Issue 2, Spring 2024

Fiction

Under the Table

by Mikey Lockett

Who cares if they ran me out of the fort in the woods? None of those boys own Dukes of Hazzard. Especially not Danny Drasky. Who says a boy can’t play Daisy Duke?

Well, Danny doesn’t know I stole his Matchbox General Lee on my way out of the fort.

I head down the path from the woods to my house. I can feel the little General Lee against my leg in my pocket. I imagine the look on Danny’s face when he realizes it’s gone. He might think he lost it, have all the boys search for it. He might figure I stole it, but by then, he’ll be too late to catch me.

The path from the woods comes out between my yard and our neighbor, old Ms. Cunningham’s. I step through her grass. I rip a fistful of the pink peony blossoms that grow next to her house, since they happen to be near me. I toss them in front of me, like real hard, but the pedals just float gently as I move along. Some stick to my shirt.

My mom appears from the corner of our house on her way to Ms. Cunningham’s back door.

“Mom,” I call out, as I run toward her.

I want to tell her what happened in the woods—well, the part about being run off. Not about the car. I reach her and throw my arms around her waist.

“Danny Dra—” is all I get out.

“Quit your whining,” Mom says. She pulls my head against her hip.

Ms. Cunningham comes to her back door. “Hello,” she says.

Mom brushes my bangs from my forehead with her hand.

We step up onto the porch.

“Shoo,” Mom says to the cats on Mrs. Cunningham’s porch. The cats eat milk and bread from the old pie tins Ms. Cunningham puts out. A white, a tabby, and a tiger cat all scurry off.

“Oh, the cats are no bother,” Ms. Cunningham says. Then, she waves us into the house with her arm.

In the doorway, Ms. Cunningham stoops over to kiss me on the cheek. Her lips are red and wet. She peers over the top of her glasses at me. She grabs my chin. Then, she gets her handkerchief from her shirt pocket and dries my eyes and nose.

“Did I see you out the window ripping up my posies?” Ms. Cunningham asks. “It’s a sad world for a boy who destroys pretty things. Now what’s the fuss?”

“There’s always a fuss with that one,” Mom says.

“Why don’t you go get Dolly,” Ms. Cunningham says. “Only if you can be ginger with her. She’s upstairs on the footstool in my room.”

Dolly is an old Barbie Ms. Cunningham and Mom let me play with. Only when I’m at Ms. Cunningham’s place though.

“Promise,” I say, looking deep into Ms. Cunningham’s kind eyes.

Then, I dash up the steps to fetch Dolly.

I pick Dolly up from the footstool upstairs. I move my finger across her pretty face. She’s old. Mom says from the fifties. She has curly red bangs, big blue eyes, and a black and white swimsuit. I pull the General Lee from my pocket to show Dolly. I run the little car over the foot stool at her feet. Then I take Dolly and the General with me downstairs. I peek around the landing at the bottom of the stairs. My mom and Ms. Cunningham’s backs are turned at the sink talking. I think it is a fun idea to spy on them a bit, and I slip under the table. Surely, they don’t know I’m there. The lace tablecloth hangs over the sides of the table, like a roof to my very own fort. Who needs one in the woods with the other boys?

“You and your cats. Psst. Down now, Suzie Thomas! Nothing like a cat’s arse in your face while you’re sipping tea,” Mom says.

The kettle on the stove hisses softly.

“Don’t you mind old Suzie Thomas,” I hear Ms. Cunningham say.

With a soft thud, Suzie Thomas appears like magic on all fours near the edge of the table. A fine, fat, old tiger cat with a pink collar, Suzi Thomas stays low to the floor.  The cat comes under the table and rubs against me. Then it slips around the leg of the table, out of sight at the stairs.

“And what a name for a cat, at that,” Mom says.

I hear a noise at the screen door. I peek under the tablecloth. I see two pairs of legs sticking out of two pleated khaki skirts. Brown nylons. White loafers. One’s ankles are thick and fat, like dough. The others are thin and nice. Not like they belong to a plump lady, though they do.

It’s old Mrs. Goss, Ms. Cunningham’s sister, and Mrs. Goss’s daughter Mary Catherine.

“You’d have to have the good sense to know a girl cat from a boy cat,” Mrs. Goss says, as the screen door creaks open. “How long did it take you, sister, five years to figure it out?” she asks.

“Oh balderdash,” Ms. Cunningham says.

I lift the table cloth to get a better look at the women.

Ms. Cunningham steps over to Mrs. Goss. She takes a covered dish and pecks her old sister on the cheek. She comes toward the table, so I slide back to the middle of it to keep my cover. She sits the dish on the table. It clanks above me.

“Maybe six,” Ms. Cunningham says, laughing. “Hey, I don’t go ‘round inspecting cat genitals with a magnifying glass. I’ll never forget the vet’s face when he told me she was a he. So, I just added the Thomas for good measure. Whatever it was, I reckoned, it was up to Suzie Thomas to decide.” 

The women all laugh.

“Where’s the boy?” Mary Catherine asks.

Even under the table, I can smell Mary Catherine’s dank, old perfume and the hairspray on her perfect blue hair. Mom says Mary Catherine looks awfully old for her sixties. I envision her face, which is round and wrinkly and always full with a smile.

“Up playing with that old doll again,” my mom says.

I pull the doll close to my chest.

“Aren’t you afraid that boy will turn queer?” Mary Catherine asks.

“Better queer than like the rest,” my mom says.

