2 Stories by Charlotte Hamrick

Traveling the Soul Train Line

Maggie called mamma at work one afternoon, said the trees were chattering and shaking like haints rattling chains and there was a dark cloud dancing on the hill behind the house and Doyle weren’t nowhere to be found. Mamma called neighbor Henry who grabbed her just as they were sucked up up up and dropped on top of Miss Earline’s Chicken Shack where James Brown once got on the good foot. Miss Earline said the Lord, or somebody must have been looking after Maggie, gave her a bag of wings and a red rooster feather for power and courage.

*

Saturday afternoons while mamma was fetching groceries, me and Maggie would fly to Hollywood to dance with the Soul Train dancers. We Bumped and Funky Chicken’d down the Soul Train line, weaving in and around flares and platforms, hips swiveling and back bones slipping - whooo-wee! When we heard Doyle’s truck crunching the gravel in the driveway, we flew back to our living room, sat on the couch like good quiet girls, hands and legs folded together, reading the Bible with the rooster feather tucked in.

*

One night we woke up to hear Loretta singing Don’t Come Home A-drinkin’ on mamma’s stereo and Doyle’s old truck screeching away down the road loud as the Big Foot tromping through the woods. We peeked around the kitchen door to see mamma dancing, her arms wrapped around herself, fried chicken and mashed potatoes slip-sliding down the wall like the tears falling down her cheeks. Maggie took her red rooster feather and plaited it in mamma’s long hair while I took Loretta off the stereo and put on James singing Give it up or turnit a loose. We all giggled and group-hugged each other real tight, grabbed a chicken leg, and Soul Train-lined ourselves right on out the back door, howled and danced free and clear under the pink moon while she watched us blossom into a brand-new life.

Hurry 

Mamma’s biscuits were made in a hurry, flour dusting the floor and Crisco shining like a neon sign that said You’re Runnin’ Late! They say it’s good for moisturizing dry skin, too, so mamma put it on her face at bedtime. In the morning her face was all soft & doughy & ready for kisses.

Mamma’s biscuits were made in a hurry, laid out on our three plates for breakfast while she got ready for work. We could hear her cussin’ in the bedroom cause her clothes were too big and she had to wear a belt that flopped down in front cause it was too big, too. She didn’t know we heard her cussin’ while she dressed, we giggled real quiet to ourselves because respect, ya know. We didn’t know why she got so skinny but maybe it was because Doyle was always yelling when she didn’t fetch his beer fast enough until one night she cracked a beer over his head and ran him off.  

Mamma’s biscuits were made in a hurry and one morning after we got on the school bus her old Pinto wouldn’t start so she had to get a jump from neighbor Henry. We watched, not knowing what we were seeing, noses cold against the bus window, as she tore down our dirt road trying to beat the factory whistle. But, instead, she missed the whistle of the semi that smacked her flatter than the biscuits she baked every day of her hurried up life.

Charlotte Hamrick is a New Orleans writer whose work appears in a number of literary journals and is included in Best Small Fictions 2022 and 2023. Her Fiction, CNF, and Poetry has been nominated, short-listed, and long-listed for literary things multiple times. She is Managing Editor for Reckon Review. Additional information can be found at https://linktr.ee/charlottehamrick.