Small Texas

By Cindy Marabito

A book of Southern Gothic short stories of flawed characters caught in sinister situations. A senior older brother calls his sister to pay for his prostitute. A dissatisfied young housewife attends a Total Woman seminar. Twirling class from a tyrannical band director. Just a few of the East Texas hard-living souls erupting from Small Texas, a collection of short stories from the wild mind of Cindy Marabito. Deliverance meets Car Wheels on a Gravel Road with Carson McCullers riding shotgun.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Jul 29, 2023

Book preview

Cindy Marabito

Small Texas

Stories

Other books by Cindy Marabito

Pit Bull Nation

Jackson

Jules, the Truth Finder

Small Texas

Stories

Some of the stories in this collection have appeared in the literary journals Pigeon Review and The Pine Cone Review.

These stories and characters are fictitious. Certain long-standing institutions, agencies, and public offices are mentioned, but the characters involved are wholly imaginary.

Copyright © 2021 by Cindy Marabito

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Cindy Marabito

This collection of stories is dedicated to my husband, Scott.

CONTENTS

All the Way Home

Wolf Creek

Knox Brothers Employment

Third Rate Romance

As the World Turns

Lost in Christ

Rose City

Total Woman Smothers Husband

For the Good Times

A Thousand Dollar Wedding

All That Jazz

Amelia

Nobody Beach

The Tycoon Club

LA Joan

Nom de Plume

Hillbilly Shining

The Best Day Ever

All the Way Home

Darleen’s hip hurt, at least where her hip had been before she’d had her operation. She hadn’t seen Lyle since their sister Armada’s funeral. There’d been that incident when Armada’s eldest girl, Barb, had to call the sheriff’s department on him for getting into Coy’s liquor cabinet. They’d found him sitting right there at the kitchen table with an old half-empty bottle of banana liqueur Coy and Armada’d brought back from their trip to Mexico.

She pulled up behind Lyle’s truck next to the carport. The paint was weather-worn from the simulated shutters and the cheap wood had started to curl. She touched it without even thinking about it and rang the buzzer. Melba’s old blue Hydrangea, which hadn’t bloomed since she’d passed on, stood up out of the white brick planter, defiant like a skeleton of bones.

Lyle? She called out his name loud like a question and tried to peek inside the dirty window screen. I’m here. All the other homes on the block had been bought up for starters. Lyle’s house was the last one on the street still inhabited by its second owner.

She knocked on the door. Lyle.

She heard somebody fumbling with the doorknob on the other side. Keep your britches on for a minute.

The front door swung wide to reveal an old man, the hair on his head turned white and fine as when he’d been a toddler. His flannel shirt looked uncomfortable in this morning’s bright humidity. It was misbuttoned and she could see long damp chest hair.

It was hot and the air stagnant in the front room. They done turned off the juice again, he said, stepping by to let Darleen enter.

She was going to say something when she saw a negro woman leaned up against the hall entryway. Hey, there. You got the money? she asked. She was wearing shorts, what they used to call hot pants back in the ’70s.

I’m sorry?

Lyle started to laugh. Oh, that’s Vonnell. She needs to get herself paid.

Darleen was confused. Paid?

Vonnell cut her a look. Yeah, paid. I been here since last night. He says he ain’t got no cash around. She looked over at Lyle with a twist on her mouth.

Darleen felt sick to her stomach. She couldn’t tell if it was from the smell, the heat, the realization, or all of them put together. I need to use the bathroom, she said.

She held onto the side rail Lyle had put in when Melba had first gotten sick. It was the last renovation he’d done and that was over ten years back. A dirty once-white duckbill basket full of old magazines sat next to the toilet. Curled up and yellow with titles like True Men, Man’s Life, and For Men Only peeked back at her. She looked the other way, not wanting to think about that.

You all right in there? Lyle’s voice broke the calm.

They were standing in the doorway to Valerie’s room. It was painted Sherwin-Williams orchid and still had that Cinderella bedroom suite Melba had paid for on time. Val had dropped out of her freshman year and run off to Houston where somebody had said she was working as a stripper.

Vonnell held out the open purple sparkly patent-leather purse on her arm. I need to get going. You got that fifty?

Lyle turned sharp. Fifty? You’d said it was twenty.

Vonnell’s voice was short. That was for a Q.V.

Lyle tried to put his arm around Vonnell like he was romancing a date, but she stepped aside. You know when I get to loving….

Her face went puffy. And for the blue pill, too.

Lyle rubbed his crotch. Don’t get me going again, gal.

Darleen didn’t want to hear all this. She just wanted to leave. She was due to leave for Oklahoma bingo with her church group this afternoon and didn’t want to be doing this.

I’m wore out and needing to go. She turned back to Darleen. You need to pay up so’s I can get out of here.

Darleen had the two twenties and a ten she’d withdrawn at the ATM for her bingo trip. Her side began to throb where the new prosthetic joined her femur bone. Here, she said, handing the cash to Vonnell.

Vonnell counted it to be sure while eyeballing Darleen. She stuffed the money down into her purse and turned back to Lyle. You need to take me on back to town. Now.

