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

“You’re being a very naughty girl, aren’t you, darling?” I asked. “I may have to call security and have you arrested.”


“Did you bring your FoodWorld card?” I asked.


“I never leave home without it,” she said proudly.


“Well, let’s get you sorted out,” I said, taking her card and returning to my side of the register.


This particular lady was rather evil, always complained it was too cold, and always made a fuss about payment, which was invariably a check that required two minutes to extract from the depths of her humongous purse.


“How you doing today?” I asked as I ran her purchases through the scanner.


“It’s so cold in here,” she complained. “Especially on that frozen food aisle. I didn’t think to bring my coat.”


“Did you find everything you need?”


Any idiot can run items through a scanner, which is, I suspect, one of the reasons they hired me.


Chapter 18