Crapalachia: A Biography of Place (7 page)

On Sunday I sat and smelled the chicken and gravy, bubbling up all brown and beautiful. I stood and dusted all the JFK commemorative pop bottles—and spoons from the 50 states—and a bird clock chirp-chirping the time. It was a bird clock that chirped a cardinal at two o’clock and then an Eastern Woodlands Oriole at four o’clock. So if you were outside and heard a robin chirp you were fucked up the whole day thinking it was three o’clock.

 

Then I dusted the plastic frogs going
ribbet ribbet
every time I walked by.

I dusted the pictures of Jesus and footprints in the sand.

I dusted a bowl of bread glazed stiff for decoration and a shotgun sitting up behind the door.

I walked around the recliner and the radio playing radio preachers and gospel tapes.

So Ruby stood at the stove and I asked: “Grandma, where’d you get these flowers?”

My grandma said: “Oh Larry sent ’em to me. He sent me some to give to Mae too but I liked her flowers better so I just kept them both.”

She was always doing stuff like this.

One day we went over to Aunt Shirley’s and Shirley had just put this new mirror on the wall. Grandma said it was pretty. Ruby walked over and took it off the wall because she wanted it for herself.

Shirley said: “Ruby, you can’t take that with you. That’s mine.”

Ruby said: “Oh but you have so much stuff.” Then she put it under her arm and we left. Aunt Shirley just stood there.

I looked at Ruby now and I saw all of the things she knew. She knew how to do all kinds of things no one else knew how to do.

She knew how to render lard and make soap.

She knew how to make biscuits from scratch and slaughter a hawg if she had to. And she knew how to do things that are all forgotten now—things that people from Ohio buy because it says homemade on the tag. I looked at the quilt she was working on. The quilt wasn’t a fucking symbol of anything. It was something she made to keep her children warm. Remember that. Fuck symbols.

 

Then she said: “Okay, I think it’s ready.”

 

…We all sat down and started eating the chicken and gravy and I did it like this. I took a giant spoon and started scooping out all kinds of gravy all over my plate and plopped out a spoonful of mashed potatoes. Then I grabbed myself a chicken leg and got to it. I sat and first started eating all the gravy with a spoon. Then I looked out across the table, and there were cucumbers in vinegar, and homemade biscuits, mayonnaise salad, green beans, pickles, fried chicken, chocolate cake, angel food cake, chicken, brown beans, peas in butter, chicken, more biscuits, and gravy, gravy, gravy. Then Grandma started telling us about how my father was born on the kitchen table and how the doctor was drunk.

 

Ruby told us about how the doctor was really a dentist but would deliver babies. She told us how she gave birth to him on the kitchen table. After he was born he was so pretty and shining and new. She just held him in her arms—the prettiest baby you’ve ever saw, the prettiest baby she had. He was so pretty that the doctor offered to give her twenty dollars for him or trade him for another baby he had out in his truck. But she didn’t trade him. She just held him close to her heart and listened to him whimper. We listened to the story and ate our chicken and gravy. Then I skimmed the bowl and got out a couple of more bites and it was all gone.

 

So after dinner was over I watched Grandma gather up all the dishes and put them in the sink.

Then Grandma said: “Well, Todd, you sure didn’t eat much. You’re just a skinny thing—look sickly.”

But I didn’t say anything about Todd not being my name. She wouldn’t listen anyway because she was on to something else now.

I started washing the dishes and then she started going on about how I didn’t need to throw away the styrofoam plates because she could use them again.

I said: “Well you can’t wash styrofoam plates and use them again. It’s not healthy. You can’t get them clean.”

But Ruby just told me to wash them and said: “Well that’s all right. That’s the reason I got something.”

After dinner I took a nap and I dreamed a dream about the future and in this future I was dreaming a dream about the past. But in my dreams I’m always back at Ruby’s house, and back at Ruby’s table. It’s always Sunday again and we’re all just sitting around the table like we always did. Nathan’s on one side and I’m on the other and my grandma’s on the left. And just like always she’s fixed chicken and gravy and we’re all so hungry and passing the plates—the biscuits, the mayonnaise salad, the cucumbers in vinegar, and I think to myself, even now, that this will be what the final moments of oxygen escaping from my brain will be like. It’ll be like a Sunday so long ago with all of the dead stuffing themselves full of food cooked with lard, and gravy that will once again clog their arteries and kill their hearts. It will be the feast of death and it will taste so delicious.

 

Then I dreamed that she was gone and yet, even now there’s still something about me that believes I can bring her back from the dead. There’s something in me that wants them to rise from the grave and go back there. There’s something about me that wishes I could see them again.

But wait! There’s still something that makes sense.

There’s still the recipe for chicken and gravy. There may still be something of Ruby inside of it. So here’s the recipe…

 

Ingredients

1 (3 pound) frying chicken, cut up

2 cups of buttermilk

1 teaspoon of garlic powder

1 teaspoon of onion powder

1 teaspoon poultry seasoning

Vegetable oil for deep frying

Butter

Flour

Directions

Wash chicken and pat dry. In a large bowl, stir together buttermilk, garlic powder, onion powder, flour and butter. Place chicken in buttermilk mixture and refrigerate.

In a large cast iron frying pan, heat oil to 325 degrees F. Drain chicken in a colander to remove excess buttermilk. Place flour and butter in a large paper bag. Add chicken. Close top and gently shake bag to coat chicken with batter mix. Remove chicken and fry, turning pieces over after 3 minutes. Continue to fry, turning until brown on all sides.

