Southern Humorists - Cheryl Lee

My first husband and I lived in New Orleans for about a year back in 1997-98. We moved down at the end of August, into an upper shotgun apartment in a four-plex. The day we moved our stuff in, we got an invitation from our downstairs neighbors to a cookout for Labor Day the next day. We had no stove and no fridge as yet, so sounded wonderful to us. We did try to refuse, as is the only polite Southern thing to do, but they insisted they'd be cooking enough for an army. And they did! There were ribs and burgers, steaks and more. We got to know our new neighbors a bit while we ate. Our downstairs neighbors were an African-American couple with some grown children (who had moved out on their own) and one late-life little boy, a toddler named Ivory who adored me. Their next-house neighbors were the wife's cousins, with a girl a little older than Ivory, probably 5 or 6 at the time. Her Daddy would quiz her, "Jerry WHO?" And she dutifully replied "RICE!" "Dallas WHO?" and so on. It was a lovely welcome to the city.

The wife of the couple - I'll call her Marie, cause I just can't remember her name - kind of took us poor "children" under her wing and fed us every chance she got. I told her I didn't like beans, and she made me some red beans and rice that made a liar out of me. I told her I had to know exactly what was in something to find it good, and she made me a gumbo that made a liar out of me (and that I had to pull crab shells out of). Marie was magic in a kitchen, and often asked us to have some supper with her if we were home in the evening, since her husband worked then. She always promised she'd teach me her recipes, but it never quite worked out that way. In return for all the good food, I'd watch Ivory for her if she needed to step out for a little while, or get things for her at the store, etc. Then-hubby worried sometimes about giving her money, but I assured him that if you were generous with what you had, it would come back to you. She was sure generous with us!

One day Marie called me up and asked if I could come and sit with Ivory for a little while. She sounded really wound up. I did, and her cousin gave her a ride somewhere. When she came back, she was pale and upset and that night, I could hear her and hubby all the way upstairs. He moved out the next day. Turns out he hadn't been working all those evenings he wasn't home, and the other woman was pregnant.

Marie just wasn't the same after he left. She talked a good game, but she seemed to be always watching the door, hoping he'd come back. She still cooked the same amount as before, when she wasn't drinking. She didn't seem to know how to cook for just one, or even two. She'd share with us, but her food had lost its spark. She was doing everything the same, but the part of HER that made it good was missing. She moved out of the building before we did, and last time I saw her, she was doing much better in a new location, and even started working. I got pregnant before she moved out, and she confirmed my feelings that I was having a boy. Ivory wouldn't have anything to do with me, and she said little boys can tell like that. Her cousin that was pregnant with a girl, he would still go to her, but wouldn't go to women that were having boys.

It didn't take me very long being pregnant before New Orleans looked too dirty and dangerous to me, and I just wanted to go back home to Alabama. That city and its people will always be a part of me, though.

Cheryl Lee, a.k.a. MamaKat, says her house has almost always been "outside of" some already-small town. She was born and mostly raised "outside of" Troy, Alabama. She guesses she is a redneck, cause directions to her house usually did include "and then you leave the paved road." She now lives in the frozen North in Indiana, where it is sometimes 5 degrees Fahrenheit. She has three boys two ex-husbands, one boyfriend, two cats, and a certifiably insane extended family back in the Deep South, more than enough material for a long and lucrative writing career.