If you live in the South, you are bound to know a few odd souls and are likely to find one or two hidden away in your own family. This is probably true for any locale, but we Southerners have our own brand of crazy, for better or worse. The works of William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams are especially helpful in guiding the novice down the dark and dangerous paths that end in revelations of deep, disturbing mental illness, Southern style.
Neglect, abuse, molestation, rape, beating - why these are just the most unsavory things that get swept right under the rug and dressed up as literature. Patriarchy cries out its right to harm women, and no one blinks.
Mamas and daddies blame their children for lives gone wrong, failing to look at things squarely and place blame where it belongs - on the adults! And children who grow to adulthood, raised by such narcissistic miscreants repeat the same mistakes, failing to develop skills in self-reflection and indulge - instead - in placing blame.
Whew!
Li'l Jamalyn is one such Nutty Nelly, whom I had the displeasure of knowing up close and personal. She hated me so bad it made her blood boil. Luckily I was able to dodge most of her attacks and deflect bullets aimed in my direction. Big Mammy let her eat and eat and eat until she became big as a barn and the perfect weapon to fire at old Pap.
Lawsamercy some ugly stuff has certainly been bred and let loose by those folks!
That poor child was not looked after. She was left to her own devices, and a trip to her bedroom would reveal packages of food and old dishes left on the floor or under the bed, not picked up by Mammy or taken back to the kitchen by Li'l Jamalyn - but in her defense she was only 8 years old. She had knots in her hair because Mammy couldn't be bothered to comb them out. Her clothes were wrinkled and she went to school in mismatched socks - again because Mammy couldn't be bothered to find two that matched. That little girl was doomed from the beginning. And Ole Pap - well he was embarrassed and ashamed and instead of doing anything to help the little child, he ignored it.
Li'l Jamalyn ate and ate and got meaner with every passing day. She hurt anyone and everyone that had something she wanted. Most times she would sneak around and steal what she wanted but sometimes she would lie too. Since everyone felt sorry for her, she mostly got away with it. Nobody wanted to face the little fat monster, especially not the Mammy who created her - because she might come in handy as a crazy dingbat one day - bat being the most important part of the word - a weapon to inflict maximum damage on stupid, arrogant Ole Pap. And boy did that fat girl pack a punch!
Poor Li'l Jamalyn could not ever be trusted to tell the truth - in fact you could count on it that what came out of her mouth in a shrill tone that was always way too loud would be completely made up! Most of us were taught not to lie, but this did not apply to Li'l Jamlyn - she could say and do anything she wanted. She lived in the fantasy land of no consequences while the rest of those around her paid every day for her sins.
Ole Pap was smarter than the average man in many ways, but when it came to Big Mammy and Li'l Jamalyn, he was dumber than a stump. It's like his brains left the building and all that came out was blustering, sputtering words, arrogant in the extreme and punctuated by wild gesticulations. Ole Pap's high blood pressure must have gone up fifty points with every unfortunate encounter. Nothing ever changed though, and Li'l Jamalyn got what she wanted no matter what lie she told, who got hurt or that she in no way deserved anything but a good spanking.
Ole Pap and Big Mammy felt guilty down deep, you see. Because Li'l Jamalyn was the unfortunate and unwanted child. She was a mistake. Mammy had plans for her though - she would destroy her just enough so that she would never be able to leave home. Mammy clipped her wings while twisting her towards her heart, giving Li'l Jamalyn the belief that Mammy actually cared for her! It was sound strategy - Mammy had already written off her other brats, having spoiled them with freedom. She did not make this mistake with Jamalyn.
The years passed. Li'l Jamalyn grew as wide as she was tall. Mammy told her how lovely she was, how much prettier and more talented she was than her wicked sisters. It was a twisted reversal of the Cinderella tale - instead of a handsome prince, Mammy would reward Jamalyn with a thousand years of servitude, bind her in spectacular dysfunction and thus secure for herself a maid, a nurse, a cook and a scapegoat.
It is not something that is so rare, this parasitic kind of relationship between a mother and an unmarried daughter. I have known several of these pairs, though none as obscenely malignant as Big Mammy and Li'l Jamalyn. Those two take the cake! Instead of devotion to one another, they prey upon each other, and a demon serves up the other's entrails for them to eat! I have caught a glimpse of that unsavory beast, and he is one ugly sucker! How foolish these two are, that they don't realize the pact they have made with the devil they confess to despise! Personally, I think they were tricked, but isn't that always the way Old Scratch gets under the skins of we flawed and feeble humans?
Ole Pap passed away, leaving in the nick of time - things got worse once he departed for the great beyond. Mammy tried to let Li'l Jamalyn go, but called her back once she realized that aging was not going to be kind to her. Lil' Jamalyn could not get her life off the ground either, so it was just as well that she come home to look after Big Mammy. It is too bad that the sickness that lay at the core of their relationship had to blossom and grow - but when unnatural things get planted, strange fruits are bound to manifest. Such is the case with these two unlikely companions.
It's like each of them has broken limbs that the other one compensates for - or at first that was the case. As years passed and the dark dysfunctions began to show, their joined presence took on the visage of a multi-limbed monster. It was horribly crippled, yet raged with a voice so full of vileness and darkness that everything in the path of this "thing" withered right then and fell off the vine. To Li'l Jamalyn, this was love.
Oh my, no!
Oh yes, I am not pulling your leg!
What the Mammy-Jamalyn creature failed to understand is that love is very different than what they thought it to be.
(And we shed tears for the creature, it is so wounded, so desperate, so unable to truly be alive.)
I can see Ole Pap shaking his woolly head at my words, and see tears fall down his ghostly cheeks. He tries to explain that he didn't know what to do. He shakes his fists at the heavens and turns to walk back into the shadows where he lingers still. Ole Pap weeps for the monster. He knows he made it what it is too. He had a part in its creation.
So what will become of Ole Mammy and Li'l Jamalyn? What crazy things have they done that might be worth telling a tale about? Well let me think on it. I have a few tucked away in my head here, if I can just find the can opener to get them out with! I will have to hold my nose and carefully unroll the top, kind of like how you do a tin of sardines - and Lord knows, those stink!
For now I will let Big Mammy and her sidekick, Jamalyn sleep. I think they need their rest.
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