A. J. Ferguson

A Week in the Life

He popped out late on a Monday evening, and Mammy said she ain't never seen a healthier baby. "Looks just like his granddaddy!" she said, and so they named him Shlomo after the old Jew, dead fourteen years; but this being Mississippi they figured it was best to just call him Sol.

Once the blood got cleaned up and everybody had a good look at him, they left Sol in the hands of his mamma and Mammy, who just wouldn't hear of leaving. "Law, Miz Grundy, this being your first and all, you should have someone here just in case."

Now, some time during the night, Sol felt powerful hungry, and ripped his mamma's dressing gown open getting to her teat. But as he was suckling, his teeth started popping through his gums, one by one like wasps from a nest, and in a fit he bit down on the nipple.

His mamma commenced to howling, and Mammy sat bolt upright, her sleeping mask falling off, and she was yelling too, "Oh Law, oh Law, Miz Grundy, whatever is the matter?" And his mamma still wan't properly awake, and she was shaking her titties trying to get him off, and finally Sol went flying cross the room with the nipple still in his teeth. He hit the floor and sat himself up, and then he chewed up and swallowed the nipple on account of he was still hungry.

About then, Mr. Grundy, who had been sleeping in the next room while the women convalesced, he burst into the room to check on the commotion. Mammy was fluttering about, trying to use the torn robe to stop the blood pouring from Miz Grundy's chest, and trying to pick up Sol to see if his head was all caved in from the fall, and she wan't doing neither too well.

Mr. Grundy made a dash for Sol, figuring he could get another wife but his firstborn son would never play quarterback with a bashed-in skull. But then he was flabbergasted to see Sol pull himself up and take a few steps. "Ain't that the damndest thing," he said, "maybe that boy will play for Ole Miss after all."

By then they'd got some pressure on the tit and the bleeding was slower, and Mammy had gone to fetch some bandages and gauze from Doc Matthews down the road. The good doc said no, he'd never heard of a baby fresh from the womb growing teeth or walking around, but that nothing short of a choir of angels or the Devil himself would convince him to come down and take a look at anything till the next morning. He reckoned it would all sort itself out by then, and in the meantime rub the baby's gums with bourbon.

He was wrong too, because when everyone woke up Sol was a foot taller than he had been, and his thick red hair had grown down to his back. The boy had ate his way through the pantry, drunk down a bottle of his daddy's good bourbon--leaving the moonshine be--and was halfway to spooking the part-time Negro maid when Doc Matthews got there.

"Well, what it seems to me you have here, is a healthy five-year-old child with a peculiar taste for good whiskey," said the doctor, and Mammy clucked her tongue, because she didn't approve of drinking, "and I must say I cannot blame him for that particular proclivity. However, one might consider him, even considering his impressive development, a bit young to have such a distinguished palate." The good doctor took a sip from his flask, as the household hung on his hundred-dollar words. "Now then, it's about" and he snuck a look at his pocketwatch, "half past eight. If you hurry him down to the schoolhouse, I believe you just might register him by the first bell."

Mammy clapped her hands, and Mr. Grundy said, "I do think that might work, get the boy out of the house and with some other boys he can play football with," and Miz Grundy said, "I can go down to the Piggly Wiggly and get the boy some food for when he comes home," and everyone was generally riled up about the doctor's plan.

So Miz Grundy rushed Sol down to the schoolhouse and talked to the principal's secretary about signing him up for the first grade. Everything proceeded just fine till the secretary asked for some information so she could fill out the paperwork:

"Name?"

"Shlomo Ben Mason Grundy, but we call him Sol."

"Birthdate?"

"Yesterday."

A pen fell down on the floor. The secretary didn't pick it up.

"Yesterday?" she said.

"Yesterday. I have the certificate, and a note from Dr. Matthews..."

"That will do." What with the confusion and an offical note from the doctor, the secretary was prepared not to think about the Grundy child any more than she already had. She stamped the file 'approved' and tucked it in a drawer, and seemed genuinely downcast that Miz Grundy was still in her office. "Just leave the boy here and he'll be assigned to a classroom. Come pick him up after school today, and the bus service will be arranged tomorrow."

