Sudden Storms (17 page)

So, in case you hadn’t picked up on it already, I hate spiders. I used to have nightmares about them quite often—especially black widows! Which is kind of odd when you think about it, because black widows kind of run in my family. Not the murdering-human-ladies-who-want-money kind you see on made-for-TV movies—just the real kind, the spider kind.

One of my first memories as a child is a little vision of my mom standing on our front porch with a glass quart jar in hand (could’ve been a Mason jar—could’ve been a Ball) catching black widows and popping them into the jar. I’m serious! She’d catch as many as she could in one jar and just set the jar out on the front porch. After a day or two, you’d go out there and there’d only be one black widow left alive in the jar—one big, plump, shiny, red-hourglass-abdomined champion. Ewww! Mom always said she didn’t want them hanging around the porch because they were dangerous, and she didn’t want to be mean and squish them. What? So she left them in the jar and let them duke it out to the death? Oh yeah, that’s humane! She’s so funny sometimes.

My mom was always intrigued with black widow spiders. I think it stemmed from the fact that she is so very scientifically minded—interested in everything. Couple that with the fact she had a teacher in high school who would pick a black widow spider up by the body with his thumb and forefinger to allow his students a closer look at her legs, spinners, hourglass, and other features, and you have black widow spider intrigue at its finest. (As a side note, that crazy teacher never was bitten—at least not in my mom’s experience—and she was always amazed at his bravery.)

While thinking about all this spider stuff, I called my mom today and asked her why she was so intrigued with black widows and why in the world she used to catch them in quart jars.

Knowing my mom as I do—knowing her adventurous character and insatiable curiosity about all things in nature—I said, “And you probably liked the risk.”

She laughed again and said, “Yeah. Probably for the risk too.”

She also told me this little story about when she was growing up—and I quote: “One of their (black widows’) favorite places was the old outdoor toilets...down under the seat in the hole. We kids were always afraid to go out there, especially Sharon (her younger sister) and I, and my mom would say, ‘Oh, just go out there and wet on ’em! They’re not gonna bother you.’ But sometimes we’d sneak out behind a weed or something anyway…or out in the barn or behind a tree or something.” Ah! Life in the sticks—you gotta love it! And miss it too.

As for me, I remember our “laundry room” at home. It was actually outside the house in a separate building out in back. Every summer, there were black widows lurking all over in there. (Consequently, I hated doing laundry.) Well, one day, my mom came in from doing laundry. She was reaching over her shoulder to her back and was sort of loosely fisting some fabric at the back of her shirt.

Well, sure enough—once my mom and I had managed to unbutton the front of her shirt and remove it from the arm that wasn’t clutching the fabric at her back, she let go of the fabric, and there she was—a big ol’ black widow spider! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! (I’m all itchy right now just remembering it!)

Black widows are aggressive, you know. They’re not as easy to scare off as other spiders. I remember my dad trying to stomp on one out in the garage one day. Did it run away at the sound of his stomping, at the sight of his big, old boot coming at it? I say unto thee, nay! It ran right at him, up onto the toe of his boot, and started up the rest of his boot toward his leg before he finally reached down and squashed it!

Right now you’re thinking, “Well, surely that’s the end of the black widow spiders in the family story.” But no! Among the many, many, many black widow stories in my family—several of them having to do with jars, in fact—is the one my Uncle Wayne tells about my Aunt Sharon (my mom’s little sister who was afraid of the black widows in the outhouse, remember?). Well, apparently my auntie (my Aunt Sharon and my mom and Uncle Wayne’s sister) had spent an undetermined amount of time collecting black widows in a jar of her own, one day way back when. Hmm. Let me begin again.

So (curious again to get the story right from the horse’s mouth as it were) I paused a moment in my pointless spider rambling here and called my auntie.

“Auntie? What’s that story about you and the black widow spiders in the jar again?” I asked.

“Oh,” she began as casually as if she were preparing to share a recipe. “I just went out all day long one day and collected black widow spiders and put them in a jar, punched holes in the lid, balanced the jar lid (no ring) on the jar, and slid it under my bed. During the night they must’ve all bunched up at the top and pushed the lid off because when I woke up in the morning, the lid was off and all the spiders were gone.”

I know—the women in my family are crazy! Keep in mind Auntie said she was probably about ten years old when she did this. My Uncle Wayne tells the story because he is a fellow arachnophobic—which is actually kind of ironic being that he’s the one who recently taught me how to kill rattlesnakes and skin them. He always tells the story of Auntie’s escaped spiders like it’s the worst horror movie a guy could ever watch. He’s three years younger than Auntie and was old enough to know that an entire Mason jar (or more likely a Ball jar, being that it was back in the early fifties) full of black widow spiders was loose in the house.

Auntie’s final casual remark on the matter was this: “Hmm…that’s probably why the house was crawling with black widows for a while that year.”

So you see, black widows run in my family—as does arachnophobia. Just a little trivial insight in to the inspiration for Jolee’s black widow experience in
Sudden Storms
.

