SOOKIE

Even the rednecks stayed away from Sookie.  

It's the rare occasion when someone in small-town America becomes persona non grata. ["We protect our  fuckups ... they're our'n."] But as much as people tried to ignore her, Sookie persevered, outliving them all and snookering navie people -- including my mother -- to stay one or two steps ahead of serious trouble.

She was Frances Irene Mattinson, daughter to Milo and Elizabeth Ann, baby sister to Milo Dianne and Barry Clyde, and youngest grandchild of Mercil and Mrs Bankston (whose first name I never learned).

The Bankstons were good people:  he ran Bankston's Real Estate and Insurance, she was lib'arian at Hamburg High School and active in the Eastern Star. He was at the same time both kindly and stern-ooking, exceedingly proud of his pond (in spite of the scandal that emerged after Jimmy Bob Wilkerson and a young Negro boy drowned while smoking week, skinny dipping , and who knows what else one eerie summer morning.), and a sucker many times over for his three rapscaliaon grandchildren.

She was eccentric in all the best ways, talking to fruits and vegetables at Foote's Grocery. Thinking that saying Hell was a sin, she usually just mutterd 'lo' to them; once though, I watched her from the cookie aisle having a concerned conversation with an overripe eggplant.  I half expected the eggplant to slap her into next week.  Also, when locals saw Miss Bankston's car coming up Highway 8, everyone just hugged the shoulder trying not to run into the ditch.  You have to remember this was a time when people respected the elderly, and also before road rage.

Elizabeth Ann and Milo were goofy, two people who seemed to have lost control of their lives, and their kids, a long time ago. As a traveling salesman, Milo sold golf carts (part Willy Loman, part Barney Rubble, with a noteworthy dash of Grumpy), and I believe once he was a golf pro. Elizabeth Ann worked for the State Mental Health department, which, as I think about it, pretty much defines irony. .

The last time I saw Elizabeth Ann alive, she was sittiing at Mrs. Bankston's breakfast table -- the same table where Mrs. Bankston worked the Daily Cryptoquote. I plopped down to chitchat with Elizabeth Ann but she was post-chitchat; her tongue darted in and out of her mouth, from side to side, like a snake. Was it dry mouth? was it involuntary? was she aware of it? These were the questions snaking through my mind.

And then she died -- choking on a snickerdoodle at the October meeting of the Green Thumb Garden Club.  Rumor hasit that she'd spiked the grape Kool-Aid with Granny Goose vodka,  too much Granny Goose, apparently. .

Dianne stuttered and played the piano.  Barry Clyde did the best kid version of the Tarzan yell I've ever heard.  It was all at once robust, lean and mean, and unique.  He played piano as well, only whereas Dianne was a piano snob, playing mostly classical works, Barry played a honky tonk piano, the kind of piano played by someone who didn't relish the idea of always hitting the right notes.  Often sacrificing  precision in favor of  emotion, Barry's piano left one tapping the foot, singing along, or motivated to throw in one's own version of "Ain't She Sweet" or "Jada."

And then there was Sookie.  If you've ever seen Martha Wainwright with a pixie cut, you'd have an idea of what Sookie's face looked like.  She was dangerously precocious -- in a street smarts way.  Impulsive.  Undisciplined.  Incontrollable.  Sometimes she'd squeak out an ounce of decency.
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