Little Altars Everywhere (14 page)

The Abracadabra sign is huge pastel-colored neon about the size of a Brahma bull. You just can’t help but be in awe of it. At the top of the sign is an angel with a skull for a face. Its neon wings pulsate so fast that it looks like the angel is panicked, like it’s trying to get
away from something. When the bottom of the angel flicks back and forth, it looks like a serpent tail stabbing the night air. Underneath the angel, the name “Abracadabra” is spelled out with the kind of little white bulbs that movie stars have on their dressers. Below that, the words “Liquor, Party Foods, Ice, and Gifts” pulse in green, pink, yellow, and blue. Just the letters in those words are scary to look at, like they have a mysterious power that nothing can control. That panicked angel lights up the four of us in the back of Daddy’s truck and makes us easy targets for all those things that hide in the dark. If there are stars in the sky, you can’t even see them because that sign blinds your eyes to anything else.

The place isn’t nearly so spooky during the day. We pull up to the drive-up window and Mama and Caro order a fifth of Smirnoff and a bunch of V-8 juice from a guy with a transistor radio playing the colored music station. Daddy never lets us listen to that station. The Ya-Yas love it though.

Mama says, Just put that on Shep Walker’s account, dahling.

Then she turns around to us and says, Yall want anything?

Yeah, I say, some Fritos.

What did you say? Mama asks me.

I correct myself
Yes ma’am
, we would love some Fritos. Thank you for asking.

That’s better, Mama says. Throw in a couple bags of Frito-Lays, would you, Tony?

The man says, We ain’t got no Fritos, just pigskins.

Okay then, pigskins, Mama tells him and he flips three bags of pigskins into the back seat. I am not about to touch them. Eating the skin of dead pigs fried in their own bacon grease is something I will not do, even if I’m starving to death on a desert island.

Of course, Lulu snorks them right down and Little Shep says, Hey Porky, why don’t you just inhale them through your snout?!

It’s not that Lulu is really all that fat. She just has a round little face and cheeks that make her look chubbier than she is. Still, it’s a habit for everyone to pick on her for being a little fatty. You can upset her with it every time, so we tease her just because it’s so much fun.

Mama and Caro mix up some drinks in Dixie cups, then we head out again. Mama lights up a cigarette and things are looking better. It’s cool in the car and the cigarette smoke smells familiar.

Then, out of the blue, Caro pulls over to the side of the road and slams on the brakes, opens the door, leans her head out, and throws up on the street. Son of a bitch, she says. Son of a goddamn bitch!

Mama says, You poor baby. You alright?

Oh I’m fine. Never been better. It’s your damn cigarette. I told you, I cannot handle smoke until I’ve had the chance to get a drink down.

I’m so sorry, babydoll, Mama says, and she takes her wet cloth and dabs Caro’s face with it.

You want a Lifesaver to take the taste out? Should I take you home?

God no, Caro says. You just drive. I’ll be fine, once I get down a drink or two. And don’t you dare light up another ciggie or I will strangle you with my bare hands.

So Mama gets behind the wheel and she says, I just hope the floaties don’t cause me to run this damn T-Bird into the ditch. She sits there for a minute idling the motor, sipping her Bloody Mary. Then she says—like it’s the most original idea she’s ever had and she should get an award for it: I’ve got it! We’ll drive out to Lucille’s! She’s always ready for a party!

Caro is mixing another drink, mumbling, These Dixie cups are so damn tiny.

Well Caro, Mama asks, what do you think?

Inspired, Vivi dahling, simply inspired. Drive on.

You can tell they’re both starting to feel a little better as we drive down the tree-lined state highway to Natchitoches. Miss Lucille lives alone up on Cane River in this huge antebellum house. She divorced her husband and took him for every cent he had. She’s older than the Ya-Yas and they all worship her. She’s sort of their living idol. Miss Lucille was once a very famous horsewoman until she was thrown by her favorite horse. And she just quit riding after that. She told everyone it wasn’t that she was hurt or anything, it was just the way that horse had betrayed her.

Sometimes she just shows up in Thornton in her chocolate brown Cadillac to do some shopping, and a whole party will start up just because she is in town. Mama and the Ya-Yas have known her for years—ever since they were in New Orleans one weekend on a shopping trip and they met her one night at the Carousel Room in the Monteleone Hotel. They just fell in love with her, and all of them ended up riding the train back together, and they have been friends ever since.

