The Brazen Derring-Do of Ms. America Coot: An Epistolary Travelogue

By Mac Dryfe

Dear Gentle-eared Reader,

     My Gran spoke only in tongues til I was 10 years old. Just when I'd be close to understanding her, she'd switch languages. It's not that she ever comprehended any of those languages, just their tongues. In actuality, Gran spoke in tongues in 68 different languages. Not including dialects.

     It was on the waning, piebald eve of my 10th Birthday when she spoke an actual sentence I could lay ear to. She turned to me, as I was blowing out the still viable, significantly tattered and almost entirely melted down to the foundation of the wick hot purple taper candles we rescued from certain defeat out of Ms. Florencia Concertina's overstuffed, ample trash, and said, 'Yur 'bout as deep as'n America Coot's a**hole.' After that, she never said another word. Just spat out the frog legs she'd been sucking on, slumped without fanfare over into my red velvet birthday cake. Dead as a rusty, untended, lodged tight, hammer bent doornail.

     So from that momentous juncture onward, I mantled the name America Coot, relinquishing my former name and way of life, setting sail in my Gran's Heavenly ordained Corvair, Monarch. Liberating myself from the portentious grasp of the overly zealous authoritarians looking to encapsulate my orphaned being.

     In this epistolary road trip of adventure and longing, I invite you to join me, Dear Reader, on the embarkation of my vagabond education journeying away from the isolated, reclusive existence I've known, bounding with renewed energy and openness, toward the uncharted backroads and byways of the corporeal world where other seekers and I, and now you, unite in our own particular pursuit of understanding and love affirming revelations and profound, bally-hooed epiphanies, both great and small. Amen.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mac Dryfe
• Release date: Sep 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393105800

Book preview

This is a work of Fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, cities, towns, villages, townships, counties, and incidents are the product of the Author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, cars or geese, dogs or cats, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Dear Gentle-eared Reader, in the beginning.....

My Gran spoke only in tongues til I was 10 years old. Just when I’d be close to understanding her, she’d switch languages. It’s not that she ever comprehended any of those other languages, just their tongues. In actuality, Gran spoke in tongues in 68 different languages. Not including dialects.

It was on the waning, piebald eve of my 10th Birthday when she spoke an actual sentence I could lay ear to. She turned to me, as I was blowing out the still viable, significantly tattered and almost entirely melted down to the foundation of the wick hot purple taper candles we rescued from certain defeat just that morning out of Ms. Florencia Concertina’s overstuffed ample trash, and said, ‘Yur ‘bout as deep as’n America Coot’s a**hole.’ After that, she never uttered another word in any language or dialect. Just spat out the luscious pond-caught frog legs she’d been sucking on, slumped without fanfare over into my red velvet birthday cake. Dead as a rusty, untended, lodged tight, hammer bent doornail.

So after I partook of the resplendent cream cheese icing splatter off my one year older fingers, put out the tiny sunset orange blaze the flying candles had instituted, I mantled the name America Coot since in our entirety together they were the lone words I had a familiarity with from her remarkably extensive nonsensical vocabulary. Well, after all, I wasn’t going to go and name myself ‘A**hole’ now was I?

After Gran’s funeral, the fine looking director, Mr. Stanley Fixins from Fixins and Sons and Sons and Their Sons too Funeral Emporium and Christmas tree farm, handed me her ashes with many meaningful teary-eyed, heart-rendered condolences which included the generous proffering of his not quite clean pine tree scented hanky should my nose require a dab or two. I shook my head a most emphatic no, thanked him most earnestly, marched her industriously wrapped remains home direct, transferred them into an old Buster Brown shoebox filled with newspaper clippings proving man’s consistent war on Godliness, placed the sanitized, calculated down to the mighty penny bill neatly on top, tied them up nice and pretty with a Sherbet lime ribbon, like a pampered gentleman going a courting, and set the box out front of the homeless shelter. Cause, after all, that’s precisely what Gran was now. Homeless. Not that that’s a bad thing, she had what the church folk call a ‘rover, train-hopping soul’.

I knew from my many moons of observational experiences, both blue and regular, that the predictably officious authorities would send a curious-nosed climbing up the government ladder diligent out to check on the welfare of my young impressionable orphaned being. They had been mightily concerned about that problematic condition since Gran had discombobulated the ATM down at the Gerrityville Savings and Loan by venturing to get money out from her checking account by typing on that numerical pad in tongues. But instead, that incoherent language encouraged the ATM to spit all its monetary offerings out at her in a glorious, much appreciated rainbow bouquet of green and white. A tribute to her rarely shaken loin-girding faith. An enormous gift of ‘Ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you’. She interpreted this as a sign that the Almighty was in a generous and sharing mood, pleased with her diligence of conviction since He owned all things and ruled all things. The good people at Gerrity Savings and Loan did not since they existed entirely on the opposite end of the giving and sharing in the worldly wealth spectrum. Vexed and cantankerous they assuredly were.

