Little Altars Everywhere (8 page)

We finally get her home, and I draw a bath for her, and hand her one of the Darvons that I always keep around the house for cramps. Then when she’s done, I go and lie down in the bed with her. It’s cool and dry in her room and the curtains are open with a little sliver of light spilling in from the porch light. We both love it in the summer when it is scorching hot outside, but real cool inside with that huge central air conditioner blasting away.

I kiss her on the forehead. Precious, I tell her, You have got to stop taking things so seriously. Your father came home just like I knew he would. Is that all you were worried about?

She says, Mama, I don’t feel like talking, I’m too tired.

I say, Well then, I’ll talk and you listen: You can’t run away from things, Siddalee. You’ve got to stay in this house where your life is. Don’t you think I want to run off and hide in a bookmobile or join the circus? We all do. But we have responsibilities.

She rolls away from me onto her side. I can feel the little bumps of her seersucker nightgown against my fingers. I stroke her hair and kiss her neck. You are magnificent, I tell her. You are my most beautiful, intelligent child. I adore you. Don’t ever run away from me again.

I kiss her one more time before I leave the room. I still have guests in the house. It’s late, but I fix a round of drinks for everyone. Except for Mother, of course. She has put the other kids to bed and just sits there, pursing those chapped lips, acting like a martyr.

Shep stands behind me, rubbing my shoulders. I don’t even know when he showed back up. He says, Thank you, Viviane. You did good.

You’re welcome, I tell him. See? I don’t just sit on my butt and eat Ritz crackers.

When the Ya-Yas leave, I take off my makeup and cleanse my face. I rub on my cold cream—I don’t care how tired I am, I never go to sleep without doing my cleansing ritual. Then I go and peek into Sidda’s room. There she is, propped up like the Queen of Sheba against the pillows, holding her flashlight and reading.
Not even trying to hide it. I am so mad I want to slap her. Reading, laying up in bed, relaxing, after all the shit she has put me through!

But I do not say a word. I tiptoe down the hall to the kitchen. I reach up to the pill cabinet and get myself a Darvon too, and swallow it with a jigger of bourbon. That child is not going to get all the attention in this family. I work hard as hell in this house and I am sick to death of never getting what I want! I swear I could write a book about all the things no one has ever thanked me for.

In summertime the child just lives for the bookmobile. Which is the whole reason why she hid up there and rode downtown and let them lock her up. She thinks books are her best friends and she wanted to be surrounded by them.

I understand. None of this is strange to me. I am her mother, though, and it is my job to teach her that you cannot escape from life. Life is not a book. You can’t just set it down on the coffee table and walk away from it when it gets boring or you get tired.

Little Shep, 1964

B
uggy, my Mama’s mama, has got the meanest little lapdog you ever laid eyes on. One of those puny-butt poodles that’s nothing but bone and fluff. And to Buggy that dog can’t do any wrong. It can pee or poop or tear up the bedspread and Buggy just says, Isn’t that just the darlingest thing you have ever seen?

Even though I don’t care for yap-butts like that dog, I still think an animal oughta get treated with some respect and not like a nutcase, which is what Buggy has been turning that puff-ball into.

My Daddy says, Buggy is going to drive that animal as crazy as she did her daughter.

See, I’m real fond of dogs myself.
Yard
dogs, that is. We got three of them at Pecan Grove and I’m the one that gets up early in the morning to feed them. They get a cut or scrape, I’m the one that cleans it. We got a Catahoula hound named Jep, who is so dumb that once
he ran into a telephone pole and knocked himself out cold while he was chasing my Daddy’s truck. We also got Lamar, a German shepherd that Mister Charlie Vanderlick gave us. And we got Jolene, a white collie that Lulu picked out from my cousin’s dog Josie’s second litter. Josie was a dog famous for her ability to sleep standing up. She got shot with porcupine quills once when Daddy took me and her deer hunting with him in West Texas, and I’m the one that pulled them out of her, one by one. I still got those quills in a pickle jar in my bedroom. I’m saving them for when I’m a vet. Gonna put them in my office to remind me of my first surgery. Because removing those quills was a operation for me, that’s for sure. You just try and pull dozens of quills out of a collie. It hurts them something awful, and they’re all crying and squirming, but you’ve gotta pull those quills out or they’ll hurt even worse, maybe even get an infection.

