The arrival of July 3rd means preparations begin for the annual July 4th trek to New Albany. Clyde wakes up early, like a kid on the morning before vacation.
We pack in record time. For the first time in years, today’s routine does not include carefully folding a Mexican blanket, carrying a dog basket and cushion out to the car, and filling the Tupperware travel bowl with hard brown nuggets of Dixie Dawg’s dry food. As we back out of the garage, I spy her heating pad and bed, stacked in a dusty corner, and a feeling of enormous loss wells up inside me.
The trip goes quickly. We arrive just as Clyde’s parents sit down for a lunch of homemade pimento cheese, country ham, and crackers. The conversation turns to our friends from Atlanta — John, Jeri, Phil, and Thomas — who are joining us this year for our New Albany holiday shennanigans.
Locals, knowing Clyde and I have invited them, have been full of questions. Are they all men? Are they all women? In their wonderful, laid back way, Clyde’s parents have answered these inquiries with the truth: “We never thought to ask.”
Two hours later, our four friends arrive, unfolding themselves out of John’s SUV after the six-hour trip. After a quick meet and greet, we all wind up in the shady den, talking in that relaxed, aimless way that I always associated with Clyde’s family. The conversation establishes its own directions, unhurried and unforced, for more than an hour. There’s no awkwardness; despite being total strangers, you’d think we were all family.
* * * * *
When we leave the house for the city tour, we head out on an eclectic list of stops: Clyde’s sister’s house, the home of a friend of the family, the new park along the Tallahatchie River, the local Fred’s Dollar Store. Eventually, though, all roads lead to Wall’s — the Wal-Mart-related discount center in the ragged old shopping center near the new McAlister’s.
Inside, our group — now composed of Clyde’s parents, our Atlanta friends, and two of the three nephews — descends like a swarm of locusts. Parks, the seventeen-year-old, dons a green St. Patrick’s Day hat, hockey shoulder pads, and a black suit coat, then speeds around the store on a battered scooter, brandishing a black rubber plunger like a sword. Peyton the fourteen-year-old, shops for unusual socks … but finds a bizarre SpongeBob SquarePants touch light instead.
In the back, dozens of racks of slightly soiled wedding dresses, gowns, veils, and sequined bowties commands a great deal of attention. The sight is surreal: yards and yards of delicate lace and shimmering silk float, cloudlike, between racks of mismatched boots and an aisle littered with smoke-damaged boxes of men’s hair color.
Phil is the first to snatch up a veil — he spies one with patriotic trim, no less — and wander the store with it planted firmly atop his head. Clyde’s father loves it. Later, Phil, arms buried in the gowns, explains to Clyde’s mother that one of his heavy-set friends who does drag on occasion would just love a wedding dress. She nods, not missing a beat, and asks, “What’s his size? Do you know?”
I stand in the middle of the store, watching the scenes unfold. Parks zips past on the scooter, humming what he calls the “Wallsian Avenger Theme.” Peyton scrambles after him, arms loaded with treasures that include two fifty-cent two-liter bottles of Faygo Orange and packs of Magic: The Gathering playing cards. John and Jeri shop for shoes and find bracelets for friends back home. Thomas looks on, quiet and bemused. Clyde’s parents marvel at the display of cement lawn deer. Clyde, whistling a tuneless song, wanders the aisles, happy as I’ve ever seen him.
In the middle of a grungy discount center in northern Mississippi, it occurs to me that I’ve found a little piece of paradise.
Add comment