"Black Sheep"
A Short Story By Lo Brewer
Napoleon Road Italianate farmhouse © Nyttend/Wikipedia Commons
When we got out of the car at Aunt Yancy’s house the dust from the driveway that the station wagon had kicked up was still in the air. I coughed. My sister Trixie rolled her eyes at me and told me to stop being so dramatic.
Before we reached the porch, Yancy came springing through the screen door. She was easily 70 years old. But she was quick and strong. I guess you have to be when you take care of a farm by yourself.
She ran out and hugged my mother tightly. Then she picked me up and swung me around like a rag doll.
“Kevin,” she said with a slight nod to my father.
“Yancy,” he replied with an equally cool nod.
She was still holding me, even though I was too big for anyone to be picking me up anymore. Her grip was tight, almost suffocating.
“Hi Aunt Yancy,” Trixie said. She was the only one who hadn’t been acknowledged.
“And hey there to you. Aren’t just growin’ like a weed? We should probably get you inside. It’s mighty bright today, and you can’t afford to get any darker.” She put me down and ushered us into the house.
“You sure Trixie is gonna be OK here?” I heard my father say as the screen door closed behind me.
My parents were going on yet another marriage saving trip. They’d already gone on two. Once to the Poconos and another time to Cape May. Both trips lasted about a week. Both times their honeymoon euphoria would last about a week after the trip. But they’d soon start fighting again. We never went on those trips with them. They’d always drop us at a relative’s house. We usually stayed with our grandmother, Dad’s mom. But she died last summer. Apparently, Aunt Yancy was the only one my parents knew that was willing to take in two kids for two weeks.
This was our second visit to her house. The first visit was a few summers ago. I don’t remember much about the visit except for the fact that I was scared of the ‘monster’ that lived in the back room. Poppa, my mother’s grandfather, Trixie and my great-grandfather, had a stroke several years ago and occupied one of the bedrooms in the rear of the farm house. Aunt Yancy, having never married or moved away, was the one stuck caring for him. I didn’t know much about him except that he was missing teeth (and toes thanks to diabetes) and had pretty foul mouth. Thanks to his stroke you could only understand half of the insults he hurled from his bed. The only other thing I remembered about Aunt Yancy’s house was that she made a mouthwatering lemon cake. She gave me a healthy slice and said that I reminded her of the cake…sweet and yellow. She started calling me Lemon Squeeze after that.
When our parents told us that we would be staying with Aunt Yancy and Poppa for a few weeks, both of us objected. Trixie said Aunt Yancy was mean. Aunt Yancy could be a little mean to Trixie and to Daddy. But, she was always so nice to me. It was Poppa that I was concerned with.
Mom assured us that Yancy loved us both very much and wasn’t mean, but we may be made to do chores and help her out with the farm. As far as Poppa went, well “he’s too old to be too much of a nuisance. Just stay out of that back room and you’ll be fine.”
And so, here we were, standing in the middle of Aunt Yancy’s sitting room. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the dust trail the station wagon made as it drove away.
The first few days went off without a hitch. Trixie didn’t want to do anything other than read her books. She’d brought along Are You there God, It’s Me Margaret, Superfudge, and at least three Babysitters’ Club books. We were only staying for two weeks. But Trixie could plow through a single book in less than a day. All the books she read didn’t have any pictures in them and therefore, were of no interest to me. I was more entertained by drawing, coloring, making necklaces out of buttons, or any other doo-dads I could find laying around. I once made a necklaces out of some frozen peas my mother had dropped on the floor. It looked beautiful. It tasted disgusting.
The third day things changed. Aunt Yancy woke us up early in the morning and asked us to help her with some of her farm chores. Collecting the eggs and milking the cows were fun, at least I thought so. Trixie was equally bored and grossed out by pretty much everything we did. And she wasn’t afraid to be vocal about it. Aunt Yancy ignored her until about 11am when she sent her inside.
“Go on now gal. Go read your books, or whatever it is your lazy black behind is content to do all day long,” Yancy said. Trixie skipped off into the house. I’m not sure if she didn’t catch the underhanded insult that Yancy threw her way, or if she didn’t care. Either way, she was happy to be done with the dirt, hay, chicken coops, horse shit, and cow teats.
“Why I gotta stay out here and Trixie gets to go inside?” I asked.
“Because my little yella wonder, you can stands to be out here in the sun. Your black ass sister can’t. It’s about to be high noon and if she stay out here, she likely to be blue-black before I can say amen.”
