DESOTO clothes

3WESLEY STUCKEY | MICA GD MFA 2011

Startled by the sound of Pooh bear

screaming, “Wake up,” he rolled over and

slapped at his alarm clock, which looked

like a big jar of honey. The blurry red

numbers on the clock told him that it was

already 4:30 in the morning and time to get

up. He was sleeping so well, wrapped up

in two blankets, that it was hard for him to

muster the energy to get up. But once he

had his long johns and camo on, he was

more than excited for the early morning that

he had planned with his dad. Out of the

house and headed to the deer stand, they

had to use flashlights to see where to go,

because of the darkness and fog along the

river. They sat with their rifles, anxiously

The Huntwaiting for a big buck to walk out in the

clearing. Dressed in Mosey Oak camouflage,

“Even with two pairs of thermal long johns on, his teeth still chattered.”

they blended into the woods. Only their neon

orange vests were visible to each other. He

was glad that his mom told them to bundle

up before they left home. Even with two

pairs of thermal long johns on, his teeth still

chattered.

His mind wandered as he patiently sat

there. He was scared that he would mess

everything up by being too noisy and scare

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away all of the deer. He kept trying keep

his eyes wide open and on the look-out, but

they slowly closed as he dreamt about his

trophy buck. With 30 points on its antlers

and hooves the size of mason jars, his vision

of the buck was a little larger than life. He

began to snap out of it as everything around

them came to life. The dew slowly settled on

the long needles of the towering pine trees.

Birds and squirrels tapped and hunted in the

brush. And then, suddenly, his dad punched

him in the shoulder softly to tell him to raise

up his gun. The time had come. As if still in

his dream, a big, 12-point buck stood right in

front of him.

He slowly focused the scope on his rifle,

over the deer’s shoulder. The buck, unaware,

nibbled on rye grass. A loud thunder raked

through the woods as the bullet sped towards

the deer. The big buck fell. His dad grabbed

him up and gave him a big hug.

He had done it.

Last summer, we had a party that went down

in local history. It was the peak of watermelon

season and hot as hell. Roughly 100 degrees

outside, even in the middle of the night, with

humidity at around 150 percent, everyone

was sweating. Everyone back home was

excited for the local Watermelon Festival

in Mize, Mississippi, despite the heat. The

festival ran for two days straight. Full of

activities like watermelon races, watermelon

eating contests, and a contest in which

people guessed the weight of a watermelon,

the festival had something for everyone.

They even had over twenty different types of

watermelons at the festival, and you could

try every single one. Everyone at the festival

Festivalhad a good time until a giant thunderstorm

flooded the festival grounds. But that didn’t

end the party early for us. We just gathered

up some friends and moved the party to our

house.

Once we got home, we cut corks out of

the stems of several watermelons, poured

a mixture of white rum, vodka, and peach

schnapps into each of them, re-corked them

with the stems, and placed them in the

freezer. While the drunken melons chilled in

the freezer, Mom made a Watermelon Boat

for us to nibble on. She cut a big juicy melon

carefully into the shape of a basket with a

handle, gutted the rind with a melon-ball

utensil, and refilled the empty rind with small

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balls of watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries

and grapes. A couple of hours later, she had

gathered a whole spread of food and laid it all

out on a table on our back porch.

By the time it got dark, the rain stopped and

the night was salvaged. We had ourselves a

throw-down. Everyone decided to jump into

the pool and party. We had

“Once they were off-duty, they got just as drunk as the rest of us...”

stereotypical southern tunes, like “Sweet

Home Alabama,” blasting in the background.

And we had plenty of food and booze to have

a good time. More and more people showed

up to the party, and before we knew it, over

a hundred people were drinking by the

pool and eating tons of Crimson Sweet and

Jubilee watermelons. We got so loud that our

neighbor, who lived a quarter of a mile away,

called the sheriff’s office to come break up

the party. She said that she couldn’t sleep

because of the noise. When the sheriff’s

deputies came in to break up the party, they

decided to stay for a little while, because their

shift ended in thirty minutes anyway. Once

they were off-duty, they got just as drunk as

the rest of us and continued to party with us

till 4 o’clock in the morning.

