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 give up your house and move back in with Mom?” I asked.


“You’re married. You can make babies so you’re better than me.”


“I’m saying you need help. Why don’t you let Mom help him?”


“I have to live my own life,” I said. “You know how I am.”


“Shelly and I would be happy to take care of him.”


“Oh, thanks. Maybe I could live in your garage.”


“Or maybe you could cut your hair and get a decent job.”


“Not a whole lot of jobs for writers.”


“I meant get a real job, not sit around with a thumb up your ass writing about UFOs.”


“UFOs, vampires, crops circles, whatever the hell it is, it doesn’t pay the bills.”


Chapter 10