lord have mercy

old daddy grand daddy

Vera with her sixth sixth sense lumbers out of the kitchen. Her apron is spattered with flour dough—hair a nest of vipers and magpies and twisted into a scrunchie at the back of her neck.

Mercy picks her up every day and helps her waddle to the car then waddle to the kitchen and heave into her baking stool where she sits and bakes the Americans: apple, peach, and shooflie. It keeps her hands busy and that’s what she knows—what she’s always known. She tried it once. Retirement. Setting home alone with no way to quit her brain. Needless to say, she accidentally lit the curtains on fire and tripped on the welcome mat on her way out the door. So now she bakes.

Vera has owned the Yule since before Asheville was a bachelorette party and before espresso martinis were a thing of giddy wonder. She owned it through bell bottoms and skinny jeans and then again bell bottoms and skinny jeans and now (YES!) bell bottoms AND skinny jeans.

Vera’s Daddy built the Yule back when a gin joint was considered fully stocked as long as you had rum, gin and medicinal whiskey. Simple simple Simon. She reviews the ABC liquor orders every week as a thing of wonder. Whistle Pig? Penelope? Chemist and Hendricks Gin and YET no Beefeater? Daddy must be turning in his grave.

Vera’s Daddy and Mercy’s grand daddy built The Yule back when the men in black suits were jumping from the Jackson building at Packs square. Daddy—grand daddy lost all his money in the stock market too but he was afraid of heights so tried to blow his brains out with his favorite revolver but at the last minute his trigger finger froze and curled when he thought of Ethyl and the way her hips fit into the curve of his hands. The bluest of eyes. Hair corked and screwed and bouncy on the bed. So the dandy man known for being trigger happy with his money shots got gun shy (because who could leave a dame like that to pry a gun from his cold dead hands)? Oh she was a hotsy totsy—the cat’s pajamas.

And sure, life would never be the same without his money rolls and his Savile Row suits. But he still had a brick house with a brick backed stable on Lexington Avenue. He had a cellar full of french wines and whiskey. So when all the poor rich men started walking the plank Daddy—grand daddy built himself a bar full of kitchen tables and hardwood chairs. And Ethyl kept three pound meat loaf and cornbread cakes warming in her bun oven.

At The Yule a man (any man’s man) could come and look at the newspaper and do nothing about it but talk and talk until it was time to go home. Because what could you do with A Herbert Hoover who didn’t know a thing about a thing. And standing outside the brick factory wouldn’t get you nowhere but you clocked in and did it anyway and then you came to eat what Ethyl’s good looks were cooking.

So Daddy–grand daddy kept a tally going of tabs and IOUs and he figured if they didn’t pay up before he ran out of booze and biscuits. Well then, cross that bridge when you get to it. He was young and his wife was the apple of every man’s eye. The way she soothed and smoothed their ruffled feathers and filled their refill coffee mugs.

Daddy—grand daddy’s bonds and stocks were between her hips in the silk of her slip. Every day after the longest days of days they’d inch their achy bones down into the patchwork quilts and pillows and talk about the someday day when maybe maybe just maybe they could have a baby or two or three and drive back to Coney Island with a car full of tots in suits built for sand.

They slept and dreamt about Coney Island and Ferris Wheels and candied apples on sticks and how they met there and how in the world did they ever get here? Asheville. North Carolina—why? Should they blame Zelda? F. Scott? Or the bees between their knees?

They made moonshine and bathtub gin through one world war and then number two and then Vietnam. But the babies never came and their shoes turned to dust and their bones got stiff and sore.

So they gave up waiting for the chicken littles and finally drove to Jekyll Island one hot summer because it was closer than Coney. Ethyl wasn’t bleeding anymore and so that was that. They had the sand for their grand piano. Ethyl always wanted one. So now. Every Good Boy Does Fine. Pitter patter—pitter patter. Dink donk honkey tonk. F sharp. D flat.

She patted at her flat hips and bounced a penny on her belly. An echo echo echo back back. Hello! It’s me.

Cones of cream and iced milk. A hotdog piled with kraut. A baby in a belly. She thought it was finally her time to stop worrying about things she couldn’t change.

One two buckle my shoe. Three four shut the door. Five six pick up sticks.

They made love in the four poster bed in a breezy cottage by the sea. And when the lambs and daffodils and drunks welcomed the spring shine sunshine in may of ‘46 big—little Vera was born. Eleven pounds six ounces. Head the size of the moon in her eyes, meaty little fists.

