Fanny Says Read online

Now, Bernie, she’d fuss. We got to clorox that damn floor.

  Those boys clomped through here—look at those tracks

  right cross my clean white rug. And so

  Bernie May put down

  her coffee, and without gloves,

  cloroxed it all

  over again.

  5.

  A formula genius in design—

  with high reactivity and instability

  it works quick then

  disappears,

  almost as if it had never been there

  at all.

  Blow up, blow out, blow over,

  she’d say after he took

  the safety

  off his jigsaw with a hammer,

  after he tried to fix the broken head

  of a sprinkler with a hammer,

  after he ran the hood

  of his pickup through her

  carport again.

  He knocked us

  into chairs and into closets and down the stairs,

  and if you tried to stand before

  he was done, he’d knock you

  back again.

  You see, me and Monroe,

  well, me and all my kids,

  we were natural:

  we’ d fuss and fight and holler and make up

  by suppertime.

  Ain’t no sense in holding it in, and damn well ain’t no sense in dragging it out again.

  Reader, listen—

  You’ve got bad water from the well?

  We all do

  one time or another.

  Just splash a little Clorox in and wait,

  and not too long.

  This is a poison that works quick then is

  gone; this is a poison she saw fit enough

  for us, for all of us, to drink.

  Fanny Says She Didn’t Use to Be Afraid

  I never was close to Evelyn though. She was always the good daughter, helping to sweep and helping to mop and sitting outside on the swing porch watching Bobby and Billy. But I wasn’t no good. I wasn’t nearly as good of a daughter. I was out, all the time, just a walkin the alleys, and if I’d see a cigarette butt on the ground this short, I’d smoke it. Mama always kept the matches over the stove, and I’d steal them. I smoked cigarettes all day long, but never did buy any, I don’t know why. I guess cause I could find them and smoke them and not have to worry about no AIDS or nothin. We didn’t worry about them things them days.

  Fanny Linguistics: Publix Hieroglyphics

  Most every day meant

  a trip to the grocery,

  which called for a special skill—

  reading Fanny’s grocery list.

  A pile of dots could be

  peas, hominy, or pintos,

  and with a cylinder next to it,

  add: a can of.

  A cylinder alone was

  toilet paper,

  and drawn bigger meant

  paper towel.

  She drew tiny boxes, tiny bags, tiny cups;

  she drew

  icons of bread, chicken, beef,

  motion lines of sliced, quartered, ground.

  Once, we knew

  a tangle of squiggles

  was spaghetti,

  we were sure,

  but even with years of experience,

  best not get too cocky:

  when we got home, she asked what the hell

  we bought that nasty-ass pasta for.

  Well, son of a bitch, she said. Look close

  at that list I done gave you.

  See? Look here. That’s no spaghetti.

  Can’t you read?

  That’s sauerkraut.

  Fanny Linguistics: Origins

  If asked about her education, she’d say,

  You mean schooling? Well, mostly

  a wooden chair—

  ladder-backed, straight,

  raw wood,

  small, hard, hand-hewn,

  pegged together

  with no glue, no nails.

  She’d say,

  I’ d pull my wooden chair

  up to Daddy’s

  wooden chair.

  I’ d ask him how to spell.

  And he’ d help me spell

  until he said,

  “Frances Lee, it’s time for bed now,”

  and I’ d say,

  “Alright, Daddy,”

  and I pushed my little wooden chair

  up under the dark table

  and did like he said.

  Crisco

  1.

  A brand in a can and, later, conveniently in sticks, but also a word—crisco—

  applying to any shortening, any oil teased from its natural state to stay solid

  at room temp. Used with a peppering of coffee grounds to fry chicken,

  or with ice water to roll flat a pie crust, or in her cornbread, made the only right way:

  with buttermilk, in a skillet cured and cast iron.

  2.

  Crisco, the first shortening made from plants, mostly cottonseed up from Delta

  labor and heat, the first shortening entirely free of slaughter, the hog she remembered

  hung upside-down, the six-inch stick knife that made an animal

  flesh, the come-along jack that hoisted what was now carcass

  into a cauldron of boiling water and lye, the bell scraper that teased a body from

  its own bristle, teased it right out of its own skin.

  3.

  A Depression-Era cure-all—for ashy elbows, for rusty skates, for squeaky hinges

  and cracked heels and cuticles and psoriasis and hemorrhoids and bicycle chains.

  Back then, there wasn’t much Mama could afford, so her mama bought Crisco for

  most anything that needed attention, a bit of moisture, a dab of grease.

  4.

