regulations that followed. The woman’s smug smile became more resolute with every minute that ticked by.
“Those tickets will probably not get here,” she sneered in Beau’s face.
“Please, just let us board.”
“Take a seat in the waiting area, sir,” she ordered as she gripped the microphone. She announced, “Attention please, ladies and gentlemen. We will begin boarding in one minute.”
“Look, ma’am, you know we have tickets!”
“Siiirrrr, do make some attempt to calm yourself.”
Nose to nose, Beau glared at the woman but masterfully managed to restrain himself from cramming the microphone down her throat.
My blood pressure was skyrocketing because I knew full well that my family, specifically my parents, was eagerly waiting for us to arrive. Just when it was apparent that we would be flying on the only other flight, some six hours later, a young man raced up, huffing and puffing. He couldn’t speak, but handed us our tickets.
We took our seats mere seconds before the plane took off. In flight, I gave my peanuts to Beau. I couldn’t swallow. He couldn’t either, but crunching those nuts soothed his disposition. He washed them down with a good, cold beer which also served to temper his state of mind.
To clarify things just a bit, we did have a pleasant Friday, post flight. We’d enjoyed visiting with family, had a wonderful time at the rehearsal dinner party, and the weather was perfection. It was the kind of weather the city fathers pray for when they set a date for the official celebrations of the autumn season. The temperature was warm, with a cooling breeze. The leaves, which barely clung to their home trees, presented a Crayola box full of brilliant hues. The air was crisp and fresh. A sapphire sky was dotted randomly with puffs of cotton white. In fact, at the rehearsal dinner the night before, several people remarked that Kathleen’s late grandmother, Ann, had surely ordered the picture-perfect weekend for her beloved granddaughter’s special day.
Creola's Moonbeam Page 6