“Did you call the doctor yet?” I asked him. “You know that Aunt Jennifer doesn’t like doctors,” my wife cut in. She always cut in; she had a big Southern mouth. “Part of my culture,” she used to tell me. “Well, what can we do for her?” I questioned. Clem was nervous. He ran his long fingers through his dirty brown hair and answered, “I guess that all we can do now is pray—pray that the Lord pulls her through.” Pray? That 11 be the day I pray for that old hypocrite. She used to sit and tell me and the wife about the second coming of Christ, and then she would turn around and kill a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. She was a drunken old lady, dedicated to the “cause.” Holding my nose, I entered the old lady’s crummy house. It appeared to me as it always had in the past: dirty plates on the table, a drawing of Gen. Robert E. Lee over the fireplace, the mangey old alley (or was it country?) cat next to the coal burner. “Where is she?” I asked Little Jebb, who weighed about one hundred pounds with his clothes on, soaking wet. “She settin’ out on the back porch gettin’ a Uttle sun to help her condition.” It’s funny how little old ladies always sit on back porches when they’re getting ready to die. The back porch of Aunt Jennifer’s house was like an old rabbit coop. As a matter of fact, she had a few rabbits running around the house all the time, except when her flea-ridden cat got mad. “Come on, George. Let’s go see Aunt Jeimie, and you be nice,” the wife cautioned me. “Honey,” I said, “I’ve got some chewing-tobacco in my back pocket. Do you think that Auntie will Uke some?” “You’re a regular animal. Aunt Jetmifer was right when she said that all Yankees are no good,” the wife answered me. Ah yes, I could see it again. The War Between the States was beginning all over again. Why couldn’t I have married a nice Italian girl from Rhode Island? No, I had to be an idiot and marry this charming Southern belle, who couldn’t even speak English correctly. Well, it’s too late now. So, I followed my lady out to the back porch.
“0-o-h Jezzi! My little JezzilYou done come to see your old Aunt Jetmifer, your poor old sick aunt. How sweet of you.” The old lady was gasping as she spoke. And she never even mentioned me, the old bitch. She never did, until I said something about Rhode Island. Then she would get up and start preaching to me about the evils of the North. How she used to bug me! Dumb old lady, I used to think to myself. “Hi, Aunt Jetmifer !”i exclaimed to the poor product of the Industrial Revolution, the Civil War, and the two World Wars. The ancient wretch, there she was, just showering herself in buckets and buckets of self-pity. “0-o-h George. I feel like this is it. I can’t go on much longer. My arms are killing me, I get headaches aU the time, my back hurts me when I walk, and I’m always constipated.” Boy, was she having a good time! I thought about telling her to take a whole box of Ex-lax to help her feel better, but I didn’t dare because the wife would have surely placed me before a Southern firing squad. “Aunt Jennie,” I spoke up. “Don’t worry' about anything. Jezzi and I will take good care of you, and soon you 11 be all right.” The old hag glanced up at me for one minute and then finally said, “I always knew you were a good man, even though you come fromthe North.” Her and her God damn baloney! She really bothered me! North and South, North and South—the dumb old bitch! I went over to her and placed my hand on her cold forehead. “Don’t worry. Auntie; you’ll be all right.” “Maybe the Good Lord wiU save a spot for me in the Promised Land,” she mumbled, softly enough to arouse the sympathies of her audience. I always thought that she would have made a good sales-girl in a Providence department store. Hell, she wouldhave made a Jew look bad with her line. “George,” my wife called to me. “Come, let’s go to the kitchen and fix Aunt Jetmifer a cup of hot broth.” When we got to the dusty old kitchen, my wife pulled me to the corner and emphatically said, “Listen to me! My Aunt Jennifer is about to die and you sit there not doing anything.
Phoenix:
Spring 1970
9