Miz Grundy just stood there a bit longer, she couldn't believe her little boy was in school already. But she wiped a tear away, and kissed Sol on the forehead, and walked on out. He'd watched all this transpire without so much as a word. The secretary opened her mouth, and then she checked the sheet again. "Sol?"

"Yes'm?"

"Follow me."

She led him on down the hall, and then she stopped in front of a door with smoked glass. She knocked on it a couple of times, and then another lady opened it up. "Miz Clark, this is Sol Grundy, he'll be joining your class."

Well, Miz Clark introduced him, but he din't get too much time to get used to the class. Once he picked up on reading and numbers, they had to move him up on account of he was getting bigger than the other kids. After lunch they settled him in fourth grade and hoped he would still fit there at the last bell.

The fourth-grade teacher Miz Scales was fresh out of teaching school up north in Maryland, and she took a shine to the boy, made sure he was doing fine. So she put in a good word for him when he was caught during recess back in the woods, carrying on with Becky Johnson.

Miz Johnson would have none of that, though, and when she came to get Becky from the principal's office she cussed Sol and his family up and down. "Becky Johnson, how dare you take up with that Grundy boy! I din't spend 42 hours in labor to give birth to you for you to take up with that devil child!" And she went on like that for a good while; nobody was going to shush Mary Ellen Johnson once she's started protestating till she's said all she meant to and more besides.

Sol was mighty confused about this 'devil child' business, and he had all of an hour in detention to think about it. Miz Scales was staying after to grade, and he asked her what it meant.

She looked up and was somewhat surprised. "Sol, you mean to tell me you've grown up in Mississippi and no one's told you about the devil yet?"

"No ma'am."

"Okay." She thought for a second. "Look, a lot of people say that when you do something bad, like lie, it's the devil made you do it. He's nothing but bad, and you should try to do good so that you won't be like him. And sometimes, when they don't understand something, they say that's the devil's work too."

"So Miz Johnson don't understand me?"

"You mean she doesn't understand you, and no, she doesn't." The teacher ruffled his red hair.

"Do I got to worry about the devil then?"

"Have to. You'd better ask your parents that. Look, here comes your daddy now, I'll see you in class tomorrow."

Mr. Grundy was indeed striding into the classroom just then, looking real stern. He collected the boy, who said his good-bye to Miz Scales, and said something about a spanking, but then he remembered how scared he had been of his daddy and how he promised he'd never be the same.

"Daddy, what's a spanking?" Mr. Grundy looked down at the boy, and decided it was better to be friends, maybe toss a football later even.

"Son, you shouldn't have been off in the woods, you don't know where that Johnson girl has been." This outburst din't help Sol to understand much. "Hell, I bet her daddy and half his fishing buddies have had her already, you can get better tail than that."

Sol thought it was better to forget that question, so he moved on to his second. "Daddy, do I got to worry about the devil?"

"Well, you've seen Mary Ellen Johnson, and I think she's about the closest you'll have to deal with. But you best ask your mother, she knows more about church stuff."

They got on home in time for dinner, which Miz Grundy had been cooking up. She was all flustered about Sol's detention on his very first day, but Mr. Grundy calmed her down and sent her off to make sure the pork roast wan't burning.

Once they'd set the table and sat down to eat, Sol popped his question again. "Mamma, do I got to worry about the devil?"

Mammy had been sitting over in the corner knitting, and her ears perked right up, and she near jumped out of her chair, speaking up before Miz Grundy could answer. "Oh child, ain't you never heard the gospel plan? The devil's just waiting for you to think you ain't got to worry, then he'll leap out and gobble you up like a lion!"

"But Mammy, I don't want to be eaten by the devil or Miz Johnson, what should I do?"

"You just listen here." She whipped out her book of colors and went through it with him, all the way from the black sin to the red blood to the white clouds of heaven. Then she had him kneel down and repeat the Sinner's Prayer after her. "Now you're saved, child! You don't got to worry about the devil no more, 'cept for one thing. You got to get baptized in the Spirit."

"I guess I could call up Pastor Noble and get him baptized tonight," Miz Grundy said, and she was already walking over to the phone.

"Oh, leave him alone, I'm sure he needs a night off just like everyone else. We'll get it done at the prayer meeting tomorrow."

