Moody Meow

This is the story I submitted to Seton Hill. I meant to post it weeks ago. Please remember that I totally turned this in at the last minute, that there are grammar and plot issues, and that the point of view shifts. It’s a work in progress, after all, and although I am disappointed in some aspects of this work, this is the first time that I’ve ever gotten excited about writing something. There’s chapters (stories) that linger in the background. It is meant to feel like an introduction. That’s a purposeful choice…. enjoy (oh…and Mala talks about being blind, but in one of the drafts she was staring into the afternoon sun and then I changed the time and forgot to pull that line out…. oopsie)

One more thing. Some of the spacing and indentations are funky. I could clean it up but I’m too lazy to go through and strip everything out and respace it. Work with my laziness… I implore you !

Liberty Street

Her voice startled me as I closed the car door. “Well now, this town ain’t seen an Elder in ova a decade!” I could hear the smile in her voice before I saw her, but it took me a minute to realize that the she was talking to me. Her voice carried down the dirt street like the call of a wild bird. “Bring youself down here, Miss, so I can get a look atcha.”

After rubbing the blindness out of my eyes, I made my way down Liberty Street towards a house I knew from my childhood legends. I felt out of place with my Target flip-flops and Old Navy jeans. When I left home, I didn’t know what to pack for a trip to a place I’d never been. My mother never brought me to Alabama. She only mentioned her childhood home in wistful exhalations of memory. Those moments were so fragile and infrequent that they evolved into hazy dreams of conversations and I never had the courage to ask her more.

Dozens of small, arts and crafts styled houses lined the dirt street. I could see the neighbors shuffling about in their living rooms, and hear them clomping up and down their stairs. The muffled calls of irritated mothers waffled through the screen doors and windows. Some of the porches wore colorful gardens and others rose from brown weedy patches. The houses all bore the same weathered look, some with large patches of flaking paint, others with crooked windowsills and drooping eaves. The lulling drawl of the southern accent warmed my heart.

As I approached the house, a shadow of a boy erupted from the shady spot on Mrs. Underwood’s porch. He leapt the banister and rustled through he bushes and disappeared some where behind the house.

“Now my Mama said odd folks done rattled down this town. Made it improper, she said. Good folks can’t come and go like they used to. Behin’ every corner you gonna see some scatabout or white ghost, just whisperin’ ya name. Just ain’t the kind a thing you want your family to be seenin’. No, not at all.” Mrs. Underwood rocked back on her dirty heels and a deep rumbling laugh erupted from her mouth. “You’ll see I’m right ‘bout this, you will. Jus’ wait, a couple or three days, and you’ll know what I’m sayin’ is truth.” Deep pockets of flesh split with her smile and threatened to envelope her kool-aid stained lips. A small, pale-blue handkerchief appeared from her left sleeve, and she patted the sweat on her brow. I thought she intended to say more. She smiled a little deeper, and sat on the lowest step of her porch. I didn’t know whether to stand or go, but she patted the dirty wood next to her. It creaked, just a bit, as she shifted to the right to make room for me.

“Thanks. I’m Mala Elders.” I tried to catch her eyes with my smile, but she didn’t see me any more. Not that she ever really did. Mrs. Underwood went blind when the lightening came, at least, that was what my Mother told me. When she did share something about Liberty Street, it was an image or it was about the people. Not their lives, but what made them unique. No one wrote a book about mythological archetypes of the south, but you will always find, according to my mother, an elder, a mad man, a scorned lover, a mysterious stranger, a listener, a bully and an architect. I think my mother could have been the lover or the listener, but she never really told me how she fit in the story.

