Juicy Fruit
by Gordon Gardner

My friend Frank tells a story about a young woman he encountered years ago who flat had to be a Cracker Queen.

Frank and his friend Bill had been to Alabama and on their way back stopped at a truck stop in Roberta, Georgia, for a bite to eat.

A cute little gum-chewing waitress sauntered up to their table and asked what they'd like.

Bill looked the woman over and said, "Darling' what I want ain't on the menu."

She didn't miss a beat on the Juicy Fruit she was working over.

"If it was, would you eat it?"

Hell's Florida Room
by Gabe Loggins

In 1994, after spending a year teaching in a South Georgia town known more for its streets commemorating The War of Northern Aggression than either academic excellence or social consciousness (the high school held separate black and white proms), I decided to take a well-earned hiatus and landed a job with the local newspaper.

At six-foot-two and 240 pounds, no one ever tried to jump my faggot ass, even though everyone knew I was "that way." Instead, it was like a card of introduction into polite society.

I was taken in by the family of the publisher, the grandson of a Yankee lumber baron. Which only proves that no matter how much we Southerners talk about breeding, money will always have its own unique cachet.

Papa and Miss Mamie named their children Princess, Regal, and Sun. As adults, their offspring vacillated between church and smoking quail, getting drunk, and raising hell on the banks of the swampy Alapaha River.

It was Sun's wife, Clair, who became my confidante and friend.

She worked at the newspaper as the society editor. An unremarkable, thin figure in black top and Capri pants, Clair bobbed her silver hair, scrutinizing the world through cat-eye rhinestone glasses and the smoky haze of an ever-burning Virginia Slim.

"Goddamned stiffs," Clair announced to the newsroom one summer afternoon. She was in charge of obituaries. It was her job to type in the information from the funeral homes.

"Time for a cigarette break," she said, jumping from her keyboard and heading for the smoking area, an alley back of the building. I followed her out the door.

Clair made a show of lighting up, sizing me up for a moment.

"Did I ever tell you why Sun stopped drinking," she asked.

"Hell, I didn't know he did," I lied.

"Oh, yeah," Clair drawled. "When he'd drink, he'd come home mean as a snake and hit me and the young'uns. His family caught him out one night after we'd had a big fight. They didn't beat the hell out of him like they should've.

"They just told him it was a damn shame the KKK wasn't around to take care of men like him anymore. They swore the next time it happened, they were going to put him under the county jail.

"When he left the house, I washed off the young'uns faces and put them in bed, but I couldn't get Sun out of my head. I went into the kitchen and got down the aluminum dishpan and a big butcher knife.

"Sun came in on me sitting on the kitchen floor with my back against the sink with that dishpan and knife. I'd damn near turned that dishpan into a colander.

Sun just turned around, went out the door, and stayed at his parents' house the rest of the night."

"He came home the next day. He hasn't drunk since then," said Clair, musing to herself. "I still wonder what ever happened to that dishpan."

Headstrong but Homeless
by Scotti Moore

September 1992, Columbia, South Carolina, my estranged husband and bloodless mother were driving me absolutely crazy.

Between them two, I couldn't see where I was going. One evening, after taking all I could, I packed up my Datsun with everything that would fit, grabbed my two children, then 6 and 7, wonderful children by the way, stopped by the credit union, pulled out my life savings, a whole $400, and headed on down the road. I was going home to Savannah, Georgia.

The trip was nice but completely stressful considering I was leaving EVERYTHING. By the time we arrived in Savannah, it was dark and we were tired. Thoughts had been rolling through my head throughout the entire trip. Things I had always wanted to do would now be within reach. But, while on I-16, I realized, I had nowhere to go. All family gone with few friends left in this area, WE WAS HOMELESS.

I hadn't called anyone to let them know I was coming. I had been in such a hurry to leave those two beasts behind, I wasn't seeing no farther than the nose on my face. My Gosh, we were homeless. Well, I had one friend I thought I could call, so I called her. She, her husband, and their two children agreed to open their home to us until I could get on my feet. That was a fiasco for three months, but I was very grateful.

Between the neighbors thinking I was a jezebel, and my friend's husband trying to get too friendly, being homeless was starting to sound not so bad. I had a job within three days, $1,200 saved up within three months, and rented a house debt free for the first time in my life. I honestly felt that we were on our way. No one could stop us now.

After that came more hard work, but within three years, I had saved up enough money to have a house built for us under a subsidy loan. We stayed there in that little, humble abode for three years and decided to go with the old saying, "there's a sucker born every minute", sold the house and made $25,000 in proceeds. I had never had so much money in my life. Oh, if the beasts could see me now. That's where everything started feeling like it was all worth it.

I turned that money over into a real nice house two doors down from where I had grown up, where all my good memories were buried. We are doing fine now. Still broke but making it just fine. The kids are 16 and 17 and I'm a very lucky Mom. Me and the EX-husband are friends, and me and my Mom are now closer than ever. Another old but true saying, "where there's a will, there's a way."