Mammy looked as if she was going to have a heart attack. "Mr. Grundy, you can't leave these things be! Why, my sister's boy, he got saved and died that very week before Sunday morning came around, and how was he to get that crown in heaven without his being baptized?"

"Daddy, let me get baptized tonight, I don't want to die without a crown!"

Mr. Grundy shut his eyes then, so nobody would see he was fixing to roll them. The telephone call was already being made, and Mammy was fussing all over Sol like a mother cat licking her kittens. "Pastor Noble? Yes, this is Betsy Grundy, I've got wonderful news, our boy Sol has just come to know the Lord! Yes, isn't it great? Well, Mason and I were wondering if you could see fit to baptize the boy tonight. You can? We'll be down in just a few minutes!"

And there was nothing to do but to find a suit for him out of Mammy's stash of her kids' old clothes. Sol had been clothed by the Lost and Found box at school all day, and what he'd ended up with was getting mighty tight anyway.

They got down to the church, and since they didn't have an organist, Mammy sang a nigger tune, and then the pastor led them all in a couple verses of Amazing Grace, while he dunked the boy under the water and called down the Spirit on him. Sol came up sputtering and coughing, but his eternal soul was intact.

When the Grundys all came back to the house, Sol was worn out from his Tuesday, what with his first day of school and getting saved and baptized and all, and he fell straightway to sleep.

Wednesday morning, Sol woke up and stretched out, and found his legs were hanging off of the bed. His face was all scratchy from peach fuzz and now he could look his daddy right in the eye.

Mammy scrounged up some more hand-me-downs. "Oh, these was my Crispus's, that boy went off to New York City and didn't no one ever hear from him again." Mr. Grundy coughed a couple oftimes.

Once Sol got dressed, he went to the cabinet and poured himself a big old glass of whisky and set to drink it when Mammy said, "Law, child, you got to leave that stuff alone now, it belongs to the devil! You can't go drinking and carrying on now you're saved!" Sol thought in his head maybe then the devil wan't all that bad then, but by then he had to go stand out at the curb anyway.

The bus swung by and picked Sol up, and he was twice as big as every kid on there. In his classroom all the desks were too small to fit him, so he just stood up till Miz Scales came in.

She looked him up and down. "can I help you with something? If not, I've got a class to teach."

"Miz Scales, it's me. Sol Grundy. I was in here in detention with you yesterday."

Her hand couldn't help but fly up to her mouth. "Oh my God, Sol! What happened?"

Sol smiled big. "Must be God, Miz Scales, because I'm done with the devil now. I got myself baptized last night."

"Well now, that's a story for later, it's time for class now. I guess you can sit in my chair for the time being, and we'll see about getting a bigger desk for you later."

Now even though he tried his best, Sol just couldn't keep his mind on learning about Mississippi history, or fractions, or anything they were looking over that morning. He would look over at Miz Scales, and start feeling all strange, and though his arms and legs might have stopped getting longer, he'd be growing in other places all of a sudden. It got even worse when she would look back over at him and smile a little bit, and then he couldn't barely answer none of the questions.

Lunch hour can't be any slower in getting here, he thought, but when the bell did ring he found he wan't ready to stand up just yet. Miz Scales walked up, and mentioned she might need her desk soon, but she was grinning and maybe blushing as she said it.

Once all the other kids were gone out of the room, Sol held forth on the thoughts he'd been trying to pull together. "Miz Scales," he started saying, and swallowed, and then went on, "my daddy once told me I could find good tail one day, and I thought it would take a while, but I reckon you've got a pretty good one." His voice cracked some and he dropped his eyes down.

She managed only to giggle. "Go on."

"I thought I was done with the devil like Mammy said I was, but now I feel like I want to carry on with you like I was with Becky, but more. Do...do you feel like that, Miz Scales?"

"At teacher's college, they said the number one rule is never to get attached to any of your students." His face dropped like a hound dog's then, but then she kept talking. "But I guess they didn't figure on a student like you, Sol." Then she ran her fingers in his red hair, and kissed him right on the lips.

