He sees me looking at his eye, direct. Oh shit, I think.
"Did Mamma ever tell you about my eye gettin' healed by Jesus?"
Before I can answer, he bellows to the living room: "Momma, come tell Sophie 'bout that time Jesus healed my eye."
Edisto Beach, South Carolina
I am crammed in a very small and very hot car wedged between cases of diet soda, cartons of cigarettes, boogie boards, and the car seat that my nephew Ethan is perched in. On the other side of Ethan is Katy, bent into an unnatural shape by two folded-up beach chairs wedged in between her and the car window. In the front seats are my mother and sister, Scarlette. My mother looks very tired and has a pained expression on her face from the incredibly loud music Scarlette is playing on the crackling stereo speakers. Mascara runs down from her green eyes, following the lines of crow's feet that branch out, cutting through her unnaturally orange foundation. Ethan, used to the bombardment of all senses at all times, is sleeping peacefully, his round blonde bowl cut bobbing as the car careens through a maze of potholes.
The well-worn road cuts through groves of twisting, massive oaks covered in Spanish moss, separated only by fields where indigo, rice, and cotton are cultivated. We pass a shanty house with a dirt driveway, at the end of which is a plywood sign with BOILED PEANUTS written sloppily in dripping white paint. As we get nearer to Edisto Island, we are surrounded by marshland. A dead tree, more a bundle of twisted sticks than a tree, juts up from the tall marsh grasses.
"That's the voodoo tree," Scarlette tells us as we drive past. "We're in Gullah country now."
We finally get to Edisto Beach State Park. Katy and I can't wait to set up our tent. My mother, sister, and Ethan all plan to sleep in the larger and fancier tent, which is fine with us. We begin hauling the contents out of the car and onto the worn picnic table which sits to the side of the not-quite-level campsite. Palmetto trees surround the eastern end of our site, arching towards the ocean. You can hear the waves hitting the sandy shore.
After unpacking, Katy and I struggle with setting up our little stinky tent. The tent smells like mildew from lack of use, and we give it a good shaking to vacate any spiders. I brought my battery-operated Fisher Price record player and some records. Back at my little apartment in Virginia, the record player was only used as a novelty, or occasionally as it sat on the space next to the sink while I took a bath. However, at Edisto I felt very well prepared and tickled to have the opportunity to listen to records in a tent under palmetto trees by the ocean.
GRANNY YODELING
© 2013 Works & Days Quarterly and Jodi Page Corley