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Following the murder of her father, 9 year old Clara finds herself on Pungo Creek in an old house shared with her Great Aunt Sarah, her mother Rose and her younger sister Ivy. Rose sinks into alcoholism and is unable to shield her daughters from the volatile tempers, destructive behavior, incest and bleakness that have permeated the lives of the women of Pungo Creek for generations. Their grandmother silently endured her husband's rage. Her Uncle Benjamin molested his sister Pearl. When her cousin Kate is raped and murdered by her own brother - the same person who is assaulting Clara - the defenseless girl, having no refuge and no protector, makes a horrific choice.
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Chapter Eleven
FISHING WITH MAMA
As her mother guided the skiff to their special fishing spot Pearl tried to make herself look forward to the long summer vacation that stretched out before her. She watched her mama's hands on the oars. Strong hands for sure with blue veins that pooched through the rough skin on the back of her hands. They weren't pretty hands. Pearl looked at her own hands resting in her lap. I will have lady hands, she said to herself. I will make sure I kept them soft and smooth with Tillberrys Lotion and I won't let them get all rough by scrubbing clothes against a wash board like Mama does. Pearl rubbed her hands over the folds of her gold colored skirt. Her Aunt Sarah has made the dress for her. Gold was Aunt Sarahs favorite color. The dress had long sleeves to hide the scars on her arm.
"I don't know why you insist on wearing your good clothes to go fishing in. You're just going to mess that dress up and I am the one that is going to have to wash and iron it. Always the little princess." Pearl looked at her mother anxiously, but saw that she was smiling.
Pearl stretched out my legs and examined her bare feet. Doesn't she have pretty feet? That's what Aunt Sarah had said about her feet.
Pearl looked over her shoulder at the shore toward their house. She could just make out Rose sitting in the porch swing. She knew she was either shelling peas or looking collards or peeling quince. She wouldn't be just sitting in the swing. She couldn't abide idleness. She was keeping herself busy somehow.
The little wooden skiff moved swiftly and smoothly across Pungo Creek. Her Mama sure knew how to row a boat. The oars dipped evenly into the creek no splashing no wasted energy. They created little whirlpools the size of the silver dollar that her Mama kept in her jewelry box.
Pearl studied her Mama's face. People said she looked a little like an Indian. High cheekbones, tanned, deep-set eyes, firm mouth and chin. Her dark hair framed her face. At 45, Irene's hair was already smoked with gray.
"Get ready to drop the anchor, honey. Were coming up on our spot." They were just off the point between Scott Toppins place and the bridge to Sidney Cross Roads. This was the spot where they had caught 12 good-sized croakers the week before. Pearl scrambled up to the front of the skiff and picked up the anchor and got ready to drop it when Mama told her to.
"Okay! Now."
Pearl lowered the anchor slowly into the water careful not to let it make a splash that would scare the fish away. The rough anchor rope ran through her fingers until it slackened when the anchor got to the bottom.
Irene reached into her shirt pocket and took out her tobacco and rolled herself a cigarette. "You get our hooks baited while I smoke my cigarette." The only time she smoked was when she was out fishing.
The cane poles were lying in the bottom of the skiff. Pearl picked up her mama's pole and dipped the end in the water and pushed it down until it touched bottom.
"We're about 5 feet deep here maybe a little more."
"That should be good."
Pearl unwrapped the line from around the pole and pushed the cork down to about four feet above the sinker. Then she took a worm out of a tin can and threaded it onto the hook and spit on the baited hook for good luck and handed the pole to her mama and got her own pole ready. She put her cork a little lower.
"Poor little fishy in the brook..." Irene started the rhyme and paused for her daughter to say her line.
"Climb upon my little hook" she responded, but her heart just wasn't in it.
"You be the captain..."
"I"ll be the cook."
They said the last line together: "Poor little fishy in the brook."
At eleven years old, Pearl thought she was getting a little bit too old for rhyming games but just on cue her cork bobbed under she jerked her pole to set the hook and up came the first fish of the day a croaker.
"Thats a nice one baby girl." Pearl swung the line over so she could take off her fish. She let it drop into the bottom of the skiff where it flopped around making its croaking sound. "It didn't even have a chance to eat your worm." She added some mama spit and let go of the line. "Catch another one."
They settled into a familiar rhythm of fishing and talking. The sun was at about 2:00 when Irene got a serious look on her face. "Pearl, honey. Is something the matter? You just have not seemed like yourself lately."
"Nothing is the matter, Mama." Pearl kept her eyes on her cork, avoiding her mother's eyes. Alarm bells went off in her head. Did she know something?
