Southern Legitimacy Statement: I’m a sixth-generation southerner born and raised in Jacksonville, N.C. My dad was a Marine from Pennsylvania. I often got in trouble with my grand parents for “talking like a little Yankee.” I’m writing stories about growing up in coastal N.C. Retired, I now live in the Pacific Northwest 24 miles south of Canada. I don’t miss alligators, water moccasins, skeeters, and quick sand, but I do miss venus flytraps, hush puppies, collards, syllabub, and accents I can understand.
Scarred for Life
In the bathroom, I stare in the mirror at my first full mustache. Blond hairs barely cover the
brown cigarette-sized burn scar on the left side of my upper lip. The scar is a problematic part of
me. A high school drummer buddy once told a majorette after half-time, “He wasn’t smart
enough to know which end of the cigarette to put in his mouth.”
Smoking was a big part of my life although I never took a puff. My parents chain smoked. As a
child I just saw their legs beneath a moving cloud. But I always saw their faces at dinner.
My scar was not just a cigarette burn, but a well-planned injury. The day before Thanksgiving
when I was four and a half years old, my Uncle Bud shook the large limbs of Grandmama’s
pecan tree. Blackened pecan husks crunched dead leaves when they hit the ground.
I sat on black dirt covered with pine needles and speared leaves onto sticks. I watched Uncle Bud
gather husks and pull pecans from them, tossing them into Grandmama’s big basket. A few
minutes later, he whispered, “Billy, stay in the yard. I’ll be back in a minute, just keep playing
with those leaves.”
He opened the back porch door and with the big basket side-stepped into the kitchen.
I heard giggles behind the fence from Pete and Bubba, Miz Peterson’s grandsons, who played in
the yard every day when they came home from school.
Pete whispered, “Come on, Billy. We got something to show you.” Uncle Bud hadn’t come back,
so I walked down to the ivy-covered rusty gate between our houses. Bubba opened it, gave me
the “Shush” message with his finger on his lips, grabbed my jacket, and pulled me inside. Pete
shut the gate and pushed me towards a wooden post standing alone in front of their old falling
apart garage.
Bubba asked,” Have you ever been to a movie and seen a Western?”
“One time when Daddy came home from Parris Island, he took me and mommy to a drive-in.
We ate popcorn, and I sat on the front seat. I couldn’t see the screen, so Mommy put a big folded
towel on a six-pack of beer cans. She and Daddy laughed, and I fell asleep. I never seen a movie
and don’t know what a Western is.”
Pete whispered, “It’s a movie about cowboys and Indians. Cowboys ride around with cows, and
Indians are mean to them. Since you never seen one, we’ll show you what we learned.”
Bubba put a dog rope around me and tied me to the wooden post. “Be quiet– so you can learn.”
Pete tied my hands behind my back, and they raced over to their Grandmama’s leaf pile, grabbed
handfuls of leaves and scattered them in a circle on the ground around me.
Pete leaned into me, “Be quiet, so you can see what a Western is. Me and Bubba are cowboys,
and you are an Indian. You tried to hurt us, so we’re going to get even.”
Bubba walked across the yard towards me carrying a burning stick like a long cigarette. Smoke
rose from the ashes at the tip of the stick. He and Pete smiled and nodded, “Open your mouth,
Billy!”
“No, no!”
Behind me, Pete held my head in place. I shook it, but his grip hurt my neck. I closed my mouth
as Bubba pushed the stick towards me. When the red-tipped stick touched my upper lip, he
twisted it. I screamed like a fire truck siren. Pete smiled, took the burning stick from his brother,
and pushed it into the leaves. I kept screaming…no words, just loud squeals. And I cried.
The leaves caught fire as Uncle Bud swung a leaf rake at Pete and Bubba, yelling, “Get away
from Billy.” Scared, they ran into their house. Uncle Bud raked the smoldering leaves away from
me, stomped on them, untied the rope, and hugged me harder than I’d ever been hugged.
He kicked open the gate and took me screaming into the house, “Mama, Wannie, get me some
first aid cream and a piece of cotton. Those boys next door tried to set Billy on fire.”
Grandmama looked at him,” Where were you, Henry? Why did you leave him alone in the yard
with those little first grade criminals? I want to slap their palms with my hairbrush.”
Papa shook his head and handed a tube of first aid cream and two cotton balls to Uncle Bud.
Wannie, my Mommy, just rubbed my head as a tear dropped from her face to my forehead.
My stick burn really hurt, and I couldn’t stop crying. I whimpered even with mommy’s arms
around me. Uncle Bud held my chin and put a dab of first aid cream on my burn. It hurt so much
I screamed again. Grandmama and Papa shook their heads and turned away.
Papa walked to the door, “I’m going to talk to Mrs. Peterson and tell her those kids can never set
foot again on our side of the fence.” He quietly pulled the door shut, shaking his head and
mumbling.
Except for my sniffling and crying, the room was quiet. Grandmama slapped the dinner table as
she cleaned it off with a rag. Uncle Bud took deep breaths and filled the room with smoke.
Mommy brushed my hair and kissed the top of my head. I sniffled.
That night when Daddy came home in his uniform, he picked me up and held me. He shook his
head, looked at my burn, and blared across the room, “Thank God they didn’t stick a cigar in his
face.”
I rake my mustache with a trim comb and with my small scissors snip off a wayward bristle or
two. I twist my head, stare at the scar, wondering how we outgrow things we experience as kids.
I drop my scissors into the drawer, shut it quietly, and realize like everyone else, I, too, live with
even more invisible childhood scars that have shaped my life.
