I am going to skip ahead a few years since some topic of conversation brought up this story the other night, and it is definitely worth repeating. Some time around my 9th grade year, my mom finally decided to call it quits with my dad (the crazy, tragic stories surrounding that year will have to wait), and eventually, she moved in with Paul, who would become my step-dad one April afternoon during my sophomore year. Now, when my mom left my dad, she was in her early 30s and had never held a job outside of our home. She had always been a superb homemaker, keeping the house clean, the clothes washed, the house stylishly decorated, and she participated in all the homemaker/mom required activities. She volunteered in the health room at my elementary school, James H. Hendrix Elementary, she was assistant leader for my Girl Scout troop, she kept score for my softball team, and she was a Sunday School teacher for the 5 and 6 year olds at our church (which promptly dumped her when they found out she was getting a divorce). So, when she left my dad and our house (Paul promised her they wouldn't need and didn't want anything my dad had given us), she had to find a job for the first time in her life. Paul had worked since he was 17 at Arkwright Mills with his father, so of course, he didn't make much money, and since she was new to the working world, my mom had to take whatever job she could find - usually textile and manufacturing work through various temp agencies. The agencies would send her to a plant or factory where she would work the maximum number of weeks allowed before the company had to fully employ her and give her benefits, and then they would say her job had ended, and she would be back looking for work. Needless to say, we were pressed for money. The minute I turned 15, I started applying for jobs and started waiting tables at The Tugboat Fish Camp on Highway 9 so I could have some money.
Lack of money and credit record (my mom's credit had all been in my dad's name, and Paul's ex-wife had demolished his credit record), my mom and Paul had to settle on renting a mobile home from the brother of her sister's husband (redneck connections, to say the least). Now, we are not talking about a modular home with all the amenities one might find in a resort trailer park such as Ocean Lakes in Myrtle Beach. We are talking about an old single-wide trailer with two rooms built on to the side. The original trailer had two bedrooms and one bath. Huey, the redneck connection, had built on a living room and another bedroom, so in fact, we had 3 bedrooms, 2 living spaces, a kitchen, and a bathroom. Outside of the extension was a redwood deck straight out of Sammy Kershaw's double-wide trailer queen's dreams. The trailer sat at the end of Burmaster Street, bordered only by other trailers (one which the owners had tried to build around and make it look like a real house) and woods. Years of cars turning around in the front yard had left a circular dirt driveway for our one car until I saved up $700 in tips to buy that '78 Oldsmobile Starfire, of which I was unbelievably proud.
One spring afternoon (which must have been on the weekend because Momma and Paul were both home, and my cousin Julie was there hanging out with my younger sister) we lived out one of Jeff Foxworthy's definitions of redneck. I can't remember exactly what we were doing, but Misty and Julie had left the house out the front door, across the deck, and into the front yard. I must have been in my room, but I remember them calling me.
"Kristie! Come out here. You have to see this! Come quick!" I heard them calling.
I walked through the living room, opened the screen door, and walked across the deck. Then, I felt it. The deck had moved. I felt it shift somehow, sinking a little.
"What is going on?" I managed after gasping in surprise. "What did y'all do?"
"We didn't do anything!" They replied through peals of laughter. "You better get off of it, though!"
So, I shuffled quickly off the deck, down the steps, and stood with my sister and cousin.
"We have to tell Paul," I said. So, we called him to come see, too, just as they had done to me.
"What are y'all doin'?" he asked as he looked through the screen door. "Your momma's takin' a nap. You better not wake her up."
"Paul, come out here. You have to see this." We echoed. We at least told him, "Something is wrong with the deck."
"What do you mean something is wrong with the deck?" he asked as he took his first step across the metal railing of the screen door.
As soon as he managed his full weight onto the redwood deck, the legs finally collapsed. The entire deck sunk to the ground with the sound of cracking wood, and Paul tumbled with the debris.
"Damn!" he cried as he lay amid the rotting wood.
The crash awakened my mom. She ran to the screen door, opened it, and we all exclaimed, "Don't walk out, Momma!"
"What in the world....?" she shouted, screen door open to the rubble, with Paul standing in the middle of it all.
"I guess we better call Huey," Paul answered. "Damn!"
If Jeff Foxworthy ever reads this, then he can get the story straight. No dead dogs, and it wasn't a double-wide trailer, but a single-wide with 2 rooms built on.
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