Tales from a Southern Madhouse

By Gale Marie Vanderpol

William Faulkner once said, "To understand the South one must be born in it." My goal is to bring a bit of my world into yours. A world full of wonder, laughter, guilt and imagination. And to bring these mad characters to life in their own magical way. After all, just like beauty, madness is in the eye of the beholder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9781456806866

Gale Marie Vanderpol

Gale Marie was born and raised in Northport, Alabama. She attended the University of Alabama where she studied American Literature and Psychology. She lived abroad in Paris, France for 14 years, and now resides in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. This is her first work of fiction.

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TALES FROM A SOUTHERN MADHOUSE

Short Stories

Gale Marie Vanderpol

Copyright © 2010 by Gale Marie.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2010916156

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4568-0685-9

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4568-0684-2

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4568-0686-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

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Contents

Special Thanks

Summary

Memories

Daddy and Civil Rights

Incest and Rape

Murder

Homosexuals

Deer Lake

Holy Rollers and Penecostals

Cheehaw County High School

Best Friend

The Wedding

Mamma

Doodle Bug

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To my beloved children John and Kimberly

Special Thanks

I want to thank Stewart Dansby.Without his generosity this work of fiction would never have been possible. Also I want to thank the following people for all their support, encouragement, and belief in me:

Agnes Bossolina, Patti McGee Brown, Isabel Stephenson, Dr. Harold Schwarz,Cindy McMillian Adair, Kathy McMillian Jones, Emmanuel Vanderpol,Kathleen Nager, the terrific staff at Xlibris, Jean Pierre and Caroline Vanderpol (for their home in Provence that allowed me the time and peace of mind to complete this work), to all my cousins and aunts near and far, and last but not least, to all those that I forgot to mention. And of course to my family.

Book cover and bio photograph by Michael Thornton.

Summary

William Faulkner once said, To understand the South one must be born in it. My goal is to bring a bit of my world into yours. A world full of wonder, laughter, guilt and imagination. And to bring these mad characters to life in their own magical way. After all, just like beauty, madness is in the eye of the beholder.

This is a work of fiction. The people, places and events depicted herein live only in the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

A traumatic childhood is the gift that keeps on giving to a writer.

—Unknown—

Memories

Let’s go back to my very first memory. The year was 1958. I was lying on my small bed next to my little brother’s wooden crib. It was warm outside, and the window was open. I could see the big fig trees in the backyard, their large deep green leaves swaying gently in the breeze. It was a lazy and hypnotic day, and there was the sweet smell of freshly cut grass. I had to close my eyes so when Strick made her rounds, she would believe I was asleep. It was hard to pull the wool over Strick’s eyes. She would never let me get up unless she was sure I had a nap.

Strick was our housekeeper, babysitter, cook, and maid. She did it all. She was tall and thin, with a face full of wrinkles. She also had a head of long red henna hair that was pulled back so tight in a bun that you’d think she was being tortured. Tiny gold-rimmed glasses framed her squinty yellow-green eyes, and there were little cracks at the corners of her thin mouth, with traces of snuff.

Strick was a great cook. Her specialty was fried bass, catfish, hushpuppies, and brim. She also made a fabulous peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She was afraid of the Lord and talked incessantly about sinning and sinners.

Don’t trifle with the Lord! she always said.

And she loved to tell me scary stories. All of which were true.

She had been with us since I was born and worked for us until she was too old to take care of anyone but herself. My daddy picked her up early every morning in his shiny black Ford sedan and drove her home late in the evenings. Her tiny shotgun frame house was sad and worn out. There was a beautiful rose garden out front, neat and well kept. A small picket fence confined it as if it were in danger of some unknown catastrophe. In the backyard, on the clothesline, her freshly washed clothes were always flapping in the breeze. Her no-count son, Rufus, got drunk one day and got so tangled up in a wet sheet that he was almost suffocated.

Rufus was about thirty and looked like he had been run over by several eighteen-wheelers and lived to tell about it. He was a mystery to me. I rarely saw him because he was either sleeping or hadn’t come home when we picked Strick up. When I did see him, he would be sitting on the dilapidated front porch trying to get sober. He wore plaid flannel shirts and faded blue jeans. He was of average height and had a head full of thick dark hair swept back in a fashion that reminded me of Li’l Abner, the guy in the funny papers on Sunday. His shoulders were broad, and his forearms bore tattoos. They looked like arms that could kill a man. When I did get a look at his face, his eyes were dark and desperate, as if he were trapped in some unknown fate.

Strick was always going down to the courthouse before a judge to get him out of jail. For these occasions, she wore her finery, her best Sunday dress. It was a short-sleeved white dress with tiny black stars all over it, and a thin patent leather belt was strapped to her small waist. She always wore white gloves and a mysterious black hat with a bird feather stuck in it, slightly askew. She told me her hat was for funerals and special occasions only.

Her husband, Mr. Strickland, was a blind man. He was short and stocky and always wore overalls. His mouth was full of stained pointy teeth, and he carried a wood-carved walking cane. He had the same head of hair as Rufus, except his was all white and cut short. I had never seen anyone blind before. He wore dark glasses that wrapped snuggly around his large elephantlike ears, and I always tried real hard to see what his eyes looked like. I had a feeling he could see me; he always knew where I was when I would go to their house. Usually, I would go with my daddy to pick Strick up, and I’d go in and tell her we were there and we’d be in the car when she was ready.