They commenced to kissing for a bit and doing stuff with their tongues, and she didn't seem to mind one bit when Sol started rubbing his hands across her titties, and she even wrapped her hands around his butt. But once he started reaching his hands down to mess with the zipper on her dress, she broke off kissing him and stood back.

"Sol Grundy, I don't know what you've been told, but I am not that kind of girl, not anymore. If you want in my dress, you'd best be giving me a ring."

"What do you want a ring for?"

Miz Scales reared back and slapped him. "Oh, Sol, how could you be so mean? You're just like the others after all!" Tears were slipping down her face, and she turned to run out the classroom.

"Wait," said Sol. "I can get you a ring. I can get you one now if you like, I think my mamma's got a big shiny one she ain't using right now."

Her teacher's brain kicked in just before her woman's brain did. "You mean, that she's not using. Oh Sol, I love you, let's go over there together!" And they walked right on out the school, over the mile and a half to Sol's house, holding hands while she talked some.

Miz Grundy was disturbed from her watching the Negro maid sweep up the kitchen, and it took Sol more than a few minutes to tell her he wan't really skipping school, seeing as he had the teacher with him. And while he was explaining, he got around to introducing them.

"Mamma, this is Miz Scales, the fourth grade teacher, Miz Scales, this is my mamma, Miz Grundy."

"I'm so pleased to meet you, Miz Scales, Sol's talked so much about you, we don't get many teachers from up north, you know."

"Well, I did grow up in Tennessee, not that far north. And, please, call me Ashley."

"I will, under the proper circumstances. Now perhaps you two could fill me in on what those circumstances might be."

"Mamma, I came by to see if we could borrow that ring you don't never wear, the shiny one."

"My engagement ring? But you don't mean...Oh Law! My baby's going to get himself married!" And Miz Grundy danced about the room hugging everyone, Sol and Ashley and the Negro maid, she was so happy. Being that she had no problems calling Pastor Noble any other time, she figured this was worth a call for sure. Before the Negro maid had even finished her sweeping, the wedding was arranged for that night, right after prayer meeting.

Even Miz Scales got herself pulled into her mother-in-law's preparations, though they figured a Tennessee girl might want a big wedding with all her kin, since she had been up in the North some she wan't too set on anything particular.

So prayer meeting went just fine, with everyone praying for a good wedding, and their prayers availed much, since it went off with no hitches but the important one. They got Mammy to sing another nigger song, and the Negro maid to sing in harmony with her. The preacher led Sol and Ashley through all the words, and they kissed real quick in front of everyone, and then they had some barbecue in the fellowship hall that someone had bought.

During the receiving line, people started asking where the honeymoon was going to be, and Sol had to admit to some confusion on that aspect. But his mamma had set that up too, thinking about the grandkids she might get out of it, and there was a motel room two counties over reserved for Grundy.

There was barely any time left for the assembled few to decorate the town's rental car before it was time for the newlywed couple to head off to Benson County. The new Miz Grundy drove, of course, though Sol got her to promise that she'd teach him so he could drive them home the next day.

They talked some about setting up in the house she'd been renting, and she was kinda waiting for him to bring up other subjects as well, but he just talked on about school so she had to; after all, she was in Maryland for a while, she din't have to blush about these kinds of things.

"Sol...I was thinking that perhaps we should put off having kids a couple years, till we can afford them better."

"All right." Sol nodded his head so as to emphasize his agreement.

"Well, it's just that if we're going to have that plan, we need to start working on it tonight." She blushed about the color of Sol's hair, and that was before he even said anything more.

"I suppose we just don't go out and get a baby, then."

Ashley looked at him, and he din't look like joking. "You do know how babies are made, right?"

"No ma'am, school hadn't taught me that yet."

"Hasn't taught." She let out about the longest sigh in Mississippi, and said, "You were doing just fine yesterday, maybe it comes naturally. I suppose we'll have to take this one step at a time then." A country store was on the corner ahead, and she pulled the car off into the lot.

"Go in there to the bathroom, and put some quarters in the machine in there and get us some balloons, they come in little shiny wrappers. Get us as many as you can, it's too late to get anything different tonight. I'll have to go talk to Doc Matthews once we get back."

Sol went in and got some condoms, and din't have no trouble except having to get some extra change from the old guy at the counter so he could get one from every lever, and also one of them looked more like a crawdaddy on a stick than a balloon package.

