that out gently with your fingers till I tell you to stop.” So I began pushing at the dough anxiously with my hands, and within seconds Mama was telling me, “Not with your hands, precious, and not so rough. I said to just pat it out gently with your fingers. You gotta be easy with biscuit. If not, they’ll be tough as whitleather.” With which she coaxed my hands away and took over a few seconds as she patted away, then told me to try again.
When the slab of dough was about half its original thickness, she handed me her battered metal biscuit cutter, grabbed a small juice glass for herself from the cabinet, and said, “Now, let’s cut ’em out nice and round and even and put ’em on the baking sheet—not too close together so the sides’ll brown.” To me, this was the fun part, but no sooner had I cut out my first biscuit than Mama had to correct me again. “Didn’t I say nice and even? Just look at that biscuit. It’s lopsided, and nobody wants to eat a lopsided biscuit. You can’t twist the cutter, sweetheart. You gotta cut straight down if you want even biscuit.” She cut a perfect one with her glass, and when I did the same with my cutter, she smiled and said, “That’s the girl. And don’t forget to leave plenty of room between the biscuit so the sides’ll get nice and crusty.”
Into the oven they went for twelve minutes, but before the timer rang, Mama peeped through the glass on the oven door, and handed me the pot holders, and ordered, “Take ’em out, they’re done. Never can trust that damn oven, and if those biscuit stay in one minute longer, they’ll be hard as rocks.” How Mama could tell I couldn’t figure out, but, sure enough, when I pulled the pan out, the biscuits were golden and puffy and crispy on the sides and pretty as can be.
Mama was baking hot biscuits mainly for us all to eat with something like her fresh vegetable soup at lunch, but, as usual, she could never wait to break one open, and smear lots of butter on the two halves, and hand me a half to taste, and soon pronounce the biscuit to be “perfect.” The problem was that if it wasn’t quite time for lunch, and the biscuits were particularly light and fluffy, and the butter tasted particularly rich and sweet, we never stopped with just one but might eat two or three before sticking the rest back in the oven to keep warm. I also gotta say it wasn’t beyond Mama to even grab her jar of strawberry or peach preserves and spread a good spoonful of those on the biscuits, and yeah, I thought that was pretty sensational. I don’t think it so much as dawned on Mama—not for a second—how fattening those biscuits were. If so, it didn’t matter to her, and, of course, I never gave it a thought at that young age.
Whatever, to this day I’ve never tasted buttermilk biscuits that can equal Mama’s, and to this day, goddammit, I gotta admit I still can’t produce a batch that come out just as fluffy and beautiful as hers every single time she fixes ’em. Don’t ask me why. I use the same brands of flour and baking powder and even buttermilk as she does. I’ve watched her over and over and follow religiously the same techniques she taught me as a child. And once I even had her watch me every step of the way to see what could be wrong. “You rush things,” is about the only explanation she’s ever come up with. Oh, I fix damn good biscuits. They just don’t look and taste exactly like Mama’s, and it makes me mad as a hornet.
4
BLOWBAGS
Sometimes I don’t know why I go out of my way to be nice to my sister since she don’t seem to really appreciate anything I do for her and Rufus and the children. Take the other day when I glazed a whole goddamn ham with molasses and brown sugar and mustard and dropped it off just so they’d have something to eat besides all that junk food they live on. Well, Gladys takes one look at the beautiful ham and, without so much as a nod of thanks, says, “Sis, I thought you knew the one thing these kids won’t touch is ham—not even the potted stuff on crackers.”
“That’s news to me,” I said, “but that don’t mean you and Rufus can’t enjoy it. That glaze is pretty amazing, if I say so myself.”
“Hon, you know I’m trying to watch my weight,” she commented next as she grabbed a knife on the counter, and hacked off a thick slice of the ham, and wolfed it down without saying yea or nay. She then let out a quick laugh. “And sometimes I think the only things my children really love are Double Whoppers with mayo and fries.”
I don’t waste my breath anymore telling Gladys for the millionth time that all four of those poor kids are already dangerously overweight and just following in their parents’ footsteps just the way me and her did Mama and Daddy—and Rufus himself must now tip the scales at about 275. I mean, I know if I dare criticize any of them, all Gladys will do is accuse me of trying to be holier than thou, and tell me how healthy the doctors says they all are, and repeat she’s not about to put Rufus on some cruel diet the way he works his tail off five days a week hauling lumber out to big construction sites all over town. You’d think after that awful operation she had to go through to replace that knee, Gladys would have seen the light by now, but even when we were kids, nobody could ever tell Gladys anything, and she always did just as she pleased.
Not that me and Gladys were ever rivals or anything or that Mama and Daddy treated us differently, though I do think she’d get a little envious when me and Mama would spend lots of time in the kitchen together, or when Daddy would take me out to Texas Jubilee while Gladys was up the street watching horror movies on TV with her more grown-up friends. Of course we were both fat as pigs, but, so help me God, I don’t think the weight ever fazed Gladys one iota, even when we were older, and that eating anything and everything we wanted was just another privilege she thought we both deserved. Myself, yeah, I remember it really did embarrass me not being able to wear anything but cheap tunics and shifts and stretch leggings and to be called all those awful names by the other kids, but what was I supposed to think or do at that age when my own older sister was as convinced as Mama and Daddy that we were all normal and nothing was ever going to change?
Maybe nothing bothered Gladys since she’s strong as an ox, and could be tough as nails, and always knew exactly how to handle herself and even look after me when trouble was brewing. Like the time in middle school when Bobby Wainwright and Leo Schwartz and another guy scotch-taped a drawing of a cow with huge utters on my locker and began mooing at me and called me horrible names when I went to get my math book for Mrs. Devereaux’s class. Well, I could hardly keep myself from crying all through class, and afterwards at lunch in the cafeteria, I showed the humiliating picture to Gladys, and told her what had happened, and the next thing I know she’s spotted Leo and marched up to his table with me right behind and told him to come outside a minute on the flagstone terrace so she could show him something.
“Leo, I see you and your buddies like to play games with Loretta here,” Gladys says to him as she holds up the disgusting drawing, then begins to tear it into shreds.
Leo backs away against a ledge, and peels the wrapper off a piece of gum, and says, “Oh, shit, Gladys, we was just having a little fun.”
I notice Prissy Killian and Marge Cunningham almost hidden at the other end of the terrace hovering over a cigarette, and they’re watching us and giggling.
Gladys is a year older than Leo and about double his size, and she stands in front of him with her hands on her broad hips and says, “Don’t put that gum in your mouth yet, bud.”
“Why not?” he asks.
“’Cause you gotta eat something else first,” she says as she holds up the handful of shredded paper.
“Whatcha talking ’bout?” he asks next, like he’s either dumbfounded or kinda scared.
“You say you and your buddies like to have a little fun,” she goes on, “so I think it’s me and my sister’s turn to have our own type of fun by watching you eat your funny picture.”
Well, Leo’s now got this real nervous look on his face, and pushes himself up from the ledge, and says, “Hey, I’m outta here.” But no sooner has he budged than Gladys knocks him back with one stiff blow of her other hand, which almost makes him lose his balance.
I look around to see if anybody else but Prissy and Marge is watching, then tell Gladys, “Let’s not get in any trouble, hon. Let’s just forget about it.”