Candles Burning Read Free Page A

Orleans, Ford and I might have stayed with Mamadee in Tallassee. But Daddy said ever’body ought to go to Mardi Gras once in their life. Unsaid but understood by us all was that Daddy wanted to be with me to celebrate my birthday. If he had to be away, he would just have to take me with him. Mama wasn’t very happy about having us in tow but she was gone find something to make her unhappy anyway and Daddy knew it.
    In the car, Mama remarked that she had been to Mardi Gras and if she was gone go again, she would rather she did not have kids with her to fret about. She smoked Kools, one every half hour or so, and turned the pages of the latest Vogue as she told Daddy everything she had already told him before all over again. He smoked Lucky Strikes, one every fifteen minutes or so, and said not much of anything.
    Just the day before the Gulf Coast had gotten cold enough so that snow fell in the Florida panhandle, which, if the lines on the map were drawn straight, would be southeast Alabama.
    WITH the windows up against the cold, it was harder for me to hear the world outside of the Edsel, but that made me more aware of the workings of the Edsel itself, and of its occupants. Knowing them too well, I did my best to block them out.
    We stopped at Daddy’s dealership in Mobile. He could not very well drive though Mobile and not stop. Mama harried me into the ladies’ room and out again and back into the Edsel, not because she cared if I wet myself or not or because I was dawdling; she just used me for an excuse to sweep in and out without having to converse much with the people who worked for Daddy.
    Ford left the car only long enough to help himself to a Co’Cola. Daddy always called Co’Cola dope. Every time that he did, Mama said “dope” was slang, and A Man In His Position ought to know that using slang made him look like a country fool.
    Uncle Lonny Cane Dakin came out, in his greasy overalls and with a big streak of black grease on his left cheek. Lonny Cane looked a lot like Daddy, if Daddy were for sale in a thrift shop.
    Despite the cold, Daddy lowered all the windows before he went inside to air the cigarette smog out of the Edsel. When Uncle Lonny Cane started to lean in the open window next to Mama, she flinched away, glaring at his fingernails.
    â€œMy Lord, Lonny Cane Dakin, don’t you touch my car with those fingers!” she hissed. “You’ll get that grease ever’where.”
    Uncle Lonny Cane froze with his hands clawed up, before shrinking back and tucking them behind his back like a kid who don’t want to admit to not washing up before dinner. His face shone red under the grease. He grinned so hard with embarrassment, I could see all the gaps between his few remaining crooked, poor boy’s teeth.
    â€œBeg pardon, Miz Roberta,” he mumbled. Then he craned his leathery neck and squinted into the backseat at Ford and me.
    Ford was closest to Lonny Cane, so I threw myself on top of him and let a rebel yell out Ford’s window. Mama flinched. Ford about choked on his Co’Cola. He threw me off him onto the floor. Uncle Lonny Cane’s guffaw was like circus music to my ears; it had the rude blat of a clown’s bulb horn.
    â€œI’m getting a sick headache,” Mama wailed. “Calley Dakin, you hush your mouth right now. I do not want to hear from you again in this lifetime! Ford, go tell your daddy to hurry up, and bring me a BC!”
    Ford took care to step on my right hand as he got out of the car again.
    Mama covered her eyes with her hands and moaned.
    I whispered into the back of Mama’s seat, “You want me to sing you a song, Mama?”
    She drove her elbow back into the seat. That meant she didn’t want me to sing a song. I could sing like anybody but she never cared for my voice however I sang.
    Ford came back and flung himself into the backseat.
    Daddy opened the driver’s door and peered in. “I brang