My Alien Life: Chapter 1
Gumption
A heartwarming, speculative tale of an unusual child who finds a home—and love—with her feisty Great-great-aunt Magnolia Rose McClellan.
Audiobook narrated by April Doty. Paid subscribers have access to the complete story.
Gumption
My mother was a no-nonsense woman. If it wasn’t in the Bible or on Jerry Springer, then it couldn’t happen. Of course, there’s a lot of freaky stuff in the Good Book, with ladders to heaven and angels with animal faces and such. And crazy, muckraking talk shows probably aren’t the best yardstick for anything short of how depraved humans can be. But the point is that when she was abducted by aliens and impregnated with me, she had some trouble processing. I’m pretty sure Jerry actually covered that one, but I guess she missed the show that day. TiVo hadn’t been invented yet, just in case you’re wondering. Trust me, if it had, she’d have been all over that.
Not that I know for sure, I guess. But when my daddy would have a couple of six-packs, he’d get kind of chatty. I always figured the blurry picture he painted for me was as clear as I needed. Not like she was around to present her case; but that was her problem, not mine. Judgment in absentia. Daddy was always a little extra sloppy when he tried to explain why she wasn’t around. And if I pressed him, he’d just pop another tab and muss my straight-as-a-stick hair and tell me not to worry about it.
“No gumption, Lynette. That’s all. People with no gumption ain’t worth the breath it takes to talk about ’em.”
That was one of his favorite sayings. Usually followed by him falling asleep in the tweed La-Z-Boy while I cleaned up the beer cans.
Don’t get me wrong, though! My daddy was wonderful. He loved me so much he got up at five every morning to make my lunch for school and finish up whatever laundry hadn’t been done, so I was always polished up and presentable. And then he’d wake me with the smell of fried eggs and bacon. I hated that smell, to be honest, but I never told him.
Every morning, I’d stumble out of my tiny bedroom and run to the kitchen just to make sure he was really there—and he was. Every time. Scraping the old cast iron skillet with a fork, scooting the sizzling, stinking mess around—tall and handsome with his gut straining against his blue, grease-streaked mechanic’s overalls.
I’d smile and eat anything he gave me, just to see his grin at having made me happy. I was a sickly kid anyway, so why bother him with being picky on top of it? Anything that couldn’t be cooked in that skillet or in our banged-up soup pot didn’t get cooked. And he was too good of a daddy to give me canned soup for breakfast. Or cereal, unfortunately.
So, every morning I choked down the heavy metallic flesh as fast as I could so I’d have time to jabber away at him before school. I had to make him smile six times and laugh twice or I hadn’t done my job. I’d set that goal for myself when I was five and had finally figured out it wasn’t smoke from the charred pig that made his eyes red every morning.
Anyway, by seven-ten, the bus would be honking at the end of our pitted road, and I’d be running for it. Screaming goodbyes and I-love-yous behind me, scrawny legs and arms pumping, bookbag thumping on my bony spine, until at last I’d collapse on the sticky vinyl seat behind the driver and shudder my heartbeat back to normal.
And every morning, rain or shine, the driver would smirk at me in her rearview mirror, all dentures and red lipstick.
“If ya get up sooner, ya won’ have to run.”
And every morning, shine or rain, I’d glare at her, ‘cause what did that ol’ blue-hair know? Mornings were my daddy-time.
By the time he picked me up from old Miss Whittaker’s, he’d be exhausted from working all day at Bo’s Garage and putting in a couple of after-hours at the boatyard. My daddy could fix any kind of motor. He once told me that mechanical-type things were just like God’s sunrises.
“Be stupid for the ocean to be on top, ’cause then the fire would sizzle out. Engines are the same way.”
That had made a lot of sense to me at seven years old. But when I was too sick to go to school one day, he let me come with him to the garage...and let me tell you. There ain’t nothin’ simple about a great heapin’ hulk of dirty metal and sharp bits that shrieks and growls when you don’t have it put together right.
