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

“It’s a computer game place right over there,” I said, pointing to a shop near the entrance to the food court.


“Let me buy him something,” Jackson said.


“I’d rather you didn’t,” I said.


“Don’t be a poopy pants. And remember, it will help distract him. You want him to be distracted, don’t you?”


He offered this with a brilliant smile.


“Don’t make it a habit,” I said. “And yes, I certainly do.”


In Game Stop, Noah and Jackson pored through the racks like two old friends. I watched them, something tugging at my heart. For Noah’s sake, I feigned an interest in video games. But Jackson, he knew his stuff.


Noah was keenly happy to look through racks like any normal child with money in his pocket. I was happy to watch him, to let someone take the reins. I took pictures of them browsing the racks, which earned me suspicious looks from passersby.


Chapter 35