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

“He’s deaf!” this boy exclaimed to his friends.


“So be careful,” the boy added. “Come on,” he added, waving at Noah like he was a puppy


“I fine!” Noah said, hurrying to join them.


“What’s your name?” the older boy asked.


“Noey, come on,” the boy said, throwing the ball out as the game got underway once more.


I swam back to the deep end, climbed out of the pool, and let water drip to the deck. I sat in a deck chair next to Jackson.


“Who’s your cute friend?” I asked.


Jackson smiled when he saw me staring in the direction of the young man who was sunbathing.


“Too much of a queen for my tastes.”


“You could say that and you would not be wrong.”


“Got something against screaming queens?”


Chapter 63