Biggie and the Devil Diet - Nancy Bell
Prologue
I see the Angel of Death," Rosebud said, gesturing toward the afternoon sky with one big, black hand. "See her? Up yonder, settin' on a cloud." He pulled a cigar out of his pocket and slowly unwrapped it, then sniffed it, just as casual as could be, for all the world like he'd just made a comment on the weather. "Un-huh."
I looked at the sky, but all I could see was a pair of big thunderheads rising up like soapsuds behind the Muckleroy house.
Willie Mae dropped a just-peeled potato into the pan in her lap. "Humph," she said.
"Funny, I always thought the Angel of Death would be a man." Biggie sat in the swing next to Willie Mae, shelling peas. She nudged the porch floor with her toe to get the swing going. "Was she carrying a scythe, Rosebud?"
Rosebud held a kitchen match to the end of his cigar and puffed hard to keep it lit. "Nuh-uh," he said, "that there's the Grim Reaper. The Angel of Death looks just like any other angel."
"I'll bet you know a story about that, Rosebud." I looked up at him from where I was sitting on the porch steps. Rosebud has a story for just about every occasion.
Rosebud didn't answer. He was blowing smoke rings and watching them disappear in the slight breeze that rustled the leaves of the big pecan tree in front of the house.
I live with my grandmother, Biggie, in a big, white house on the corner of Elm Street and Sweet Gum Lane in Job's Crossing, Texas. Rosebud and Willie Mae live in their own little house in Biggie's backyard. I am thirteen and starting the eighth grade this fall. I have lived with Biggie since I was six. Before that, I lived with my parents in Dallas. My daddy owned his own business renting portable toilets to construction sites. My daddy died, and my mother, who is the nervous type, could not take care of an active child like me, so Biggie came and packed up my things and brought me here to live with her. Rosebud and Willie Mae came to us a year later. Willie Mae is a voodoo lady. Biggie is a very important person in town and is a charter member of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, James Royce Wooten Chapter.
I sat for a while listening to the "pop-pop" of peas falling into the bowl and the occasional "thunk" of a peeled potato dropping into Willie Mae's pan.
"Biggie," I said, "tell about how Job's Crossing got its name."
"My soul, J.R. You've heard that a hundred times." She dropped a handful of pea hulls into the grocery sack at her feet.
"I'd like to hear it again." I know how much Biggie loves that story.
"Well, if you insist." She set her bowl on the swing beside her and commenced to speak. "It was back when Mr. Stephen F. Austin decided to bring a colony of settlers to Texas. My people all lived in Tennessee before that time. Your ancestor helped found the city of Knoxville. Did you know that, son?"
I nodded.
"Well." Biggie sat up straight in the swing and put her hands on her knees. Her little-bitty feet hung six inches above the floor. "So, my great-great— well, I can't remember how many 'greats' he was— grandfather, James Royce Wooten, set out from Tennessee to Texas to join Austin's colony down in central Texas. He was a brave man to make that trip alone, doncha know, and many hazards awaited him along the trail, from bandits to bears to hostile Indians."
"Golly," I said, thinking how the story got better every time Biggie told it.
"We Wootens have always had grit." Biggie reached for her glass of iced tea, which stood on the porch rail. She took a sip. "Grandpa James Royce wasn't afraid of man nor beast— but there was one thing he couldn't fight."
"What, Biggie?"
"Disease, that's what. A plague descended on that poor brave man so that he was unable to pursue his dream of joining Mr. Austin and his colony. But true to the Wooten character, when handed a lemon, my great-great— whatever— grandfather made lemonade."
"What kind of disease, Biggie?" I knew, but I also knew she wanted me to ask.
"Boils," Biggie said. "James Royce Wooten came down with a bad case of boils. You don't see that much in modern times, but back in the old days it wasn't an uncommon disease at all. Naturally, James Royce knew what to do. He doctored himself with slabs of salt bacon to draw the poison out, but, still, they bothered him quite a lot. Once one boil would heal up, two more would appear on another part of his body. Still, James Royce forged on, determined to reach the center of Texas." She stuck her fingers down to the bottom of her now-empty tea glass and pulled out a piece of ice. She plopped it into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully before continuing. "And he would have, too, except for the fact that somewhere around Fort Smith, Arkansas, a big red boil popped up on his, um, his rear end, doncha know."