 

 

And if you’re reading this—you can go into your kitchen and try making it right now. And even if you don’t know how to cook, wherever you are, and far away into the future, maybe you can make this chicken and gravy and we can bring these zombies back to life again.

I had to take Nathan to the bathroom. It had already been a horrible day. That morning on the way over to the doctor’s office my grandma kept going on about Nathan grabbing the steering wheel and killing us all. I had just got my license and Nathan was sitting in the passenger seat. Ruby was full of anxiety in the back and then she said it again, “Now, Nathan, don’t you grab the steering wheel and wreck and make us crash over the mountain and kill us all.” Nathan just shook his head like
Fuck
.
Do you seriously think I’m going to grab the wheel and wreck us? Do you really think that?

Then he circled his finger around and around his head and told her she was crazy.

I said, “He’s not psychotic, Grandma. He just needs a wheelchair.”

Then we had to wait a couple of hours before the foot doctor could cut Grandma’s toenails. Now here we were eating at Captain D’s and Nathan had this look on his face. That look meant one thing: He had to go to the bathroom. He had to go to the bathroom BAD.

 

So I got up from the booth and took hold of his wheelchair when Ruby stopped us. She reached into her giant purse and pulled out his pee bottle inside a plastic bag. Then she handed it to me. I just laughed and said: “Well, Grandma, you don’t have to show off the pee bottle to everyone.” Nathan just waved his finger and stomped his foot which meant:
I don’t even need the pee bottle. I need to go the other thing.

Ruby told us we might need it. You never know. Then I put the pee bottle on Nathan’s lap and started pushing his wheelchair to the bathroom when she thought of something else. “Little Nathan, you need these too.” Then she pulled out a fresh pair of boxer shorts she kept in her purse. Nathan lowered his head.

 

I took the pair of boxers and put them in my back pocket. I tried to make a joke about it to make it less uncomfortable. “Shit, Nathan, you’re like a superhero. I need to start carrying around my own change of underwear.”

Nathan didn’t say anything and just held the pee bottle on his lap. We passed the other people who were sitting in their booths. They looked up from their greasy fish and watched us pass. They were staring at Nathan and his pee bottle. Nathan stared back and held his pee bottle. I tried making another joke, “Hey, Nathan. You ever drink beer out of that pee bottle before? If we get lost on the way back home we can use it as a canteen.”

But he didn’t laugh.

He needed to go to the bathroom.

 

So I stopped in front of the men’s bathroom and tried to open the door, but it was locked.
SHIT
. I told Nathan that someone must be inside. Nathan tapped his foot against the ground. He needed to go to the bathroom. I couldn’t stop talking, “You know it probably looks funny two guys going to the bathroom together. This is the kind of place where two guys going to the bathroom together could get their asses kicked.”

Nathan didn’t laugh. He tapped his foot and we waited. Then a Captain D’s employee said something. So I walked over to her and left Nathan in front of the door. She said, “That bathroom is out of order. You’re going to have to use the ladies’ room.”

 

I nodded my head and walked back to Nathan who had a new look on his face. It was a look that said,
I need to use the bathroom. I need to use the bathroom. I need to use the bathroom
.

I told Nathan we were going to have to use the ladies’ room. I started to move him towards the bathroom, but then I saw an old woman out of the corner of my eye. “Mam,” I said, but it was too late. She was already inside.

The door lock popped.

Pop
.

Nathan lowered his head.

 

SHIT
.
SHIT
.
SHIT
.
SHIT
.
SHIT
.
SHIT
.

 

“It’s okay,” I said. “Just hold it a little while longer. Just a little while longer.”

I bent over and whispered into his ear. “It’s going to be even weirder now. Two guys going to the ladies’ room together.”

I rested my foot against the back of the wheelchair and we waited. “Just a little while longer,” I said.

We waited.

We waited.

The toilet flushed. The old woman came out.

“Oh I’m sorry,” the old woman said.

I smiled and nodded my head. Then I smelled. It was too late.

 

So I kept the door open with my foot and pushed him inside. I took the boxer shorts out of my back pocket and put them on the sink. Then I took off his Velcro tennis shoes and put them in the corner. I took his white tube socks off and put them in his Velcro tennis shoes. I looked at the bathroom wall. It had a box that said: “Sanitary napkin disposal bags.”

“Do you have any tampons or maxi pads that you need to throw away.” Nathan still wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t laughing at anything now.

 

I took his sweatpants off and looked at them. “It’s okay, Nathan. There’s nothing on them. We’re okay.”

Then I folded them and put them on the side of the sink too. I took out about thirty paper towels and I put about half of them beneath the faucet and made them wet. Then I turned to Nathan. He was looking away.

I said, “Do you think if I stand you up—you can lean against my shoulder?” Nathan moved his hand which meant yes. I took hold of his arms and picked him up. He leaned against my shoulder. A piece of crap fell out of the leg of his shorts and hit the ground. Nathan groaned. “It’s okay,” I said. I took one of the wet towels and picked it up and dropped it in the toilet. Then I took his boxer shorts and slid them down.

“Okay, lift your leg,” I said. I slipped them off.

He groaned.

I was sweating now.

Then he lifted his other foot and I slipped them off and threw the underwear away.

 

I felt Nathan getting wobbly, so I stood up.

He grunted
ughhh
. I threw my arms around him and held him up. He was breathing heavy. I was trying to keep him up, but he went down on his knees and then on his side. “Okay. Okay,” I said and tried to help him down. “I know it’s hard for you to stand like that.”

Ughhh
, he grunted and pointed at the paper towels.