Miss Lucille’s house is a huge place at the end of this long drive of oak trees with trailing Spanish moss all over them. The house has eight big white columns across the front and this deep veranda upstairs and down. It’s the kind of gracious old home that the Ya-Yas adore visiting, but you couldn’t
give
them a place like that because there isn’t any central air-conditioning or a dishwasher.

We pull up the long drive, with Mama blowing the horn like she always does. All of us have our eyes glued to the windows to catch a glimpse of Miss Lucille naked. Miss Lucille is an artist now and she always works on her sculptures while she’s buck naked. We can barely see her throw on her kimono and tie the sash before the T-Bird comes to a stop in her circular drive.

She runs out shouting at the top of her lungs. Vivi! Caro!
Petits monstres!
Hey!

Miss Lucille always shouts. It isn’t that she is hard-
of-hearing, she just loves to talk loud, Mama says. Around her you have to shout back, or there just isn’t any conversation. Sometimes the way she yells, you don’t know whether she is really really happy to see you, or whether she is mad at you for invading her privacy.

Lucille, dahling! Mama shouts back, although you can see her wince like it’s killing her head.

They all hug each other like it’s been fifty years since they’ve gotten together.

Miss Lucille uses a long cigarette holder and smokes like Marlene Dietrich. Every time you watch her take a puff, you think you’re in Europe. Her hair is gray everywhere, except in front where it’s bright red. And she has these large hands that look like a pretty man’s. Mama and the Ya-Yas love playing
bourrée
with her because she’s such a superior cheater. They claim they learned everything they know about cheating from her.

She says, Well, what are we drinking? G&Ts?

We follow her through the house and she stops to put on an Edith Piaf record on the stereo. Then we go into the big kitchen, where she mixes up a huge pitcher of gin and tonic like it is lemonade. Miss Lucille has five golden retrievers that lounge around inside that house, and they yelp and growl when we (accidentally) step on their tails. Those dogs just go with Miss Lucille’s house, like they’re mink coats or something draped across the furniture.

Baylor stares around the house, peeking in every
room we pass, like he always does. He says, I’m gonna have me a house just like this when I grow up.

Miss Lucille hands Mama and Caro their G&Ts, and then says to Bay, Well, Handsome, are you still going to come live with me as soon as you turn eighteen?

When she winks at him, he goes over and holds onto Mama’s leg. But Mama says, Bay, honey, don’t hang all over me, please. Not today.

Lulu says, Miss Lucille, can I go upstairs and take a nap? She does this every single time we come here. She has a thing about those bedrooms.

Miss Lucille has fans set up everywhere you turn, and it makes you almost forget how hot and sticky it is without air-conditioning.

Caro says, You
must
show us what you’ve been working on, ’Cille.

Love to, Miss Lucille says, absolutely love to.

They always ask to see her sculptures. But whenever I ask Mama about Miss Lucille, Mama says, Honey, Lucille is more an artist in her
mind
than anything else. (Mama also says you’re not a real artist unless you live in New York City.)

Miss Lucille takes us on a tour of her sculptures, which are all over the house and out on the veranda. Every single one she points to, she says, Of course it’s
unfinished.
You can see that for yourself.

One particular sculpture scares me to death. Miss Lucille calls it “The Sleeping Bitch.” It has been at her house for as long as I can remember. It is a woman tak
ing a nap. Her whole body looks relaxed except for her face—which looks like it’s witnessing something so horrible her eyes could burn up. Her mouth looks like she’s trying to scream, but can’t get any sound out. It always reminds me of a dream I have where I’m grunting and sweating, but I can’t squeeze out one single sound. Every time I see that sculpture there is something ever so slightly different about it, like Miss Lucille works on it for about five minutes a month.