You can
have
those lapdogs, though. I’m scared I’ll step on them and that’ll be all she wrote. Plus, they don’t fetch or hunt or roll in the grass with you or anything. They just sit up there on the couch waiting for their favorite soap opera to come on.

My Daddy says, It is just like your Mama’s mama to take up with some animal the size of a rat.

Buggy named that poodle “Miss Peppy” and got her this wicker bed with a plaid mattress. Crocheted a green-and-white-striped sweater for the dog to wear in winter, and got one of the Altar Society ladies to make
a special bowl with “Miss Peppy” written on the side. Buggy drives all over town in her Fairlane with that dog beside her tearing up the seat covers, and you can see her talking to that animal the whole time. My grandmother always drives with the windows up, whether her air conditioner is working or not. She says it is trashy to drive around in public with rolled-down windows.

And of course, she feeds Miss Peppy canned dog food. That dog has never eaten a table scrap in its life.

My Daddy says, If a dog can’t live off table scraps, then it’s not a dog. He says, If a dog can’t live out in the yard no matter what the season, then it might as well be a goddamn stuffed animal at the Louisiana State Fair.

I bet you the reason Miss Peppy is so nuts is due to the way her head squeezes her brain in, like a fist. I don’t blame the dog for being crazy. Dogs are dogs. You teach them to obey, you feed them what’s left over from supper, and you pick cockleburrs out of their coats. You don’t pull a dog up on the couch with you and talk to it like a human baby and wait for it to talk back to you in plain English. You don’t take a creature and breed it so it can’t fit inside its own skin, which might be what started Miss Peppy’s problem in the first place.

Once when Miss Peppy was in heat, this Shelty down the street from Buggy got her pregnant. When her time came, it was a sad case, let me tell you.

We were all over at Buggy’s spending the night because my Daddy was off duck hunting and Mama didn’t want to stay at Pecan Grove because of her nightmares. We were all laid up in Buggy’s den watching
Saturday Night at the Movies
, eating peanut-butter fudge when that dog went into labor. Buggy had set her up in the utility room with a heater and a transistor radio turned on, and we were reaching a high point in the movie when Miss Peppy started this high, sharp moaning. I ran in there to see what was happening and I tell you—it was truly something awful. I’ve seen plenty of puppies born at Pecan Grove and at my cousins’. It doesn’t scare me. But that dog was being ripped apart. Made me glad I wasn’t a girl. We all hovered around, but we couldn’t do a single thing to help her.

Buggy got all upset and started lighting some novena candles and Mama yelled, Mother, stop being so sanctimonious!

I said, Hey Mama, Dr. Fitzsimmons would know what to do. He always knows what to do with Daddy’s cows.

And Mama yelled out to Buggy, Blow out those damn candles and go warm up the car!

Then I looked up the number, and Mama called Dr. Fitzsimmons’ telephone-answering service. I’m going to have me one of those when I’m a vet. And I’ll work on large and small animals, just like Dr. Fitzsimmons.

Buggy said, Oh, I’m scared to touch her! I might cause her even more pain.

I scooped Miss Peppy up in her blanket because it didn’t look like anyone else was going to make a move.

Dr. Fitzsimmons left a party just to meet us at the clinic, and he worked for two hours while we waited in the lobby that smelled like disinfectant. Mama just smoked cigarettes and Buggy mumbled prayers under her breath.

Then Dr. Fitzsimmons came out with a lab coat over his slacks and said, Mrs. Abbott, Vivi, I’m real sorry. I pulled the bitch through, but couldn’t save the litter. I recommend you spay her for her own health.

