Julia Elliott - The Wilds

Brunell Hair lived in a lopsided mill house with her mama and her uncle and her little withered-up critter of a grandmaw. In honor of her eleventh birthday, she was having a slumber party, but so far, only my best friend, Bonnie, and I had showed. Our mothers had had some kind of powwow, during which they’d smoked cigarettes and worked themselves into a tizzy over how vain and selfish we were getting, finally declaring that sleeping over at Brunell’s house would be just the thing to “teach us a lesson” about how fortunate and spoiled we were. Truth told, we wanted to see Brunell in her natural habitat. We wanted to see the creepy troll-child’s lair, witness the antics of her Jesus-freak mother, spy on her uncle, who’d appeared in several television commercials, and see her Meemaw speak in tongues.

Brunell’s mother, who wore hideous dresses and sported an old-fashioned mushroom cloud of hair, was making hamburger patties. The other two family members were holed up in their rooms, Meemaw praying for the soul of her gay son, the uncle just sitting up there enduring the prayers she threw at him, sighing every five minutes over the man in California who’d broken his heart. According to Brunell, ever since Meemaw’s husband died, the woman did nothing but pray and eat candy and watch the TV she’d won at a church raffle. According to Brunell, although her mother could spit her share of prayers at the sins of the world, she stayed busy while doing it. She kept a spotless house, vacuuming their pink wall-to-wall carpet three times a week and scrubbing their kitchen until it gleamed.

Huddled out back behind a clapboard shed, smoking the cigarette butts that Bonnie and I had stolen from our mothers, we tried to teach Brunell to French inhale. Scrunching her angelic frog-face, Brunell blew out a smoke cloud that’d definitely not laced her lungs.

“You’re not really smoking,” said Bonnie.

“Smoking is a sin.” Brunell tried another puff.

“Whatever,” said Bonnie. “Where’s your uncle?”

“He’s in Mama’s room. Mama’s bunking with Meemaw. I can’t take her sleep talk. Gives me nightmares.”

“What does she talk about?” asked Bonnie.

“The Rapture,” said Brunell.

“The Blondie song?” I said.

“The end of the world, stupid.”

Though I knew about the book of Revelation, I’d never heard the end times referred to as the Rapture before. Now I couldn’t help but picture Jesus cruising down to Earth on a glittery gold escalator, his white robes spattered with disco light. Two angels hovered above him, twirling a mirrored ball. Down in the pulsing city, Debbie Harry waited in a red convertible Corvette. All decked out in ruby spandex, she winked and blew Jesus a kiss. The Son of God hopped into her car and they drove off toward the beach, the wind mussing his hippie hair into a wild, Mötley Crüe mane.

While her mother slaved over a skillet of french fries, Brunell played her uncle’s commercials on the VCR he’d brought from California. We watched Uncle Mike, named for the archangel Michael, make out with a cheerleader in a Big Red commercial. We watched him carve into a bar of Irish Spring soap while perched on the back of a black stallion. We sighed as Brunell’s handsome uncle portrayed the dangerously masculine essence of Oleg Cassini cologne: he drove a Rolls-Royce, played polo, flew his private jet to an exotic beach, where he dallied on a yacht with a chick in a French-cut bikini.

“Goddamn,” said Bonnie, who liked to make Brunell cringe. “He’s fine as all get out.”

“He’s gay, so he wouldn’t look twice at you.”

“Maybe he hasn’t met the right woman.” Bonnie tossed her hair.

“First of all,” I said, “a training bra doesn’t make you a woman. Secondly, when you’re gay, you’re gay.”

“Who said?”

“My mama.”

“He might be bi,” said Bonnie.

“Brunell,” I said, “is he gay or bi?”

“He’s gay, but Meemaw’s been praying for that to change. She’s been praying for a good Christian woman to come along and lead him down the path to holy matrimony. If her prayers worked only halfway, I reckon they’d turn him into a bisexual.”

“I do hope the Lord has answered her prayers,” said Bonnie. And she solemnly walked over to the picture of Jesus that hung above their TV. She knelt before the handsome, blond Messiah and pretended to speak in tongues.

There he was, Uncle Mike, the epitome of male hotness and urbane stealth, curled on his bed like a panther in repose. We crowded around the keyhole, fighting each other for a decent look. Whereas Brunell was a sickly little bug-eyed thing with splotched skin and crazed blond frizz, Uncle Mike was dark and piratical, his hair a fountain of black silkiness, his lips pouty yet strong. How was this creature sibling to Brunell’s homely mama? What was he doing in this podunk town? He was God’s Gift to Women, yet queer as a three-dollar bill. And now the demigod rose from his bed to pace around the room in tight black jeans and a flowing shirt. He sneered at himself in the mirror. He plucked a magazine from a stack and then tossed it haughtily onto the floor. Rummaging through his suitcase, he pulled forth a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

Bonnie giggled, and Brunell pinched her. Through the open hall window I could hear a mockingbird going to town. Every year spring came to Whitmire, South Carolina, with its riot of flowers and bees, promising a larger world. For a while, summer would live up to this promise. But soon the dog days would descend and trap you in a bubble of gaseous heat. Amnesia would set in, wiping out all dreams of escape until autumn pricked you out of your stupor.

We sat before our hamburgers, awaiting the appearance of Meemaw and Uncle Mike. A Garfield cake, positioned center-table, depicted our favorite obese feline reclining pasha-style on a sofa, a thought bubble betraying his cynicism: So it’s your birthday? Big deal .

Brunell kept glancing at the presents stacked atop the refrigerator. We sneaked french fries every time her mother turned her back, even though the food had not been blessed by the sanctimonious Meemaw, who, Brunell had informed us, possessed mysterious powers. Meemaw could, for example, “talk off a wart.” When a pea-sized growth had sprouted on Brunell’s thumb, her Meemaw had cut a potato in two and set the pieces down on her Bible. She’d mumbled some holy gibberish over the spud, rubbed her grandchild’s wart with one half of it, and then buried the untainted piece in their backyard. Two days later, Brunell’s wart turned black and fell off.

According to Brunell, her grandmother’s powers had grown stronger after her husband died. Meemaw could stop bleeding and scare the fire out of burns. Meemaw had put a hex on Uncle Mike’s boyfriend just last month, causing him to run astray. Because the faith-healing power passed on to the firstborn child, Meemaw had summoned her eldest to her bosom. And there he was now, Uncle Mike, strolling into the kitchen in a black dress shirt that probably cost a hundred dollars. It was as if some sexy nocturnal creature from a Night Flight video had crawled out of the TV into Brunell’s humble abode.

“The birthday girl,” he said, tousling Brunell’s weird hair. “And who are these lovely ladies?”