A Jug of Sweet Tea: Southern Short Stories by Mike Zealy

Author:Mike Zealy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2012-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Q.T.

Most summer afternoons in 1954 Effie Travis would fan herself on the front porch of her one-story wooden bungalow on an oak and elm-lined street in the Negro section of Newton, a southeast Alabama town that had long ago lost its luster. The wooden porch floor creaked from the steady rhythm of her favorite rocking chair. A well-endowed, light brown woman, whose eyes were as black as the night, was a very young thirty-seven. She had a rounded, sensual face, nicely curved eyebrows, high cheekbones (some said she was part Creek Indian), accentuated with pouty lips, and a smile that could render a man useless. She’d cross her long legs exposing just enough thigh to distract even a good Christian man.

In the late afternoon men would walk down the sidewalk to the front of her tiny residence. White men, Negro men, fat men, skinny men, old men, young men, didn’t matter. They all came calling. Officially they were dropping by to see the latest carved figures from Q.T. Some said they wanted to watch the infamous “boy-in-a harness” when he played with his figurines on the front porch, or rambled around in the front yard behind the white picket fence laughing, crying, jumping, or just making funny noises. As often as not, Q.T. would be busy in his workshop out back of the house.

On days he wasn’t with her she sold more figurines. There was a direct correlation between additional “ogle time” for her potential buyers and the sale of the finely crafted wooden figures. She parlayed her sexuality into sales: Allowed her skirt to ride a little higher, exposed some cleavage, smiled, engaged in sensually-tainted conversation, whatever it took to make enough money to free her from his dad. She’d sell Q.T. figurines to the devil if that’s what it took.

Quentin Travis was a man-boy wonder whose remarkable skills with carved figurines were renowned in the Wiregrass region of Alabama. Although twenty-two years old, Q. T.’s mental prowess got sidetracked at six. Except when he slept, he lived in a harness, attached to a metal clothesline-like span of reinforced alloy, strong enough to withstand the occasional fits of rage that were a side-effect of his physical and mental maladies. The span ran from a pole in the front yard, through the center portion of the house, and out to his workshop in the backyard. This narrow, joindered world had been his exclusive domain for twelve years.

The morning sun was working its way through the back window of Q.T.’s workshop when Effie walked out her back door, down the steps, across a short dirt path, and entered his cluttered domain, being careful to duck beneath the wire span. Q.T. spied the glasses of sweet tea and the plate piled high with Effie’s home-baked chocolate chip cookies. He put down his straight chisel and carving knife, moved to a cleared space on his worktable, and sat where they enjoyed this once-a-week ritual. He didn’t know the day, but he knew the good white doctor would come to visit before the sun went down.

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