A Tourist in Mayberry

Question 2: How did Magdalena's Dad Go From Worse to Better to Worst Ever?

Whenever I visited her, Magdalena and I had deep, philosophical discussions under her dilapidated, single-wide, rusty trailer. We did more than talk about school and boys and what we were going to buy at the store when we made our first millions. We discussed things like life and death and how to solve our many problems. One time, we even deliberated on what makes a mean person? How do they become evil? I thought it was their growing up, their childhood making them this way, and I had the evidence to prove it because of Darrell and his mean mama, Nannie Jo. Magdalena agreed with me, but she decided the theory did not work with her dad because of her Uncle, Hermie Dean, who was raised in the same home as her mean dad.

Uncle Hermie Dean was not perfect. He did have some criminal tendencies, but he was not evil or mean-spirited. Most of his crimes were of a petty nature with an occasional armed robbery thrown in for good measure. Uncle Hermie was good to Magdalena and the girls. Magdalena said if not for him, she would never have known men could be good because her only other male role model was her dad. Uncle Hermie Dean was the one who made sure the girls had Christmas presents and something to eat when Randall Michael Wall left town. He checked on them, but mostly came around when his brother was gone because they did not get along all the time. Hermie Dean was the baby brother, but he did not mind telling his big brother to lay off the girls. They scuffled more than one time about it, and his last visit to their home resulted in an all out brawl in the front yard. The cops were called and both men were arrested. The problem was the police sent Randall Michael Wall home and kept Uncle Hermie Dean on outstanding warrants. He was currently in Raleigh in the state penitentiary serving time for several violations of his parole.

Magdalena and I concluded after this discussion that a bad childhood could make you a bad person, but people could rise above their raising. Uncle Hermie Dean was an example of this, if you were not including his penchant for taking other people's property into play. Uncle Hermie Dean proved that to be a singularly bad person, you had to have badness in you. Randall Michael Wall had more than his share in him.

Revenge. Magdalena and I wanted revenge. She was tired of living under the roof of a crazy man. I was tired of watching this horror show. We were both ready for the credits to roll on this sad tale. I say "sad" described her and her sisters' and mom's life more than fear because their life just made you want to cry.

The anxiety associated with trying to tiptoe around Randall Michael Wall's moods was causing Magdalena stomach aches. We knew to defeat an enemy you must know your enemy, so we began to observe and take notes on his behaviors. We kept our notes in a spiral notebook in a cardboard box under the trailer where we held our club meetings. We called it our club because everyone who has ever been a kid knows you gotta have a club, even if the membership is only two kids, and the main goal of the club is to discuss ways to defeat your enemy, otherwise known as your dad.

We took notes of Magdalena's dad's crimes. We bulleted these offenses and kept a running list in both of our handwriting because there was something every day we could write about. All the actions were not criminal, but they were all cruel. The list looked like this:

* Slapped Sissy today so hard it knocked her down.

* No power today again. The first day was sort of fun, until the flashlight died. Now temperatures have dropped in the 40's at night and it is fricking freezing. Took heater from my house (Candi thinks it was stolen off front porch, she is nervous), otherwise baby sisters will get sick. Where is he, when will he be home, why did he not leave money? No gas, no way to get to town for help. When will he be home? We didn't want him home, but we needed him home. A Conundrum, for sure.