Yeah, I say, some Fritos.
What did you say? Mama asks me.
I correct myself Yes ma’am, we would love some Fritos. Thank you for asking.
That’s better, Mama says. Throw in a couple bags of Frito-Lays, would you, Tony?
The man says, We ain’t got no Fritos, just pigskins.
Okay then, pigskins, Mama tells him and he flips three bags of pigskins into the back seat. I am not about to touch them. Eating the skin of dead pigs fried in their own bacon grease is something I will not do, even if I’m starving to death on a desert island.
Of course, Lulu snorks them right down and Little Shep says, Hey Porky, why don’t you just inhale them through your snout?!
It’s not that Lulu is really all that fat. She just has a round little face and cheeks that make her look chubbier than she is. Still, it’s a habit for everyone to pick on her for being a little fatty. You can upset her with it every time, so we tease her just because it’s so much fun.
Mama and Caro mix up some drinks in Dixie cups, then we head out again. Mama lights up a cigarette and things are looking better. It’s cool in the car and the cigarette smoke smells familiar.
Then, out of the blue, Caro pulls over to the side of the road and slams on the brakes, opens the door, leans her head out, and throws up on the street. Son of a bitch, she says. Son of a goddamn bitch!
Mama says, You poor baby. You alright?
Oh I’m fine. Never been better. It’s your damn cigarette. I told you, I cannot handle smoke until I’ve had the chance to get a drink down.
I’m so sorry, babydoll, Mama says, and she takes her wet cloth and dabs Caro’s face with it.
You want a Lifesaver to take the taste out? Should I take you home?
God no, Caro says. You just drive. I’ll be fine, once I get down a drink or two. And don’t you dare light up another ciggie or I will strangle you with my bare hands.
So Mama gets behind the wheel and she says, I just hope the floaties don’t cause me to run this damn T-Bird into the ditch. She sits there for a minute idling the motor, sipping her Bloody Mary. Then she says—like it’s the most original idea she’s ever had and she should get an award for it: I’ve got it! We’ll drive out to Lucille’s! She’s always ready for a party!
Caro is mixing another drink, mumbling, These Dixie cups are so damn tiny.
Well Caro, Mama asks, what do you think?
Inspired, Vivi dahling, simply inspired. Drive on.
You can tell they’re both starting to feel a little better as we drive down the tree-lined state highway to Natchitoches. Miss Lucille lives alone up on Cane River in this huge antebellum house. She divorced her husband and took him for every cent he had. She’s older than the Ya-Yas and they all worship her. She’s sort of their living idol. Miss Lucille was once a very famous horsewoman until she was thrown by her favorite horse. And she just quit riding after that. She told everyone it wasn’t that she was hurt or anything, it was just the way that horse had betrayed her.
Sometimes she just shows up in Thornton in her chocolate brown Cadillac to do some shopping, and a whole party will start up just because she is in town. Mama and the Ya-Yas have known her for years—ever since they were in New Orleans one weekend on a shopping trip and they met her one night at the Carousel Room in the Monteleone Hotel. They just fell in love with her, and all of them ended up riding the train back together, and they have been friends ever since.
Miss Lucille’s house is a huge place at the end of this long drive of oak trees with trailing Spanish moss all over them. The house has eight big white columns across the front and this deep veranda upstairs and down. It’s the kind of gracious old home that the Ya-Yas adore visiting, but you couldn’t give them a place like that because there isn’t any central air-conditioning or a dishwasher.
We pull up the long drive, with Mama blowing the horn like she always does. All of us have our eyes glued to the windows to catch a glimpse of Miss Lucille naked. Miss Lucille is an artist now and she always works on her sculptures while she’s buck naked. We can barely see her throw on her kimono and tie the sash before the T-Bird comes to a stop in her circular drive.
She runs out shouting at the top of her lungs. Vivi! Caro! Petits monstres! Hey!
Miss Lucille always shouts. It isn’t that she is hard-of-hearing, she just loves to talk loud, Mama says. Around her you have to shout back, or there just isn’t any conversation. Sometimes the way she yells, you don’t know whether she is really really happy to see you, or whether she is mad at you for invading her privacy.