  Crisco, because Fanny says you have to wear your husband out, and sometimes

  you might be counting flower petals on wallpaper, but you best pretend,

  Just put a little shortening up there, she said,

  he’ ll never know the difference.

  5.

  Monroe said to her once: Fanny, what do you think a man

  thinks about all day? Beans and cornbread?

  For her, Crisco popped and pocked tiny round burns

  down both arms, Crisco sizzled and melted

  and started a full-on grease fire only

  salt could put out.

  Crisco clogged her pores and dulled the walls;

  Crisco slowly filled the delicate tubes leading in and out of

  Monroe’s heart.

  But for now, say it is evening, the kids are outside playing

  kick the can, the floor mopped, the dishes done,

  she is bone-tired, ankles swollen, but he waits

  upstairs. She opens the tin, uses two fingers to slide

  a dollop in.

  For My Grandmother’s Feet, Swollen Again

  But for one pair of storebought boots,

  your two feet grew up barefoot

  with no idea you’d be bedridden,

  expecting for the last time at forty

  your seventh child. And your sixth—

  your youngest daughter—my mother,

  would play shoe shop with a string.

  It’s her favorite story: how she laced

  your feet with pretend ribbon,

  pretend satin, pretend lace,

  how she tied a bow and said,

  How about this pair, Mama,

  would these do? I can’t say

  I was there, but the half of me

  that was round and fully formed

  nested in the mouth of her ovary,

  waiting to be allowed down

  its long swan throat, and at times

  when I’m too sick to get out of bed,

  I curl the edge of a haunted sheet

  between my toes to feel

  a pair of imaginary slippers

>   made by a little girl who waits

  for me at the edge of my bed. This memory—

  is it mine to have? My feet

  are three sizes too big, paddle feet,

  unpolished, feet that never bore

  the weight of child and might never

  will. But still, when my body fevers,

  when I am weak, there is something

  bittersweet threading the loneliest part

  of me, something that says, Now,

  it’s time. I’ve made you new shoes.

  Stand up.

  Fanny Says How to Tend Babies

  1. When expecting, you can smoke and tan and dye your hair, but don’t you go reaching up on the clothesline: believe you me, Barbara lost Charlie the minute she reached up on the clothesline—the cord wrapped around his neck and killed him. And don’t you dare straddle a bike or run or do anything too physical. If you need to stretch your fat legs, walk around the block. You’ll want to hide your belly while you’re out there too, so do like Grandma did and have somebody make you some pretty tops, loose now. I had one in every color—aqua, pink, and yella.

  2. Ain’t nothing to tending a baby once he’s here. I had seven, I know. No sense in going out and getting baby magazines and all that expensive shit swinging and rocking and propping your baby up. You won’t use it two seconds, and besides, it won’t be no good to you in six months. Shoot fire, we used to use a dresser drawer as a crib. Use common sense—now, if you’re hot, they’re hot. If you’re cold, they’re cold. All you need for his little rashy ass is a sprinkle a cornstarch and about an inch of water to wash it in the sink.

  3. Women been having babies for a hundred and one years, and you don’t need no fancy doctor telling you what to do. Well, look at you: you had diarrhea and looked just like a monkey in a cage in that hospital. See, people will just let you do anything to your babies when the doctor say so . . . and there you sat, Koey, your heart was broke, just a crying your eyes out. And I was a real bitch then, I had all a that money and I just threw it around . . . and I said, Lisa, here. You take the baby and wrap her up in my coat (they had you naked as a jay bird), and I went down to the gift shop and got you a gown and a pair of booties and a big pink nursing blanket. And the doctor said, You can’t take that baby out of here, and I said, Just watch me.

  4. Now, listen to your grandma: when you come home from that hospital, you keep off your feet six weeks. Don’t get up to do nothing but bathe and sleep and eat, and get you a little bassinet in the bedroom to keep that baby right beside you. You’ll need to heal that flitter, so don’t you move. When the baby sleeps, you sleep. Don’t think his nap’s the time to clean the house and run around. You start sweeping the floor and going to the store before your time, and mark my words, you’ll liable to bleed to death.

  5. Breastfeeding will ruin your tiddies, so steer clear of all them hippies that tell you what to do. Now, you don’t want him to get the thrush, so make sure to clean the milk out of his mouth when his formula is done. Take some distilled water with a teaspoon of white Karo syrup and let him swallow that down. But don’t use the same nipples that you use for your milk; that water bottle needs a smaller hole, less you want him to choke to death. If he gets the colic, next time put a little paregoric in his milk. That should do the trick.