Buggy stood there sobbing and fingering her rosary and muttered, Don’t you
dare
call Miss Peppy names.

Mama said, Thank you for your good work, Dr. Fitzsimmons. We’re lucky to have you in this town.

Buggy said, I suppose it’s the will of Jesus.

Mama said, Mother, did you hear what Dr. Fitzsimmons said about the hysterectomy?

Yes, my grandmother snapped, Don’t talk nasty. Of course I heard. I’m not deaf yet. It will be taken care of. We must think of the safety of the mother first and foremost.

It wasn’t too long after Miss Peppy got spayed that Buggy started up with the baby dolls. Her mission in life became to train that dog to treat those dolls like they were her own puppies. We watch Buggy do it all the time. She spends whole afternoons teaching Miss
Peppy to carry those baby dolls around in her mouth. She makes the dog drop them real gentle on Buggy’s own bed, and then she teaches that animal to pull the covers up over them like they are actual human babies getting tucked in for a nap.

Every time we go over there, Buggy has to show it off. She says, Yall come see what a good mother Miss Peppy is!

And we have to troop into Buggy’s bedroom, where she has this prayer kneeler she conned off some nun. The kneeler is facing this Sacred Heart of Jesus bleeding like a stuck pig up there on the wall. There are still a couple stains on it from that time I smeared ketchup on the picture to make it look more real-like. Off to the side of her bed Buggy has a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, with a bunch of flowers that Buggy picks fresh every day.

Just look at what a good mama Miss Peppy is! Buggy says. Can’t yall just imagine how proud the Blessed Mother is of her?

And she makes the dog tuck her “babies” under the covers over and over again, and we all have to say, Oh Buggy, that is wonderful, just wonderful.

I whisper to Sidda, Buggy is nuts. She belongs in the same asylum we’re gonna drive Mama to. And those dolls are butt-ugly.

Buggy hears me whispering and she says, This is not pretend, yall hear Buggy? This is one hundred percent true. If yall just pretend those are Miss Peppy’s babies,
she will know. You can’t just pretend, you really have to
believe
.

And we all look at each other like, Yeah, right, no wonder this dog is so weird.

If you so much as lean over to touch those baby dolls around Miss Peppy, she will bite your fingers off. Buggy has her believing she has to protect those “babies” from everything. Sometimes I think about calling up Dr. Fitzsimmons and reporting Buggy for cruelty to animals, but Sidda says you can’t turn in your own grandmother.

One Saturday Mama and Teensy are heading out to Lafayette to go shopping for the day and we get dropped off at Buggy’s. The minute we hit the kitchen door you can hear that dog yipping. You can hear her little toenails tapping against the wood floor while she runs down the hall. Buggy lets those toenails get so long, it’s like Miss Peppy is wearing little poodle high heels.

My Daddy told Buggy once, If you don’t trim that dog’s toenails, someone is going to report you to the ASPCA.

After that, Buggy keeps that poodle away from my Daddy. She doesn’t believe in cutting Miss Peppy’s toenails, because she says it depresses Miss Peppy. But you better believe she gets scared when my Daddy threatens her with punishment from a big organization. Buggy is terrified of big organizations. She says they’re all in cahoots with each other. For instance, she thinks
the Communists have infiltrated the NASA space program to ruin the weather so they can destroy the Catholic church. Every time we have a hurricane, she says, See, what did Buggy tell yall?

Anyway, this particular Saturday, Mama is in a hurry to get off to the Lafayette stores, and she just barely sticks her head in the screen door to kiss Buggy and say when she’ll be back. Well, as soon as she opens that door, Miss Peppy jumps up on her and tears her stockings to shreds right there on her legs. Without missing a beat, Mama backhands that little dog and it goes flying through the air and lands over by the water heater. I go over to check on her, and she isn’t really hurt, just sort of stunned.

