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

“Y’all ready?” he asked, trying out a Southern accent.


“Let’s get her done,” I said, trying to sound confident. I collected my camera and wallet, and gave directions as Jackson drove to the Furniture Market area on Coley Road.


We looked at kitchen tables, beds, sofas, recliners, and dressers. Unlike Southern gay boys, Jackson didn’t blend into the background. He was too well-dressed, too well-groomed, had no facial hair, and didn’t scratch his ass from time to time just to remind the world that he was a goddamn man, by God, and don’t you forget it.


We had a certain sort of fun and raised more than a few eyebrows as two men and a deaf boy laid down on beds to see if they would “fit right,” laughing and giggling all the while.


Having made his choices and arranged for delivery later that evening, lunch was the next thing on the agenda.


“I will defer to your better judgment,” Jackson said with regard to the choice of restaurant.


Chapter 30