"Letters to my brother...in jail"

A relatively short, unembellished story about my mother--
(an excerpt from my East Texas Chronicles - 2008)

So I put on the coffee this morning and call my Mom up. It is 8:57 a.m. She answers the phone in a very uncharacteristically groggy voice. Has she overslept? My mother?

“I just sat down, Honey, on the couch to watch “Matt Lowery” and I fell back asleep.”

Really? I’m thinking.

We start our conversation with a rundown of the annual Wildflower Trails Festival event held this past weekend in our town, starting with who won the coveted window prize for best-decorated Main Street business . She did! 1st place!

Mom filled me in on who found the Chamber of Commerce-sponsored Hidden Treasure Egg. I was also brought up to speed with all of the ex-residents that came back to town for a visit, and the locals that came “in to town” for a visit. Also got an update on The Big Wildflower Street Dance, held that past Saturday night.

It is peculiar that Mom knows so much about the coming’s and going’s of the festival this year. I later learned that my mom had spent the entire Saturday working in her beauty shop -- cutting and curling hair, manicuring nails, retailing her treasures -- which is sad. Mom dearly loves the festival.

“Mom, why didn’t you put up the “closed” sign and walk to the park, get a corn dog and listen to the entertainment? (This is when all of the church choir bands within a 50-mile radius really get to show off.) This is also an opportunity to observe how all of the vaguely familiar little generations from our core families here in Hughes Springs have grown up and reproduced their own. It’s like watching a really sophisticated version of an ant farm: Our town during The Wildflower.

“Well, I was thinking about it, but then Ms. Inie popped by the beauty shop for a visit. You would never she was 98, except she’s in that wheelchair now. They had to take her leg off. She just can’t drive herself anymore. Granddaughter dropped her off. We ended up visiting a few hours. I just decided to give her a permanent wave and wax her eyebrows!”

Mom makes this pronouncement with the tone of a woman who has just decided to stay a bit longer at a grand party.

Does a 90-yr-old even have eyebrows? I’m wondering.

“It’s been at least six years since her last perm; she really needed it. It made her feel special.”

Shortly thereafter Ms. Inie’s ride shows back up. A young woman with a herd of clattering young’uns, all under the age of six, walks in.

“Darlene!”

“Oh, hey darlin’!”

“Missy’s getting married t‘morrow. I’m one of her bridesmaids.”

“How wonderful!”

“Got time to do me a set of nails?”

“Happy to do your nails! You’ll be the most beautiful bridesmaid there.”

This leaves me wondering what the clattering herd of young’uns was doing during a very hands-on, uninterruptible service.

An hour or so later Mom is hurrying to get the “closed” sign up. She is hoping that she will be able to catch that fabulous Mt. Zion bunch before they pack away their tambourines. Suddenly, a whole new group appears at the front door of You-Niquely Yours Beauty Shop.

“You Darlene!?”

“Why yeh-us! How can I help you ladies?!!”

“The vendors down at the park aren’t selling anything but junk. We ran into some ladies under the gazebo that said we needed to go down to see Darlene. So happy you’re open!”

The ladies proceed to browse, the bands downtown are packing up. A grand total of $180 was spent, not a bad sale for a rural salon boutique, but that didn’t include the free candles Mom put all of their sacks -- a “thanks for stopping by!” gift.

“Mom, you’re tired?” My heart was broken that she had missed her beloved Wildflower Trails.

“Well, not really. I need to run down to the credit union, but first I’ve got to run to see these little boys -- I mean, these young men. They are on hard times.”

“What young men?”

“Well, they lost their jobs down at the Long Branch Saloon and need a little help.”

Digressing just a bit, the Long Branch Saloon was a risky restaurant/alcohol serving venture that an enterprising young man decided to open in the middle of town about two years ago. Personally, I think it was the “Saloon” part in the title that was the probable kiss of death for them.

Our town is a dry town, where if people drink they feel kinda’ bad about it. They may slip a $20 to someone who is a “known drinker” in order to acquire a bottle of wine or six-pack for the weekend or some special event. The liquor store is located “down by the lake.” It is about eight miles out of town and in a “dangerous” part of the county. Or at least that’s what I was told growing up.

Sadly, and not surprisingly, the Long Branch Saloon closed this year, right after Wildflower Trails Festival. Too bad. I really loved that name.

“Mom, who are you talking about?”

It all comes rushing out in a disjointed kind of way: “Well, there are these two young brothers. They’re half. Or step. I think. I don’t remember.”

“It’s okay, Mom.”

“One’s been here a while and the other brother has been up in Alaska, living with his stepfather. The one that wound up in Alaska got a job at a really nice restaurant in Colorado but he couldn’t make it because of the cost of living there. You know, you’ve been skiing there.

“Yes, mom.” This I definitely understood.

“So this young man takes on this certain job -- just because it’s steady and pays dependable.” Then Mom pauses, because I can see that she is trying to show this young man some dignity, but then continues… “Well, it was with the carnival for several years. You know, just because he could depend on it and they were good to him. Like family.”

Mom is wily. I was starting to have feelings for this young man.

“He was road-weary and just sick of the carnival life. He was just ready to put that all behind him, when his carnival came through town a few years ago.”

“Let me guess – during the Wildflower Trails Festival?”

“You can‘t blame him for it. Nice little town.”

Okay, mom had won me over, but enough of that.

Mom continues: “I gave him your brother’s bed and box springs.”

“What!?” Mom has now turned to practical matters.

“You know, it was just sitting up there in storage, bound to rot. It’s not going to be any good to your brother when he gets out of jail, so I thought that I may as well give it to someone who can make good use of it. I’ll just buy your brother another bed set when he gets out.”