Growing up in the country was so much

fun, but often lonely. I lived out in the middle

of nowhere in South Mississippi. During

summer breaks from school, I would spend

as much time as possible outside, playing in

the fields and woods, all by myself. With the

closest neighbor a quarter of a mile away and

nearing 80 years old, and being an only child,

I did not have any friends to play with.

The family house was in the middle of 40

acres of land that was covered with hills,

plains, bogs, forest, and fishing ponds.

Behind our house, a large pine forest went

on forever and was the perfect place for

imagining a battle of the civil war happening.

My imagination occasionally went wild as

BattleI pretended that the forest was a hide-out

for Confederate soldiers. When standing on

top of the big hill, at the edge of the forest,

I had a bird’s-eye view of the surrounding

area. This vantage point was a great look-

out point to make sure that Union soldiers

did not invade the family plot of land. Fallen

limbs from the towering pine trees made ideal

shotguns to tote around. And clumps of red

clay, from our pond, made for impressive

explosions when thrown at Union troops.

Luckily, since the Union soldiers didn’t really

exist because the Civil War happened over a

century ago, no one ever clobbered me with

red clay or pretend bullets. Only I had those

ammunitions and ability to see the pretend

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soldiers. The fun often lasted for hours,

usually until it was too dark to see. Eventually

Mom would call for me to come eat supper.

“...clumps of red clay, from our pond, made for impressive explosions...”

She kept me well fed so that I could keep on

protecting the property. She always played

along. Once inside our house, my fantasy

world would end but I continued to brag for

hours about my adventures with the troops.

Thank God, it is Sunday. After last week’s

stress of final exams, Mom agreed to cook

a big family “dinner” on Sunday. At home,

we tend to call lunch “dinner” and dinner

“supper.” It gets a little confusing, but one

thing is for sure; everyone is anxious for

“dinner” when Mom cooks. She put a roast

on to cook in the crock-pot on Saturday

to have for dinner after church. The whole

house smelled of pork roast with potatoes,

carrots, and brown gravy as we grabbed

our Bibles and headed to the car. When we

got back from hearing the preacher ramble

on and on about fire and brimstone, she

whipped up a pawn of corn bread to go with

fresh black-eyed peas, and sliced a fresh

tomato and iceberg lettuce to go with her

homemade mayo salad dressing. To top it all

off she pulled a giant banana pudding out of

Dinner Timethe fridge that defies what bananas should be

able to do.

Soon after getting home from church,

everyone arrived. Aunt Patty, Cousin

Houston, Uncle Ben, and Mamaw and Papaw

all gathered in the kitchen with Mom and

Dad. Everyone grabbed a plate and dug in.

Finally everyone sat down to eat after fixing

their plates. The house went from being

super loud, with chatter and fussing, to total

silence. Everyone stuffed their faces and

didn’t peeping a word. You could hear a

pin drop, it was so quiet. Occasionally Dad

would grunt as he ate. He really enjoyed

the meal and made some of the strangest

sounds while chewing. He sounded like an

old hog slopping up food from the trough

as he snorted and grunted. Mom and Aunt

Patty, completely silent, took their time and

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ate each part of the meal very systematically.

They both ate all of their potatoes before

moving on to the carrots and then the roast.

You could definitely tell that they are sisters.

The rest of us all mixed things together as

we ate. A little bit of salad, then a little bit of

roast, then the vegetables all mixed together

with gravy smothered on top. As usual, Ben

piled his plate so high with food that you

couldn’t even see his face when sitting at the

table. Mom had to yell at him and tell him to

save some food for the rest of us. You would

think that he had not eaten for days, but that

was not the case. He has always eaten like

that. Only seven years older than me, Ben

tries his best to piss me off. And it works.

So we usually don’t get along too well.

Once everyone finished their plates, Mom

served the banana pudding in little glass

bowls. She even served an extra bowl of

pudding to our cocker spaniel Lady-Belle.

Lady had sat very patiently at the base of

the table, looking for scraps to fall off of all

of our plates. So Mom decided to reward

her with a bowl of her favorite dessert all

of her own.

“He sounded like an old hog slopping up food from the trough as he snorted and grunted.”

The ExhibitionTo wrap up my year of DESOTO, I installed this exhbition at the Maryland Institue College of Art’s Fox 3 Gallery. The exhibition was open to the public from April 22 till May 1, 2011.

You can find more about DESOTO on the web.www.desotoclothes.comwww.thesis.desotoclothes.com

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