But I digress. All of that was years ago. Before the summer that the ghosts of all them pigs took their revenge on Daddy’s heart—and before the good-for-nothin’ relatives on my mother’s side had to figure out what to do with me.
“Lurlene swore there was somethin’ wrong with that child.”
“Jus’ look’t them ginormous eyes!”
“Betty Anne’s girl taught her last year...says she don’t have friends and acted a bit touched.”
None of them bothered to keep their voices low outta respect for my daddy, and none of them bothered to check to see where I was. And where I was, was hunkered down behind Daddy’s casket in Granny Martha’s parlor. And where they were was right in front of it. Just as bold as brass, a henpeckin’ and moanin’ about why none of them could possibly take in a child like me. And about how it was someone’s Christian duty. But of course, none of ’em thought God meant for them to do it.
I was toying with the idea of doing a spooky voice and scarin’ the bee-jeez-us out of them when the front door slammed and they all shut up. As if that wasn’t enough to make me like whoever it was, what the newcomer had to say was even better.
“Listen at you! I could hear y’all from the porch! Bunch of worthless...where is she?”
I stood right up and was rather pleased by the gasps and swoons from the crowd in front of me. I spied old Granny Martha, Daddy’s last relative, lookin’ rather worse for the wear at all the excitement, and decided I could forgive her. You could practically see right through her skin she was so old, so I ’spected she couldn’t stand up to a stiff breeze, much less a gaggle of relatives from the unfortunate side of the family.
Besides, I was much more interested in the irate woman at the doorway. She was old too, but weren’t nothin’ feeble about her! Six foot if she was an inch, and squinty, shifty eyes like the tail swish of an angry cat. I sized her right up, and she did me; and we gave each other a sharp nod.
“Well then,” she said. “That’s settled. Child’s comin’ to live with me.”
“But, Aunt Magnolia! You’re—”
“Dear, she’s just a child and you’re—”
“She’ll need lookin’ after for years and you’re—”
Aunt Magnolia held up one wiry knobby hand, and the babble stopped. God bless her.
“Child, how old are you?”
“Nine.”
“Think you can handle yerself by sixteen?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then I can stay alive seven more years. Come on, I want to be home by dusk.”
And so I went to live with Great-great-aunt Magnolia Rose McClellan, the oldest sister of my mother’s great-grandmother—and the only member of that side of the family that was worth a daggum as far as I was concerned. We settled into her little trailer tucked down a peaceful stretch of forgotten road and proceeded to get to know one another, proper.
“You’re a waifish little thing, ain’t you? What do you eat?”
“Anything you’d like, ma’am.”
“What did your papa fix you?”
“Anything except that, if you please, ma’am.” The thought of a lifetime of greasy meat and eggs made me a bit concerned; and my stomach made an unpleasant, noisy gurgle.
Aunt Magnolia grunted. “I eat what I grow. If you’re to stay with me, you’ll eat your greens, you hear?”
I had no ideas what greens were, but I nodded emphatically.
“So you don’t get on at school?”
“Guess not, ma’am.”
“You stupid?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Have you learnt your letters?”
“I can read’n write better’n the teacher. That’s why she didn’t like me.”
“Fair ’nough. Then from now on, you speak proper, you hear me? If yer smart, talk smart.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Agreeing to eat her mysterious greens and to speak correctly seemed to pretty much cover all she wanted to talk about. She led the way down the dark, narrow hall to the dark, narrow room that would be mine. Mounds of fabric and trim and dressmaker patterns were scattered in piles around a beat-up card table and an old Singer.
“You sew?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I’ll teach you. Cot’s under here somewhere. We’ll get your things from your papa’s tomorrow. You hungry?”
I shook my head.
“Thirsty?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, then. I’ll leave you to get settled as best you can.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.”
“Call me Aunt Mag.”
And after one rough hug snaked up in her gnarled old arms, she set me back and pulled the flimsy door shut behind her.
Night made itself at home around the cramped room while I unburied the sagging cot and arranged some musty flannel over the crinkly, plastic-covered mattress. I’ll say one thing for flannel, it absorbs tears real good.