Seasonings
Resplendent in clearance sale plastic go-go boots and polyester mini-dresses, my teen aunts, Paula and Brenda, use the battered handle on the kitchen cabinet drawer to pop bottle tops—sometimes ice-cold Coca Cola or Pepsi—but mostly RC Cola with salted peanuts shoved inside the neck to make both a drink and a treat. The bottle caps tumble to the soft, dark linoleum floor where foot traffic presses them deep until our kitchen floor looks like a mosaic to constant thirst. In the living room, mournful gospel music scratches and screeches out of a big wooden stereo console reminiscent of a small child’s coffin. On the time-darkened, lead-painted wall, an installment plan, blonde and blue Jesus smiles from a gold-painted tin frame illuminated by a white Christmas tree bulb. On the opposite wall, a painting of a meandering stream in a leaf-shaded autumn forest that I wade into whenever the box fan in the corner doesn’t do much more than lead the dust motes and the occasional fly in a dispirited waltz. In the kitchen, my aunt Mae’s chapped knuckles knead flour into lard for biscuits, chicken already popping and spitting on the stove to be served later with Uncle John’s Ribbon cane syrup on chipped and mismatched plates. My cousin and I do our bit to get new Willow Blue dishes by carefully tearing apart S&H Green Stamps, licking their gummy backs and affixing them to the slots in their little books. A stifling, dog-that-will-bring-a-bone-will-carry-a-bone breeze enters through the tattered back screen door and visits awhile, spreading gossip about scandalous neighbors, who-did-what-with-whom, and futile dreams and misery, before beating a fast retreat out the front screen door, leaving a miasma of freshly cut grass, rain-to-come, and the same old, same old stale sorrow. The sweet aroma of browning biscuits, crispy fried chicken, and dark, musky sweat mix, until everything that’s joyful and unbearable smells alike, tastes alike, looks alike, and feels like one and the same. Two roaches furtively court in the corner. A can of Raid insecticide nearby will spare them the ordeal of having more mouths to feed. The slapping and light thudding sounds as Aunt Mae wrestles another pan of white biscuits into the oven; the chicken sizzling and sputtering in the black cast iron skillet like hot Friday night damnation, sweet Sunday morning salvation, and indignant newborn grief. My teen aunts bop around setting our rickety kitchen table with ice-filled water glasses, recycled jelly jars, plastic tumblers, and a pitcher of too-sweet Lipton iced tea that’s perspiring as much as the rest of us. Cane syrup in a silver tin with a pop-off lid that stays sticky no matter how often it’s wiped down; half-used slab of cold margarine placed next to it for the biscuits. Plates are filled with designated pieces of chicken: a golden breast each for my grandmother and oldest uncle, the stingy neck and butt for my two youngest ones, a juicy thigh apiece for my mother and Aunt Mae, my teen aunts each receive a crispy wing, my cousin and I, the babies of the family, magnanimously presented tender drumsticks. There’s fried chicken livers and gizzards piping hot and glistening with grease for anyone who looks at the amount of bird on their plate and feels hard done by. Aunt Mae stands eating at the kitchen sink—as she usually does—as there aren’t enough chairs or consideration to go around. Faces shining with the sweat of our brows and with as much desperate desire as Lazarus, we bow our heads, squeeze our eyes shut, and mumble the shortest grace we know in the hopes of as much blessing as we dare ask for—and maybe even a crumb of mercy: Jesus wept.
Helena Baptiste (@sumbodysbabygrl) is a burgeoning writer whose work has appeared in The Weeklings, Aforementioned Productions, and Crow and Crosskeys.