Greased Wits

By Thomas Craven

When Jason Singleton and Asher Williams come out of the closet, their friends and family have mixed reactions. while some are accepting, others choose to make things difficult in any way they can. As the couple copes with those reactions, Jason's mother, Martha, struggles to hold her family together while confronting deeper and darker family secrets from her childhood. Will she make the same mistakes her mother had made or will she manage to hold her family intact?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Craven
• Release date: Oct 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466194816

Thomas Craven

Thomas Craven was born in Rome Georgia. In 2004 he graduated from Shorter College (now known as Shorter University) where he was asked to read his short stories at various events. Greased Wits is his first novel.

Book preview

GREASED WITS

THOMAS CRAVEN

Greased Wits

By Thomas Craven

Copyright 2011 Thomas Craven

Smashwords Edition

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Author’s note: This is a work of fiction. All characters, locations, and business establishments are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, locations, or business establishments is purely coincidental.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I: MOMMA KIN COUNT

II: SELECTIVE BREEDING

III: WHATEVER SPANKS YOUR MONKEY

IV: WORTH ITS WEIGHT IN GUMBALL WRAPPERS

V: THE NEW CHICK

VI: WHAT MAKES THE WORLD GROW GREEN

VII: PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN PINATAS SHOULDN’T SWING BATS

VIII: STROKE

IX: THE CLOSET

X: A WOMAN WITH HER OWN CAR

XI: THANKFUL

XII: HATE SPEECH

XIII: UNCLES

XIV: COOL AS A PENGUIN’S ASS FEATHERS

XV: WATCHING THE WORLD TURN RED

XVI: CLING TO WHATS LEFT OF YOUR PADDLE

XVII: LIFE ONLY HURTS UNTIL YOU DIE

XVIII: ONE OF HER OWN

XIX: GREASED WITS

XX: THE IMPLIED WILL

XXI: SHIT CREEK ONLY GETS DEEPER UPSTREAM

XXII: THE BEARER OF SECRETS

EPILOGUE: FAMILY TREES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

INTRODUCTION

It all began, oddly enough, as a slip of the tongue. I was still in college, sitting in Dr. Rice’s Advance Composition class. I don’t remember what he talking about that day (though I’d bet it had something to do with rhetoric; with Dr. Rice, everything had to do with rhetoric) and I don’t remember exactly what Dr. Rice was trying to say, but I do remember he got tongue tied and the words greased wits came out of his mouth.

Dr. Rice laughed off his little gaffe and jokingly offered extra credit to anyone who wrote a short story using Greased Wits as the title. I was already a step ahead of him and had the words jotted down in the margin of my notes. What happened next, I could be remembering wrong (that was several years ago) or I may have misunderstood it, but Dr. Rice looked directly at me as if he wondered if I would take him up on the extra credit offer or not.

By this point I had already taken two semesters of Creative Writing and earned a reputation on campus as a talented writer. I was asked on a few occasions to read short stories at various events, so that look wasn’t much of a surprise. I’m not trying to brag. Although I did think my work was pretty good, the reactions always surprised me. I think he may have expected me to write this story.

And I was determined to write it, not because I was expected to or because I wanted the extra credit. I graduated college in 2004 and didn’t start writing Greased Wits until 2006 so it’s probably too late to claim the extra credit anyway. I was determined to write it because it did sound like a great title for a short story. There was only one problem.

What the hell did greased wits mean? Simply put, it didn’t mean a damn thing. It was just a slip of the tongue. Eventually I came up with the definition that appears in chapter six: Greased wits is a condition where a person’s ideas are so slippery the person can’t get a good hold of them and really understand what they belief. People with greased wits are sheep, blindly following other blind sheep without any original thought of their own. If they do manage to accidentally have an original thought, it slips away through the fingers of their minds. A mind with greased wits can’t hold a thought for long. Not an original one, anyway.

I started with this definition and a list of other oddball phrases I came up with (many of which appear as chapter titles) and began to tell the tale of Jason and Asher’s relationship.

Then something else happened. While I told their story, some of the minor characters began to take a life with stories of their own beyond their minor roles. Specifically, I got caught up with Martha’s character and how her childhood memories affected her perceptions about Jason and Asher. Originally she had a minor role, but blossomed to a much larger role as the bearer of secrets. Through Martha, other characters (Josephina, Elias, Ruth, Daniel) emerged who captured my attention. Through Martha, I told some of their tales, but still craved seeing those tales told in a more complete fashion. Years later, I did write Josephina’s story, Family Trees, and added it to the novel as an epilogue.

