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

“There’s more where that came from,” I said.


“I hope so,” he replied. “I really need to go. I’m on at six in the morning and I can’t be late.”


“I thought you called it courting. I made my move. I’m leaving it up to you.”


“That’s a country song,” I pointed out. “I’m leaving it up to you…”


I’d had a bit too much to drink, is all I can say in my defense.


“By the way,” he said. “You know that little black thing that you carry around? It rings and beeps and stuff?”


“Try using it.” 17: A Letter to Iron Man


I woke the next morning with a silly smile on my face. Like Donna Fargo, I was the “Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.” even though I was still “Sleeping Single in a Double Bed.”


I showered, then stood naked in front of the mirror as I combed out my hair and tied it back, getting ready for work.


Chapter 22