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

“Don’t let it happen again, Wiley,” he said as he waddled off. 29: Mrs. Warren Makes a Purchase


My shift was only five hours but it seemed an eternity. Foot traffic was heavy. Mr. Owen waddled around like he owned the place and was not some poorly paid corporate lackey, barking orders to hapless baggers.


“Take this back to the meat department!”


“I need a lot check! We don’t have enough carts!”


“Call produce and tell them to pick up these carrots!”


I was on check-stand five and the line never stopped.


Tyrone was my bagger that day. He was a tall black guy, early twenties, who scowled perpetually. He had a lovely smile, if you could get him to flash it once in a while. Most of the time he looked like he wanted to rip a customer’s arm off and beat him to death with it.


I turned to him and drew a smile on my lips, my signal for:


Chapter 38