Josephina’s story, like Jason and Asher’s story, is a story about love and about discrimination and how one can bind families together and the other can tear families apart. It doesn’t matter if the discrimination is based on race or sexual orientation. It only matters if it’s stronger than the love that binds the family together. Asher would say one makes the world grow green and the other can make the world grow red with bloodshed.

I: MOMMA KIN COUNT

When God made everyone else’s bodies out of dust and ashes, He made a special body carved in stone for Martha’s mother, but even stone gradually erodes away. Lying there, shriveled and wrinkled, Momma Tibbs is a perfect contrast to the starched white hospital sheets. Martha sits quietly next to the bed watching her breathe and waiting to see if she talks. With eight offspring, Momma Tibbs had plenty of children, in-laws, grandchildren, and great grandchildren to sit with her. Martha is the only one there because the others couldn’t make it. Some have died before her and some had other excuses. As for the rest, they decided a while back that sitting, watching, and waiting for Momma Tibbs to die was taking too much time. They simply can’t stop living their own lives to wait for hers to end so they decided to wait in shifts. This is Martha’s turn.

Martha passes the time making a baby blanket. The boys spend evenings home with Fred. During the day, Kevin is in school and Jason stays next door. Another one will come along soon, giving Martha an excuse to make a blanket to pass time while Momma Tibbs dies. The doctors say this one’ll be a girl and Martha wanted to make a pink blanket, but decides to do yellow instead to be on the safe side. Kevin was supposed to be a girl too.

I kin count, y’know.

Usually Momma Tibbs uses perfect grammar, without the southern drawl of her youth. Education was important to Momma Tibbs and she didn’t want her children to inherit ignorant speech. The Great Depression brought disadvantages, but her children would rise above it. Her children would be educated if she had to do it herself. And she did. Daddy didn’t believe in educating girls, especially during a time when survival outweighed the need for education. Momma Tibbs, who barely learned to read as a little girl, gave all her children a proper high school education. She even sent a few off to college after the war. The nearly illiterate stone woman made regular trips to the library and borrowed any books on history, science, mathematics, and grammar she could get her hands on. She took education seriously and was quicker with a ruler than any nun. Now her perfect grammar slips from time to time into the southern drawl of her own childhood and she says things like I kin count, y’know.

Martha sets the blanket in her lap. What Momma?

I kin count.

Yes Momma. I know.

Momma Tibbs sighs and turns toward her sixth born. I know bout Kevin. You had him about five months into your marriage. You looked bloated in that dress.

Martha picks the blanket back up and resumes twisting yellow yarn around the crochet hook. He’s six years old now, Momma.

It wasn’t like Momma Tibbs to keep quiet about something like that for so long. She was always a broad woman (until more recent years, at least) with a stern face (Martha can’t remember seeing her mother smile, though she’s sure Momma Tibbs must have) and a devout church goer (which, of course meant the children were too). You couldn’t fool Momma. You couldn’t lie to Momma. You’d get backhanded just for thinking about it, and yes, Momma knew if you thought about it. She kin count.

I had eight of my own, ‘member? I know ‘bout how long it takes to have ‘em.

Momma, you had seven children.

You’re forgetting Christina again.

Sorry Momma.

Martha was only three years old when Christina was born. She was still three when Christina died.

I forget her sometimes too. Momma Tibbs confesses. "I try to forget about Josephina sometimes."

Martha was only four when Josephina, her oldest sister, died. Josephina had been sixteen. Martha never forgot her because Momma Tibbs used Josephina as a warning. While other parents threaten to sick a boogie man on misbehaving children, Momma Tibbs would shout you don’t want to end up like Josephina, do you? Josephina was the wild one. She’d sneak out at night, talk back, do all the other things teenagers do. The others, except perhaps Ruth, behaved fairly well because they knew Momma was carved of stone.

Maybe losing is hardest the first time.

Momma Tibbs shakes her head. Tain’t that. Worse ‘n that.

Okay.

Martha, I got two regrets in life. Well, that ain’t exactly true. One regret and one thing I just gotta ‘mit to afore I go, though I don’t regret that one. I ain’t got much time and you’re here so you better listen to your momma now.

Martha still holds the partial blanket in her hands, though she doesn’t realize it. Her attention is on her mother. The stone has cracks and it wants to show Martha. The cracks were invisible all these years. Only now as the surface of the rock erodes away, can Martha see the cracks at the heart of the stone.

