Cruisin On Desperation. Pat G'Orge-Walker
None of them had ever found a poor man who owned a bag of dirt, let alone a rich real estate mogul.
The single women sat around wearing plastered smiles, and had almost accepted Blind Betty’s good fortune until it was time for her to toss a bouquet of colorful forget-me-nots. They’d swarmed out onto the floor kicking, pinching and screaming. Suddenly from out of nowhere, a twenty-something shapely woman with lemon-colored skin and an ebony, store-bought wig with its price tag showing, just happened to pass in front of the crowd of desperate crones. “Get out the way,” someone from the crowd shouted at her. When the young woman, whose name was Miss Fitt, turned around, she accidentally caught the wedding bouquet with her French-manicured, claw-shaped nails.
The sight of those long nails ripping the colorful forget-me-nots to microscopic shreds brought a hush all over the place. Like the other single women, Cill and Petunia thought they’d lose their minds. However, when they saw the young woman toss the remains of the bouquet into a nearby garbage can as she screamed, “Ooh, I don’t want this. I don’t want to get married, ever,” they wanted to strangle her shapely neck.
Going to jail for murder would certainly hamper their chances of marriage, so they decided to grab a few petals as souvenirs. With their heads held high, and a single tear rolling down their cheeks, they left with a scrap of dignity and a renewed vow not to remain alone or attend another wedding unless it was their own.
Petunia’s old car lurched out of control as though it was trying to throw up its last little bit of gasoline. All the while its speedometer seemed to stand still, even as the steering wheel spun erratically. It clanked and inched down the right lane of Pelzer’s Highway 29, while black smoke spewed out its muffler like smoke signals. Yet it was in better shape than the lives of its occupants.
Petunia pushed Cill’s hands away. “Touch my steering wheel with those ashy paws, and I’ll fight you like the man you want to be,” she snapped as her sunglasses bobbed on the tip of her pointy nose.
Petunia was skinny and banana-shaped, and she was just as pale, almost to the point of looking jaundiced. At the age of thirty-six, she was an on again and off again anorexic with breasts the size of acorn seeds. She stood about five foot nine and weighed about one hundred and five pounds, and that was only after gorging on a Happy Meal.
Cill took another glance over at Petunia and sucked her teeth as she pointed at her. “Girl, please. I’d love to see you fight me or anyone for that matter. As a matter of fact, stop tripping. You’ve never won a fight against anything, and from the looks of this puddle-hopper, certainly not the war on poverty.”
Cill watched the steam escape from under Petunia’s peach-colored, floppy hat. She laughed and then pulled her oversized, beige Apple cap further down over her doe-shaped, brown eyes. Cill wore a big Apple cap everywhere, and had even worn it to the wedding that day. The hat covered her micro-short dark hair, giving no clue as to her gender, despite a stubborn, long chin hair.
Cill and Petunia fought constantly and made up just as often. Arguing about how slow Petunia drove was the springboard for most of their arguments. Next was whether Cill truly wanted a man or just hung around the other women pretending she did. Those were the same arguments they’d had for the past several years on the first Saturday of the month, as they drove to the singles meeting.
“You just make sure that there’s some padding in the backseat before we let Mother Blister sit down when I pick her up,” Petunia said as she pointed to an old comforter balled up in the backseat.
Cill let her shoulders drop and shook her head. “I don’t know why we always have to pick up that old woman to go everywhere,” she mumbled as she reached over the headrest for the blanket. “I know for certain that they have free shuttle service from that seniors’ home. She could use it if she wanted and stop inconveniencing us. And, you know good and well, she has a problem with her bladder. It just ain’t sanitary to have her in the car with people that normally pee in toilets.”
“You got a lot of nerve, Cill Lee,” Petunia argued and rolled her eyes. “I only live a block away from Mother Blister, but I had to drive three miles from my house to pick you up and take you to a meeting that’s right next door to you. I’m going out of my way because your car is in a shop that’s on this side of town. So, who’s an inconvenience?”
Petunia totally ignored the reference to Mother Blister’s uncontrollable bladder. After all, she had the blanket in the back seat for that very reason.
“I’m your friend. We go way back like salt pork and collards,” Cill answered as she again shook her head in annoyance and watched old folks on the sidewalk in their motorized wheelchairs speed past.
“Why don’t you be a better friend and chip in for some gas?” Petunia asked. She knew Cill wouldn’t do it but she still needed to remind her.
“Well, let me look in my pocket for a quarter. At the rate you’re driving that’s about all the gas you’ll use.”
Petunia was just about to lock horns again, but Cill spoke up too quick.
“Look, there she is in the front of her building standing under the awning,” Cill said as she avoided Petunia’s impending rebuke. “Have mercy, will you look at that old woman?” Cill was about to burst with laughter. “I wished she’d come to the wedding wearing that orange and red striped blouse and that maroon wool pleated skirt. She’d have made us look good.”
Petunia, forever the cautious one when it came to the maintenance of her precious car, kept her eyes and mind on parking it, completely ignoring Cill. When Petunia was satisfied that she’d parked exactly twelve inches from the curve, she looked over at Mother Blister, and accidentally hit her mouth on the steering wheel when she leaned over. She almost chipped a tooth to keep from laughing, too.
“Lord, please don’t let me be and look that crazy if I live to be that old.” Petunia whispered the prayer, laughing as she did.
“We ask in your name, dear Father,” Cill added as she crossed her chest and her fingers. She almost caught a cramp when she tried to cross her toes, too.
Mother Blister hadn’t looked in their direction. Instead, the seventy-plus senior stood under her building’s awning with a jar in her hand. At five foot nine, with a hefty frame, she looked like an overripe dark raisin with twice the wrinkles, bent almost in half like the letter C. Her entire body looked uneven when she stood.
As the blazing hot sun poured through the cracks in the awning’s cover, she spooned fistfuls of sunscreen from the jar and smoothed it on her dark skin. But it was when she lifted her skirt, to dab a little on her knobby knees, that she spied Cill and Petunia. She dropped her skirt and waved to let them know she’d seen them.
“Look at her,” Petunia said. She pointed towards the building’s awning quickly so Mother Blister wouldn’t see her as she approached. “She’s one of the senior heads of our church’s Mothers Board.” She dropped her head again pretending not to laugh as her bony shoulders shivered. “That’s too sad.”
“Sad ain’t exactly the word I’d say. Downright ridiculous is more like it,” Cill chimed in as she suppressed another giggle. “Listen. Do you hear it?” she asked.
“Hear what?” Petunia asked. She turned her head from side to side while holding one of her ears.
“The sounds of snaps, crackles and pops,” Cill answered while snapping her fingers. “Mother Blister was standing there broiling in that sun and sounding like a geriatric bowl of Rice Krispies. I can still hear the sounds echoing in the air.”
“Hello, Mother Blister.” Petunia stopped laughing long enough to call out as Mother Blister ambled towards the car. She opened her door and stepped out to give the woman more room to enter on the driver’s side, when she finally reached there. “You’re going straight to hell for that,” she leaned back inside and whispered to Cill.
“How y’all doing, today?” Mother Blister asked as she finally arrived. She squeezed her hefty body into the back seat of Petunia’s car, pushing aside the blanket Cill