white trash grace
CHAPTER 6
by sally duryea

Returning to her quiet routine, Sonny passed her hand over the shoe and thought the only difference between his first word and his last was the s. “Duck” had become “I liked the ducks”.

It gives Sonny peace to think that as he pulled out of the drive, saying those words he was visualizing abundance. She figured he was looking straight into God's eyes that day. So the ducks. For Sonny it was a simple story, from duck to ducks. A primer for the more difficult conversations down the road.

There was not much indication that she was ever going to get beyond the duck dialogue; she trusted the ducks. She and her boy had a thing with them. Duck toys, live ducks, ducks on the dash, and her last Christmas present...her name graffitied with ducks across it in a tunnel up north. Sonny loved the fame of it, having gotten used to the underground status of the family name over the years.
If she only had to think of their lives together in terms of that one word, she would have a lifetime of good memories alive in her heart. So she did. Every morning started out by getting her ducks in a row and setting them out on the pond where with wings wide and slapping they would scatter, seeming like so much more. To Sonny they simply looked abundant. And she knew in that moment that she was looking into God's face, with the duck story, first word to last, written all over it.

Each morning Sonny walks away from the pond, the moral of the story fresh in her heart: Pluralize. Make the most of it. Live the life that ends in s. Recognize God in the numbers. That is how she came to notice the abundance collecting at her door. In fact, she was so immersed in abundance she could hardly move at all. Just walking with the ducks was clumsy enough avoiding stepping on toes as they rushed under foot, add to that the sea of snapping turtles rising to the porch stoop that would not think twice about snapping at her. Fortunately the turtles were consistently moving south.

Sonny had slowed to a near standstill when she noticed the end of the line was in sight. The cove was becoming so quiet, she could not figure what was so different, when she noticed the red light had gone out. The pond was in the dark of night, the ducks nestled safely on the edges, the turtle eggs lay quietly beneath the surface. The Leatherback Bar and Grill was closed down. The only light left in the cove was the gleam in the old turtle's eye as he set off for the longest journey of his life— the last in the line of migration moving towards the party city. Sonny figured it would be worth postponing the soup for one more season. She figured the best seasonings were still ahead of this turtle as he plodded steadfastly toward the land of gumbo.

The tide moved on down the strip, stopping everything in its tracks. The truckers who had been in a slow crawl were cutting their engines and lights leaving the roadways in the dark. Before them the turtles moved like a great tsunami surging towards the gulf. The drumming of the shells sounded more and more like one beat as the turtles found synchronicity with each others' step.

To the sound of that beat, the Lady in Red spun her dance of the cosmos. Blue had never seen such a black night turn so red. The night so clearly defined in lines she could read without doubt. Blue saw the walking tide of turtles merging into the tepid waters of her southernmost home. She recognized the dance as the same one she had witnessed at the pond with the old turtle and his lady. What surprised her the most was the Lady standing before now, again. The Lady in Red was dressed in fine lines of distinction that made Blue hold her breath. She instantly recognized the Lady she had seen on the road earlier, only now she was more grand.

The Lady, who Blue referred to as Azalea Sunday, was coming into focus like a photographic image in the red light of the dark room. When she looked deep into the picture, she knew she had the recipe for the food of the gods at her fingertips. So clever at seeing other's fates clearly, this would be Blue's first straight-on glance at her own destiny. What Azalea Sunday knew from the day Blue had helped her gather the turtles, was that the time was ripe and Blue was ready. The turtle gathering had seemed like a chance meeting, Blue just pulling up as the family gathered, what appeared to be a lucky streak for turtle soup. The way Blue turned the turtles, tapping their shells like melons, sometimes letting one go to pick another, gave Azalea Sunday the recognition she was looking for. For fifty years she had been bumping into Blue in one guise or another. This time as The Lady in Red, she saw Blue sniffing the air around each turtle, cognizant of every herb crushed beneath its foot along the trail from the mountains to the sea. She heard Blue tap into the rhythm that had brought the rest of the country to a standstill.