Lyle grinned, exposing the space where his broken partial resided. Two of the fake teeth had long since broken off, leaving mismatched pink plastic against whitened gum. The cobalt fittings had turned black. Best give her another twenty, then, he said to Darleen. He kept his eyes trained on Vonnell’s bustline, low hanging and full like ripe fruit peering out of the polyester glitter tube top. The long shining scars of stretch marks ran vertically across her breasts.

Vonnell pulled up the top, the tip of a long, fake metallic-teal fingernail catching in the fiber. You not getting no more a this.

Lyle said, Whatever blows your skirt. He was smiling, but there was no joke left in his voice. Darleen had seen him turn mean on the drink back when Melba was still alive.

Vonnell looked right at Darleen. You need to take me.

Darleen didn’t want to. She just wanted to leave. She couldn’t help but wonder what their parents, Vernon and Bernice would think about all this business. She and Lyle had come from simple beginnings, from which religion and church were the form of all entertainment. It was probably best that they were dead and gone from this world.

Vonnell pushed past her and moved toward the front door. A waft of heavy cologne permeated the still air and Darleen wanted to vomit. Over the picture window was featured a wreath of woven plastic and roses that Melba had picked up from one of her garage sales. It was covered in old dust and cobwebs, and there was a dead horsefly caught in its snare.

You coming or not? she said over her shoulder.

Darleen could hear the doves cooing in the early outside morning like they all had something to say. They got into Darleen’s car and she put the key into the ignition. She almost jumped out of her skin when she looked up to see Lyle peering into the driver’s window, his hands around his eyes like makeshift binoculars.

Y'all drive safe now, he said with a wide smile.

I’m going home later, Darleen said while she put the Buick in reverse, the tires crunching the driveway shells like popcorn. She didn’t bother to look back, and that was the last time she ever saw her brother Lyle.

Wolf Creek

The Clover family reunion was going to be held at Wolf Creek this time, and she was bringing her momma Juanita’s turnip green casserole to the get-together. If Mildred could only find the card it’d been written down on, that is. She began to go through everything she had to find the recipe. She could see it as clear as day in her head. It had a big, almost clear yellow grease spot and some olive green from the turnip drippings on It.

She began tearing through her kitchen drawers. Past that old carnival glass egg dish and those cup towels that wouldn’t soak up a glass of water. They still looked brand new and had a Made in Taiwan tag sticking out. There it was, finally. She poured herselfIer cup of Folger’s out of the stainless percolator and sat down at the kitchen table to look it over.

The index card was so old it had turned a light shade of rust. It made her think about that time Don had taken her to watch Texas play football. Seemed like everything in Austin was that color of orange. To her, it was ugly and not a true titian color. It reminded her of Don’s ex-wife Claude and her head of auburn hair. She didn’t want to think about that today, though.

First you boil up you’re turnips, read the thing. You can use mustards or collards if your out of your turnips, it said. She could almost hear Juanita’s old craggy voice going on behind the words and it made her smile. Then Iou put in your chicken broth and cook till real tender all day if need be.

You get out your nine-by-nine after you drain some a the pot liquer off of it. You don’t want a lot of the juice but you do want your greens to be juicy. And, don’t forget to salt your broth.

For some reason, Mildred had started to cry, but she couldn’t say when or even why. Her back was hurting again down low. The backaches had quit after Doc Hymouth had told Don they needed to start sleeping in separate beds if you knew what he meant.

You can add you some chopped up pepper. I like the canned pickled ones for the taste. Mildred had to smile at that. Her momma loved her spice and found a way to add pepper to almost everything she made.

Everybody was supposed to come this year. There’d be Don Jr. and Pat and their twin girls, Shawnita and Juanita. They’d called Juanita after Don Jr.’s grandma and that brought up another tear. Granny would’ve loved those two girls. Pat was a real fine mother and already pregnant with their fourth.

Melt a stick of oleo in your other skillet and sautee some onion and then add your two cans of cream of chicken Campbell’s. I don’t add the water here since it gives off a more rich taste.

Mildred wished her momma was here today. They’d used to sit for hours at this same table and listen to the radio. She fingered the stiff tablecloth that had been her momma’s. It had been rough trying to get it after the funeral. Her brother, Wynn, had threatened to call the law if Mildred took anything, but she’d managed to get it into her handbag. She wasn’t going to leave without it and that was a fact.

Here’s where you add your Jiffy cornbread mix and then you drizzle another stick of oleo over the top. Then you cook in the oven till hot and bubbly.

She would make up her momma’s casserole. It could stay hot with the Sterno Don’d bought her. I believe I’m gonna make my no-bake Chocolate Colada pie, she said out loud to no one. She still had a graham cracker crust in the freezer. She’d improvised on the original Pina Colada recipe and added Nestle’s chips to hers. It was always a hit. The sweetness of the condensed milk, crushed pineapple, and cream of coconut was a real crowd pleaser.

She had all the makings plus her contest entries. They had a billboard up at the Thrifty Basket where she liked to shop. She’d pull down all the entries each week and would have her girls, Julia Ann and Jo Nell, help fill them out. They’d sent off so many over the years but had only gotten one prize out of it—a year’s supply of Ken-L Meal. She’d had to feed it to that old hunting dog Don Jr. had