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

Jasmine hurried off to the television station cameramen to give impromptu interviews.


All this time, Jackson strode rigidly by my side, holding Noah’s hand and glancing about nervously. He was clearly not comfortable doing protests. His nerves seemed to increase as the numbers of people increased.


I sang for all I was worth, singing the whole song through three times to stretch it out. I was getting tired of the walking, though, and when the cameraman from WCBI indicated that he wanted to do some filming with me standing still, I was happy to oblige, though not at all happy that someone was filming me.


I offered a song of my own, a call and response spiritual, which we had used before during these marches.


“Someday there be freedom,” I sang, which the others repeated as they gathered around, careful not to block the walkways between the building complexes.


Chapter 88