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 close to Noah’s school and close to my job.”


“Oh,” he said with exaggerated emphasis. “Your job. Right. FoodWorld! Nobody beats our meats!”


“Why are you busting my balls?” I asked.


“Wiley, when are you going to get a decent job? Stop living in public housing? Make something of yourself? It’s not that complicated, bro.”


“I’m a single father, in case you forgot.”


“I’ve lost out on a lot of jobs because I have to take care of Noah. I can’t work any shift, any hours, any day, weekends, holidays—and that eliminates a lot of decent jobs. I’m doing the best I can.”


“We have company, you guys,” Mary said primly.


“Oh, to hell with that,” Bill said, shooting a nasty look at Jackson, who seemed extremely uncomfortable as he picked at his roast.


“You know how he is when he gets a burr up his butt,” Papaw observed. “When he was a little boy, we had to tie his hands to a fencepost to keep him from digging around in his own butthole.”


Chapter 54