Robyn Wheelock: The Life and Death of Elsie Mae

Nonfiction by Robyn Wheelock
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF ELSIE MAE

Elsie Mae was born
beneath Spanish moss
and big bright stars
a stone’s throw from
the Louisiana border.

It was April. It was the Great Depression.
There were copperheads in the creek.

When she was sixty-five,
Elsie Mae got married
to my momma’s daddy,
Charles William Barnes.

They met at work at a Walmart distribution center
and got married three weeks after their first date.
They never spent another night apart.

We spin a lot of yarns as human beings.
We like to tell stories,
from fish tales to nativity pageants,
to letting my grandmother believe that I attend church.

Once upon a time,
in a faraway land
there was a man in love
with a princess.

They were betrothed to be married,
but then! On the day of the wedding
the princess was kidnapped by a great giant!
(No, a lawyer.) No, a troll!

The troll wrapped his fingers
around the princess’s dainty ribs
and carried her off to a tower, no!
To tie her to the railroad tracks. No!
To a cave just south of Texarkana.

Elsie Mae sits with me in her living room
and tells me her story.

When I was seventeen I graduated high school
and got married that same week to an older man.
One week after I went to my father and told him
“Papa, I have made a big mistake.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” He told me.

So Elsie Mae bore the older man’s fits.
She bore his lashes.
She bore him four children.
And she prayed and she cooked
and she studied and she gardened
and she painted and she mothered
and she prayed.

And one day after her children all were grown
and she’d spent forty-four years praying about it, she determined
it wasn’t actually God’s plan for her to be abused for the rest of her life.
So she called a friend, and packed her bags to leave.

Elsie tells me, He was spittin’ and cussin’ and shoutin’ at me
“Elsie, you’re being childish!”
“Wow!” I replied, laughing at him “Childish!
Now there’s a word even you could understand!”

I am nine and Elsie’s garden is a jungle.
Jade green spiders weave
curtains above the zinnias and roses.
I crouch with frogs beneath the elephant ears
and watch moths flock to the moonflowers after sunset.

Now I am almost thirty and I pull tomato vines like crepe
paper, dead since last December,
to expose the good dark soil underneath.

Elsie Mae is not afraid of death.

Ten years ago she took me to see the
headstones and burial plots she and my grandpa had
selected for themselves
and had already bought and paid for.
“So y’all don’t have to worry ‘bout it
when we go to meet the Lord.”

Once upon a time, when hogs smoked tobacco,
an old woman fell and broke her hip.
And her son decided she should come live with him
while she recovered. So he wrapped his fingers
around her brittle bones and carried her off to an uncharted island,
No, a secret bunker, no, to a smoke-stale house in Palestine, Texas,
Far from her one true love.

I don’t know how to write about this—
my grandmother
losing her memories,
losing her will,
losing her confidence in her own mind.
My grandfather weeping
and grieving for a wife who hasn’t even died.

The half-mortal son of a troll isn’t concerned
about the sanctity of his mother’s marriage or her dying wishes.
He keeps her in a room with no toilet and puts her to bed at three.
He is his father’s son.

Perhaps my grandfather mounts a horse and rides bareback
to central Texas guns a-blazing.
He tosses Elsie over his shoulder and
come hell or high water
He takes her home.

Then again, perhaps he doesn’t.
Perhaps she spent her final days in a long-distance relationship
with her husband of over twenty years
because her troll, no!
mortal, no!
ogre son didn’t care what she wanted as long
as he could say he made sure she died in his house.
Perhaps Elsie died lonely in that stuffy bedroom and the ogre won.

Sometimes the ogre wins.

The magnolias are blossoming in Fairmount.
I walk with my best friend and tell them I want to put a
curse on the ogre.
They remind me that such things are better left to karma.

I attempt to perform a lovingkindness meditation
for the ogre.
I spit up snakes and frogs and roaches and mice.
I trip and skin the palms of my hands.
But at least I don’t curse him.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter where Elsie drew her final breath, or with whom.
Wherever she was, a dove arrived at her window,
and she arose with restored mobility and balance,
And hoisted herself with Grace out of the window and into the hand of God.

Perhaps Charles William made it to the ogre’s lair on Elsie’s last day
just in time to hold her hand and sing the gospel boogie by Johnny Cash,
and perhaps she even knew he was there.

It is spring now.
I plant tomatoes, okra, and moonflowers in my yard.
An emerald green spider looms in the branches overhead.
Perhaps Elsie Mae can see me through the arachnid’s fractal eyes,
or perhaps the spider is simply weaving, and waiting for mosquitoes,
lured westward by the sunset,
to catch in the curtains of her humble home,
and stick and stay and nourish her.

When the tomatoes are large and green like the spider
I will pluck them and slice them thick.
I will cook them in bacon fat in a cast iron skillet.
On the handle, I will hold the crocheted potholder Elsie gave me
over a decade ago, and with that potholder in my hand,
I can hold a skillet over any cooking fire,
any house or forest fire
no matter how wild
and never
never be burned.

Robyn Wheelock was born and raised and central Oklahoma. After graduating from Trinity University in San Antonio, TX she worked as a production assistant on film and television projects and as a youth instructor at the Southwest School of Art. Robyn moved to Philadelphia with her partner James in 2021, and feels humbled and thrilled to be part of a vibrant community of creators here in Philly. Robyn’s visual art has been displayed at Movement Callowhill, Information Space Gallery, and a private gallery show in center city Philadelphia. This essay/poem is her first published work.