Southern Discomfort

On The Outside, Tena Clark’s Childhood In 1950s Mississippi Seemed Like A Fairytale. Her Father Was One Of The Richest Men In The State, Her Mother A Beauty. But Behind Closed Doors, Tena’s Life Was Madness And Chaos. By The Time She Was Three, Her Parents’ Marriage Had Dissolved Into A Swamp Of Alcohol, Rampant Infidelity And Guns. It Was The Unconditional Love Of Tena’s African-american Nanny, Virgie, Who Gave Her The Courage And Strength To Survive And Become Her True Self

CHAPTER NINE

It took Daddy less than a month to move on to the next affair – this one a poor girl who was barely out of her teens and a student at a nearby college. Word of it got back to Mama right away. One afternoon, Virgie was scrubbing the kitchen floor and I was watching The Huckleberry Hound Show in the den when we heard Mama on the phone in her bedroom. ‘I finally got him this time, Jean!’ Mama yelled to her sister over the phone.

She had received an anonymous call. I’ve long suspected it was one of Daddy’s other lovers, hoping to get him thrown out of our house and into hers. The woman told Mama that Lamar had just been seen on Highway 84 driving toward Waynesboro in his Cadillac, his arm draped around a young woman who was all but sitting in his lap.

‘I’m on my way over to pick you up,’ Mama told Jean. ‘We’re finally going to stop that cheatin’ son of a bitch once and for all.’ Virgie stood up from the floor, wiped her hands off on a dish rag, and walked over to me.

‘Come on, baby girl,’ she said, reaching down to me. ‘Let’s you and me go to the barn ’n see what that old mule of yo’s be up to.’

As I took her hand, Mama rushed into the room with her .38 Colt, which she’d grabbed from under her pillow, snatched a fresh bottle of Jack Daniel’s from the cupboard, and ran out the back door. I felt Virgie’s fingers close tightly on mine, giving them a couple of quick squeezes, as if to say, ‘It be all right, baby, you just hold my hand, real tight, and it be all right.’