Southern Charm

Southern Charm 1

        While Bugs Bunny pirouettes – that stupid TV is always on – Randall stumbles toward the bathroom. I use the opportunity to grab up his empties and shove them into a brown paper bag. Later I’ll smuggle them out of the house, dump them into the trashcan at the park.

        Knocking, bumping noises from the bathroom. Randall starts singing “pee me a river” off-tune and at the top of his lungs.

        “It’s cry me a river,” I yell. “Cry,” I repeat, softly. I walk back into the den. Bugs has finished his bunny ballet, is planting a big kiss on Elmer Fudd’s forehead.

        Randall lurches out of the bathroom, palms the hallway wall for support, oblivious when he knocks our wedding portrait askew. I straighten it behind him, averting my eyes to avoid our young, hope-filled faces.

        “Get me another pack of cigarettes, will ya?” Randall eases himself into the recliner.

         I walk into the kitchen, count to ten, and then lie: “There aren’t any. We’re out.”

         “Shit,” he slurs.

        I count to ten again and then walk back to the den. My husband’s head is tipped back against his recliner. His mouth gapes and then quivers as a snore escapes. The room reeks of cigarettes and beer. I quickly walk over and turn the television off and there’s amoment of silence -- blessed silence – before he draws another gurgly breath.
I stare at the inert figure splayed on the vinyl recliner for a full minute before Ispeak. Although I have been practicing the words for weeks, I manage a casual tone: “Today’s my fortieth birthday.” I start pacing in front of his chair. “Forty – that’s one of the ‘milestone’ birthdays, not that I expected you to remember it.” Randall’s head drops sideways onto his shoulder. “So, in honor of this big birthday, I have decided to give myself a special gift.” I stop in front of my unresponsive husband. “I’m not doing this anymore, Randall. Not doing it.” My tears start.

        I run into our bedroom and pull out the suitcase that I have packed and then unpacked so many times before. But this time I’m following through. This time I’m leaving for real. Jeans, toothbrush. What will I need?Make-up? Tampons. I dump my side of the bathroom cabinet into a grocery bag, then dash through the kitchen, grabbing things and tossing them into another bag: apples,crackers, bottled water. Randall’s wallet is on the counter. I take all of his cash: $72. Happy Birthday to me. He owes me a lot more than that for putting up with his bullshit for so long. With the bills clutched in my hand I walk back down the hallway to the den. He hasn’t moved. I notice the television’s remote lying on the floor next to his chair and take it. On the way out the back door, I take the house key off my keychain and leave it next to Randall’s wallet. I cram my bags into the backseat of my car and then throw the aging Toyota into reverse, ignoring its whine when I accelerate too quickly down the driveway. As the house that I shared with Randall gets smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror, I roll down my window and hurl the remote, watching it shatter when it hits the asphalt – that’s all, folks! Then I point the car toward the only place I know to go.

                                                      2


        Lillington Springs is only an hour and twenty minutes from Raleigh, but I can counton two hands the number of times I have gone back there since Randall and I got married. I didn’t want Momma to know – didn’t want anybody in that small town to know – that I wasn’t living happily-ever-after in the “big city.” Momma never did approve of Randall – thought he wasn’t good enough for me, and she should know. She herself had picked out and married two men who weren’t good enough for her. One of those men, my father, left her – us – before I could walk. Other than his last name and a few old photographs inwhich the man with the sideburns has the same pale skin and strawberry blonde hair that I do, there was no trace of my biological father in my life. The main man in my life growing up was Uncle Ned. I called him Uncle, but he wasn’t related to us by blood, just by kindness. After my father abandoned us, the people of Lillington Springs looked at my mother – by then a twice-divorced, single mom – as though she were an unfortunate stain on the social fabric of their community. Only Ned Wilson didn’t care what people thought. He realized we were in trouble and offered my mother a job and a place to stay at his motel. Now that Momma is gone – it’ll be two years this fall -- Uncle Ned is the closest thing I’ve got to kin.

        As I drive to Ned’s, familiar strip malls soon give way to anonymous soybean and tobacco fields punctuated by fences and occasional stands of pine forest. When I arrive, I see that the “Wilson’s Motor Court” sign is still up, but it’s peeling and hard to read. Since the interstate was completed in the early Eighties, no one travels this way much any more. Rooms that once housed honeymooners on their way to the beach are now mostly used for storage. I know for a fact that there’s a disassembled 1973 orange VW Beetle in #5A, or there was last time I looked.

        I enter the circular gravel drive and pass the seven small cottages that my mother used to clean. The motel’s office, which is also Uncle Ned’s house, is the last building on that row, underneath the huge willow oak. The turquoise paint on his shutters is peeling just like it is on the cottages. By the time I reach his porch, Uncle Ned is standing outfront, all smiles. That ever-present Hardison’s Feed cap is perched on his head, and he is wearing his usual checkered short-sleeved shirt under faded denim overalls. Only the colors of the checks ever change. He’s still a big man, but like the rest of this place, he’s aged. Two hound dogs, Maddie and one I’ve never seen before, flank his sides, chins raised, baying their greetings and wagging their tails.I put my car into park and jump out into Uncle Ned’s bear hug. The dogs circle us, noisily sniffing my clothes.

        “Well, I’ll be --! Jen, honey, this is a nice surprise.”

        I announce: “I’ve left him, Uncle Ned. I’ve left Randall.” I try to smile and look certain, but the mix of care and concern on Ned’s face starts me to crying again. He keeps his arm around me and turns me toward the house.

        “Come on inside, honey. Let’s get you a cold drink and you tell me all about it.”




                                                                             3

        For the second time in my life, Ned gives me a place to stay. The old trailer whereMom and I used to live, back behind the cottages, is long gone – a victim of lightning strike or bored teenaged boys with matches, depending on who you ask. Ned offers me the one cabin not yet filled with junk, #2B. When I was ten, 2B was where that dark haired man with New Jersey tags was staying when the state troopers surrounded the place and yelledthrough a megaphone, “Come out with your hands up,” just like in the movies. Mom and Ned and I watched it all unfold from Ned’s kitchen window. Fortunately the guy went quietly. We never did find out why they wanted him but later there were all sorts of rumors in town about the Mafia and running drugs to Florida. Mom found a crumpled wire transfer receipt for $2,000 under the bed when she cleaned his room and took it to the Sheriff. Pretty exciting stuff for Lillington Springs. Now 2B just feels small and smells musty, with a hint of ancient tobacco smoke.

        I never thought I’d end up back here.

        I put the toothpaste tube into the medicine cabinet and shut its mirrored door; my reflection swings into view. The bathroom’s lone light bulb over my head casts deep shadows under my eyes and nose as I stand there with toothbrush poised. “Nice look.” I nod at my reflection. Behind me I can see the entire room as I brush my teeth: the paneled walls, the painting of a ship over the double bed, the hot plate and the microfridge, a small television, my bags of belongings strewn across the floor. The window unit chugs against the humidity. It’s 9:30. I left my house only seven hours ago – but it feels as though I have been gone a week. I wonder if Randall is sleeping off his drunk or refueling. Wonder if he even realizes I’ve gone. I hang up my toothbrush and take off my wedding band, roll it around in my palm. Randall’s insurance business had been struggling when we got married and money had been tight. I had bought this band myself from a pawn shop days before our justice of the peace wedding. My mother had given me a lot of grief about that. To her,a “used” ring guaranteed a rocky marriage. If she were still alive, I know she would take great pleasure in giving me her raised eyebrow “I told you so” look. I put the ring in the soap dish.