Little Baby Faulkner

6

She leads me in. Through the trash (the back yard). Through the screen door. In through a silent-sounding kitchen. Baker a few feet ahead of me. Me looking at mountains of dishes, dirty cracks between kitchen tiles, baby toys on the floor—a toddler's—circular hydraulic walkers to work the baby's legs—this one caked with brown and white substances, pyramids of powder—

"That's flour," Baker says.

"I'm sure."

"And that is brown sugar." She runs her finger along the top of the brown pyramid and steps to me, putting her finger inside my mouth, running it around my gums. "My sugar," she says to my face, "is so much sweeter than this."

"Charisma! Baker! Where art thou? Where?"

"I'm right here, Grammy! You ruined my surprise entrances!"

"Make thy entrances with more haste than waste," her grammy says.

We go into the living room and this old woman is hunched over on..what?..some end of the couch not seen for centuries? A pile of hoarding existing only under this woman's butt? She is wearing a white moo moo with stitching crossing the neck, traveling across the arm, and running into her forearm.

"Here. Grammy. Let me help you."

Baker tries to take the needle and spine from her grandmother's control, only then realizing what I had already seen (that her Grammy was perfectly happy sewing purple thread into her arm and Baker has tugged the string almost out of her arm before she realizes what she's done).

" 'Risma! Baker hello! What in the Hell's Angels is you doing to my arm!"

"Grammy! What the hell are you doing to it?"

"Let me go, thy excellent bitch! Rescind thee and resort thee to thy bath, with young son yonder introduce me thus!"

"This is Matthew, you stylish bitch! I've been talking to you about him all week! Remember? I said he was coming to visit me and that he'd be staying in my room and that we'd need to find a room for Wendy to stay in so Matthew and I would have some motherfucking peace and quiet!! Where is that little brat anyway?"

"She's upstairs, Baker. She's just upstairs. Why you have to come home and make such a big deal out of something as small as a camel passing through the eye of a needle—"

"Wendy!" Baker says. I hear the report in her voice like she's back on color guard. Her feet snap together like Hitler's. "Wendy! You better get your ass down here and introduce yourself to my friend Matt!" She stomps out this next part: "Wen. Dy. Get. Yourself. Down here. Now!"

"You could'introduce us," Grammy says.

"No I can't!! No, I, cannot. If I did that, then I would only have to reintroduce him when Wendy comes downstairs—does that fact make itself aware of you? To you? Does it Mom?"

"I don't like it when you call me Mom. I ain't your Mother Mary Mom, am I? I'm your simple gramma mom, a simple fucking grandma mom—Jesus Mary and Joseph Christ of a Son of Grandpa's motherfucking Dog! Chain on the leash of thy right hand motherfucker."

"Grammy, don't curse."

"A' least I belie'e. At least tha's true of me. Is it true to you is what you should be askin'. "

"I ain't sayin' it b'cause you believe," Baker says. "I's sayin' it b'cus you suck at cursing! God damn, Grammy, what's that smell?!"

"That be my panties runnin' girl—you know tha' smell."

"Eww. Enough!" Baker grabs my hand and takes me up the stairs. When we get to the crook, there's a girl of 11 or 12 sitting with her knees up, watching Baker and my every move. Baker leans over and whispers to her: "We need the room for a while." The girl nods and Baker and I go into the second door on the left.