So I hit the open and amenable road the following morning, even before the crowing cocks rang in the day in a chorus of awakening, in Gran’s orange and black Corvair. Long before those lovely administrators were even thinking of stepping a trepid, ominous toe out of their cozy beds. Now it’s not as bad as it seems, Dear Reader, since I’d been driving that Corvair from the moment my sixth birthday rounded life’s another year wiser corner. Gran had been repeatedly denied a driver’s license, cause of that aforementioned problem, and she never allowed me to go over 12.5 miles per hour as a precautionary condition of my tutoring in all things motorized. I didn’t mind a whit. It was like convening behind the steering wheel of a Monarch butterfly. Never occurred to her that it was most likely more illegal for a six year old, sitting on a stack of old J. C. Penny catalogues, to drive than a sixty-four year old without a license. But that’s just how she thought. She herself had been a tractor jockey since the age of seven and no harm had ever come from that.

Now the shells of my warm, brown, speckled eggs were jostling round in my fry pan in the back seat just begging to be cooked over easy and their gooey exquisiteness shoved down my eager and hungry pie hole. But as you will remark, I had more pressing matters to tend to. I’d made certain I visited, unofficially of course, the MacAfee Farm right before my most necessary departure. Traded for twelve of the most handsome eggs I’d ever peepered. Now, the trade had not been pre-approved, but in my mind it was more than right fair.

See Gran had one tried and true sanctified life living rule as ingrained in her momentous being as the Ten Commandments themselves. She snuck it in right after not taking the Lord’s name in vain and directly before keeping the Sabbath and called upon her personally invoked Eleventh Commandment with unrivaled frequency and fortitude. That’s how highly she thought of it. Any item we owned must have a minimum of three uses, much like the Most Blessed Holy Trinity, or it was useless. Take the hot water bottle I’m perched on right now. It can be a seat, a water fountain in thirsty times, a pillow for my head at night, and a foot warmer on cold, winter days. Four perfectly logical and acceptable uses. And my shoes, well, they could be shoes of course, that’s obvious, but they could also be fly swatters, and in emergencies, potato mashers. But for all the mind buzzing thoughts swilling round our noggins, neither of us could dish up more than one use for a can opener. So she threw it away liberating it for eternity from any workaday obligatory tasks.

Which was a terribly unfortunate response cause we had more than 3068 cans of five ounce tuna fish. Some in oil, some in water. Some Albacore, some Mackerel. Every week we’d return from Hadley’s market with about ten, but didn’t know how we ended up with them. Hadn’t wanted them, hadn’t needed them. Hadn’t even been down that aisle. Nowhere even in the vicinity. But I knew precisely how she got them. The above aforementioned problem. But I stayed mum. Didn’t want to upset the apple cart of her inherent wisdom.

So after gently removing each dazzling feather-sheltered egg from underneath each hen’s couchie, I generously replaced it with three cans of assorted tuna options, which I considered a right fair exchange since she could make tuna casserole, creamed tuna on toast or tuna salad with or without eggs, cook’s choice. And I knew that Ms. Farmer MacAfee had a can opener cause while I’d been blueberry hunting in yonder woods, I had unwittingly witnessed Mr. Farmer MacAfee pry the lid off his beer bottle with it after his final worn to the nub tooth had taken an unfortunate tumble into the beer he was guzzling at the time. I honestly don’t think he ever noticed that he swallowed it right down his hairy, unshaven alcohol rhapsodizing gullet. And prying lids could’ve been use number two. By then it was too late as we’d already disposed of our can opener. And Gran never allied herself with the partaking of the Devil’s juice since she considered it ‘a disassociation from the Almighty with lubrications of nefarious sorts that will cause unmitigated behaviors to rile the imbiber’s soul perhaps resulting in eternal damnation’.

She never said that herself, just nodded up and down vehemently, falling onto the church floor, rolling round the dark green, stain resistant carpeting in perfect agreement with the Spirit of the Lord when Rev. Debra gave her sermon entitled, Don’t Mix Your Alcohol with Jesus, and God is NOT a Mixed Drink, and again in God is The Only Spirit You Ever Will Need, and again in Gin= Sin and again in Get Thee Behind Me Rum and Coke. It came to pass that at least once a month we were graced with a sermon on how to keep Satan away from our virtuous, sealed lips. But we were tried and true Methodists, and that’s how we think.

Why our Rev. Debra even won a blue ribbon at the Gerrityville County Fair for her oft requested sermon, Don’t Allow Your Hooch to Turn YOU into a Hoochie. Gran most appropriately had a framed and autographed photo of Rev. Debra posing officiously and soberly with that most coveted ribbon. Right in between a twenty five pound acorn squash and a Jersey cow born with six fully operational udders. Not to mention the greased, Holstein piglet, Josephine, who had escaped the racetrack and sprang into the frame in the nick of time to be included in the auspicious Gerrityville assemblage. Why we all got a big chuckle out of that, photo hog that she was.

