“This here tie feels like a noose ‘round my neck. Can’t you loosen it up just a little? I’m suffocating. And why I got to wear your dang boyfriend’s clothes? Looks like I’m wearing my dad’s threads. (‘Course if I was really dressed like my daddy, I’d be wearing an orange jumpsuit, if you know what I mean.) Why I got to go to church again? Your brother done lured me over by telling me he had the bloodiest, gruesomest video game ever been made. I was all excited, and then ya’ll hold me down and put this tie on me,” Ricky whines. “Ya’ll know it’s wrong to trick a dude like that.”
I stand back and look Ricky over. In David’s khaki pants, light blue button down shirt, and navy tie, he looks a far cry from the hick bully I was dodging in tenth grade. He looks normal. Almost handsome, with his platinum hair slicked back and his air horn of a mouth closed.
“Ricky,” I say, noticing the green enamel leaf poking from underneath his tie, “You’re going to have to lose the pot leaf necklace. Seriously. You’re not wearing that into a Pentecostal church. Unless you’re in the mood for an exorcism.”
He sighs and unfastens his chain. “My grammaw gave me this. Fine. But I ain’t putting on them penny loafers over there. I am keeping on my tenny shoes.”
“Those are dress shoes, but okay, never mind. You’re passable now,” I say, “Let’s get a move on.”
“I don’t want to go to church. Ya’ll go on without me. You know me; I can’t sit still for long. I get antsy. I get all sweaty in my pits and privates. Bad nerves, I reckon. How’d you get Kip to go? I thought your brother was acrostic?”
Kip swaggers up to us in a full power suit. His suit and his immaculately groomed mustache make him look like a five foot tall stock broker. “Acrostic is a poem, my friend. An example: K – knowledgeable, I – intimidating, P – powerful. I believe you mean to say ‘agnostic’. And to answer your question, Christina paid me to go.” Kip is the first fourteen-year-old, mustached, evil genius I have ever known. And he’s my only sibling. Lucky me.
I explain to Ricky, “I tried to tell him that we need to be there for Sunny today;she is getting an award from her pastor. It’s an unspoken law of friendship that you have to be there to celebrate friends’ successes in life. But, yeah, I had to resort to giving him a twenty. It won’t be bad. There’s a fellowship before the service. It’s basically just a potluck dinner. And you know those old church ladies can cook!”
Ricky and Kip both brighten. These boys like to eat. “Hey, know what?” Ricky says, “I can swing by the trailer first and pick up one of my grammaw’s pies. She started selling desserts for extra money. They always just sitting on the counter. She don’t care if I grab one.”
The trailer is tiny and flimsy. I know pity is the last thing Ricky wants me to feel for him, but when I walk into his tuna can of a home, I can’t help it. He has a pink, plastic toddler bed in his room. “What happened to your mattress and box spring? Are you having to sleep in this little girl bed?” I ask.
“Oh. Yeah,” Ricky says, a little deflated. “My own fault I’m sleeping in a baby bed. Fell asleep smoking again. This time I burnt the dang bed up. But..” He pulls out a crumpled stack of magazines from under the petite bed. “The fire didn’t get these babies. My dad’s magazine collection. Take a look at these, Kip.”
“I have a feeling these aren’t back issues of Better Homes and Gardens,” I comment. Ricky grins deviously and shakes his head. “Okay. I’m just going to grab a dessert out of the kitchen. You guys don’t do anything too weird or time-consuming in here. Don’t get anything gross on your church clothes. We’re already running a little late.”
A long line of baked goods in little silver pans and plastic wrap are spread across the salmon pink counter. Pecan pies, peach pies, carrot cake, a pie made of jello and cottage cheese (yuck), a jelly roll and batches and batches of fudge brownies. I’m a chocolate lover so the choice is easy. Ricky sees me picking up the brownies and pushes it back onto the countertop. “You might be safer grabbing one of them pies,” Ricky says. “Just trust me. You ain’t going to want to be bringing them brownies up to the church. “
“Okay..” I say, grabbing the peach pie with lattice work crust. “Wait. Are these pot brownes? No way! So that’s how your grandmother is making money from baking!”
“She’s got to buy the boy a bed that doesn’t have pictures of princesses on it,” Kip laughs.