Lucille, dahling! Mama shouts back, although you can see her wince like it’s killing her head.
They all hug each other like it’s been fifty years since they’ve gotten together.
Miss Lucille uses a long cigarette holder and smokes like Marlene Dietrich. Every time you watch her take a puff, you think you’re in Europe. Her hair is gray everywhere, except in front where it’s bright red. And she has these large hands that look like a pretty man’s. Mama and the Ya-Yas love playing bourrée with her because she’s such a superior cheater. They claim they learned everything they know about cheating from her.
She says, Well, what are we drinking? G&Ts?
We follow her through the house and she stops to put on an Edith Piaf record on the stereo. Then we go into the big kitchen, where she mixes up a huge pitcher of gin and tonic like it is lemonade. Miss Lucille has five golden retrievers that lounge around inside that house, and they yelp and growl when we (accidentally) step on their tails. Those dogs just go with Miss Lucille’s house, like they’re mink coats or something draped across the furniture.
Baylor stares around the house, peeking in every room we pass, like he always does. He says, I’m gonna have me a house just like this when I grow up.
Miss Lucille hands Mama and Caro their G&Ts, and then says to Bay, Well, Handsome, are you still going to come live with me as soon as you turn eighteen?
When she winks at him, he goes over and holds onto Mama’s leg. But Mama says, Bay, honey, don’t hang all over me, please. Not today.
Lulu says, Miss Lucille, can I go upstairs and take a nap? She does this every single time we come here. She has a thing about those bedrooms.
Miss Lucille has fans set up everywhere you turn, and it makes you almost forget how hot and sticky it is without air-conditioning.
Caro says, You must show us what you’ve been working on, ’Cille.
Love to, Miss Lucille says, absolutely love to.
They always ask to see her sculptures. But whenever I ask Mama about Miss Lucille, Mama says, Honey, Lucille is more an artist in her mind than anything else. (Mama also says you’re not a real artist unless you live in New York City.)
Miss Lucille takes us on a tour of her sculptures, which are all over the house and out on the veranda. Every single one she points to, she says, Of course it’s unfinished. You can see that for yourself.
One particular sculpture scares me to death. Miss Lucille calls it “The Sleeping Bitch.” It has been at her house for as long as I can remember. It is a woman taking a nap. Her whole body looks relaxed except for her face—which looks like it’s witnessing something so horrible her eyes could burn up. Her mouth looks like she’s trying to scream, but can’t get any sound out. It always reminds me of a dream I have where I’m grunting and sweating, but I can’t squeeze out one single sound. Every time I see that sculpture there is something ever so slightly different about it, like Miss Lucille works on it for about five minutes a month.
After we view the art, the ladies settle in the canvas butterfly chairs out on the veranda, and Little Shep and me go out in the yard to play. Over beyond the cedars are millions of crepe myrtle trees and during the summer they’re all rose-colored. I like the way all that rose color looks against those black cedars, and sometimes I kind of relax my eyes so that it all blends together. Little Shep and me have this game we play, where his name is Barry and mine is Jennifer. Whenever we
use those names, we feel great. It doesn’t matter what we’re doing, as long as we do it as Barry and Jennifer. We’re playing “Barry and Jennifer in the Civil War” behind the crepe myrtles, and it is so hot, you just know the Yankees are coming. Then, out of nowhere, we get one of those afternoon rains that cools things off and makes the air smell fresh.
We stand out there and let ourselves get soaking wet. The sun is starting to peek out from behind that scum of gray sky, and light trickles down through the cedars. The rain stops as quick as it comes, and we’re standing in a real clean spot and we both know it.
Little Shep says in a fake accent, Jennifer, shall we go back to the big house?
I say, Oh yes, Barry, let’s.
And we hold each other’s hands, like we never do when we’re our real selves. My hair is hanging down heavy on my shoulders and when the water drips, it tickles and feels good on my skin.