I didn’t like that Aunt Yancy sent Trixie inside so she wouldn’t get a tan, partly because I didn’t understand her reasoning, but mostly because I’d tired of the chores and wanted to go inside myself.
That night after dinner, Aunt Yancy went into Poppa’s room to feed him and wash him up. We could hear her grunting and straining in consternation.
“We should help her,” I said.
“Why? If she wanted help she’d ask for it. Besides, Logan and Mary Anne just broke up and I just don’t know what to do with myself,” Trixie said, then took a sip of lemonade and went back to reading.
I wanted to help Yancy. But Poppa scared me. I’d only laid eyes on him once. The last time we visited, I went to the bathroom, which was just past Poppa’s room. When I came out he was standing in the doorway of his bedroom with a wet spot on his pajamas, screaming for Yancy to come clean him up. I stood paralyzed. I’d never seen a grownup wet themselves. I didn’t think it was possible. Or maybe I just never thought about it. I couldn’t see past my own nightly accidents that would happen every time that our parents fought. And I wasn’t used to people yelling. Even though our parents fought all the time, they managed to do so in stern yet hushed voices.
I decided to be brave. Brave meant walking down the hall and knocking on that door, that door, Poppa’s door.
I took a deep breath and started down the hallway. I was almost there when I stopped in my tracks. I could hear Poppa from inside, cursing and calling Aunt Yancy names.
“In here lookin’ like fuckin Heckle and Jeckle, bringin’ me that nasty ass stew you just love to make. It like you don’t know how to cook shit else. And then you lets me lie here all damn day after I mess myself. Just a sittin’ in my own shit all day!”
“Daddy, please!” was all that Aunt Yancy had in the form of a response.
I looked back down the hallway. I could see Trixie, sitting in the same spot on the couch, buried in her book, unawares of anything besides MaryAnne and Logan’s broken relationship. She wouldn’t be any help.
I bit my lip until I tasted blood. You can do it Arlene, I said to myself before knocking on the door.
“What?!” Aunt Yancy and Poppa said in unison.
“I, um, I, Aunt Yancy, do you need any help?” I asked, praying that she’d say ‘no.’
“Who’s there?” Poppa asked.
“Daddy, remember I told you that Violet and Kevin’s girls were going to be staying with us?”
“No I don’t remember no sucha thing. Because had you told me that you’d be having some god damn kids running around my house, I woulda told you to go to hell.”
I could hear Aunt Yancy let out a long sigh.
Finally, “Naw baby. You go on and play. You don’t want nothin’ to do with this business anyway.”
I tripped over my own feet as I ran back down the hall.
When Aunt Yancy was done she carried Poppa’s dirty linens down the hall and told us she was going outside to clean them. She looked tired, and sad.
“In the dark?” Trixie asked. “How will you be able to tell the poop is gone if you can’t see anything.”
“What did you say to me?”
“I just said that it would make more sense to do what in the mor…”
Trixie didn’t finish her statement before Aunt Yancy had landed a slap square on her cheek. She went flying off the couch and took down her glass of lemonade with her.
“You get your lil ungrateful black ass up!” she yelled. But Trixie didn’t move. She was stunned. “Get up now! Since you so damn smart, you can come outside and clean this shit with me!”
I started to walk over to Trixie but she held her hand up to signal me to stop. She’d somehow regained her senses and stood slowly. She walked outside and Aunt Yancy trailed behind her.
They were outside for at least an hour. When they came in it was bedtime so we went to sleep. That night Poppa wasn’t the only one who had an accident.
Our visit was different from that point on. Aunt Yancy was two different people with Trixie and I. With me, she was the ever doting, ever spoiling, sweet as pie, Auntie. She let me color and play with all the old toys she had up in the attic. While I colored, or drew she’d bring me sweets she made especially for me. She’d put them on this little plate with balloons painted on it that I loved. I got to sleep as late as I wanted to and I only did the chores I liked. By chores I mean ‘chore’ because the only one I liked was milking the cows. But all of my sister’s time was relegated to chores. No more Judy Blume. No more Baby Sitters’ Club. Just hauling wash, cleaning, and helping Aunt Yancy tend to Poppa. It was fun for a few days. But that routine soon got old. I felt guilty for all the privileges I was given, while Trixie was being punished for something she didn’t have any control over.
I tried helping Trixie with her chores. But that backfired. Aunt Yancy would yell at Trixie for being lazy and ‘forcing’ me to do work that ‘pretty little yella hands’ like mine should never do.