"Is something the matter at school?"
Pearl took a breath and let it out slowly. Her mama didntt know. She was just fishing around. Pearl would have liked nothing more than to tell her mama what was bothering her, but she didn't know where to start. How could she tell her mama what Benjamin was doing?
She tried to avoid being by herself because every time she was alone it seemed like Benjamin was there. At first he just touched her, like he had that first time in the kitchen. Then he became more insistent. Once he found her alone in the barn. He pushed her down and rolled on top of her. Then he had grasped her hand and pushed it down into his trousers. Feel that, Little Sister. See what you did? When she pulled away from him he had pinched her hard. She had run away in tears but she had been afraid and ashamed to tell anyone. No matter what she did, he was always there.
Irene put down her pole and she looked like she wanted to say something important. Instead she said "Ready for lunch?" She opened the brown paper bag that held their lunch. Two banana sandwiches and a mason jar of sweetened ice tea.
Pearl nodded. "Guess so." She was hungry. Worrying always gave her an appetite. She rested her fishing pole on the seat next to her but she let her line stay in the water.
She wiped her hands on her skirt, unwrapped her sandwich and placed it carefully on her lap.
"Better watch your pole, honey. A big croaker might just steal it from you." Pearl looked down at her cork just in time to see it go under. When she reached over to grab the pole her sandwich fell from her lap and landed in the muck in the bottom of the skiff.
The sight of her sandwich floating in creek scum was more than she could stand. She started crying. Not tiny silent tears, but loud choking sobs.
Irene handed her half of her sandwich. "A lot can happen between May and September, Pearl."
Pearl had no idea what she meant but she took the sandwich. "Mama, nothing good ever happens on Pungo Creek."
It is just an ordinary day in Washington DC until Francesca Britt enters Lilly's Tattoo Parlor setting in motion a chain of grisly events. A hard boiled police detective and a fifth grade teacher become unlikely allies in a pursuit of a diabolical killer. The stranger's eyes roamed over the sketches for a long minute and came to rest on a drawing of a tiny, haloed cherub. Lilly followed his gaze. "That one has been unusually popular lately," Lilly said, trying desperately to keep the fear out of her voice. So that was it. Suddenly she knew exactly why the stranger had entered her shop. Maybe she did have her mother's gift after all. Lilly tried to push past the man was now standing so close to her that she could smell his breath. It smelled like lemons.
Lilly's Tattoo
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CHAPTER EIGHT
The Visitor
The front door opened and her first real customer of the day walked in. At least Lilly hoped it was a customer. Almost 3:00 PM and no one had come in except for the stranger who was still sleeping on her sofa.
"Good afternoon, sir. Come in. What can I do for you today?"
The stranger walked toward her without speaking. Lilly shifted uncomfortably. There was something menacing about the stranger. He wore a dark leather coat and gloves in spite of the warmth of the late September afternoon. His face was expressionless and his eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. Lilly shivered. This man is dangerous, she thought. Then she scolded herself. What am I? A fortune teller like my mama? She stood up straight and tried to sound normal.
"Did you have anything special in mind?"Lilly gestured to the sketches that were tacked to the wall.
The strangers eyes roamed over the sketches for a long minute and came to rest on a drawing of a tiny, haloed cherub.
Lilly followed his gaze. "That one has been unusually popular lately" Lilly said, trying desperately to keep the fear out of her voice. So that was it. Suddenly she knew exactly why the stranger had entered her shop. Maybe she did have her mothers gift after all. Lilly tried to push past the man was now standing so close to her that she could smell his breath.
It smelled like lemons.
The last thing Lilly saw was the blade of his knife as it pierced her right eye. She didnt even have time to scream.
Carl lifted Lillys body and carried it to a table in the rear of the shop and gazed down at her a moment before plunging his knife into her left eye.
On his way out of the shop he tore the picture of the cherub from the wall and stuffed it into the pocket of his coat. Then he went out, locking the door behind himself.
Bell Hooks said the the longing to tell ones story and the process of telling is symbolically a gesture of longing to recover the past in such a way that one experiences both a sense of reunion and a sense of release.
For me poetry, more than any other form of writing, delivers that sense of reunion and release.
Through poetry I can recreate the smell of low tide on Pungo Creek, the comfort of running home to my mother's arms and the terror of driving across Texas in a driving storm. I can even imagine what it would be like to become a mermaid.
There are few things I enjoy more than sharing my poetry. I pass out poems like Bread to my friends...hand them out like business cards to strangers...leave copies of poems on subway seats and shopping carts.
On the following pages you''ll find some of my favorite poems. Some are from REUNION others are from my blog BREADCRUMBS....a few I just wrote today.
