Page 46 - SOUTHERN VOICES_2020

Sunday Morning Coming Down
Shelby Tisdale
Well I woke up Sunday morning / With no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt
The bounce of Johnny Cash’s voice and the stench of gasoline permeated Candice’s ten-year-old sedan. She swayed in response to an inner melody in guitar strums, as the CD stuttered and the clarity of the lyrics died under the engine’s hum. With a final chug of Red Bull, she shifted into park at the back of the lot, flinging chewed spearmint gum to the pavement.
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad / So I had one more for dessert
Morning dew distorted red light through the closed passenger window; numbers of the same hue glowed below her air vents: 3:56. Streetlights broke through the denim blue sky and reflected into the driver’s side mirror enough for her to pencil black rings over yester- day’s smudged mascara. She jerked her bleached hair into a ponytail to reveal salt and
last Sunday, convicted by the Bible rotting beside baby pictures in her dresser drawer. Lord knows where those children were now; Candice’s flip-phone chimed about twice a week, and it would seem her only family members were AT&T and the occasional telemarketer. She’d decided it was best she didn’t run anyone else off. Now she was a cat lady with a temper, wishing away days without a drop of solace from a bottle.
“Give me ten minutes, Jackie.” Candice ambled past her coworker to the Ladies room, needing water
to dissolve the darkness in her face. A confetti of toilet paper shrouded the tile, and the trash, which was Jackie’s responsibility, piled like the DVDs in the three- dollar bin.
Candice coveted Jackie’s apathy in a way; Jackie wore false lashes every day, long enough to hit a customer in the eye, and reeked of cheap perfume. She
pepper roots, her bangs flopping over eyebrows penciled with haste.
Then I fumbled in my closet through my clothes / And found my cleanest dirty shirt
“Candice had sacrificed her bad habits for Red Bulls and country music.”
had no ambition and couldn’t hold a conversation to save her life. Jackie focused on maintaining a pathetic appearance of class and addressed Candice with an air of blatant haugh- tiness. Candice should have been offended, but she liked that Jackie looked at her as if she didn’t belong
Candice swaggered through the
parking lot with a natural smirk on
her face, weaving khakis through a maze of puddles. She leaned into the chime of the door, and the neon OPEN sign clattered above the handle.
in this job; most of the time Candice wished she didn’t. “And sixty-two cents is your change,” Jackie rained
coins into the hand of a young woman at the counter, exchanging some type of over-the-counter pill. Candice held her tongue about the bathroom; she was destined for a life of hard work, but maybe Jackie still had time to marry a rich man or strike some other luck.
“How was your weekend?” Candice’s attempted conversation fell to Jackie’s side-eye. Jackie slumped against the back shelf, engaged in a serious affair with Facebook and Bluetooth earbuds.
Candice grabbed a broom and hummed in passage to the bathroom.
On a Sunday morning sidewalk / I’m wishing Lord that I was stoned
Anything to cope, she thought, would help. She
Then I washed my face and combed my hair / And stumbled down the stairs to meet the day
Candice adjusted her nametag and stifled the pain in her chest to a hardened demeanor, approaching the wall of cigarette boxes behind the counter. Glorified addiction painted the walls of every corner of the truck stop: $5.39 for a pack of cigarettes; she’d say, “Here’s your total,” “Have a nice day,” and smile. She’d sell junk food to gluttons and lottery tickets to gamblers, feeding on the dimes of the self-serving to fuel her own crutches of self-pity.
That’s what she did for a while anyway. Now she had nothing. She’d given the jackpot to the tithe plate
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