We walk back to the veranda and Mama eyes me like she’s never seen me before, like she’s studying me. I pull my halter-top down where it’s slid up a little. I don’t know why she is looking at me like that. I haven’t done anything.
Without taking her eyes off me, she announces, Siddalee, you are too grown-up to have all that hair hanging down to your butt!
Then she grinds out her cigarette in a crystal ashtray that is full of butts and says to Caro, Why don’t you give Sidda one of your haircuts? It’s something that’s long overdue.
Caro is famous for cutting hair, not like a real beautician but just when she feels like it. She cut her own hair in all these different angles and she looks sort of like a skinny Ingrid Bergman. She gets up and lifts my hair off my neck and twists it softly in her hand. I have always been a sucker for anyone who wants to touch my head, as long as they’re not pulling at it the way Mama does.
It’s so thick, Caro says. This is just too much hair. Don’t you get tired of the weight of it, Sidda?
I have never gotten tired from my hair before, but I say, Yes ma’am, I do. I just get exhausted sometimes.
I adore having them all look at my hair. They all get into the act. Miss Lucille runs and gets some yellow-handled kitchen scissors and a brush and hand mirror. They sit me on a stool on the veranda and Caro starts cutting. I close my eyes and just listen to the scissors and the dripping of the rain off the magnolia leaves and the sound of Mama’s cigarette lighter when she snaps it open. It’s so quiet, you can even hear the tiny whiff sounds my hair makes when it hits the brick veranda floor. I sit there and feel all their eyes focused just on me. Caro lifts my hair and snips and touches my head. And I kind of float away from the veranda into the trees.
When I open my eyes, fifteen inches of my hair is on the brick floor.
Caro hands me the mirror and says, Violà!
When I look at myself, I resemble the pictures of Heidi’s friend Peter. I don’t even look like a girl. My chest closes up. I feel all naked. I feel like they’ve cut off my legs or my arms, not just my hair.
You are magnificent! Mama says, and jumps up from her chair to examine me. She ruffles her hands through my hair and I can feel her fingernails against my scalp. My head is so bare, it’s like she could push her fingernails down into my skull if she wanted and leave permanent dents. Her cigarette smoke curls around me and I can smell the lime in her drink.
You have never looked better! she pronounces. My God, you are gorgeous! Caro, you are an artist.
Then she says, Little Shep, go find a broom and trash can and sweep up this mess! And she gestures to my cut-off hair like it’s dog poop under our feet.
Caro winks at me and says, Sidda, get ready dahling, the boys are gonna really come sniffing around now.
Miss Lucille doesn’t say anything. She just stares at me like she wants to ask a question.
Do you like it, Miss Lucille? I ask her.
What does it matter what I think? she says. What does it matter what anybody thinks about anything?
I look down at my reddish-brown hair lying on the bricks. The bricks and my hair are about the same color. I can feel tiny bits of hair sticking to my skin, like they don’t want to let go of my body. I get up and stand in front of the fan and lift up the back of my shirt to try and let the hair blow off me. My hair has been long since I was a real little girl, and without it I feel cockeyed and dizzy. Like losing the weight of my hair has thrown me off-balance. I was used to how I had looked for so long and how my hair felt when I reached up to roll it between my fingers. When I was alone, I used to hold a clump of my hair and just smell it. And that would make me feel good because it was my smell and it made me feel more there.
I stand by the fan and try to get used to the new me. Why did I lie and say I was tired of my hair? When really, it was the main thing about me that I loved? I ruin everything, I think. I ruin it all. I feel like crying, but I can’t. I brought this all on myself.
Baylor, who was sitting on the steps watching the whole thing, gets up and does something that surprises me. He bends down and picks up a lock of my hair and puts it in his pocket. He looks at it and smells it and puts it in his pocket.
Mama watches him and says, My youngest has always been a little strange.
Miss Lucille says, I see nothing strange about him whatsoever. And she walks into her house and comes back out with an envelope that she hands to Baylor. Here, she says. You can keep it in this.
Thank you, Miss Lucille, he says very seriously.
Then he reaches into his pocket, takes out my hair, and places it in the gray envelope that has “Lucille Romaine, Cane River, Natchitoches, Louisiana” embossed on it.