I would feel as if I’d really failed—miserably failed—if I didn’t mention to you the good ol’
Sudden Storms
Party of 1996. Yep—I’d just finished writing
Sudden Storms
and was getting ready to have surgery to remove a huge ovarian cyst, so naturally I decided to have a party! Oh, the preparations I made were quite detailed. And it was so much fun.

First of all, the handwritten invitations were embossed (I was into embossing then). The night of the party (the night before I ended up in the hospital a day early for my surgery), each guest was handed an envelope as they arrived. In each envelope, there was a
Sudden Storms
bookmark, a raffle ticket, a bunch of play money, and some other stuff I can’t remember right now. As the evening launched, each guest could go to the “general store” and buy things such as a shred of Jackson McCall’s shirt, a toothpick that Michael McCall had chewed on, or a rock that Paxton Gray had put in his pocket to use for skipping on the pond later. One could also purchase things to eat, like bacon or homemade bread. Guests could also have their photo taken with “Paxton Gray,” who arrived in the middle of the party with a cowboy hat full of Hershey’s Kisses that he handed out to all the ladies. Yep! This young man, who was my friend’s son and a friend of our family, dressed up like the
Sudden Storms
hero, arrived to a soundtrack of a thunderstorm, and said, “There’s a sudden storm a-brewin’!” as he entered the house. All the guests then spent their time standing in line to pay their twenty dollars of toy money to have their picture taken with the hero. He’d even swoop you up in his arms if you’d let him. It was hysterical—totally fun! There are many more details that I can’t remember right now. But I do remember how fun it was. I wish we could do that same thing now. But I guess we kind of do, don’t we? Each summer at the Meet and Greets? How fun! (P.S. No black widows were involved at the party. Thank heaven!)

Are you simply astonished at how long I can blabber on and on about trivial things? But that’s just me, I guess. And I do hope you enjoyed getting to know a little bit more about my inspiration for
Sudden Storms
—or at least that I’m an arachnophobic with black widow collectors in the family. You just never know what’s lurking in my brain or what might inspire me to write. Right?

Sudden Storms Trivia Snippets

Snippet #1—
Sudden Storms
was the first book wherein I tried to force a character out of the truth of himself. I actually forced Paxton (Lane at the time) to have “tawny-colored” hair. Consequently, I couldn’t sleep for like seven years because of it. I hadn’t been true to the character. Thus, Paxton now sports his true hair color in
Sudden Storms
—“sable-smooth” and “onyx-black.”

Snippet #2— Yes, it’s true. One of my dad’s favorite practical jokes was/is sewing the fly shut on men’s underwear. I did it a few times growing up—even as a grown-up. I sewed the fly shut on the underwear of one of Kevin’s friends several years ago, and unfortunately, Kevin’s friend wore that particular pair of underwear on a fishing trip—you know, when he was all garbed up with everything tucked in and wearing those rubber fishing pants and rubber boots. It proved, shall we say, a difficult time for him, and I’ve always felt bad. That was the one and only practical joke I’ve ever allowed myself to be involved in since.

Snippet #3—Like Paxton, my Grandpa States played the harmonica. I loved to hear him play and have always, always wished there were some tapes of him playing.

Snippet #4—The only “school club” I was ever in was the Rock Hound Club in elementary school. I
love
rocks! To this day, I love them—and, admittedly, I collect them here and there. I’m also fascinated with skipping rocks over the surface of large bodies of water. I really don’t get the chance to skip rocks much—being that I live in the desert—but when I do have the opportunity, I could spend hours just skipping rocks and skipping rocks and skipping rocks.

Snippet #5—You know the scene where Paxton and Rivers and Jolee and Weston are out on the picnic and there are some drawings on a big rock formation nearby? Well, here in Albuquerque, we have the Petroglyph National Monument located on the Westside. The petroglyphs are rock carvings, most of which were made by Pueblo Indian ancestors between 1300 and the 1680s, with many that date much earlier. The petroglyphs depict animals, people, brands, and so forth and are very intriguing to study. So, once again, real life inspires!

Snippet #6—In the 1950s, Northrop Aircraft Incorporated used black widow spiderweb filaments as crosshairs in microscopes and telescopes for Army tank sights. Black widow webs were used for gun sights during World War II through the 1960s. In 1943, the US Army Quartermaster Corps set up an entire “web collection” operation to help with the production of gun sights. (This is information I originally learned as a child from—you’ve got it—my mom!)

Snippet #7—Among the many necessary life skills my mother passed on to me is the uncanny ability to easily and instantly recognize a black widow spiderweb. Oh, believe me, I can spot a widow web from a mile away! Black widow webs are different from other spiderwebs—no visible pattern to them, just a sort of chaotic appearance, even though they are carefully constructed. Though mom taught me to recognize them by touch too (they are shiny and super sticky, with quite a different feel different than other spider webs), I don’t have to touch one to identify it as that of a black widow.
Helpful Tip of the Day:
Happen upon a black widow in your garage? Most over-the-counter insecticides won’t do her in. But spray her with a high-grade hairspray and you can disable her long enough to scream for Kevin to come finish her off!

Here they are, the Black Widow Collectors: Patsy (my mom) and Sharon (my auntie)! Aren’t they adorable back in the early 1950s? Just two harmless little farm girls—collecting black widow spiders in their spare time!