Josephina did the same thing you did when she was sixteen. She got herself married with a young ‘un on the way.

Hold on Momma. She was married and pregnant when she died?

Ruth knew all along. I couldn’t keep it from Beverly either. She was too old to fall for the story. Old enough to recognize the holes in it. Momma Tibbs sighed and smacked her lips. Had a helluva time keepin it from Danny too, but I managed.

Ruth and Beverly knew she died pregnant?

Momma Tibbs shook her head. You tell me sumthin Martha. D’ya member how she died?

There’s a pause while Martha thinks. No Momma. I guess I forgot.

You didn’t f’get nuthin. I never tole ya.

Of course you did! I was just a little girl at the time. I can’t remember that far back. That’s all.

It was barely a year after I lost Christina. Momma Tibbs continues, ignoring Martha’s objection. I was still mournin’. A muther never stops the mournin for sumthin like dat. Jo was a handful before, but I couldn’t handle her after dat.

Momma Tibbs had never referred to her dead daughter as Jo before. Martha doubts Momma Tibbs noticed it herself.

Jo ran off wit a nigger an had his baby. I couldn’t let her back in tha house after dat. Just couldn’t do it. She never died. Well, she may’ve by now. I don’t know, but she didn’t die then. Dat’s what Ruth and Bev knew. The rest of yall chil’ren never heard bout—

A coughing fit interrupts the stone woman’s confession. Martha reaches out to pat her back, but Momma Tibbs waves her hand away.

I got selfish. After I lost Christina, I wanted all my babies even more and I wasn’t going to share them. ’Specially not with some nigger I’d never met. I laid out an ultimatum, me or him, and I lost Josephina. Now listen to me Martha. You got children of your own and you probably won’t want to share ’em with anybody either, but sharing your baby with a nigger is better than flat out losing your baby out of selfishness. That’s my one regret. You understand?

Martha nods, or at least thinks she does.

Good. That’s why I didn’t smack you when I found out you was pregnant with Kevin. You thought you was sumthin’ else the way you’d sneak all cat-like outside early in the mornin’ to be sick. I knew. I could hear ya bein’ sick and I knew right then and there what you an Fred been up too.

Momma, I’m—

You sorry; I know. And I know you ain’t just sayin it neither. I kin tell from your eyes. Momma Tibbs coughs again, this time just a small quick one before going on. Just remember. One day that lil ‘un you got in your tummy now, along with Kevin and even little Jason, they’ll all pick who they pick whether you like it or not. The question is whether you’ll embrace it, just tolerate it, or throw ‘em away like I did.

II: SELECTIVE BREEDING

Jason Singleton is a twenty three year old high school dropout working odd jobs to make ends meet. He celebrates his twenty third birthday at a bar near Promise University with a few friends.

Promise University is the only reason people come to Tipper Springs. The university is on the east side of town, where residents are upper class or better. Jason grew up, and still lives, on the west side of town, the source of Tipper Springs’ economy. People may not have much reason to stop in Tipper Springs, but truck drivers heading north from Atlanta usually pass through or near the west side of town. Because of this, truck stops flourish in Tipper Springs. Drivers stop to eat, use a restroom, or for whatever reason, spend a little money and keep the Tipper Springs economy alive. Residents of west Tipper Springs earn their living working at or near truck stops (some the textile mill, another reason trucks come to town), pay their rent or mortgages to residents of east Tipper Springs, who spend it on whatever the hell they want.

While businesses in west Tipper Springs market themselves mostly toward passing drivers, businesses in east Tipper Springs market themselves toward either upscale residents or wayward college students.

The Wildcard Bar attracts the latter group. The Wildcard is a dark room with a wooden floor. Wood paneling peeks around the edges of picture frames on the wall. Small round tables dot the floor and plain wooden stools with plush black seats line the bar where a man in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up mixes drinks, chats with the male customers, and flirts with the female ones.

The bar is full of college students. The flirting bartender, a man of no more than thirty, is the oldest one there. Jason sits at the bar with Ben, Paul, Jackie, and Bryan when Megan arrives, late as usual.

Megan brings along a date, a grad student studying western philosophy named Asher Williams. At first they don’t recognize each other. Even if it hadn’t been fifteen years, Jason probably still wouldn’t recognize Asher. Asher wears a pair of faded worn jeans and an Aerosmith tee shirt, and his hair is much longer, a sharp contrast to the outfits his mother used to pick out.

"Don’t I know you? Did you