Chapter One
All the Sunday afternoons I can remember have that same
grainy, black-and-white quality as those old photographs
in a familyscrapbook.
Edna and I are at home. She's cooking, a chicken probably,
or a roast, and I'm doing the things I always do on
Sundays, loungingaround the house, maybe working in the
yard, reading the paper, or watching an old movie on
television.
We sit on the porch, my mother and I, wave at the
neighbors as they drive by, cuss out the politicians, or
the Atlanta Braves, or theweather, or each other. It don't
mean a thing.
Nothing happens, nothing changes. It's a lie we tell each
other, a charm to keep us safe, like the tiny gold St.
Christopher's medalEdna wears on a fine gold chain around
her neck.
My daddy gave Edna the medal when he got sick and knew he
would die. The Catholic Church took away Christopher's
saintfranchise at about the same time we Garritys stopped
going to Mass. Edna doesn't really believe in saints, but
she believes if sheacts like she believes, something good
could happen.
I believed it too, until the Sunday late last summer when
my ideas about goodness and evil were shaken like one of
those snowglobes we put on the mantel every Christmas.
It was one of those unremarkable Sundays. Not unbearably
hot, because we'd had an early afternoon shower. The
windows wereopen, and I could hear the soft swish of a
lawn sprinkler nearby. I was inside the house, watching an
old gangster movie. I thinkGeorge Raft was in it. Edna had
put a chicken in the pressure cooker, and I was supposed
to be listening for the steam to besputtering good so I
could turn down the heat. She was outside on the porch,
probably dozing over the Sunday paper.
All of a sudden she let out a howl like a scalded dog. I
went running out just in time to see her out in the yard,
beating this poorold drunk with a dripping-wet floor mop.
She chased him down Oakdale, halfway to DeKalb Avenue, his
pants still at half-mast around his knees, her pink
terrycloth houseshoes slapping against her bare feet, and
all the while she was right behind him, jabbing the wet
mop at him like a bayonet.
Her heart condition has slowed her down some in the past
year. Otherwise, I believe Edna would have run that old
wino to groundand pummeled him to death with that mop. As
it was, she stopped chasing him only because I went after
her and dragged her homeby the arm.
"For God's sake," I told her, standing there on the
sidewalk, panting for breath, hoping my own heart wouldn't
give out, "that guycould have had a gun or a knife. What
if he'd turned on you? What would you have done?"
"Son-of-a-bitch bums," she yelled, brandishing the mop in
the direction he'd run off in. "The son of a bitch was
using my yard asan outhouse. I saw him, Jules. He came
right up to the edge of the porch and took a crap on my
gardenia bush!"
I was pulling her along the sidewalk toward the house,
trying to get her to come along quietly. But she had an
audience now.Neighbors had heard her screams, and now dogs
were barking and people were standing at the edge of the
street or on their ownporches to see what was going on.
Old Mr. Byerly across the street met us by the driveway.
Homer, his Boston terrier, was barking and snarling and
running incircles around Mr. Byerly's feet.
"I seen him, Callahan," Mr. Byerly said, working his
toothless gums in agitation. "It's that same damned wino I
caught sleeping inmy car last week. Stank up the Buick so
bad I had to use a whole bottle of Pine Sol on it. I think
he's been sneaking around myback porch too, stealing
Homer's food. Homer ain't never eat a whole box of
Gainesburgers in one week. Have you, buddy?"
Homer lifted a black-and-white leg and directed a good-
natured stream of urine at Mr. Byerly's work shoe.
"It's awful," Edna said. "Awful. Decent folk shouldn't
have to put up with this. And I intend to put a stop to
it." But her chest washeaving so hard, she couldn't say
more. The chase had done her in.
I slipped my arm around her shoulder. "Come on, Ma," I
said. "Let's go on inside and check on your chicken.
You'll have a strokestanding around outside in this heat."
She pushed my arm away. "My gardenia," she said. "I've got
to hose off that gardenia."
"I'll do it," I promised, steering her toward the porch.
"Soap and water," she said, pausing to rest after climbing
the first step. "Otherwise, it'll be burned. Damned bum.
I've beennursing that gardenia for four years. Longest
I've ever been able to keep one going. Everybody says
Atlanta's too cold forold-fashioned gardenias."
She eased down into her rocking chair, and I hustled into
the house to turn off the pressure cooker, which was
rattling and hissingand throwing off great clouds of steam
inside the kitchen.
"The chicken's fine," I told her when I got back outside.
She just nodded and pointed at the hose.
I squirted bright green liquid dish detergent all over the
shrubs and breathed through my mouth and averted my eyes
as I directedthe spray at the neatly clipped azaleas,
camellias, and sasanquas Edna had planted near the
underpinnings of our little wood-framebungalow. The shrubs
made a frothy green hedge across the front of the house,
and Edna always planted great swaths of pink andwhite
impatiens in their shade so that it looked like a lady's
lacy underpants peeking out from under her skirts. Never
red, never orange.
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