Once they got to the motel, they checked in and got their key from the woman at the desk. Her nametag said Merm, and Merm was watching taped soap operas on the TV and smoking Luckies. She gave them a big wink when they signed, and said they had the cleaning crew ready for the morning.

What that meant, Sol wan't too sure, might be they had a Negro maid to come and sweep too. He brought in the bags and looked around kinda confused, what with nothing hanging on the walls, and the soap all wrapped up. He was powerful hungry by now, and Ashley said they could get the Waffle House next door to bring some food over to the room.

That seemed agreeable, and in no time there was grits and eggs and hashbrowns with ham on them. The dishes got put outside, when Merm came to get them she poked her head in the door without knocking and looked all disappointed.

The suit Mammy had found Sol was getting all itchy by then, and Sol started fiddling with it. His bride still sat in her gown, and she'd been extra careful not to get any grease on it. "Miz Sc...Ashley, is it all right if I go change into some of the other clothes I brought? These are getting mighty hot, and I figure you might want to get changed too."

"Oh, Sol, stop your teasing." She walked over towards him and he backed away. "What's the matter? Don't you want to kiss me and carry on like we were?"

"I sure do, it's just I thought you'd get mad at me like you did last time the devil got in me..."

"But you got me a ring like I said, now you can show me your devil any time you want!" Then she proceeded to kiss him and started taking his suit jacket off. His hands found themselves occupied too, and he wan't thinking too much more past then, other than to be relieved when she din't slap him once his hand was up in her gown. Also he thought real quick about how she had hair down there just like he'd started growing, but forgot that thought because just then she started pulling on his dick. Turns out they used just about all the balloons, and Ashley even had him stick the crawdaddy up inside her for a little bit, and after a while they fell asleep.

The sun couldn't get them up even, and so it was the cleaning crew Merm had talked about busted into the room and found them all naked with the covers every which way. Miz Grundy screamed and pulled the covers over herself, and that pulled up what was covering Sol, and the two old women acted all shocked and damn near fainted, which made Sol sort of proud even if he din't know why.

That embarrassment was cleared away soon enough though, and they figured it was best to leave the room for a while so the old ladies could come put in new sheets and gossip. Being almost noon nobody had any breakfast left, and besides they'd had eggs and grits last night, so Mr. and Miz Grundy set out to find themselves some lunch.

It was a fine Thursday for being on a honeymoon, and after driving down a couple roads, with even Ashley's tummy rumbling by then, they saw a little log shack with a sign saying KETCH's CATFISH AND ALSO BBQ, with that last part looking like someone had put it on later. So they stopped there and got some of each, and Sol said that catfish was the best thing he'd ever ate. Mr. Ketch thanked him and showed him out back where you could see the stream they caught it from that morning. The barbecue wan't as good and Mr. Ketch admitted as much, it was just there since some folk wouldn't eat nothing else.

When they'd finished up, Ashley thought how it might be good if they took some driving practice on the way back, and so they did. Sol got most of it down quick except the shifting took him a while. By the time he got that all settled, it was about time to do something else like maybe go see a movie, kill some more time since they wan't expected home for days yet.

So Sol drove real careful back to the motel so they could freshen up, and he looked over at Ashley and felt the devil in him again, after which it turns out they din't make it to the movie after all. They were about to head out for some dinner when Sol felt a powerful rumbling in his gut, and had to stick himself in the bathroom for a good long time.

"Sol, are you okay in there?"

"God, Ashley, it feels like the bottom dropped right out of me, like the devil's coming through but a different way!" He groaned and hoped to heaven she wouldn't come in.

"You want me to get you anything?"

"Sure, if there's something that can put this devil back in his place," and so she brought him Pepto Bismol and Alka Seltzer and any number of other things, but all of them together din't budge his ass off the seat none. She called up Doc Matthews and he said to bring him over first thing tomorrow but in the meantime by all means give him some good bourbon.

Ashley left him for a bit since he wan't going anywhere and found that all the liquor stores was closed already. But then she talked to Merm and got her to use a spare key and open up the liquor cabinet at the motel after giving her ten extra dollars for her troubles. The bourbon took the edge off Sol's distress, since he figured if the devil was fighting himself he'd leave Sol alone, but it still took him a couple of bottles just that night before he dropped his head into sleep at last.