I hope you enjoy them. If you do, please
DROP ME A LINE.
I could be in Belhaven
singing hymns, gathering brown eggs and cooking collard greens.
I could be spoiling grandbabies
while their mama works nights at Toppins
making pure pork country sausage.
I could be Page Sparrow
with an apron girded belly and pear preserves in the pantry
I dont want to go to sleep yet.
I could be Belhaven
Wisteria blocks the view from the front room window
White rose on a blue suit for Mothers Day
I could be teaching Vacation Bible School at Sidney Freewill Baptist Church
An army of plaster of paris Jesus’s stand side by side on a shelf
ready to be attacked with tempera and determination
I could be Nelma Linton
limping through life in a cloud of Vicks Vapor Rub
and regret
riding past row after row after row of corn,
tobacco, soybeans, pine trees and barefooted children
I could be rushing through supper to get to Wednesday night prayer meeting
where Ill talk to God and Blanche Burgess
I could be Katie McClese Foreman. A Methodist.
Going to bed early with a sick headache
leaving Roswell and the children to tiptoe around her immaculate house.
I want to go down to the old house one more time.
Mamas standing in the kitchen
Daddys singing about that old gang of his.
I want milk and honey.
I want faith and grace.
I want to wrap myself in mystery and an eight pointed star quilt
and rest beneath a moonless sky.
And when you go arrive with the sun.
Arrive from the east.
Arrive when your mind and body are numbed by travel,
and be surprised.
Be surprised that the mountains are alive.
Surprised that they breathe and surprised that you can believe again.
And when you go dont wait for sunshine
Walk in the rain.
Walk in the fog.
Walk in the dark so you will know the power of eucalyptus.
The power of sulfur as you sit clothed only in embarrassment at the baths at Esalen listening to an ocean you cannot see crash on the rocks below
One summer they drove through Texas forever.
A merciless rain pursued them.
Battering, beating, pounding
Cascading through the ragged roof of the TR3
Inside, they had already drowned in silence.
The passion they had mistaken for love extinguished by a long winter, a short spring and a steady diet of canned corn and river water.
(The Rio Grande is not for drinking.)
Weary wipers struggled in vain to whoosh the rain from the windshield.
They drove on blindly.
Anxious to be someplace else.
Desperate to be someone else
Take Me Home
more poems.....
Today I wrapped myself in orange and I went out
out into a day that was learning to be spring
I walked on soft green earth that was learning to live again
Today I wrapped myself in orange and went out
out into the busy city streets filled with busy people
and I smiled at them and they smiled back
because its easy to smile at a woman wrapped
in orange
Recycled
I look
Bottle green shoots push through fertile earth
In that moment I see my future in those nascent buds
Smell peonies
Taste salt air on my lips
Feel hot sand beneath my feet
All my senses alert as hungry robins
I feed on hope
Yesterdays Poem
I think I remember watching for German planes with Dottie McCarney after school
in 1959
at the top of the Civil Defense Tower near Dr. Wrights office
I think I remember watching mama and daddy weigh my sister Addie on a produce scale
in our kitchen
in Broadcreek Village
I think I remember watching the Line Up from the top of the stairs
in my pajamas
loe Street
I think I remember watching Uncle Mackey feed the rabbits he raised
in his backyard
in Norview
but Im not sure
No two are alike.
Snowflakes. They say.
Thats one of the truths no one disputes.
There comes a time when it is easier
to swallow a truth whole than to bite into an argument.
No two are alike. Arguments.
Sometimes they end in silence. Sometimes in an avalanche of
words.
Words that once said cannot be unsaid.
Cannot
be forgotten.
There comes a time when it is impossible to make
peace one more
time.
Better to leave the battle lines in place.
And feelings frozen
Before I became a mermaid I could play the piano.
Then one day I grew that tail
Smooth and taut like the skin of a quince
It grew faster than my breasts that swelled overnight
Limes one day. Mangos the next.
I shimmied to the creek
Slid down the bank next to mamas mimosa tree and
Buried myself in the water with the crabs and croakers
Swapping the sweetness of my piano
For the silence that stretched from here to yonder.
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Bell Hooks said The longing to tell one’s story and the process of telling is symbolically a gesture of longing to recover the past in such a way that one experiences both a sense of reunion and a sense of release. Bell Hooks This short book of poetry is my attempt to recover my past.
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The longing to tell one’s story and the process of telling is symbolically a gesture of longing to recover the past in such a way that one experiences both a sense of reunion and a sense of release. Bell Hooks This short book of poetry is my attempt to recover my past.
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