Dear Hank Williams by Kimberly Willis Holt Read Free Book Online

Jolly two-stepping me around the room with sweat glistening on his forehead and his belly bouncing like a bowl of Jell-O.
    Anyway, I should have known Uncle Jolly and Dolores got back together by those signs. But no, I didn’t realize what had happened until this morning. Uncle Jolly had promised to take me to see the new Donald O’Connor picture show at the Don Theatre in Alexandria. When we headed out of Rippling Creek, Uncle Jolly turned toward Glenmora instead of Alexandria. For a second I thought we might be going to the picture show in Glenmora, but before long we turned onto a dirt road that seemed to wind back into the woods forever. When we reached Dolores’s house (which looks like the Big Bad Wolf could blow it down in a single puff), Uncle Jolly hopped out of his truck. “Wait here, Sweet Tater. I’ll be right back.” He sucked in his gut as he walked toward her front door. Purple-headed Dolores came out wearing a flowered dress and white gloves. How was she going to eat popcorn in those silly things?
    Uncle Jolly opened the gate so that Miss Prissy could prance through. Then he asked me to step out of the truck to let her slide in next to him. A second later, I was jammed up against the window, inhaling Dolores’s stinky perfume. The handle that rolls down the window was poking the side of my hip. That made it official. Dolores is a pain in the butt!
    Miserable over Uncle Jolly’s choice in women,
    Tate P.

    PS—I can’t believe I never asked you—do you have a girl?

 
    November 12, 1948
    Dear Mr. Williams,
    N EXT F RIDAY IS the Father and Daughter Potluck Banquet at our church. Next to the May Festival Talent Contest, it is the most exciting time of the year. The daughters are supposed to make a favorite dish to share with the other fathers and daughters. I’m making a secret yam dish. Frog will be my taste tester since he’s eaten about a million of them. I already know I’m going to have lots of butter and cane syrup in my dish. The cane syrup is the secret ingredient because when most folks think about sweetening yams, they think brown sugar. I’m not like most folks. And I want my secret yam dish to be a genuine true Louisiana dish. There’ll be no store-bought butter in my special recipe. No sirree. The butter will be from Ebby Kizer’s cow.
    Here’s how it happened: On a recent Delightfully Devine Beauty Products modeling assignment, I tried on Florida Sunrise Pink lipstick for Ebby. Now, Ebby doesn’t fool like the other customers. She’s on the plump side and has close-set eyes. The left one floats around as if it’s scoping out the entire room. Her legs have bumpy trails that look like snakes under the skin. Aunt Patty Cake calls them the worst case of varicose veins she’s ever seen. Still, after Constance Washington, Ebby is Aunt Patty Cake’s best customer. “I do the best with what I’ve got,” Ebby says (which I’m sorry to say isn’t much).
    Aunt Patty Cake calls Ebby’s husband, Newman, an asset to her business. When I try on something that Ebby takes a notion to, she’ll sample it herself. Then she goes in the next room, where Newman is doing his daily crossword puzzle.
    â€œWhat do you think, Newman?” She pokes out her lips, turning them into a smooching pout.
    Newman peers over his glasses and says, “Oh, honey. I wish you’d get some. In fact, you ought to get two tubes.”
    Aunt Patty Cake keeps applying more products on Ebby until she’s about a layer short of looking like Emmett Kelly (remember the circus clown?). By the time we’re done with our call, Aunt Patty Cake has made her biggest sale of the week. I reckon you can see why she checks to see if Newman’s blue truck is parked outside before she calls on Ebby.
    When I told Ebby about making a secret yam dish for the banquet, she said, “Well, then I think you need to have the best