Shaking the Sugar Tree (30 page)

As I introduced her to my family and friends, we were distracted by the whine of a four-wheeler.

I turned to look in the direction of the road out front, and saw Mr. Warren driving a junior four-wheeler down the road. He made for a comical figure with his large bulk perched at the controls of a half-sized four-wheeler. He turned into our driveway and proceeded across the lawn to the inflatable.

The children rushed out to see what was happening and who he was.

“It’s Noah’s birthday present,” Mrs. Warren said. “Harold asked his friend in Tupelo to open his store today—on the Fourth of July!—so he could buy it for Noah. I do hope he’ll like it. He wanted to make a grand entrance so I dropped him off down the road.”

We hurried over to where Mr. Warren had parked. Noah was standing in front of him, beaming, his Superman mask in one hand as Mr. Warren tried to use hand signals to convey his intentions. Noah had an uncertain smile on his face as if he could not believe this gigantic toy could actually be his.

Mr. Warren caught my eye, shrugged helplessly.

“
This is a birthday present from your grandfather
,” I signed to Noah, speaking for the benefit of everyone else.

Noah threw himself at Mr. Warren, engulfing him with his arms.

Mr. Warren smiled sheepishly.

“I want to ride it!” Eli squealed.

Noah pulled away.

“Thank you!” he exclaimed.

He turned, saw Mrs. Warren, and came over to give her a hug.

“Do you want to ride it?” I asked him.

“I’ll teach him, Uncle Wiley,” Eli said eagerly.

Eli climbed up, and Noah sat in front of him.

“Watch him,” I said to Eli.

“It’s easy,” Eli said, turning the key and starting it.

They rambled across the grass and the kids chased after it.

“Thank you for coming,” I said in the silence after their departure. “We have plenty of food if you’re hungry.”

Mr. Warren struggled to get hold of himself, and it seemed as though he didn’t want to speak. He seemed to be struggling with emotions that he had held in check for many, many years.

“Let’s eat,” Mrs. Warren suggested.

“I would ask you to forgive me,” Mr. Warren blurted out, finally raising his eyes to look at me. “I believe in the Gospel of the Lord, the Gospel of Christ. And I believe, when we’ve done wrong, we need to ask for forgiveness. Will you forgive a very stupid old man?”

“Of course,” I said.

Bill looked at me, a strangeness in his eyes. Mr. Warren was a fine, upstanding member of First Baptist. Why on earth would he apologize to the town faggot? Bill frowned as he looked away, as though embarrassed on Mr. Warren’s behalf.

“We still have cake,” I said, trying to smooth over the moment.

“Shelly, watch those kids,” Mama said. “You know how those boys are.”

We went back to the tables. Introductions were made all around, more food was eaten, more beers taken out of the cooler. KUDZU pumped out a steady stream of country classics.

Eli taught Noah how to drive by himself; then all the kids wanted a turn, and the mini four-wheeler went round and round.

“You’re Kayla’s parents,” Jackson said to Mr. and Mrs. Warren after we had settled into chairs.

“Yes,” Mrs. Warren said.

“I was very sorry to hear about your daughter.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Warren said. “You’re Wiley’s….”

“Boyfriend,” Papaw said loudly as Jackson struggled to find an answer. “They’re queer for each other. They’ve gone through about five cans of Crisco at this point. The Piggly Wiggly in New Albany had to special order a whole case just for the two of them. God, what a mess they leave behind! Took Martha about a day and a half to clean up the bedroom the last time.”

“Papaw!” Mama exclaimed angrily.

“Everyone knows it, Martha,” he said. “Been that way since he was knee-high to a bull frog and ain’t nothing gonna change it now. Likes to take it up the chuff! And I say more power to him. God bless the faggots!”

There were smiles all around.

“Pretty soon they’ll be getting married,” Papaw went on, “and we’ll have to watch Wiley walk down the aisle in cowboy boots, lipstick and a wedding dress. Christ help us all! But the good father here will marry them, won’t you, father?”

Father Ginderbach offered a broad smile. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that, Papaw,” I said.