I say, Bay, why are you doing that?
He mumbles, It’s not really for me. It’s for someone else.
And I say to my little brother, Where do you come from?
The sun is setting by then. Miss Lucille lights some mosquito torches and the smell drifts through the air, covering up all the other smells. She turns on the veranda lamps and hands Mama and Caro some Six-Twelve to rub on.
Miss Lucille says, Here, Vivi, let me rub some on your back. That’s where those damn things always get me, right under my bra.
And she sticks her hand under Mama’s shirt and smears on some insect repellent, and then they get out the cards so they can really start having a party.
Not too long afterward, Lulu comes down the stairs from her nap. I’m hungry, she says. I’m starving. When she sees me, she seems confused, like she isn’t completely sure who I am.
There is never anything to eat at Miss Lucille’s, so we just go into her kitchen and scrounge around till we find some crackers and anchovy paste and a little leftover tonic. The whole time Little Shep and Baylor and Lulu keep staring at my hair.
Finally Little Shep says, Sidda, you look like a mop.
Baylor says, Siddy, can we put your hair back on?
It gets dark and it looks like nobody is going anywhere. So the four of us watch TV for a long time in Miss Lucille’s den. Finally we get tired and turn it off and fall asleep on the couch and chairs.
I don’t know how long we doze, but I’m the first one to smell it. I yell, Yall get up! Something’s burning!
We all run out to the veranda and we find the ladies screaming and screaming, going crazy everywhere because the trash can filled with my hair is on fire. Mama is standing there with an empty ashtray in her hand.
Caro says, You fool! You should never have emptied that! I hadn’t stubbed my ciggie out yet.
Well, Mama says, I was getting sick of looking at all those damn dead butts.
The three of them just stand there staring at the blazing trash can, amazed—like it is more than they can ever cope with.
I can taste anchovy in my mouth, and I wish I could brush my teeth. The smell of my hair on fire is awful. I did not know that something cut off of me could really smell that bad.
Little Shep runs into the kitchen and comes back with a decanter full of water. He dumps it into the can and the fire goes out. Just like that. r />
Miss Lucille says, Oh it is so good to have a man around the house! Now let’s all just take a couple of Bufferin, spray a little perfume out here, and everything will be fine.
We spend the night at Miss Lucille’s without even calling Daddy. I wake up real early the next morning before anybody else opens their eyes. My hands shoot straight up to my head where my hair used to be. I miss it. I want it back. I don’t look in any of the mirrors. I rub my hands across my scalp. My hair feels more like a hat than hair. Like it is a bird’s head, not my own.
I walk out into the yard and there is still dew on the grass, although you can tell the day will be another scorcher. I go out behind the cedars and over by the crepe myrtles. I stand there for a minute, feeling far away from everything because it’s still so early. Then I lie down on the grass. It’s cool and damp, and it itches and feels good at the same time. I can see the sky above me just coming to light, and the fringes of the cedars and all the pink of the crepe myrtles. There aren’t any bugs or mosquitoes, nothing to bite me. I lie on my back in the grass for a long time and then I turn over and lie on my stomach. My heart starts pounding, my breath gets real tight, and I get all afraid.
But I can feel the ground underneath me. And I tell myself: The earth is holding me up. I am lighter than I was before. My hair is like grass planted on the top of my head. If I can just wait long enough, maybe it will grow back in some other season.
Part Two
Willetta’s Witness
Willetta, 1990
Miz Vivi started gettin holy on us after her and Mister Big Shep done had the big fight. I knew somethin was goin on that night, when me and Chaney was settin out on the porch. It was back when Chaney still smoke those devil L&Ms—fore I give him the ultratomato. Fore I tole him: You drink and smoke anymore round here, you can find your ten-cent self another bed to sleep in, you hear me, peckawood?
We was settin out on the porch when Miz Vivi fly out that brick house with all them four chilren. Yellin, packin them in that pinky-gray T-Bird, revvin up that motor, scratchin out the driveway in the dark of night, headin up the road to town.