I think on the word queer—I hear it means strange.

The women laugh again.

“Isn’t that the truth,” Ms. Cunningham says.

“Oh, there’s no harm in a boy playing with a doll,” Mrs. Goss says.

“As long as he only plays with it here,” my mom says. She raises her voice, I think, so I can hear upstairs, where she thinks I still am. “His dad would stomp him into the lawn if he found out.”

“Let the boy be,” Ms. Cunningham says. “Besides, I heard you caterwauling on the porch last night, after your husband’s car tore up the road. He’s stomped you into the ground a time or two.”

The room gets quiet.

“He’s running around again,” I hear my mom say. “I wouldn’t care so much, but he spends all the money on the whore.”

“Who is it this time?” Mary Catherine asks.

“Angie Davis,” my mom says.

I put my hand over my mouth. I’ve heard mom use the word whore when she gets angry about the women who run around with my dad. Because of this, I know it’s bad. I imagine Angie Davis. She’s the lady, I’m pretty sure, that works at the little post office down the road. Bright red hair. Great big boobs. Shirts so tight they look like skin. A little like Dolly but with wonky teeth, I think, looking down at the Barbie.

“That old cat! She’d lie with anything,” Mrs. Goss says.

“Men!” Ms. Cunningham says. “The only man I had ran off with my sister. I haven’t had one cross my door stoop since.”

I imagine Ms. Cunningham, how she stands firm at her front door every time my dad comes over. What she says is true.

“Hey,” Mrs. Goss says. “Lucky you. I had to put up with him for thirty years.”

“And how long did it take you to figure out he was queer?” Ms. Cunningham says.

The women laugh.

“That’s my father you’re talking about,” Mary Catherine says.

“Well, I’d say in our first year of marriage. I came home and found him in my chiffon. God rest his soul,” Mrs. Goss says.

“Dear God, Mother,” Mary Catherine says.

“What can I say? The girl’s proof. I tried my best,” Mrs. Goss says through a snort.

The women laugh even louder.

I can’t help but laugh with them this time. I put my hand over my mouth again, so I don’t blow my cover. My mom has a pink dress she calls chiffon. It looks like a peony. I imagine an old, bald man twirling about in it. I think Mr. Goss has been dead for a long time. I never knew him. I imagine he might look like Boss Hog from The Dukes. What does it hurt? I think. Girls wear pants. Why can’t men wear chiffon?

The women carry on laughing and talking and milling about the kitchen. I hear the clank of china being set out on the table; the stir of a kettle coming to a soft whistle on the old cook stove; the sound of drawers opening and closing with silverware. I hear the sound of the cookie tin being pried open. 

I try to keep quiet, but I can’t stop thinking of Boss Hog in a chiffon. My laughter bursts from under the table and gives me away.

“What on earth?” I hear Mary Catherine say.

Mary Catherine’s face appears beneath the table cloth. As she stoops, her rosy, chubby cheeks droop around her round, little nose.

“Why you rascal,” she says.

“Under the table, of all places,” Ms. Cunningham says.

“God help those little ears,” I hear Mrs. Goss say.

“For Christ sake,” Mom says.

“This is my fort. I’m not moving,” I say.

Mary Catherine says, “I think any other boy might try and peek up the skirt, but—”

“I think we’ll be alright,” I hear Ms. Cunningham say.

The women laugh again, including my mom. Who’d peek up a skirt? I wonder. I’ve already seen Ms. Cunningham’s plain, white bloomers on the line. I can’t imagine Mrs. Goss’s or Mary Catherine’s would look any different. Now, Daisy Duke, curling her long, spider legs in the window of the General Lee…That’s a different story. Heck, you couldn’t cram a bloomer under those jean shorts of Daisy’s, I reckon. That’s why I pretended to kick off imaginary bad guys on my tip-toes back at the fort, like Daisy does in heels. I tied my T-shirt in a knot above my belly button, just like Daisy does. Well, until Danny Drasky said, “Disgusting. Man, you a sicko or something? Really, a boy acting like a girl.” Then, all the other boys said, “Ew.”

The smell of butter crisps from the tin fills the air. Ms. Cunningham hands me one under the table. I snatch it out of her hand and take a bite. The cookie melts in my mouth and crumbles down my shirt.

I hear the women pour out the tea kettle into cups on the table.

Then, there’s a knock at the screen door.

“Hello,” Ms. Cunningham says.

“Is Jimmy there?” I hear a boy ask.

I know that voice. It’s Danny Drasky. I peer under the tablecloth. I see his legs through the screen door. The other boys, too, stand with him on the porch. They have sticks, and they clank them against the floor.

“Is Jimmy here?” Ms. Cunningham calls out in the room like a mockingbird.

“We want him to come play with us,” Danny says.

I slide to the back of the table, away from the door, so the boys can’t see me. I hold Dolly firm. I hide the General Lee under my leg. I do not answer, thinking I’ve got the best of both worlds, a girl toy and a boy toy and no one to bother me.

“I guess he’s not here,” Ms. Cunningham says.

“You boys best be running along now,” Mary Catherine says.

I smile.

The boys scatter off the porch.

Suzi Thomas leaps from the landing of the stairs onto the table. Something gets knocked over and clinks above my head.

“Shoo,” Mom says, and she stomps by the table.

Suzi Thomas thuds back down on the floor. The old cat lands firm on its feet.

The women settle into their chairs for tea. Their legs come together under the table and wall in my fort.