Shaking the Sugar Tree Part 5

"For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly grateful. In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit."

We tucked into Mama's fried chicken, red beans and rice, fried okra, corn on the cob.

"How is Father Gray?" Mama asked.

"He went on and on about abortion today," I said.

"Rightly so," Mama said. "All those murdered babies. I've been meaning to get over there and see that display of crosses."

"If they think a clump of cells is just as important as a human being, they're full of hot stinking c.r.a.p," I said.

"Oh, here we go," Sh.e.l.ly said.

"We respect life in this house," Mama said crossly. "Life begins at the moment of conception. All All life is precious." life is precious."

She glanced at Noah, as if he were a case in point, as if the extra finger on his left hand and his deaf ears were exactly why life was "sacred."

"Mama, the Twinkie is older than the idea that life begins at conception," I pointed out.

"Shut your mouth, Wiley Cantrell!" Mama snapped.

"Don't start on abortion today," Sh.e.l.ly begged.

"Every time a woman has a period, it's a spontaneous abortion because the egg didn't take," I said, undeterred. "Are we going to start having a funeral for every used tampon?"

Bill snorted.

His boys laughed like they understood.

Papaw slapped the table.

"How can you talk that way in front of the children?" Mama asked.

"Just keeping it real," I said.

"Leave it, Mama," Bill said. "Don't get him going."

"I hate the way he talks in this house!" she exclaimed.

"A funeral ma.s.s for a tampon," Papaw said. "Put that in one of your books, Wiley, and you might sell a few copies."

"You see where he gets it from," Bill said, glancing at Papaw unhappily.

"You don't even go to ma.s.s anymore," Mama said, offering Bill a disapproving look.

"Can we talk about something else?" Sh.e.l.ly suggested.

"It's a sin to miss your Sunday obligation," Mama said.

"I'm a Baptist now, Mama," Bill said.

"Well, at least you go to church," she said.

"I go to church too," I said.

"Fat lot of good it does you," Mama said.

"I'm sorry, but I just don't believe in that nonsense."

"And look where that's got you," she said. "You and your lifestyle. lifestyle."

There was quiet.

"Mama, why don't you just sew up a Scarlet H and glue it on my forehead?" I asked. "H for the happy h.o.m.o. Can't we have one conversation that doesn't involve my p.e.n.i.s?"

Eli snorted a mouthful of mashed potatoes halfway across the table.

Sh.e.l.ly was aghast.

Bill smiled ruefully.

"Wiley Cantrell!" Mama exclaimed. "I ought to wash your mouth out with soap!"

"You started it," I replied.

"Don't talk that way in front of the children!"

"At least the h.o.m.o is honest," Papaw said.

"On behalf of the intrinsically disordered," I said, "let me say that this fried chicken is really quite good, Mama."

"You're impossible," Mama said.

"What's an intrinsic order?" Josh asked.

"You hush," Sh.e.l.ly said.

"I'm just asking!"

"Shut it," Bill said.

"I'm just asking! Jeez!"

"Now look what you've done!" Mama exclaimed in outraged tones.

"Can we go swimming after we eat?" Eli asked.

"You have to wait thirty minutes," Bill said. "And someone has to go with you."

"Will you go, Uncle Wiley?" Eli asked earnestly, knowing his father would not, and his mother didn't like being out in the sun. He turned to look at me. "Noah can swim with us," he added to sweeten the deal.

How big of you, I thought.

"We'll see," I said.

"Please?" he begged.

"I'm intrinsically disordered. I can't swim."

"Is that what it means?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "It means I'll drown if I try to go swimming. Then my body will explode and my brains will go splattering to the four winds."

He laughed, then stopped, unable to decide if this was true.

"Hush," Sh.e.l.ly said.

It wasn't clear to whom.

"How do you like the new pope, Mama?" I asked.

"I think he's wonderful," she said, her face taking on a glow. "He named himself after St. Francis."

"Yeah, but he's a Jesuit," I pointed out. "I thought you hated those liberal Jesuit b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

"He's the pope now," she said. "He used to take the bus to work."

"Never trust a man who wears a dress," Papaw offered.

"They say his poo-poo might actually smell," I said. "The curia is double-checking."

The boys laughed.

"Must you always provoke me?" Mama asked. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, but you're like a stone around my neck!"

"I'm just saying," I said.

I glanced over at Bill to see if he was picking up on the fact that Mama and I couldn't stand each other.

But of course he wasn't.

8) The swimming hole

THE BOYS BOYS changed into their swimming trunks and I walked with them through Mama's ma.s.sive backyard, heading for the swimming hole in the bend of the river. changed into their swimming trunks and I walked with them through Mama's ma.s.sive backyard, heading for the swimming hole in the bend of the river.

Funny how you can never be too intrinsically disordered when other people want you to babysit their kids.

"Noah's going to h.e.l.l," Eli announced.

He was twelve and knew everything.

"Who said that?" I asked.

"Mrs. Parson."

"Who's that?"

"She's our Bible study teacher. She says Catholics are going to h.e.l.l."

"h.e.l.l is other people," I said.

"Catholics wors.h.i.+p Mary," he said knowledgeably.

"Do they?"

"That's what Mrs. Parson says."

"Good for her," I said.

"Who's Mary?" Josh asked. He was ten and much brighter, I thought, than his brother. Or, at least, he was calmer and not so quick to offer bl.u.s.tery Baptist nonsense.

"She's the mother of G.o.d," I said.

"Jesus's mother," Eli said. "She got pregnant with the Holy Spirit. She's the Wh.o.r.e of Babylon, though."

I rolled my eyes.

At the swimming hole, the boys laid their towels on the gra.s.s and barged in. I stripped down to my underwear and waded after them.

The water wasn't that deep. The swimming hole had seemed huge when I was child and Bill and I went skinny-dipping here. Now it was no more than a small bend in the river with a nice sandbar to sit on.

"Which of you little s.h.i.+ts should I drown first?" I asked, advancing on them.

They laughed. I grabbed Eli, hefted his scrawny a.s.s into the air, and tossed him into the deeper water. Josh shrieked with glee and tried to flee, but he was next. Noah was not spared. We played serious dunk for a while, laughing and roughhousing, and it wasn't long before they learned they had to work together if they wanted to dunk me.

I looked back at the riverbank, saw that Sh.e.l.ly had wandered down from the house and was no doubt "supervising." Everyone knows that gay men can't wait to get their hands on helpless prep.u.b.escent boys.

While I was distracted, they piled on top of me and dunked me right and proper.

"You're worse than the kids," Sh.e.l.ly observed when I finally waded ash.o.r.e.

The way she glanced at Noah seemed to indicate that she had nothing but pity for him, stuck with such a half-a.s.sed father as he was, bereft of the multifarious benefits that stem from self-righteous, uptight heteros.e.xual parenting.