Too Disgusting to Contemplate, Too Compelling to Ignore

Growing up, our next door neighbors were an older couple whose crazy Jesus freak daughter, Joan, would come home periodically to live for extended periods. This usually occurred when either 1) her on-again/off-again husband decided he'd had enough of her extremist religion -- for example, she didn't use laundry detergent, just threw their duds in hot water to soak -- and sent her ass packing until he realized how much he loved and missed his boo, or 2) some wildly inappropriate God-based revelation had come to her and she was unable to live with the man who had laid down with her to father her children but who could not accept the plain and simple fact that the Big Guy and his kid were talking to her via the Home Shopping Network and a giant bag of snack size Kit-Kats. We always knew when Joan was back for a lengthy stay because of her muffler-less Gremlin, her booming voice, and her three behaviorially challenged children, Mickey, Timmy, and Audrey.

Mickey who was a couple of years younger than me, would stay in his grandparents' house and refuse to come out except for school or church. Timmy, the middle child, was a slightly mentally handicapped kid who would latch onto anyone who would give him the attention his mother seemed incapable of, and Audrey was a sour faced tomboy with a perpetual scowl on her face due to Joan's "women don't wear pants" stance.

The summer I turned 17, Joan was in the midst of a lengthy stay and Timmy -- 13 at the time -- took a particular shine to my mother. Every night at 6:30pm, like clockwork, there would a knock at the door. It was always Timmy, with two big glasses of iced tea (one for my mother and one for himself).

"Hi, Lola," he would say in his slow halting drawl. "I brung you some ice tea my nana made."

And every night my mother would go out and sit on the stoop with him, sipping tea and talking to him about his day. I asked her once what they talked about every night. "The other little bastards at school tormenting the shit out of him because he's retarded...that bitch of a mother's violent temper...and some goddamn video game or another. I don't have a fucking clue what he is going on about half the time, but the poor little shit needs someone to pay some attention to him. It wouldn't kill you to talk to him once in a while."

Say what you will about my mother (and there is plenty to be said, I know), she does have her heart in the right place. In the center of her chest, slightly to the left. I kid. Seriously, she does have a soft spot for kids, animals, and the less fortunate. She also has one hell of a knack for inducing guilt in me.

Which is how I wound up sitting on the stoop with her and Timmy a few nights later, listening to him rattle on and on about a spat with his mother over new sneakers, his love of peanut butter cups, and the dangers of lint.

At one point during the conversation, Audrey came into view at the corner, stooped over and shambling along. Timmy was up in an instant. "My sister has my candy," he announced, more to himself than to either my mother or me. "I need to get it back."

He waited until Audrey reached her grandparents' driveway and approached her. My mother and I exchanged amused glances, then settled back to watch the show.

"Audrey, I want my red hots. I know you took them. Mickey don't like red hots." Timmy took a beat. "If you don't give them to me now, I'll go to mom."

Audrey glared at Timmy for a second, her cro-magnon brow creased with pure hatred as she looked from him to my mother and I and then back at him. After a few uncomfortable seconds of this, Audrey reached onto her dress pocket and threw a half empty bag of red hots at her brother, then stormed into the house.

Timmy rejoined us, a smile of satisfaction plastered on his face. He held out the bag of red hots to each of us in a silent gesture of sharing. My mother took a handful but I declined, being more of a Junior Mints sort of fellow.

"Your sister looked pretty mad there, Tim," my mother said.

He nodded. "She would be in big trouble if I told on her."

"I bet." My mother finished her red hots and accepted more. "Taking shit that doesn't belong to you is a bad deal, Tim."

"Yes, stealing is wrong," he replied, poking some more candy in his mouth, "but that's not why she'd get in trouble..."

My mother and I exchanged looks. I knew what was coming.

Three.

Two.

One.

"Why would she get in trouble, Tim?" That woman is like Old Faithful when it comes to getting to the bottom of something.

"Cause this one time when Audrey didn't come home for supper, our mom went looking for her and found her at the playground..."

"Hmmm...eating candy and ruining her appetite, huh?" my mother asked, leading him along.

"Kind of. Audrey was poking the red hots in her 'gina and then eating them and our mom was real mad. She beat Audrey all the way home."

I burst out laughing, glad I didn't like red hots enough to have taken any, let alone indulge in seconds. My mother sat there stunned. After a few moments she dumped the remaining candy in her hand on the ground, then took one look at me and her laughter joined mine until we were both holding our sides, tears streaming down our faces.

A couple of things happened that night.

One, Audrey was henceforth and forever more referred to as 'Gina. And two, my mother was forced to realize she had gone against one of her most basic admonitions: Never take candy from a stranger.

Especially if said stranger's sister has a cinnamon scented cooter.

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