Wise-cracking Wiley Cantrell is loud and roaringly outrageous -- and he needs to be to keep his deeply religious neighbors and family in the Deep South at bay. A failed writer on food stamps, Wiley works a minimum wage job and barely manages to keep himself and his deaf son, Noah, more than a stone’s throw away from Dumpster-diving. Noah was a meth baby and has the birth defects to prove it. He sees how lonely his father is and tries to help him find a boyfriend while Wiley struggles to help Noah have a relationship with his incarcerated mother, who believes the best way to feed a child is with a slingshot. No wonder Noah becomes Wiley’s biggest supporter when Boston nurse Jackson Ledbetter walks past Wiley’s cash register and sets his sugar tree on fire. Jackson falls like a wet mule wearing concrete boots for Wiley’s sense of humor. And while Wiley represents much of the best of the South, Jackson is hiding a secret that could threaten this new family in the making. When North meets South, the cultural misunderstandings are many, but so are the laughs, and the tears, but, as they say down in Dixie, it’s all good.

Shaking the Sugar Tree

“Would you like a napkin?” I asked, handing him a napkin.


His face turned red with embarrassment.


“Kids are always hanging on your tits,” I added. “By the time they grow up, you’ve got tits down to your knees and curvature of the spine.”


“Doesn’t seem to have had any adverse effect on you,” he pointed out.


“I work hard to maintain my figure,” I said. “You don’t want to have kids unless you’re comfortable being puked on and all that stuff.”


“I get a lot of puke and pee at the hospital,” he pointed out. “And I’ve had my share of bedpans and vomit bags. And diapers, for that matter.”


“Somehow I don’t think it’s the same,” he added, glancing at Noah. “At least I can leave it all behind when my shift is over.”


Chapter 4