  6. You don’t want an ugly baby now, so sleep him on his stomach; it keeps the head from getting flat in back. Because if that happens, you’ll end up spending all your time rubbing circles on his head, trying to work it back into shape. If you don’t believe me, take your cousin Jeremy: I done come twelve hundred miles just anticipating to see him, and Lord, if that wasn’t the ugliest youngin I ever did see. And I said it was a wonder Toni had him covered up. . . . She said he was covered cause he was sleeping. Sleeping’s ass. All I knowd was that his head was that long, and when I watched him he fell off the couch. And I said, Toni, Toni come in here, I think your baby’s dead. . . . Well, I never was one for babysitting. And Lord. The way Toni used to rub his head to work it back into shape.

  7. Get yourself some help, cause you got laundry ahead. You’ll want to change that baby’s sheets every single day, and wursh his clothes separate from yours—you don’t want your nasty bloomers and your husband’s socks bumping up against the baby’s things. Use Dreft detergent. Now, you can dry the baby’s things in the dryer, but everything will need to be seasoned, specially when the baby’s new. Put out everything flat on the bed, set it out at least for twenty-four hours, till all the moisture is out.

  8. Sterilize everything that goes in that baby’s mouth. Boil the bottles and the nipples and the rattlers, and if a pacifier falls on the floor, don’t let me catch you clean it off with your mouth. I mean it; I’ll whup your ass. Less you want that baby sick as a dog, you throw it on the stove and boil it again.

  9. After six weeks, you and the baby emerge. You might give the little fucker rice cereal then—mix one teaspoon of formula, one teaspoon of cereal. See, you want a sturdy baby, so best to get him on food soon as you can; milk babies get fat but don’t have no tone. And when he’s ready for more, don’t waste your money on those little jars of baby food. Mash up potatoes and mash up macaroni—most any food that don’t have color is fine—and when a few teeth come in, cut up a White Castle too.

  10. If he gets the croup, use whiskey, honey, and lemon to break up that phlegm. Now, he’ll cough and puke it up, but that’s what he’s supposed to do. If he starts fussing when he’s teething, give him a wet rag from the freezer and a baby aspirin too.

  Your husband won’t help you none, and that’s fine. He has his work to do. You got to give a man space. Let him mow the grass and plant the tomatoes and smoke his pipe all day long on the back porch. He’ll be thinking on his day off, and you just need to keep doing what you’re doing. Don’t mind him at all.

  Fanny Says She Wanted to See Elvis

  It was his first time on the tee-vee, and all Monroe and I had was a ten-dollar radio, and I wanted to go out to Mama’s and see him. And I don’t think Monroe would have agreed, but I was out to here, like always, embarrassed to death to be pregnant again. But he was jealous as a dog and all pissed off cause he knew I wanted to see Elvis dance the hootchiecoo like he done. And you wouldn’t believe it, but we got all the way out there, and they filmed him from here up, nothing below the belt, so you couldn’t see a damn thing. Monroe was on the porch with his pipe; he wasn’t studying it.

  EPO

  KRS 403.740 Emergency protective order.

  If, upon review of the petition, as provided for in KRS 403.735, the court determines that the allegations contained therein indicate the presence of an immediate and present danger of domestic violence and abuse, the court shall issue, upon proper motion, ex parte, an emergency protective order . . .

  Forgive me. I was sixteen, hard-headed, big-haired, ready to fight.

  I was newfangled, a know-it-all, a meddler with an overstuffed

  carpetbag. Forgive me. I talked you into it; I took you downtown.

  For saying you were silly to be afraid of traffic and parallel parking,

  of meters and paperwork and the family court judge. Fanny, we can do this, I said

  like some kind of cheerleader dumbstruck with virtue, ready to change the world.

  Let me do this, I said. School was out, I had my own car, and it was easy

  enough to call the pizza joint and tell a version of the truth:

  I can’t come in to work; I feel kinda sick.

  The world dislocated hung on my tongue—your cabinet from its hinge, your shoulder

  from your arm. For the word grandfather curdled in my mouth, and I thought

  we could spit it out.

  Forgive me. For the obscenity of your size-five house slippers up the courthouse

  stairs, for the security guard, eyeing through the x-ray machine, suspicious

  of all your little disco cases—one for lipstick and another for your lighter, even

  y
our cigarette holder a gold box threatening his big-man screen. Forgive me for

  the conveyor belt; it smudged your white pocketbook, and for the life of me,

  we never could get it clean. Because even then I knew what I’d done—

  Oh, Fanny, I didn’t realize this place would be so dirty. Who in God’s name pissed

  right on the wall? I wish somebody would talk to us; I wish somebody would take a rag

  to that nasty Plexiglas, and here, sit on my coat, I know these hard plastic chairs are killing