It was as if Ethyl had been raising this bun in her oven for a month of Sundays. Kneading and turning and patting up dust bunnies. Big blue china eyes. Head capped in hair so thick and black that when little Vera blink blinked she looked like a wise old man. And Daddy–grand daddy wrapped himself around her teeny tiny big-little fingers.

And just like any other small town that was full of gossip and whisper words and behind the back stabs there were tall tales of the witchy ways and hows and whys of the tonics and gins. And besides that no one REALLY knew how old Miss Ethyl was when she gave birth so she was left in peace to raise her big—little baby girl in the humm and whirr of the back of the house.

And she somehow kept her hourglass figure and smooth skinned forehead well into her late sixties so who’s who to say? And Daddy—grand daddy aged just fine. He was a man’s man and a lady’s man and a dapper dapper dan in his spats and crisp white shirts.

And no one but no one could spoon an ounce of the moon in your eyes like Daddy–grand daddy And no one could stretch hambone soup like Ethyl. And the town was hungry and skinny and bow legged from bantying and baying and fighting for life.

Vera kept on keeping on after Daddy–grand daddy died and then eventually at some undisclosed age when Ethyl died too. She managed it all from her stoves in the back where she didn’t have to talk unless she had to and even then–well you know. Mumbo jumbo. Vietnam. The 72’ gas crisis. The 80’s recession. And she kept on keeping on and not dying but living in the back of the back of the house.

And somehow when the dust settled she bunned her oven too. Although how? Because Vera was a massive mountain of no–mans land. She shook the floors with her heavy steps and her big muscle bones. She was not a cat’s meow or pajamas.

But in order to keep on keeping on she needed a girl child and so somehow or another she got herself pregnant with a baby girl she named Mercy and when Ethyl saw those same bluest eyes and pitch of black hair. Lord have Mercy, she said. Look at these little toes and those little ears. Lord lord have Mercy.

Mercy eventually took over the bar with her grand daddy’s wit and dapper dandy whimsy. And The Yule served up comfort foods and reasonably priced booze. Mashed potato bowls with gravy. PBR with a butter bomb biscuit and a shot of Jack or Jim for twelve bucks a chuck.

Vera leaned her bulk on the bar corner, watching her big little baby girl pour a partial Guinness. Let it sit for a spell. She wondered if this would be the last of the line. Mercy never did want a baby and so who would help her keep on keeping on? Who would take the secret brews and stews and feed the world. Who would make it a better place?

And who is the who’s who of Asheville? Vera didn’t recognize her town anymore and only went out back to blow smoke rings.

Vera was old and dumbfounded but she still knew how to run a soup line from behind the trash bins. She was the Juan Don of the vagrants and that is why the bendy fellows who couldn’t make it got swept under city hall’s rugs. And that is why Mercy doesn’t have to worry herself with the stick man or the cat man or the snake man trying to take the piss and beg for money on her side of the street.

Vera’s people were long dead and gone and other than occasional Mahjong and the hummingbirds on Fridays she didn’t have anyone to really talk to if she wanted to talk about how to die and leave this kid behind—this old lady little girl child. Mercy Mercy me. Hello. It’s me. Lord have mercy.

She wanted to find words in a way that she never could. Wanted to say that the marrow in her bones was steeling and stiffening and her heart didn’t race like it once did and everything felt heavy and light at the same time.

She felt these things vibrating in her muddle brain and her brain was always muddled and why was that? She couldn’t put words to the way it felt to be a dying breed. How she was a White Rhino on bended knee, or a flappy floppy Dodo bird falling from the sky.

Mercy finished the Guinness and poured her big—little momma a coffee thick with cream and whiskey and Vera sipped at it and felt the shifts in Mercy’s shoulders when the tv talked and squawked about missing persons, a person who was lost and now found.

And the words that scrolled along the bottom were too blurry to tell but the face came into shape even without her bottle cap glasses. That halo of flame hair. Those freckles across the nose. That gap toothed smile. And her heart ticked up and started bapping and flapping at the cage of her ribs. And she tried to sit the coffee down but it clattered and clapped back at her Jutzpah, her audacity for thinking her thick Dodo wings wouldn’t weigh her down with the wax and the wane.

Mercy was making a dirty gin martini and Vera was felling the trunk of her own two trees. Hello? It’s me! Cooing. A fat pigeon is what the Dodo was. A cooing flightless fat pigeon.