Miz Grundy din't sleep too well without her husband beside her, and she got him up early that Friday out of the bathtub where he'd slept just in case. He din't wake up much, but enough to start sipping at the bottle she put in his hand, and she led him out to the car. They drove straight over two counties to the doctor's, and she thought it was a good sign they only had to stop once for Sol to get sick.

But he was fixing to be sick again by the time they got to the Matthews residence on account of he had run out of liquor five miles before. Ashley might could have gotten him some more but she wanted to see what Doc would say, and besides he'd have plenty of bourbon around.

Well, the doctor looked him all over once he'd got him drunk again, and he was puzzled. "From the looks of him, he's about a fifty year old man now. I believe that the inital cause of his malady was an allergic reaction to the fish he ate, but I'd have to do bloodwork to be certain."

"Then why don't you do that?"

"Honestly, I don't think there's enough time. The alcohol can keep the reaction from killing him, but his liver will contract cirrhosis and snuff out before the toxins leave his body. I'm sorry, Miz Grundy, it's always difficult to tell this to patients, but he's dying."

Just then his mamma and daddy showed up, and that Miz Grundy was all fussing over him even before she heard Sol was going to die, and then she started bawling like a drunk bridesmaid. Mr. Grundy was all solemn, thinking he hoped he could have another son soon since this one looked older than him now.

They kept Sol supplied with bourbon for as long as he could swallow, and when he couldn't no more the doc put a needle into his vein and ran some whiskey-tainted sugar solution through it. Even Mammy had to approve of liquor in this case since it kept him comfortable, but everyone could see he was just getting worse, his hair was all turning white or falling out, and all his skin was getting wrinkled and grey like a corpse.

His schoolmates came and went dropping off flowers and such, even Becky Johnson's mom din't say what she was thinking, which was that he was reaping what he'd sown, when Becky brought by a wreath. All that night the two Miz Grundys and Mammy kept watch by his bed praying, even Ashley, and Mr. Grundy paced around the hallways.

About dawn on Saturday, Sol mustered his last strength to sit up and then said to none of them in particular, "I'm about to go where I don't got to worry about the devil no more." Ashley was too overcome with tears to correct his grammar. Mammy said an Amen! but Sol din't pay her no mind and went on. "I been thinking about it some, and it seems to me that before you get all saved and baptized, the devil just plays his tricks on you. Then once you're saved, sometimes he's your friend and sometimes he ain't, but you can't never tell which till afterwards."

And with that he dropped his head back on the pillow, and his last breath wan't long in coming. The women was all hugging each other and crying and Mammy couldn't even bring herself to correct Sol's theologizing. It was left to Mr. Grundy to try and make the funeral arrangements because the women were no good for it and Doc Matthews had been matching Sol drink for drink at the end; he even had to forge the doctor's signature on the death certificate.

Mr. Grundy called up Pastor Noble but his wife said he had just left to go golfing with Rabbi Herschel and Father O'Rourke, and could the funeral wait till tomorrow because it would just be easier for everyone? So he called around and got a pine box to put him in, and then figured he should walk home and leave everyone else to come back when they felt like it.

There was lots more crying all that day and night, and at dawn on Sunday they all came together to put Sol in the ground. A lot more people showed up than they expected, and some of them shared some memories about him, then the rabbi said a few words since he knew Sol's grandaddy. Mammy came up and sang one last nigger song, and by then it was just too goddamn sad for everybody to do anything but sob some. The pastor wiped his eyes off and gave a moving sermon about how Sol was in a better place, and if you wanted to go there too you best get saved and baptized or surely you would be cast into the everlasting fire where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth.

They all sang a few verses of Amazing Grace, and then they left the Negroes to shovel the dirt over the pine box, and in a few days the gravestone would be ready to mark his place in the Grundy plot. And all the people who came, even the rabbi, went to the Sunday morning service out of respect. Then all of them, even the rabbi, went to the post-funeral service pig pickin' just outside the fellowship hall. Because after all, it was still Mississippi.

And that was the end of Solomon Grundy.