She Flipped Her Wig
by Syndee Reardon

My mother was a Cracker Queen. She was born in a little town called Perry, Georgia in 1923. She thought that was where she was born, but she never did have any real documented, authentic proof of her birth there in Perry. In all of her seventy-seven years, a birth certificate was never quite located, but it must have been true because Grandma Nadine said it was so, and we all knew that if Grandma Nadine said it was so, it was so.

My Mama's name was Rebecca Jane Bryan Barnes. Everybody called her Jane except for me and my sister and we just called her Mama. When Grandma Nadine was finished giving birth to all of her four children, not all at the same time of course, she moved her young family right on down a little further south to Savannah, Georgia. By 1930, Grandma Nadine was a single mother living at 1420 Habersham Street with her four little toe-headed children. It seems that Mama's daddy had decided that having four children all under the age of five and a bride who was barely twenty-two was more than he wanted to deal with at his age, so he up and left. His age at the time of his departure was forty five. It always seemed to me that he must have been a shameful coward, but whenever Mama spoke of her "Daddy" it was nothing but pleasant.

Anyway, Mama grew up in a real happy home with her baby sister, Gladys, her two brothers, William and Neal, and Grandma Nadine. Times were tough, but Mama always thought her family was special. When the church ladies would deliver a basket of food on Thanksgiving and Christmas, Mama knew it was because they were special. It just couldn't have been because they were dirt poor. My Mama always had a way of looking on the bright side. God knows that optimistic view of life would come in real handy after Mama met and married my Daddy.

My Daddy was the best looking man in Savannah. Mama told me that women would chase him all around town, even though they knew he had a pretty wife named Jane and two little golden-haired baby girls at home waiting for him. They just didn't give a rat's ass.

Mama and Daddy were married for twenty-seven long years. Mama said some of those years were real happy, but I can't remember those happy years because after me and my sister came along, Daddy went to galavanting around town so much that all I can remember is plenty of fighting and a whole lot of name calling. So after all those years of marriage the only thing they hadn't done was divorce, and we all knew that was bound to happen.

When it finally did happen, Mama's nervous stomach quieted down, and she finally quit that constant humming. I guess living all those years with my Daddy kept her stomach in knots and her mind so mixed up that when we would yell at her to stop humming she would yell right back at us-"Who the hell is humming?"

After the divorce, it was just me, Mama, and my big sister Marla. Mama had decided that since Daddy was out of the picture, it was up to her to raise her two daughters the best way that she knew how. One thing that was on the top of Mama's list for us to do every year was to make a trip down to Tybee Island for a little vacation.

We would pack up the old white Buick Skylark and head to Tybee. We would stay down on that beach all day and we would get so sunburned that we would toss and turn in those old wooden bunk beds all night long. Mama would rub us down with white vinegar and say, "Stop complaining, it could be worse."

Sometimes we would sit out on the porch of that old green beach house and sing songs and smoke Alpine cigarettes one right after another. Mama figured if I was going to be smoking, and she knew darn well that I was, I might as well smoke right there with her. After all, we both like menthol cigarettes and I was already fourteen-and-a-half years old.

One summer Mama let me invite my two best girlfriends down to the beach house for our special week at Tybee. Peggy and Gail were real excited about the idea of a week of fun at the beach. Both girls were tall and lanky like me with golden hair and big feet. Mama let us have our freedom. Every night for one glorious week the three of us girls would put on our halter tops and cut-off blue jeans and head down to the "strip" with our cigarettes and our fresh faces shining bright. It was a week I will always remember. It was a year of innocence and regrets.

Grandma Nadine was real sick with cancer back in Savannah, and I was missing my Daddy. I was trying hard to grow up fast, but the little girl inside me still held on tight to Mama whenever I could.

One morning I was out on the porch with Peggy and Gail while Mama was downstairs talking to Mrs. Atchely. Mrs. Atchley was our beach neighbor. I leaned over the railing a bit and called out, "Mama, can you come on back upstairs?"

Mama turned her head up to look at me when right there in front of Mrs. Atchley and the rest of Tybee Island, her little blonde wig fell right off of her head and into Mrs. Atchely's lugustrim hedge. I will never forget what happened next.

She reached right down, picked up that old wig, plopped it right back on her head, and said to Mrs. Atchely, "Now, what were we talking about?"

We all laughed until we cried.

Mama died last November. I buried her on my seventeenth wedding anniversary. She fell victim to the ravages of Alzheimer's disease, and for five long years I watched her slip away from me. I always thought that my Daddy would eventually drive Mama crazy, but I guess the Alzheimer's is one thing I can't blame on him. God knows, I tried.

The good memories of Mama are coming back to me now. I can sometimes see her smiling right up at me with that Alpine cigarette in her hand and that silly little blonde wig sitting cock-eyed right on top of her head. And sometimes when I am all alone and feeling real sorry for myself about something, I can hear her sweet voice whisper, "Stop complaining. Life is tough, but it could be worse…Count you blessings and get on with it!"

And I'll think to myself, "I'm getting on with it Mama--I'm finally getting on with it."