“I ain’t worried about it, boy,” he replied. “Since they upped me to ninety milligrams a day, I ain’t worried about a damned thing. Just as long as my bowels keep working, hell, it’s all good.”

Mrs. Warren watched Papaw carefully. I could tell by the slight smile on her lips that she knew all about putting crazy on your front porch.

“You’re just a character, aren’t you, Mr. Cantrell?” she said easily.

“Too much acid in the sixties,” he admitted. “Fries the brain. I ain’t been right since then. Martha can tell you that.”

“Daddy, you ain’t never been right,” Mama said.

“Papaw, this is Mr. Warren,” I said, trying to introduce Noah’s grandfather into the conversation. He seemed very ill at ease.

“You’re that Christless lawyer that sued the town because Old Lady Smithson fell at City Hall and broke her hip, ain’t ya?” Papaw asked, demonstrating a surprising lucidity for someone who was supposedly on the verge of senility.

Mr. Warren licked his lips, not knowing how to answer.

“That’s all right,” Papaw announced. “I’d rather Old Lady Smithson got my tax dollars than those goddamn communist-loving Democrats, and that’s the truth!”

The laughter that followed was that of folks who had dodged a bullet.

When the kids began to wander back to the tables, Bill put his “dance tape” on the sound system. Patsy Cline got things started off with “Seven Lonely Nights.”

“Come on,” I said to Jackson, feeling reckless, happy, daring.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his eyes going wide as he looked around at the folks staring at us.

“Of course,” I said.

I took his hands and we did a pitiful but well-intentioned bit of two-stepping. There was a lot of laughter from the folks watching us until Noah joined in, holding our hands and imitating our moves. Everyone got quiet.

“They’re all looking at us,” Jackson whispered.

I smiled.

Then suddenly there were a lot of folks on their feet coming to join us.

Keke took Noah away and they danced the way only deaf children can.

Papaw and Mrs. Humphries got in on the act.

When “Sweet Home Alabama” came pouring out of the speakers, things got a little crazy.

I found myself dancing in Jackson’s arms, smiling inanely at him.

“This must be complete hell for you,” I said. No doubt he was used to more uptown, refined forms of entertainment.

“I think it’s wonderful,” he replied. “I haven’t had this much fun in ages.”

There was something different about the eyes that looked at us. For the first time, there was acceptance and, oddly enough, disinterest, as though I had finally reached a point in my life where my peculiarities were so commonplace as to be no longer worth noticing.

I could get used to that
, I thought.

I
N
THE
evening after all the guests had gone, we boarded our vehicles and caravanned into downtown New Albany to watch the fireworks as we did each year.

I perched on the edge of a sidewalk as Noah sat between my legs. They were “his” fireworks, after all, as I always told him, set-off just to honor his birthday. Jackson sat on my left, Bill on my right, his boy Eli sitting between his legs. For all intents and purposes, we were three dads doing the fireworks thing.

“It was a really nice party,” I said to Bill. “Thank you.”

“He’s worth it,” Bill said, glancing at Noah.

“If you didn’t love him, you wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble,” I pointed out.

“He’s a good kid,” he said, deftly sidestepping my point, which was to let him know that I understood that he really did have my child’s best interests at heart despite all his rhetoric and religious mumbo bullcrap.

“Why do you hate me?” I asked.

“I don’t hate you, Wiley,” he said, looking at me.

“It doesn’t feel that way sometimes, Billy.”

He said nothing.

Just when I thought he wasn’t going to answer, he cleared his throat. “It scares me,” he said softly. “I don’t know why you’ve gone down this road. I don’t understand it, Wiley. I really don’t. Why would you choose something like this?”

“It’s not a choice,” I pointed out.

“But it is,” he said.

“Did you choose to like girls when you were growing up?”

“It just happened.”

“So maybe it just happened to me too, but it happened a little bit differently?”

“It didn’t just happen,” he said. “You chose it, Wiley.”

“But I didn’t. All I did was decide to be honest about it.”

“You’re not attracted to women?”

I shook my head.

The look on his face said this couldn’t possibly be true.

