Page 4 of The Big Catch

My mama and he had been on my ass about their non-existent grandbabies. At thirty-eight, I knew it was time, but I refused to let just anyone be the mother of my children. Newsome was small and had its fair share of hos. Most of the good women were already married or left the town. There was a younger generation of good women, but young wasn’t my thing. If you weren’t at least thirty-two, I wasn’t interested.

I chuckled under my breath. “I’m sure I’ll get a chance to experience it, Daddy. Trust me, I’m gonna give you and Mama some grandchildren. I’on see y’all on Nadine about grandchildren.”

He ignored my statement. I knew he didn’t want to think about Nadine having children, because that meant that he had to think about her being with a man. No father wanted to think about that. “The puppies almost ready?”

“Yeah, they are. Another two weeks and they’re ready. Out of the nine of them, seven have already been sold,” I told him.“I never have a problem when I breed Jaya, but this is her last litter.” Jaya was a purebred Chesapeake Bay Retriever. “She’s had five litters, and her baby Jackie is ready to have some babies.”

Another thing that I learned early was to have multiple streams of income. The fishing thing was cool; however, there might come a time that the fish stopped biting. I had to make sure that I always had money constantly flowing in.

When I was thirty, I got into professional dog breeding. All my dogs and litters were full-blooded and registered with the American Kennel Club. My daddy taught me to never do anything half-ass. Because I also hunted, I bred mostly hunting dogs. The cauliflowers came far to buy my retrievers, spaniels, beagles, and hounds. I spent a lot of money on the care of my dogs. They all lived in pristine conditions.

My litter limit was five for my dogs. Once they’d met that number, I’d retire them, get them fixed, and they’d live a good life hunting with me, and just being my babies.

“That’s good, Son. When I told Sal that you had some ready last week, he ran me down to give me that nine hundred to give to you,” my daddy said before he chortled.

We laughed together. “Gunner, you gonna go to the store or sit out here all night with ya daddy? I know y’all both want to eat.”Mabel Ann Beckett will not be held up.

“Let me get to this store before she come out here and beat me up, Daddy,” I joked. “I know her list probably got stuff on it that I can’t get at the Soups. I’m gonna have to go to the grocery store next town over.”

Soups was a local grocery store that my family owned. We sold a lot of things, but there were just certain things that my mama wanted that we just didn’t have. There was a major grocery store in the small city that was thirty miles away. When I came into the kitchen, my mama had the list in her hand, readyto hand it to me. One look at the list after she gave it to me confirmed what I thought. “I’ll be back, Mama.”

My mama said she wanted to make cabbage, but she sent me to the store with a list like she was about to cook Thanksgiving dinner. When you lived in a small town like we did, there was no such thing as delivery. Yeah, we had local restaurants, but for something major, you had to go somewhere else. The small city that was close to Newsome before you got to Birmingham had a lot of major franchised restaurants and stores.

“Cousin!” I turned around to see my little cousin, Tink. It wasn’t uncommon to run into people from Newsome at the grocery store in another close town or city.

With a bright smile, I opened my arms to hug her. “What’s up, Tink? I haven’t seen you in a while. Where you been?”

“You know I stay out the way. What Auntie Mabel got you in here buying?” she asked with a giggle. She knew if I was here, then my mama sent me.

I kissed my teeth. “Man, she said she wanted to make some cabbage for dinner. Look at this list, Tink. Why the hell my mama got a damn ham on this list?”

She took the list out of my hand, looked at it, then burst into laughter. “Auntie Mabel is hell. Maybe it’s for Sunday dinner. You know she throws down on Sundays. Why do you think everyone comes over there?”

She had a point. My daddy was one of two children, but his youngest brother passed when he was a kid. My mama, however, had three older brothers and a younger sister. Only two of my uncles, Tink’s daddy being one, still lived in Newsome. The restmoved away years ago, but that didn’t matter. Between my two uncles, they had seventeen kids and twenty-four grandchildren.

My mama always joked that one thing backwoods country people knew how to do was have babies. On Sundays, my uncles, their wives, my cousins that still lived close, and their children came to my mama’s house for dinner. The men would end up in the backyard afterward to smoke and chill, while the women stayed in the house to mainly gossip. There was a lot of gossip in a small town.

My cousins and I turned our heads to the sound of someone clearing their throat. My head tilted to the female that stood behind a shopping cart with an expression of annoyance plastered on her beautiful face.She looks familiar as hell.“Um, are y’all going to continue to have a meaningless conversation in the middle of the aisle or move? Some of us have actual shit to do.”

When Tink’s brows furrowed, I knew it was about to be some shit. My cousin was only five feet two, but she had an attitude like a whole nine-foot giant. Tink had the hands to match the attitude. Her small stature caused her to get bullied, so our cousins, her brother, and I ensured she knew how to beat ass.

“Bitch, who the fuck are you talking to like you done lost your mind?” Tink looked around the aisle. “You have more than enough room to move that cart around us. Even that fat ass of yours will fit.”

I snapped out of my slight daze. My mind was occupied in figuring out where I knew ole girl from. “Tink, chill.” My attention went to the female. “Our bad. We’ll move over so you can get through.”

Tink mumbled that she wasn’t moving shit. The female rolled her eyes. “If I needed a captain save me, I would have summoned you.”

Her words triggered a memory from decades ago. My ear lowered toward my shoulder. I picked apart her face, then it hit me. “Adabelle Lee?”

Tink’s head snapped in my direction. If I recalled correctly, Adabelle and Tink graduated high school together. “Wait, wait! Adabelle Lee from Newsome? Not that uppity bitch that thought she was God’s gift to the air. Didn’t you run your ass to California after graduation?

“Why the hell you back around here?” Tink asked Adabelle with a titter. “What, even Cali didn’t want you?”

There was a flash of sadness in Adabelle’s eyes. She recovered quickly. “First, my name is Belle,” she said with her eyes on me. Her head slowly turned in Tink’s direction. “Secondly, bitch, fuck you.”

Instead of going around us from the space that I’d created, she backed out of the aisle. “I wonder what brought her back to Newsome. Didn’t she put some crazy quote in the yearbook her senior year?”

Tink snickered. “Yeah, she said some shit about she was always too big for our backwoods town. Talkin’ about we were all beneath her. She said it in a nicer, still condescending, but nicer way.” Tink waved her hand. “Fuck that damn girl. Clearly, something happened to bring her snobby ass back here.”

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