I would try and move about silently from one room to another, but he would call my name and say, Abby, come out from the parlor and visit with me for a while. How did he know I was in the parlor?

And of course there were the famous scary stories that I could never get enough of. Strick told me these stories after we had finished our meals and we would be busy cleaning up the bright yellow kitchen which was my favorite place in our house. It was a spacious room, with the sink located under a large window overlooking a grassy yard full of oak and pine trees. In the middle of the room were an aluminum table with a beige Formica top and four matching chairs. When we ate, we used a wine cloth which was yellow-and-white plaid. Everything revolved around that table, for the kitchen was the center of our life and anything of any importance always took place here. After dinner, which is lunch in the South, we would have our talks and share our stories. We would sit at the table and let our food spread out in our stomachs and relax. It was just Strick and me and my baby brother who was one year old. His name was Edward, and soft blond curls encircled his small cabbagelike head. His eyes were like little blue saucers full of wonder, and his fat little arms had dimpled elbows that were always trying to wink at me. He was a good little boy, and he loved Strick. Every time she said something to him, his peachy face lit up, and he smiled and chattered baby talk incessantly.

Sometimes, Strick stayed over and cooked supper for us, and we would go for long walks in the evening, observing our surroundings: children playing on the sidewalks, green trees enveloping us overhead, and sounds coming from the open windows of various kitchens as mothers cleaned up after feeding their families. We talked a lot, and then we were silent, contemplating on the day’s events. These were precious times: innocent, languishing, and peaceful.

But the favorite time for me was after dinner/lunch. One story, which I secretly loved, was about a rocking chair that she had on her back porch. Strick usually told this one while we would be washing and cleaning up the dishes. She would be washing, and I would be drying, and she would look out through the kitchen window as if she were far away in another place and she would tell of a strange and unknown man who would come late at night and sit on her rocking chair in the dark back porch. She always knew he was there, hearing the sound of his feet on the creaking steps and the sound of the chair rocking. He’d rock back and forth, back and forth.

She’d holler at him through the door, Git out from here! Go on or I’ll call the law on you!

He never paid her no mind. She’d have to run him off by firing her pistol under the crack at the bottom of the back door, only to have him return later. She said he was nameless and faceless. I could not imagine that. Someone without a name and no face. That bothered me for a very long time, and it scared me to death. The next morning, he was always gone. She never found out who he was. That was to remain a mystery throughout her life.

And then there was my favorite story: the man under the bed. Every time, we began with the exact same dialogue:

I’d say, Strick, tell me about that man under your bed again.

A slow hidden smile would cross her lined face. Honey, I done told you that ole story over and over.

Tell me again, please. I can’t remember, I begged.

And then she would begin, Well, I was a lyin’ on my bed a-reading the Sears and Roebuck catalog. You know how I love lookin’ at them pretty catalogues, and it’s a-getting late, and I got to get up early the next morning to come and take care of you. Here she would pause and give me a little wink. So I lean over to cut out the light on my nightstand and there’s this man under my bed a-lookin’ straight up at me. He was a young man, in his twenties. I ain’t never seen him before. Just his head was stuck out, and I started to scream, a loud piercing scream like you ain’t never heard.

And I’d say, Show me how you did it, show me how you screamed.

Now cover them ears of yours ’cause here it comes! And she’d lean her scrawny neck way back as if it were going to pop off and scream at the top of her lungs!

Then what happens? Keep going, I instructed. Tiny little beads of sweat would form on my forehead and upper lip, even though I’d heard this a hundred times. But each time, there was something different in the way she told it.

Well, that scream run him off all right. Straight out the front door, and I ain’t never seen him again.

Now it was my turn. What did Mr. Strickland do?

Now, sugar, you know Mr. Strickland can’t see, so he ain’t no help, and Rufus was drunk as a coot and ain’t no help either. Lord, have Mercy, she said, slowly shaking her head. And that would be the end. As if by some magic, we’d stop right at that sentence. I was satisfied, and so was she.

One day, she took me down to the bare railroad tracks not far from where we lived. We were taking an early walk just after lunch. She was carrying my brother in her arms and began to tell me a tale about when she was a little girl. Strick said she loved the trains, even though they made her feel sad and lonesome.

It was a typical summer day; the sky was piercing white with sunshine, and the heat was bearing down on us like a hot iron. My short white blond hair was gleaming, and my bangs were stuck to my forehead as if they had been glued on. (My mamma always took me to a barber shop to get my haircut. It was called a Buster Brown haircut. I hated it because sometimes people thought I was a boy.) Anyway, Strick had just read in the paper that a man had been run over and killed by the train and we had gone out to investigate. As we were walking down the tracks, we saw something that looked like a bone with ridges on it and some dark red parts and what appeared to be flesh. I’d never seen anything like it, although it reminded me of the time the I saw a dog that had been run over and his skull was bare. I felt sick.

Strick screamed, Sweet Jesus! It’s that poor man’s brain!

She threw her wrinkled, withered hand over my eyes and