Azalea Sunday knew the world was at rest because all of the voltage was pouring into the party city, for HER party. She knew this would be the year that she and Blue fulfilled a common destiny, shared by the two since the night of Blue's birth. That would be the night she caught the baby between her teeth. Mardi Gras was peaking into the last night of festivities, the king cake had been cut. The little plastic baby baked into the center had shown up in Azalea Sunday's piece. This meant that she was to throw the next party. Fifty years later she is ready for that party because the other baby that made it to her lips that night was standing before her, smiling at the last turtle to be placed gingerly into the basket. The turtles had arrived from the mountains. Blue could smell the crush of sassafras that surrounded the pond, rubbed like oil into their legs. She knew that last turtle like kin. To Blue it was the one who always got away. It was Sonny's turtle alright, with that same gleam for the dance, smelling so strong of the sassafras that it made Blue's eyes water. The smell made her think of all the nights that old guy circled around the pond, around and around, spun into the Lady's spell, waiting for her nod before entering the water. His sharp claws would rip at the leaves on the ground, releasing the aroma that Blue was so taken with. It would be the main spice for the gumbo. The leaves ground to a powder to make filet would have the qualities to thicken and flavor the soup. Blue would say the filet gives the soup a story. Azalea Sunday would say it gives the soup a life. The aroma woke them both to their destiny.

Azalea Sunday, as the one who got the baby in the cake, had some clear direction which course her destiny was to take. What you are destined for when you ARE the baby in the cake is not so obvious. The first thing you have to do is breathe. Blue wasn’t. Seconds after finding the plastic baby, Azalea Sunday found herself catching a real baby. This baby, having just missed the party, ended up coming into the world on the Lenten side of Mardi Gras. She was blue. One moment she was so blue in Azalea's black hands, the next she was pinking up under the smother of kisses from Azalea Sunday's generous reserves. At least that is what it felt like to Blue.

What happened was Azalea Sunday filled Blue's lungs with the life. The whole life in one deep breath. She had seen in that baby something she had been waiting for. Here was a baby so determined to fulfill its own destiny as the fresh new start of Lent that she did not even dare to breath the air still so heavy with the tastes and smells of the month-long party. All of the sweet smell of the evening still lingered into the morning when they would be forbidden for the days leading into Easter. These would linger in the air along with the tales told up and down the bayous of the finest gumbos, all out of reach of the Lenten baby. Being in a land that made deals with God, Azalea Sunday played her cards out with this baby. She was not inclined to give her over to a life of religious prodigy. The moment she saw Blue tithing the very air necessary for life, she saw her chance to give the life along with a tad of her own destiny. What Blue felt as kisses were Azalea Sundays way of passing on the night, like a torch bearer to the next champion. Every flavor, every nuance of spice from the evening was transferred to Blue in that first breath as it passed from Azalea Sunday to Blue's virgin lungs.

For a month this would be all Blue had to relate to the stories and remembrances being passed around every living room. For the month when the richness of fine eating turned into the fast of recounting the foods, Blue only had to take a deep breath to know. Her first kiss had filled her with a taste for the stories, a sense of the laughter and a love for the kisses. These were the ingredients the next party would require.
The most important thing Blue was born to was a sensitivity to the food. It would be her destiny to provide the flavors for the party. It would be fifty years before the ingredients were ready according to Blue's standards. Fifty years since Azalea Sunday had smacked her lips with her own and had left Blue plain hungry. Fifty years waiting for the taste of that first kiss to find its match wafting off the shells of the roadside turtles as they steamed into the gulf. This was the kind of hungry Azalea Sunday wanted coming to her party. Now with Blue matured in her sensitivity to the food, it was an appetite she was prepared to fulfill. An appetite Blue had patiently carried for so long.

CONTINUED NEXT MONTH