When my mother called to check on us, nearly at the end of their trip, Aunt Yancy reluctantly gave me the phone. I didn’t tell her what had been going on for the past two weeks. But she could tell by my voice that something was wrong. She told me to sit tight and they’d come and get us right away.
Our parents were staying at a bed and breakfast at least a half day’s drive away. When I told Aunt Yancy that they would be picking us up early, she immediately blamed Trixie. Her punishment was a round of extra chores. Falling at the end of the list was getting Poppa ready for bed.
I tried to help Trixie, but she wouldn’t let me. She knew if we were found out it would only result in her getting in more trouble. So I sat painfully by and watched her go through a series of chores that took her hours to do.
“Don’t worry,” she told me. “Mom and Dad will be here soon to pick us up and when they get here I’m gonna curse mean ass Aunt Yancy out.”
It made me smile…but only momentarily. Her suffering would soon be over. But suffer dug a hole deep inside of me and filled it with sadness.
Aunt Yancy had already washed up Poppa and fed him while Trixie was finishing up her chores. All that was left was emptying the chamber pot and redressing his bed. Poppa was sitting in his arm chair muttering orders and obscenities at Aunt Yancy when Trixie went in the room.
“Alright now Trixie, help me put new sheets on this bed and then we’ll get Poppa in it,” Yancy said.
“It’s like havin’ two of my own nigra slaves,” he said with a laugh. I was standing near the doorway, just out of sight. But I could spy his toothless grin from just beyond the door.
Yancy and Trixie worked silently and steadily. The bed was made in seconds and Poppa was tucked in before he could say another mean thing.
Trixie went to grab the chamber pot and grimaced. It was filled to the brim, itfs contents nearly spilling over the sides. She walked slowly and deliberately through the room, careful not to bump into the bed, or the chair. But as she was nearly in a clear space she tripped on Poppa’s slipper and spilled the entire pot on the bed. Silence fell upon all of us until Poppa finally cut through it like a machete.
“What the fuck is wrong with you!? You done spilled shit all over the place. Go get a mop and clean this shit up you black ass, good for nothing, shiftless, stupid, lazy nigger!” But she didn’t move. She couldn’t.
“Daddy…” Aunt Yancy began. But he had a few choice words for her as well.
“And you. You ain’t shit either. You never was shit. It’s like I can’t get no good help around here. Your food is nasty. You fumble me around like a rag doll. I wish you wasn’t the only one of my children left to take care of me. I wish I didn’t have to look at your black ass face every fucking day!”
Yancy sighed. She closed her eyes for a moment. And without opening them said to Trixie, “Trixie baby, do Aunt Yancy a favor. Go on out the room, clean yourself up and wait for me in the kitchen.”
Trixie, finally able to move started to back out of Poppa’s room.
“And Trixie honey, close the door on your way out.”
We walked to the kitchen and could hear Poppa’s yelling soon turn to muffled grunts. The bed was moving. Things were being knocked off of the bedside table. And then, for a long time we heard nothing.
Eventually Aunt Yancy came out of the room and walked into the kitchen. She was sweating and shaking. She reached in the refrigerator and pulled out the lemon cake she’d made earlier. I initially smiled, her lemon cake was my most favorite thing in the whole world to eat. But then I got sad again because I realized that Trixie would probably have none.
Yancy reached in the drawer and pulled out three forks. She handed one to me and then one to Trixie. She didn’t say a word as she started shoving forkfuls into her mouth. Her hands were trembling and she was crying.
“Is, is Poppa sleeping?” Trixie asked.
“You could say that,” Yancy replied through a mouth full of cake. “Now don’t just sit there you two, dig in!”
We tentatively joined her. But we were both scared that somehow this sweet, smiling being before us would return to her usual malevolent self directly.
We sat like that for what must have been an hour. Then as we heard the station wagon turn into the gate Yancy broke the silence.
“It’s good that your parents are comin’ to get you. Old Yancy ain’t too good carin’ for kids anymore. I can barely care for myself these days. I suppose I was a little too hard on you Trixie.” I think that was her form of an apology.
“You know girls, sometimes when people are sad, and hurtin’, they just don’t know what to do. They builds up that hurt inside of ‘em ‘til it becomes a fist, a fist in place of they heart. Then they uses that fist to hurt others.”
“Like…like Poppa?” I asked. But I knew she wasn’t talking about Poppa.
She just smiled, leaned over and kissed Trixie on the forehead, and got up to open the door.
We didn’t find out until we got home. But apparently, Poppa died that night, peacefully in his sleep.
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