“Are you attracted to men?” I asked.

“Of course not.”

“If it’s a choice, as you say, why can’t you just choose to be attracted to men like me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You’re being ridiculous. It’s not that complicated. Most guys like girls, but there’s a handful of us who like other guys. That’s just the way life is. Do we all have to be the same?”

“No.”

“What’s the problem?”

“It’s icky, Wiley.”

“What’s icky about two people who love each other?

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “It just is.”

“I do know,” I said a bit too forcefully. “You’re a bigot, Billy. You don’t like gay people. That’s fine. But it’s your problem, not mine. I can’t go around pretending to like girls because you think it’s icky if I’m honest. If you had any respect for me, you wouldn’t ask me to do that. You’d let me be who I am and you’d get over your darned self.”

“I’m trying to understand,” he said. “You’re going to have to give me some time.”

“I’m still your little brother. Still the same person I’ve always been.”

“My little piece of shit brother,” he said, but not unkindly.

“And you’re my big piece of shit brother,” I added with a smile.

The first volley of fireworks went suddenly up into the air and Noah hooted.

O
N
THE
Sunday morning after the party, Noah wandered to the kitchen as I sat at the table in my boxers, laptop open, my fingers flying over the keyboard, sweating because of the heat.

KUDZU played Dolly Parton’s “Here You Come Again.”

Noah came over to me, checking in by draping an arm over my back and putting his face against my shoulder. Then he pulled away and faced me so I could see him.

Are you working again?
he asked.

I nodded happily.

What are you writing about?
he asked.

I’m writing about a little deaf boy,
I said.

Why
?

Because he’s amazing and I want the whole world to know how smart he is and how much I love him
.

He smiled.

Are you going to write about J. too?
he asked.

Yes
.

And Memaw?

Yes
.

And Uncle B.?

Yes.

And K.?

Of course.

I think you should make K. a vampire. She’d like that.

She would,
I agreed.

He went to the fridge to get a Pop-Tart. He placed one in the toaster, pressed the button, and waited patiently.

I’d been up since three in the morning. I’d woken up with an idea in my head that wanted to be written down, that insisted on being written down, and right away. An image of that first time I had seen Jackson Ledbetter in my line purchasing two cases of Dos Equis was strong in my mind. It was the beginning of my story, the beginning of a whole new chapter in my life, perhaps the beginning of the rest of my life.

Or at least it would be in my new novel.

Mysterious man purchases beer for housewarming party. Casual invite. Gaydar off the charts. What could it mean? Doesn’t he know that I’m just a cashier? Was this Prince Charming come at last, not riding a white horse but wearing hospital scrubs? Would my son finally have a second parent, a complete home? And me: Would I finally find real love, a companion in my old age, a mate, a husband?

It could work.

The words flowed easily, and I was more than three thousand words into it when Noah wandered into the kitchen.

I had never written a book like this, though. I was used to the conventions of the horror genre. What was I writing, exactly? Romance? Drama? Slice of life? Romantic comedy? Would there be an audience for such a book?

Watching Noah sit down, chomping on his Pop-Tart, I realized it was none of those things. It was a love story about a father and a son. The rest was window dressing. As a love story between a parent and a child, it was universal. Didn’t matter that I was gay, that he was deaf, that we didn’t fit in, that we were each outcasts in our own way. God, fate, the universe, luck—we had been thrown together in this thing we call life for reasons we might never be able to fathom. As Mrs. Humphries would say, The Lord gon’ find a way—and He had.

Are we going to see Grandpa today?
Noah asked.

I nodded.

I hate going there.

We always go there on the Sunday after your birthday
.

I know
.

We could take flowers to your mom, too, if you want
.

Okay
.

A
PEW
at St. Francis was filled with Cantrells for morning mass. Noah, myself, Mama, Bill, Shelly, the kids, and my daddy’s sister Aunt Mary, her husband Uncle Rowland, their daughter Mary Margret, her two kids. Even Papaw, looking uncomfortable in a clean shirt and dress pants. Jackson sat beside me, smelling faintly of cologne and good breeding.