First Person Narrative #1 - Beer Girl by Shelley Lloyd

Shelley Lloyd 

On the weekends when my father climbed out of the bottle long enough to remember that he had a daughter living just a few hours away I would be packed up in the passenger seat of his bedraggled 1985 Chevy pick-up truck, with its faded yellow paint, rust holes, and a tailgate that brought to mind waves crashing onto the shore in the way it had become somehow deformed and stuck open. I’d ride into the wilds of Central Florida, bouncing around the cab, and clutching at the cracked dashboard with only the sound of the wind and the woosh of the tires on asphalt to entertain me between lectures. There was no radio. I wasn’t allowed to talk about my school, friends, new little brother, or my stepfather, because it was impolite to talk about things that he wasn’t a part of, so I sat in silence. I listened, to rants about how horrible my mother was, protestations of anger at this example of ignorance, or that, and the occasional lesson on Civil War battles and Southern history.

Sundays we packed up and completed the journey by venturing back into a semblance of civilization in Saint Johns County. But that was in the evening. Before I could go back to my mom, little brother, stepfather, kitty, and new puppy I had to get through the race and supper. The concept was easy, I was the Beer Girl.

My father’s bedroom was a tiny, gloomy room in the back of my grandmother’s house, next to the guest bathroom, and across from my granddad’s study. There was a daybed in the study, but Daddy told me that was for my twin cousins when they came to visit. Their mother had moved them back to Virginia before Grandma had set up the bed. Sandwiched between the bed and the wall in his room though was a faded blue plaid arm chair. The lever on the chair was heavy and wooden, making a dull thunk when you pulled on it. It was on this chair that I was meant to sit, in his lap, holding the popcorn while we watched the race. His beard would scratch my cheek when he bent down to grab his beer off of the floor, and the stench of burnt popcorn, Irish Spring and Old Spice, cheap beer and sweat threatened to choke me. The door was to be kept firmly closed. I don’t know if the windows in that back bedroom even worked. When the beer on the floor had been finished off it was my job to jump down and grab another.

Beers in the Meyers household were rotated in a very particular way. The first step meant going into Grandma’s garage. That’s where my nemesis lived. I’d creep through the door, leaping down the one step and scurrying to the fridge where there was two or more twelve packs of Bush waiting. When I snuck into the garage I never turned on the light, because it would wake IT, and so I’d ease the door to the fridge open as slowly as I could to replace the single beer in the fridge with one of the hot ones beside my feet. I managed to make the exchange and was moving on to step two (changing the beer in the freezer for the one in my hand) when a green feather fell on my little blonde head. I heard claws scratching at metal, seeking purchase on top of the fridge, and the furious beat of wings before it opened its mouth. “Petey, pretty bird. Aach! Petey, pretty bird.” I froze, not waiting to look up at the demonic being that had come to pester me once again, but being driven too as though I had no free will of my own. An oath I’d heard my stepfather mutter on more than one occasion tumbled from my lips as I backed away. Slowly. I was to the door when it opened, spilling light into the cavernous darkness. My grandmother looked more frightful than savior, with her imposing form filling up the doorway. As tall and dark as any Cherokee maiden in the stories my aunt had told me when she thought I was too young to remember, her black hair was pulled back in a slapdash fashion and her dark eyes flashed as she attempted to comfort both me and her demonic pet. I didn’t stick around though, I darted past her, fearful Petey would follow. My socks slipped on the linoleum flooring of the kitchen, and I thought my hand would fall off the beer it was clutching was so cold. I quickly switched it with the beer in the kitchen fridge and hightailed it back to my father’s room, where it was safer. There were no birds allowed in his room.  

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Today's First Person Narrative comes from my good friend Shelley Lloyd who is currently pursuing her B.A. in Creative Writing at my former Alma Mater, the University of West Florida. Like me, she is a Southern girl who grew up in North Florida, with her roots in South  Carolina. The above piece was written for one of her writing classes, but it's especially meaningful to me because I remember her telling this very same story when I first met her eight years ago. Here at First Person Narrative, we are all about preserving the oral histories of everyday people by writing them down and bringing them to the masses. So here I am, a 21st century Bede, and Shelly is my very first Caedmon. I hope you all enjoyed this feature. I know I did!

If you have a story you would like to share, please contact me at joyce.ann.underwood@gmail.com. 

For more writing by Shelley Lloyd, check out her new blog at http://offtopicbut.blogspot.com/ or follow her on Twitter @wildeparadox!