I sigh. “When does he get out, Mom?”

“May of 2009.” She starts crying. This is her reaction to “feeling judged.”

She continues in a strong voice, “So anyway, I’m fixing to run up to the grocery store --”

(Mother “runs up and down” everywhere.)

“-- to pick these boys up some groceries. You know, just to get them through the week.”

WAIT A MINUTE! My focus has now turned to Mom’s very hard-earned cash. Mom is very intuitive. She knows that I’m about to start asking probing questions. Instead of submitting herself to probing questions, Mom puts on her defensive hat and out comes her gritty, cold-hard-facts voice…

“He’s only got $300 in his pocket, Kim…his rent is due right now…. and it is $300!”

How my mom knows this information is beyond me. Mom just knows critical things about needy people. .

She senses that I’m still very worried, so she says the only thing left to say --

“Your dad just loves these boys too.”

OH Bull!! is what I almost blurt out, but I have put those days behind me now. I’m a big-city professional lady.

“Mom, I just covered a news story a few months ago… about this woman, about your age, who meets up with this nice young man at her church -- whom everybody loved. This nice young man was down on his luck, so this woman opens up her home and her heart to him. Everyone seems to think that the nice young man is getting on the right track -- until the woman turns up murdered. Her car and a few inexpensive items go missing from her home. Mom, please.”

Mom’s new reaction to act all wounded and hurt -- even more wounded and hurt than if I had just gone ahead and called it all “bull.”

Mom opens the wound further by telling me more bizarre facts pertaining to these young men. I set my mouth to autopilot mode “sure “, “okay”, “I understand” and let my mind take me back through the years…

When I was in elementary school, we lived on a very dangerous stretch of I-59, just outside of Texarkana. The karma angels made sure that at least three really good fatality wrecks occurred right there on that piece of highway in front my mother’s home.

I remember, on many occasions, hearing these huge crashes in the middle of the night. Shortly thereafter, I hear my mother’s bare feet slapping the linoleum in the hallway towards the front windows and hearing her exclaim “Oh, my heavenly father!!

Within 30 seconds, Mom would be in a robe, shiny Avon elf slippers, flashlight in hand. Brother and I knew this routine. We instantly were up and out of bed, jumping around like spider monkeys, eager to chase her into the deadly highway, just so that we could stare at the wreckage and aftermath.

“You two had better not step foot outside this house unless you’re going out to get Momma a peach limb!” She meant it, we believed it. And there goes our Mom, running out into the highway to do whatever she could to help.

We always knew when the victims had perished. Mom would mourn, look sickly and not eat well for weeks afterward, as if it had been her own brother or sister out there on the highway.

Perhaps the most memorable event back in those days was the arrival of the young hippie couple at our front door. To me, they looked exactly like Sony and Cher -- making them Instantly Important to me. Except that they were strangers. Hippie strangers, no less. And there had been a recent alleged-hippie murder of a couple in their homes in Dixie Inn, Louisiana recently… just up the road from us.

Charles Manson-ites be damned, I would have followed these two anywhere. I was born in 1969. I’m about seven years old at this time. These two show up at our front door, and I start thanking Jesus.

They are wearing matching tan shirts with a chocolate-colored Jesus on the front. They look a bit analogous, as they both have long, young, hairless faces -- a perfect complement to their long, honey-colored hippy hair.

“Ma’am, we’re really sorry to bother you, but we’re traveling to (?) and were wondering if you could spare us maybe a baloney sandwich and some Kool-aid, or water -- you know, just whatever you’ve got spare.

That question was the prelude to two of the coolest weeks in my young life. The two young hippies moved into our home for a couple of weeks. They were truly very sweet young people. (seven-year-old comprehension )

They helped out with yard work, helped in the garden. They played really awesome guitar and even went to church with us one Sunday! My mother considered these two young people her Sweet Christian Victory -- which embarrassed me really, really bad. I didn’t exactly want my cool new friends to know that we attended church.

Back in those days of horrifying Southern Baptist ritual, the pastor would always make the poor visitors “stand up and be recognized!!” in front of the whole congregation. You know, just so we could all get a good look at them and judge harshly. So after the pastor does this, I cringe and start slinking down into the pew, hoping my new best friends would just play it cool.

Oh, no! They pop up together, holding hands, in their tan-and-chocolate Jesus t-shirts, and start talking about what a blessing our family had been to them, how much they loved us and were starving to death physically and spiritually before my mother took them in -- all of this, of course, caused my mother to start crying openly in church.

And I just wanted to slap them all. (I was the older sibling, therefore gifted in the dark art of slapping) So mortified was I that I started to cry. This is odd… I’ve never been a crying sort of gal, even as a child. We were all crying. Praise God! Then some more people in the congregation started in with the crying.

What was wrong with my stupid mother! My gosh-dangit-crap mother! (7-yr-old Southern Baptist expletive) She was the most embarrassing mother in the world!

(flashing back to the story at hand)

… “Don’t worry about me, sweetheart! I’m not even going to get out of the car, just hand the boys their groceries though the car window. Please don’t worry about Momma. They need our prayer and support.”

To sum things up… I always acquiesce to whatever it is my mother is doing.

And then I had a peculiar new enlightenment: I am the product of my mother’s compassion! Years ago my mother took in another of those strange, needy people. My father. My wonderful, strange father.

“Oh, don’t tell your dad yet, but after I run back from the credit union, I’m going to run up to Jolene’s farm and pick up four new baby peacocks. They’ve just run out of room and the poor little things need a good home!”