Mrs. Underwood’s role in Liberty Street dug deeper than most. She was the seer, the wise-woman, the keeper of the stories. But, she was also mischievous and in love with the words that filled her. She was miserly and didn’t share the good stuff unless paid – either in favors or friendship. Mrs. Underwood, as large as a weathered tree stump, was a legend in this part of Alabama - south of the “gentry” in Montgomery, east of the madness of the Mississippi, north of the retirees and developers that grew like mold on the Gulf Coast. Older than the sad willows and the crusty oaks, she had always lived on the edge of town. Mom said she was close enough to town to remember their stories, but far enough away to stay out of their troubles..

“Now, child. You tell me why ya came here. This place is too far for folks like to to come wanderin’ in without somthin’ to find.” She slurped on her glass of purple kool-aid. “You tell me tha truth, and I’ll tell you tha story you been lookin for.”

“I’m not looking for anything, honestly. I’ve just come to pay my respects.”

“You ain’t foolin me, child. I can’t see a damn thing, but I see that lie in yer words, and I’ll be hanged before I letcha git away with that.”

I swallowed hard. She grasped my hand in hers. Dark charcoal skin laced with pale scars, her hand felt heavy, meaty and alive. I marveled at their hammy beauty of her fingers – dusty with ashen skin, the lacework scars looked like thin gloves, their strongest definition at her knuckles. Her nails rounded at the tips, they were yellow and thick, save at the base of the nail, which was almost lavender. She held my hand tight in hers. The soft embrace, almost motherly, stopped stiff.

“Didja see that?” Her eyes looked up, pale marbles rolling beneath black lashes.

“Did I see what?”

Her head swung left, and then right. She seemed to look for the sound. And then I saw it. Dr. Weatherbee, covered in a rainbow colored quilt, shuffled down Liberty Street. Bare feet kicked up red clay dust. I smiled. I looked for a sign of clothing beneath the heavy quilt. No shorts peeked at the hem, and his shoulders remained hidden. A perfect silver comb-over fluttered as he took one heavy step after another. His skin looked like washed linen, both wrinkled and taut. Mom told me very little about Dr. Weatherbee, except that he wasn’t a medical doctor and that he liked to make mead.

“That man’s gone half crazy since them odd folk came. Mumbles to his-self all day. Then that dog started followin’ him. Not tryin’ to bite him, mind ya. Just a’followin. Don’t know what that means jus yet, but I’mma mind to find out.” She paused, then grabbed my shoulders and turned me to face her. ‘I can see ya’ blood, Miss Mala. Know that yer connected to that crazy dog and them things that whistle in those woods. You tell me why you came here.” Her tone, hard as packed clay, stole the breath from me. I thought I could see her white eyes staring into my soul.

My grandmother lived next to Mrs. Underhill’s, but my family’s house fell victim to the lightening. Strange phenomenon, lightening. I always thought it didn’t strike twice in the same spot, but Liberty Street seemed plagued by it when the late afternoon storms rolled in. The Telling Oak, at the end of the street, bore black scars from the storms, the bark rippled and wounded. Mrs. Underhill’s house sat on the east side of the oak. My family’s house on the west. But nothing remained of the my grandparent’s little cottage save the crumbling bricks of an old fireplace and a few pieces of soft, warped wood.

“I heard my uncle died. My mother’s nursing home got the letter, and forwarded it to me. I have family I wasn’t really aware of, and being that Mom hasn’t talked bout this place since I was a kid… Well it just seemed like I needed to bring some things down for him, things my mother kept.”

“Pure tragedy, that is. Picken up yer roots, cuttin’ ties, and abandonin’ years of blood from this here town. Not sure why yer Momma did it. I always knew you’d come back. Seen it in a dream one time. Cept, you had brown eyes, not that strange yeller color.”

“How do you know what color my eyes are?”