Mama says, I’m sorry, Mother, but someone has
got
to teach that animal how to behave.

Buggy clenches her teeth all up and says, Don’t you worry about Buggy and her dog. Buggy will stay home with your children and the dog that loves her. You go on and have a good time shopping with your girlfriend. Don’t feel guilty about torturing one of God’s little creatures.

Buggy always talks about herself like she’s some other person. She’ll say: Buggy is so tired, or Buggy has to go to the Piggy-Wiggly for some carrot juice. Or Buggy is getting very upset with yall for doing that. Or Buggy and Baby Jesus
both
are getting upset. When she drags Baby Jesus into it, you know you’d better watch out.

So Mama takes off. It’s raining and I feel like breaking all of Buggy’s stupid little knick-knacks that cover every inch of her house. I hate being stuck in that place with the yappy dog and all those tiny statues of little peasant children, and the Three Wise Men who stay out all year next to the praying-hands planter.

We turn on cartoons and lay down on the rug with pillows to watch
The Road Runner
, my all-time favorite. That whole house smells like dog, even though Buggy burns church incense at least once a day. From the den, I can see into the kitchen. It’s clean and everything, but there are matches all over the floor. There are always matches all over Buggy’s floors. I don’t know if she’s too blind to see them, or if she puts them there on purpose. With Buggy, you just never know. One time I tried picking the matches all up for her, but she said, Oh no! Don’t pick those up! It’ll bring bad luck!

I concentrate on the TV for awhile, but it’s so stuffy in there. I say, Buggy, could we please open a window?

She says, No, Miss Peppy has been fighting off a cold.

I stare back at my cartoons. Sidda has one of her library books so she’s okay. Lulu’s dunking graham crackers into her milk and stuffing as many as she can into her mouth. Baylor is walking around and around the house looking at the photographs on the walls, like he always does. He asks Buggy every single time we go over there, Who is that, Buggy? When was that? Where was that taken? And Buggy is happy to tell him.
Baylor thinks that whole hallway is his own private museum.

The Road Runner
gets over with, and the only things on the TV are stupid. So me and Sidda and Lulu get out the Sears catalog and start cutting it up. We cut up models and things and glue them back together in different ways. It’s a old game of ours—you can play it anywhere, because almost everybody has a old Sears catalog laying around the house. I cut off the head of a man modeling underwear and stick it on a power saw. Sidda cuts off a lady’s legs and pastes them coming out of a baby’s ears. Whoever makes the weirdest thing wins. We never get tired of that game.

And when we’re done, we leave all the scraps of paper and the paste and scissors and everything all over the floor. At Buggy’s we never clean up a single thing. We just sit back and watch her do it. We make deliberate messes because we know she’ll clean them up. She’ll sigh like you’re driving nails through her palms, but she always bends over and cleans them up like she’s our servant.

So then we have to go and admire Miss Peppy and her babies again before Buggy will fix us any lunch. Finally we get some grilled cheeses and tomato soup, but Miss Peppy can’t take it that we’re getting something she isn’t, so she pees right on the rug next to where I have my grilled cheese on a paper towel.

And that is when I get my famous idea.

I don’t say one word about that dog peeing right
next to my sandwich. I wait until Buggy is straightening up after lunch and then I say, Hey yall, let’s go in the grandchildren’s room and play.

Buggy says, Little Shep, you sure are being good today.

I grin and lead Sidda, Lulu, and Baylor down the hall to the room where we sleep when we spend the night, and where all our toys are. Once I have them all in there, I shut the door and tell them, Alright now, listen to me, hear? Yall want to have some fun?

Yeah! Baylor says.

Uh-huh, Lulu says, chewing a piece of peanut-butter fudge.

Sidda takes the candy away from her and says, Mama told me to keep an eye on you. You wouldn’t have your weight problem in the first place if it weren’t for Buggy and her homemade candy.