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Karin Davidson - Biography
That Bitter ScentStill upstate in Tonawanda, working the counter, wearing a pink apron and a pin with my name printed on it. Evangeline—all spelled out in fancy letters. Sure is different, Aunt Lillette, than with you and Uncle Auguste in Terrebonne, but the customers keep me going. The church next door gives us good business: seven dozen glazed, three dozen crullers, and several boxes of bear claws every Sunday. And the church ladies keep trying to get me saved, but I work the double shift on weekends. Funny how that goes.The photos you sent show there’s a lot more oil up in the marsh grass than anyone’s letting on. The church ladies say they’re praying for all the fish. I didn’t say, “How ’bout praying for the fisherman while you’re at it?” Give me a holler if the shrimp ever start coming in again. My days here go one after another, and I’d much rather my white rubber boots to this pink apron.I’ve been thinking about this strange thing that happened a few weeks ago. I was clearing the counter and staring out the big front window and this bird came flying straight at the glass. Our regular, Mr. Wiley, he’d been reading the Buffalo News, but then he turned around to see what I was so wide-eyed about. The sight was something: enormous grey wings, a neck from here to there, legs tucked up. I just stood there and watched it coming—right at us. Mr. Wiley raised up off his stool, and news about the oil spill, the World Cup matches, and Jimmy Dean’s last moment on earth all drifted to the floor. We ran outside, and a few of the ladies coming out the church stopped and crossed themselves. Flight feathers and tufts of down lay scattered around the walkway. The bird had broken its neck. Can you imagine, Aunt Lillette? A heron doing a thing like that? I remembered when I was just five, running around wild on the shore near Cocodrie where the herons nested. Maman waved her hands at me to quiet down. Like always, she had those pink rosary beads and they caught the sun just right, glinting and shining. I sunk into the cool sand by her feet. She had some shadow, you know? She leaned over me and said, “I told you once, chére. Don’t let me tell you twice.” Even now, Maman still scares me. It’s strange that us Cajuns traveled all that way, from Canada to Louisiana, and now here I am, nearly back where our people came from. Mr. Wiley, who used to be an English teacher, remarked on my name and how Longfellow made it famous. Leaned over his coffee and sweet rolls and asked me if I knew any boys named Gabriel. I told him, “Sure, I knew Gabe. He was my steady boyfriend.” Gave me a funny look, so I said, “It’s the honest truth. Nearly got married straight out a high school. Gabe went to work as a rough neck ’cause that’s what we do, either fish or work the rigs, and the thought of one more second on his father’s fishing boat made him head out. That very first time, though, was his very last. Had a funeral ’stead of a wedding.” By the time I was done talking, the whole place had turned to look at me. Guess I have a way with people, na?The ladies crowded into the shop this week, every one of them dressed in black. They drank half cups of coffee, and I learned they were waiting to pay their respects at Mr. Wiley’s funeral. I felt it, you know? I didn’t even know he’d died. I was getting off my shift then and wanted to go along. Somehow I ended up in Mrs. Wiley’s limo and sat next to her, holding her hand, still in my uniform. She said I smelled of sweet pastries, which seemed to comfort her. We drove a little ways and it started to rain. It rained at Gabe’s funeral, too. You know, Gabe was a lot smarter than people thought. He read books I haven’t even read. Kind of like Mr. Wiley—real smart, but not showing off about it. Mr. Wiley, though, he had a lot more people than Gabe at his funeral.I thought of the morning he looked at me over the top of his paper and asked if I’d seen the Falls. I told him no, so he took me across into Canada. Said the Canadians had the best view. In the park there were tea roses just like at a wedding and honeymoon couples walking the paths. Maybe I should have thought of Gabe and of how Maman passed away so close to our wedding date and just before the rig blew. But Mr. Wiley, he kept me distracted, talking about poets and their stories and pretty soon there was that view, that wall of water. Bright white and unreal. I had to sit down on a bench and grab hold of the rough wooden slats. Mr. Wiley sat beside me and didn’t say anything for a while. Around us were lantana flowers, yellow and orange, like yours, Aunt Lillette, with that bitter scent of citrus and metal. It was too much. In front of me were those falls, thundering away, but all I could see was the cloudless view of the Gulf from your porch and, up out of the grey-green waters, a thousand seabirds—terns, seagulls, hundreds of brown pelicans—rising into the air. And in amongst the birds I saw Maman in that flowered housedress she always wore, the one with the crab boil stains. There I was, then, making up my mind to get back home. I’m tired, Lillette. Not as tired as you. I know that. But tired of smelling like sugar and burnt coffee. You know?Karin C. Davidson is a graduate of Lesley University’s MFA Program in Creative Writing. Her stories have appeared in New Delta Review, Filigree, Bananafish, and Precipitate, and have been shortlisted in several writing contests, including the Faulkner-Wisdom Writing Competition and the Bridport Prize. Originally from the Gulf Coast, she now lives with her family in the Ohio River Valley, where she is at work on stories and a novel. Her writing can be found at thunderonathursday.blogspot.com.
