Raymond Atkins - The Front Porch Prophet

And so they sent her off. On a spring afternoon so blue and mild that it snatched the breath, Clara claimed her reward. Her mortal remains were placed carefully beside her husband, and the Reverend Doctor offered kind and comforting words. Angel sang so sweetly that surely even God above turned His vast attention toward high Georgia and looked with favor upon His gathered children. Then dozens of willing hands-men, women, and children-quickly replaced the dirt that had been earlier removed. It was done. Clara Longstreet weighed anchor and set sail, and neither she nor her equal would again grace the lives of her loved ones.

A.J. snapped out of his reverie with a start. He had not thought of Granmama’s death in a long time. The misty rain had grown to a drizzle. The chill in the air had turned to cold. He did not know the time and could not swear to the day. A deep melancholy descended upon him, a profound sadness, and he could not remember ever being as totally alone as he was in that instant. A tear slid down his cheek, then another. His throat closed, and his body shuddered as he tried to deny the emotion. His self-control crumbled and he began to cry.

“Well, shit,” he said between clenched teeth. He was grateful that Maggie and the children were not present to witness the spectacle.

A.J. sat and cried in the cold rain. He cried until his eyes were dry and his voice was hoarse. He cried for Eugene. He cried for the millions of souls who never saw it coming. And he cried for Granmama. She had been cold in the clay for ten long years. Finally, A.J. had found his tears.

A.J. WAS SITTING AT THE KITCHEN TABLE EATING fried Spam when his family arrived home from Eudora’s wedding. Spam was a treat reserved for when Maggie was elsewhere, because she could not tolerate the smell of the sautéed delicacy. A.J. had never understood this point of view and finally came to the conclusion it was a gender phenomenon, something to do with the Y chromosome. So he ate faster when he heard the van door slam in the driveway. His one thought was to remove the evidence. The can was already in the garbage, and he had rinsed the pan right after sliding the greasy brown rectangles onto his plate. Long years of illicit Spam eating had taught him to eradicate the trail. He swallowed the last bite just as J.J. burst through the door, followed by his two older sisters. Maggie brought up the rear looking somewhat the worse for wear.

“Daddy, Daddy!” J.J. shouted as he jumped in A.J.’s lap. “I won the license plate game!” This was one of the cherished car games of the Longstreet children. On long drives they would compete to see who could spot license plates from different states. A.J. found it odd that his son had won. The boy was vague on the rules and had once claimed a Get Your Heart in Dixie or Get Your Ass Out plate on the front of a Dodge pickup.

“He did not win,” stated Harper Lee. “He counted Georgia licenses forty-two times. He cheats.” There was disgust in her voice, as if her sibling were something she had discovered on the bottom of her shoe.

“I don’t cheat!” J.J. hollered.

“How many states did you count?” Emily Charlotte asked, her voice reasonable and calm. A.J. wanted to warn J.J. that anything he said would be used against him.

“Seventy-seven,” he replied. A.J. cringed. He was on his own.

“There are only fifty!” Emily slammed her point home. She brushed past on the way to her room.

“Are not!” came J.J.’s rebuttal. He jumped from his father’s lap and followed his nemesis from the room.

“He is such a creep,” said Harper Lee. “We should give him away.” She took car games very seriously and was hard pressed to accept dishonesty in the ranks. They could hear the debate raging upstairs. She shook her head as she left the kitchen. A.J. arose and went to Maggie.

“Good trip?” he asked as he gave her a hug.

“Does it sound like it was a good trip?”

“They were just exploring their limits.”

“I smell fried Spam,” was her reply. She wrinkled her nose.

“Nope. No fried Spam here.”

“There are two things a woman can smell on her husband,” said Maggie. “One is a truck stop waitress. The other is fried Spam.”

“I’m caught,” he said, abashed. “Her name is Rochelle. She told me that if I left you, I could fry all the Spam I wanted.”

“She’ll tell you that now. Just wait until the first time you try it.” She sat down at the table and began to rub her temples, as if the thought of Rochelle frying Spam was too much to bear. A.J. came up behind her and took over.

“How was the wedding?” he asked. It had been quiet long enough, and he was hungry for some conversation.

“It was fine. Eudora was beautiful, and Carlisle looked very handsome in his tuxedo.” She was silent a moment as A.J. continued to coax the stress away with his fingers. “Your father-in-law had a few too many at the reception and started a little card game. Deuces and one-eyed jacks. Took about a thousand dollars off of Carlisle’s father, who apparently fancies himself a gambler. My sister could have killed them both.” A.J. did not doubt it. Eudora took a dim view of such behavior and was not shy about expressing her opinions. A.J. was surprised she hadn’t confiscated the money and put the offenders to doing the odd job or two out in the yard.

“Did the children do okay?” A.J. asked. All the Longstreet children had taken part in the ceremony. J.J. had been the ring bearer, Harper Lee had been the flower girl, and Emily Charlotte had stood in attendance. They had all been excited about their participation except J.J., who had thrown a screaming fit when he first viewed his miniature grey tuxedo. He’ll never wear that, A.J. had said, wondering why women insisted upon dressing little boys to look adorable. He’ll wear it, had been Maggie’s reply, and she was right. But it had been an act of will on her part, and she was a strong-willed woman.

“My daughters were angelic. Your son was not.” She shook her head. “I swear they gave us the wrong baby.” This was their old gag when J.J. became challenging, which was most of the time. The joke lay in the fact that they had not delivered him in a hospital at all.

He had been born during the worst blizzard in Sequoyah history, which surprised neither A.J. nor Maggie once they came to know him. Georgia is not snow country, and even the mountainous areas get only a light dusting two or three times each winter. But J.J. was born on the night of the Hundred Year Storm, when nearly thirty inches of powder were unceremoniously dumped on the mountain valley during a twelve-hour period. Temperatures hovered around zero, and howling winds from the west chased the wind chill to minus thirty. Trees began to snap and fall before nightfall, taking with them the electricity that warmed the valley and kept the darkness at bay. A.J. lit the lanterns and built a large fire before wading out into the storm to retrieve his neighbor, Estelle Chastain.

“I don’t want to be snowed in with Estelle,” he grumbled as Maggie directed him into his boots and coat. She handed him his scarf.

“Go get her, anyway,” was the firm reply. No elderly neighbors were freezing to death on her watch. They settled Estelle into the Folly, and she and the children curled up in front of the fire. It was a scene straight out of the eighteenth century. Outside, the arctic winds lashed the Longstreet sanctuary. Inside, the children and Estelle drowsed by the hearth. A.J. was discovering that it was difficult to read by lantern light regardless of Honest Abe’s luck with the practice. Maggie and John Robert were rocking quietly, staring at the fiery phantoms on the grate.