After we view the art, the ladies settle in the canvas butterfly chairs out on the veranda, and Little Shep and me go out in the yard to play. Over beyond the cedars are millions of crepe myrtle trees and during the summer they’re all rose-colored. I like the way all that rose color looks against those black cedars, and sometimes I kind of relax my eyes so that it all blends together. Little Shep and me have this game we play, where his name is Barry and mine is Jennifer. Whenever we use those names, we feel great. It doesn’t matter what we’re doing, as long as we do it as Barry and Jennifer. We’re playing “Barry and Jennifer in the Civil War” behind the crepe myrtles, and it is so hot, you just know the Yankees are coming. Then, out of nowhere, we get one of those afternoon rains that cools things off and makes the air smell fresh.

We stand out there and let ourselves get soaking wet. The sun is starting to peek out from behind that scum of gray sky, and light trickles down through the
cedars. The rain stops as quick as it comes, and we’re standing in a real clean spot and we both know it.

Little Shep says in a fake accent, Jennifer, shall we go back to the big house?

I say, Oh yes, Barry, let’s.

And we hold each other’s hands, like we never do when we’re our real selves. My hair is hanging down heavy on my shoulders and when the water drips, it tickles and feels good on my skin.

We walk back to the veranda and Mama eyes me like she’s never seen me before, like she’s studying me. I pull my halter-top down where it’s slid up a little. I don’t know why she is looking at me like that. I haven’t done anything.

Without taking her eyes off me, she announces, Siddalee, you are too grown-up to have all that hair hanging down to your butt!

Then she grinds out her cigarette in a crystal ashtray that is full of butts and says to Caro, Why don’t you give Sidda one of your haircuts? It’s something that’s long overdue.

Caro is famous for cutting hair, not like a real beautician but just when she feels like it. She cut her own hair in all these different angles and she looks sort of like a skinny Ingrid Bergman. She gets up and lifts my hair off my neck and twists it softly in her hand. I have always been a sucker for anyone who wants to touch my head, as long as they’re not pulling at it the way Mama does.

It’s so thick, Caro says. This is just too much hair. Don’t you get tired of the weight of it, Sidda?

I have never gotten tired from my hair before, but I say, Yes ma’am, I do. I just get exhausted sometimes.

I adore having them all look at my hair. They all get into the act. Miss Lucille runs and gets some yellow-handled kitchen scissors and a brush and hand mirror. They sit me on a stool on the veranda and Caro starts cutting. I close my eyes and just listen to the scissors and the dripping of the rain off the magnolia leaves and the sound of Mama’s cigarette lighter when she snaps it open. It’s so quiet, you can even hear the tiny
whiff
sounds my hair makes when it hits the brick veranda floor. I sit there and feel all their eyes focused just on me. Caro lifts my hair and snips and touches my head. And I kind of float away from the veranda into the trees.

When I open my eyes, fifteen inches of my hair is on the brick floor.

Caro hands me the mirror and says,
Violà!

When I look at myself, I resemble the pictures of Heidi’s friend Peter. I don’t even look like a girl. My chest closes up. I feel all naked. I feel like they’ve cut off my legs or my arms, not just my hair.

You are magnificent! Mama says, and jumps up from her chair to examine me. She ruffles her hands through my hair and I can feel her fingernails against my scalp. My head is so bare, it’s like she could push her fingernails down into my skull if she wanted and leave per
manent dents. Her cigarette smoke curls around me and I can smell the lime in her drink.

You have never looked better! she pronounces. My God, you are gorgeous! Caro, you are an artist.

Then she says, Little Shep, go find a broom and trash can and sweep up this mess! And she gestures to my cut-off hair like it’s dog poop under our feet.

Caro winks at me and says, Sidda, get ready dahling, the boys are gonna really come sniffing around now.

Miss Lucille doesn’t say anything. She just stares at me like she wants to ask a question.

Do you like it, Miss Lucille? I ask her.

What does it matter what I think? she says. What does it matter what anybody thinks about anything?

I look down at my reddish-brown hair lying on the bricks. The bricks and my hair are about the same color. I can feel tiny bits of hair sticking to my skin, like they don’t want to let go of my body. I get up and stand in front of the fan and lift up the back of my shirt to try and let the hair blow off me. My hair has been long since I was a real little girl, and without it I feel cockeyed and dizzy. Like losing the weight of my hair has thrown me off-balance. I was used to how I had looked for so long and how my hair felt when I reached up to roll it between my fingers. When I was alone, I used to hold a clump of my hair and just smell it. And that would make me feel good because it was my smell and it made me feel more
there.