The Good Friend & the First-Born Fabulist of Bossier Lane
by
M. James Cooper
...Julian was a lucky man, or so he had been told. Friends, neighbors, even his sister-in-laws seemed to think so. Secretly, they thought Ilene was the lucky one. She had been lucky to find such a good looking man. It was all that mattered. Perception and what people thought was the center and main component to their upbringing, so it is what they gave the most energy to. The Grandmother had a sharp tongue and a skeptical eye. They were a watchful, judgmental people, never once did they focus on love. But she was mute now, the Grandmother, silenced by an attack on the body, two strokes, yet she continued to sneak the salt, somehow, into the pocket of her duster, or the band of her knee high stockings, which she refused to stop wearing long after she had retired from the library. Removal of the salt barrel from the kitchen did not stop her cleverness. God knows where she got the ingredient from, covered her food with it is what she did. She complained that her granddaughters did not put enough in the food when they cooked.
"Ah can't taste none!"
Granny would say.
On fruit, vegetable, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Every dish was laden with white granules. Now she just moaned a sound of anger and frustration and pent up evils that would never again be vocalized. Mother-daughter didn't care. It was her time to reign. Ilene relished being in charge, who else, now that her mother was next in line after the dog, she had inherited her mothers sharp tongue, her heavy handed approach to all things arguable. Ilene was only waiting for her to have that third and final stroke, for her to die. Yes Julian was still there, he would proceed to the table for supper eventually, and ask,
"What we drinkin'?"
A Father always wanted to know what juice was available.
"Ah man deserve tuh have juice after workin' so shittin' hard everyday."
Never did he raise his voice, even tones. Like the Mother and the Grandmother, he was habitual, doing the same things the same way, saying the same things the same way. Parenting? It was the only confrontational thing he allowed himself to say. It was the only utterance Mother had no rebuttal for...