Less appreciated was Mr. Wallah’s flying leap to nab the wiggly, outlaw Josephine, then somehow landing face up between Rev. Debra’s God sanctioned legs. Some were prone to believe he’d become a Hoochie for Hooch himself and was more desirous of getting a gander up the Good Reverend’s skirts. Others congratulated him with resounding pats on his squamous back for coming to the rescue of an easily frightened, skittish female. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on which side you took, Rev. Debra had decided, that since it was a piping hot 93 degree August day, to wear her cotton clerical culottes. So that Hooch was plum out of luck.

Now those in the know, our fellow Bible imbibing Methodists, were of a different interpretation of Mr. Wallah’s zealously encroaching ‘good deed’. He was not a gentleman who took kindly to preachers of the lady variety. Especially those like the Rev. Debra whose vocalizations were like boisterous clouds of Heavenly oratory. Her flock considered her voice to be the loudspeaker of truth, justice and the Godly way. The first chair in the orchestra of the Almighty. Others preferred mousey women too tepid to have a voice and considered her a brassy female whose opinions needed to be filtered through the less excitable, snake persuadable mind of a long tolerant husband. But Rev. Debra was sublime instrumentation insubordinate to no son of Adam.

Her loyal, worshipful flock considered his behavior treason to the Creator who had personally manifested in her His truth and light. And that Mr. Wallah had unsuccessfully attempted to disinherit her from her rightful place by making her question the protection of her Benefactor, the Almighty Himself. Not that we were a vengeful congregation, not at all, we were all about forgiveness and loving one’s neighbor and even turning one’s cheek, but gossip, as I’m sure you are well aware, travels far and wide and quickly. Who knows who starts it? I’m not telling, cause that would be gossip. And the hollering of tongues across the street by Gran did nothing to lessen the shadow of his fear. Or how Mr. Michael took to lambasting him in every nook and cranny by bellowing about how, ‘If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or clanging symbol,’ which everyone in a half mile radius could heed being that Mr. Michael was a bit of a gong himself. But someone must have put a bee in his bonnet, for after that Mr. Wallah walked with his legs a little tighter together.

And in her personal day to day defense, from that boorish moment forward, I attired myself in nothing but clerical culottes. Although Gran, pleased by my devotion, found it a bit excessive since I had them in every color and pattern I was able to sew. Which was considerable since I used up a good many fabrics not initially meant to be worn, but with elbow grease and ingenuity, well, you’ll see. Car seats, crushed velvet from the sofas at the Pine Sap bar, old tatty bathrobes, barber shop aprons, burlap sacks. If it was abandoned by the roadside and I could sew it, I was wearing it the very next day. But she drew the line on the mud flaps with the naked lady on them.  

But every once in a while Mr. Hambone, why yes I know what you’re thinking, and rightly so, that Mr. Hambone?  From the famous Hambone family?  He went to your church? The same exact ones who could trace their Hambone ancestry back seventy-five generations? Yes. That Hambone family. None other. Well he was in charge of our Outdoor Letter Board and he’d forget, intermittently, and leave the letter box out underneath the sign after putting up the letters announcing the Sunday sermon as to be preached by Rev. Debra.

And every so often, one of her specially written, long thought out, prayed and blessed over titles would get changed on a boisterous, three sheets to the wind, passed out drunken sailor Saturday night. One Sunday we drove up and what was supposed to be, Praise God to Whom All Blessings Flow, had been altered to, Praise Keg from Whom Ale Blessings Flow. Then two months later we stepped out of Monarch to another last minute rearrangement. It had been, on Saturday afternoon, I’ve got a Story to Tell to the Nations, to Ale’ve got a order to give to the Bartender. And many other title modifications involving inappropriate booze-hounding, soaked in alcohol wordage that I refuse to pass onto you, oh Gentle-eared Reader.

So, Ms. Applelonia, owner of Tafferty’s Hardware Store, ordered our congregation a new Outdoor Letter Board that locked to restrain the ne’er-do-wells and sailors-on-furlough brawlers to their best behavior. Such as it was. But then that Mr. Hambone would neglect his honorable duties and leave the keys stranded in the letter box under the sign. And what good did that do I now ask? So we drove up to what was a sermon I was right anticipating, expecting to jostle and call to duty my consistently under fire good judgment, Pass Me Not Oh Gentle Savior, and instead were right appalled to read, Pass me Scotch oh Gentle Vodka.

There were some who thought that maybe it was time for Mr. Hambone to retire and allow his son Mr. Hambone the 22nd to take over. There were others who were slandering the good name of one Ms.Vanna White accusing her of rearranging the letters. But that was a downright fabrication and falsification cause she didn’t live anywhere near Gerrityville. And she was much too nice a lady for that kind of dastardly mischievousness.

But no matter what kind of nonsense kept taking place on our Letter Board, well no one ever attempted