the nest. I was pretty sure I was fixing to be a fledging and own my own.
The cab was filled with the sound of the wheels turning down the highway and the hum of silence. A t each intersection, the street lights lit up the flare of Lena’s blue eyes of steel. I’ve learned to read them over the years. DON’T REVEAL IT. DON’ T DISCUSS IT. SEAL IT OFF. DENY. DENY. IT DIDN’T HAPPEN. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this whole car reeked of pink elephants. I was on to something.
***
Mag and I grew up on Royal Pine Road in a three bedroom, one bath modest home. Dad’s parents, William Henry and Dell lived on the street too, as well as Papa Hart’s father who lived in between our house and theirs, and down the street a distance, but not far enough, according to Papa Hart, was Dell’s mother, Maw Sue. This communal housing gave me plenty of time to figure out our barbaric ancestral tree roots which I was sure had a few pink elephants hanging on the limbs. I tried to acquire the help of Mag but she scorned my request and acted as if she originated from a line of nobility only found in a jeweled oak tree, some scandalous fifteen-minute affair in the back room of the white house, JFK meets Maid Merry kind of shit. From what I can remember, her efforts at obtaining royal status began at a young age when she learned of her precious namesake and then snubbed off everyone, except old money. She learned to smell greenbacks like a blood hound. While she was punished temporarily to live in squander, she believed a royal knight was going to drive up in a Mercedes . Out jumps a squat chauffeur driver wearing a stuffy white suit and holding a ruffled pillow, and in the center sits a sparkling rhinestone baby rattler with Mag’s name inscribed and other documentation to prove her theory of a royal bloodline. Then she’d high tail it out of here, leaving us rednecks to our pig sticking. I’ll give her this much. She has a vivid imagination when she uses it. I just find it hard to believe that we are related. We are so different. I mean, I bleed the south so much it’s like thick pine sap flowing from cut tree bark and according to our dad, that’s a true blue southerner. I’m simply southern sap through and through. Mag straddled fences from the get go which I consider a travesty of the worse kind. I mean, just pick a side— for or against —it’s not that hard. At home she pretended to be content with our life style, but we all knew she wasn’t. And when she left the driveway and hung out with her rich friends, she always brought it home with her until it just became a part of her permanently. One day I just snapped and knocked her off that high and mighty fence.
“You gotta make a choice Mag” I said tired of it. “ You can’t have it both ways.” Being a girl of few words, she left two distinct rows of teeth marks o n my arm. I took this as a sign. Papa Hart had always said, bite marks were characteristically republican in nature. He knew this because he was a hard core democrat as the rest of the family. Of course, this aggravated Mag to no end and she was content to give us both hell. If Mag ever has a pink elephant—it wil l probably be adorned in jewels and easy to spot.
I rarely got a haircut but when I did, it was at the Clipper Snipper, a popular beauty shop among residents of Pine Log. It was a sixteen by thirty, red and white shack of coiffed haired ladies talking about big hair, big guns and a big Jesus. Mag and I called it the suffering shack because we suffered to listen to them. Wome n gathered once a week to tease, chop, dye and curl their hair and at the same time, catch up on the rumor mill. One topic of interest particular in interest is the e qual rights bill gaining mass appeal with the efforts of the 37 th President who supported a woman's equality and their right to do whatever in the hell they wanted to do.
The cab was filled with the sound of the wheels turning down the highway and the hum of silence. A t each intersection, the street lights lit up the flare of Lena’s blue eyes of steel. I’ve learned to read them over the years. DON’T REVEAL IT. DON’ T DISCUSS IT. SEAL IT OFF. DENY. DENY. IT DIDN’T HAPPEN. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this whole car reeked of pink elephants. I was on to something.
***
Mag and I grew up on Royal Pine Road in a three bedroom, one bath modest home. Dad’s parents, William Henry and Dell lived on the street too, as well as Papa Hart’s father who lived in between our house and theirs, and down the street a distance, but not far enough, according to Papa Hart, was Dell’s mother, Maw Sue. This communal housing gave me plenty of time to figure out our barbaric ancestral tree roots which I was sure had a few pink elephants hanging on the limbs. I tried to acquire the help of Mag but she scorned my request and acted as if she originated from a line of nobility only found in a jeweled oak tree, some scandalous fifteen-minute affair in the back room of the white house, JFK meets Maid Merry kind of shit. From what I can remember, her efforts at obtaining royal status began at a young age when she learned of her precious namesake and then snubbed off everyone, except old money. She learned to smell greenbacks like a blood hound. While she was punished temporarily to live in squander, she believed a royal knight was going to drive up in a Mercedes . Out jumps a squat chauffeur driver wearing a stuffy white suit and holding a ruffled pillow, and in the center sits a sparkling rhinestone baby rattler with Mag’s name inscribed and other documentation to prove her theory of a royal bloodline. Then she’d high tail it out of here, leaving us rednecks to our pig sticking. I’ll give her this much. She has a vivid imagination when she uses it. I just find it hard to believe that we are related. We are so different. I mean, I bleed the south so much it’s like thick pine sap flowing from cut tree bark and according to our dad, that’s a true blue southerner. I’m simply southern sap through and through. Mag straddled fences from the get go which I consider a travesty of the worse kind. I mean, just pick a side— for or against —it’s not that hard. At home she pretended to be content with our life style, but we all knew she wasn’t. And when she left the driveway and hung out with her rich friends, she always brought it home with her until it just became a part of her permanently. One day I just snapped and knocked her off that high and mighty fence.
“You gotta make a choice Mag” I said tired of it. “ You can’t have it both ways.” Being a girl of few words, she left two distinct rows of teeth marks o n my arm. I took this as a sign. Papa Hart had always said, bite marks were characteristically republican in nature. He knew this because he was a hard core democrat as the rest of the family. Of course, this aggravated Mag to no end and she was content to give us both hell. If Mag ever has a pink elephant—it wil l probably be adorned in jewels and easy to spot.
I rarely got a haircut but when I did, it was at the Clipper Snipper, a popular beauty shop among residents of Pine Log. It was a sixteen by thirty, red and white shack of coiffed haired ladies talking about big hair, big guns and a big Jesus. Mag and I called it the suffering shack because we suffered to listen to them. Wome n gathered once a week to tease, chop, dye and curl their hair and at the same time, catch up on the rumor mill. One topic of interest particular in interest is the e qual rights bill gaining mass appeal with the efforts of the 37 th President who supported a woman's equality and their right to do whatever in the hell they wanted to do.
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