“’Member girl, I can’t see a damn thing, but I knew yer blood.” Her smile was more of a statement than a gesture. Fat, shiny teeth beamed at me. A wheezy giggle, and then, “That Parker boy told me. That one that darted out o’ here quicker than a ghost - thought you were a ghost or somethin’. Now, ‘bout your kin. Your Momma never told you, but your “uncle” weren’t a blood relative. They raised themselves up as siblins, but she’s the Elder’s daughter and we never knew who is momma was. One day, like a stray, he done show’d up at her door, no more than five or six, and she and him took up to bein’ the best of friends. Her Momma fed and raised him, and they never ain’t asked no questions of him.” She paused for a moment and cast her blind eyes to her hands. “You know, when yer momma left here, she done kilt a piece of that boy. But, that’s not where this story should go, Miss Mala. You gots questions for me, and I gots that answers.” She guffawed again, and turned to face the street. Dr. Weatherbee sat on his porch, still wrapped in the quilt, but I couldn’t hear him mumbling any more. He tossed small pebbles at the dog, who sat in the shade of the porch’s banister.

“That man went all crazy when that dog came inta town He hadn’t spoken to us since.. Think he’s gone rightful mad. Too bad though. He’s a fine fiddle player.”

“Where did the dog come from?”

“Now that’s a story that required some food, girl. Come on inside and I’ll make ya a good Alabama dinner. You ‘llergic to anythin’ ?”

“Seafood.”

“Like shrimps and crawdaddies?”

I shrug. I’ve never eaten a crawdaddy and I’m not completely sure what it is. “I don’t think I can eat any of it.”

She huffs, pulls herself up from the dusty porch step and yanks against gravity for purchase on the highest step. “Imma mind ta make ya try it again - shrimps that is. Can’t be too careful. Mebbe you jus’ ain’t use to tha good stuff. But thas no matter. I gotta hole mess of pork that need a be eat. Where you puttin ta bed tonight?”

“I thought about heading back towards Enterprise. I think I saw a Motel 6 or something west of the city.”

“If ya can give up them little sissy contraptions, like air conditioners and sauna baths, then you are a welcome to stay with me and Paps tonight. We usually have company of some sort stayin’ with us. Could say we is the local hotel for a town that ain’t got one. ‘Course, we don’t charge nuthin. But I will ask ya’, Miss Mala, to help me get some roots to tha pot. Been ages since I could peel a good carrot or tater and not waste half the flesh with the pain in my own.”

I looked again at the lacy threads of scar tissue on her hands. “Where should I grab them from?”

She pointed to a little cabinet with three doors, which stood next to the coat tree and a stand full of muddy and dusty shoes. “That top one should have the roots, but grab a onion or two. I likes them with the roots. And Paps, tho he won’t be eatin’ wif us tonight, it’s good to make a little more just in case he’sa fit to get hungry.”

I nodded, opened up the top cabinet and found dozens of fat potatoes and two thick carrots. A crusty onion rustled in my palm as I added that to the cluster of vegetables in my arms.

“Now girl. I know how this here situation works. You come inna town, lookin for answers to questions you don’t even know how to ask. Me? I’m an old book - full of answers, questions, stories and history. There’s a meetin’ of tha minds thats gotta happen between me and you. But before all that thinkin’ and talkin’ we gotta have us some food. There’s ta be no more questions ‘till our bellies is full of this here meal. I’ve got good sweet tea in the ice chest and a good fire in the stove. We gots some work to do.”

I followed her into the house, but looked back down the street before I closed the door. My rental car looked miles away. Each house on liberty street glowed with little lights and I could hear the rhythmic creaking of rocking chairs over whirr of crickets and the screeching of happy frogs. The lightening bugs floated into the street from the dark woods that surrounded the houses. Cats scurried through the dirt, chased by small boys and their quiet giggles. I felt something mysterious and beautiful float into town. It reminded me of my mother, who had so many stories to tell me before something froze her mind. I imagined her swinging on a tire swing or making pies. And I wondered why she left such magic.

I thought, just before the door whushed closed behind me, that I saw a young boy, covered in leaves and mud, sidle up to the bottom step of the porch. But when I blinked my eyes and looked again, only a muddy handprint remained.

“Miss Mala! Where ‘those carrots?”

“Right here! I’m coming!”