I nodded.
"Well, seeing as how Grandpa James Royce was traveling on horseback and leading a supply wagon pulled by two oxen, he was becoming more than a little uncomfortable on the trail."
"I bet!" I said.
"He decided to cross over into Indian Territory, which is now Oklahoma, and enter Texas by crossing the Red River."
"I bet he was attacked by Indians."
"Nope. He never saw any. But his boil was getting worse. When he came to the Red River, he found a ferryman to take him across into Texas. He camped there for the night and then set out again traveling due south. About sundown, he came to Wooten Creek— of course, it wasn't called that then. Weary and burning with fever from the boils, he decided to make camp there for the night. That evening along about twilight, as he was resting beside his campfire looking around at the tall trees, listening to the sound of the running creek, and thinking about the nice bass he had just fried up for his supper, what should he see but a family of white-tailed deer come out of the woods to stand in the clearing not fifty feet from where he sat. The deer stared at Grandpa just as bold as you please, and Grandpa stared back. Thoughtfully, he dug his bare toe into the fine black loamy soil. It felt rich and cool against his bare skin. It reminded him of his home back in Tennessee. 'Ample game, good soil, and a creek full of fish,' Grandpa thought, 'a feller could live right well in these parts.' Then he thought about how he'd heard central Texas was full of scrub oak and limestone boulders the size of a cow. He pondered how much he hated the thought of getting back on his horse what with his boil paining him so terribly." Biggie frowned like she had the boil herself.
"So that's when he decided to stay here?"
"Not quite," Biggie said. "First, he decided to have a little swim in the creek before bedding down for the night. He swam back and forth across the creek. Once he rolled over on his back and just floated there, watching the moon up in the sky."
"I've done that before."
"You bet you have. Well, when Grandpa got out of the creek and was getting back into his clothes, he noticed a funny thing. His boils were all gone— vanished without even a trace of a scar! 'It's a miracle!' he shouted. 'Praise the Lord!'"
"Was it a real miracle?"
"You betcha. Well, right then and there, Grandpa Wooten made up his mind. He wasn't riding another mile. He'd just homestead right here on the banks of Wooten Creek— and here he stayed. The very next day, Grandpa set about building himself a cabin in a grove of pines right near the creek. I guess you know what happened next."
"More people came, and pretty soon they had a town," I said.
"That's about it," Biggie said. "It took awhile, of course. In due course, Grandpa James Royce took a bride, one Eleanor Ann Muckleroy, the prettiest girl in town, which wasn't saying much because at that time there were only three females. One was already married, and the other was sixty-seven years old. James Royce never left Kemp County again except the time he had to go down to San Jacinto and help Gen. Sam Houston beat the tar out of old Santa Ana. After Texas won its independence from Mexico, he built Eleanor Ann a fine house on the hill, where the family graveyard sits now, and they had themselves eight fine strapping boys."
"That's a good story, Biggie. Makes me proud to be a Wooten."
"Me, too," Biggie said, "but a person can't rest on the laurels of those who came before him. We must all make our own mark in the world. Always remember that."
"Yes'm." I hoped she wasn't going to give me one of her lectures on the responsibilities of being a Wooten and living up to the family name.
I breathed a sigh of relief when Biggie yawned and picked up her bowl of peas. "I'm tired," she said. "I believe I'll just go in and have a little nap before supper."
Willie Mae got up and followed Biggie into the house. "I got to get my roast in the oven."
"I reckon I'll take a walk down to the feed store," Rosebud said, pitching his cigar butt into the yard. "I heard they got in some nice chrysanthemum flats this morning, and I aim to get some before they all picked over. Miss Biggie's got her heart set on bronze mums in that bed around her birdbath."
I got up from the steps and went to lie down on one of the big concrete buttresses that stand on either side of Biggie's front steps. The cement felt nice and warm from the sun. I was about to doze off when, plop, my cat, Booger, jumped down from the porch rail and landed right on top of me. I pressed his back with my hands until he settled down on my stomach, purring like a freight train. It was almost the end of summer. School would be starting in two more weeks. I was looking forward to the eighth grade. Life was good.
That was the last peaceful day we had that summer because the very next day an old friend of Biggie's showed up in town, and before we knew it, we were up to our necks in affairs we never should have been involved in. I blame Biggie for that. She just doesn't know how to keep her nose out of other folk's business.