Read Online My Extraordinary Ordinary Life by Sissy Spacek, Maryanne Vollers - Free Book Online Page B

Allie. The alligator lived in a tin washtub in the boys’ bedroom until it started getting too big. One day Robbie came in for breakfast, holding up one of his fingers and wincing. “Allie bit me!” he said, astonished at the sudden turn of events. His pet alligator had hurt his feelings. We all pitched in to feed it worms and flies and spiders if we could catch them. Allie lasted about six months before she died mysteriously.
    There was always something interesting going on around the courthouse and the town square. The Spit and Whittle Club congregated there every morning; that’s what we called the old men in overalls who sat on benches and traded stories. The courthouse square was like the beating heart of Quitman, where all the parades ended up. Santa Claus arrived there every year on a fire truck; there were Easter egg hunts and political rallies. Competitions were judged on the grassy lawn in front of the courthouse, including a hula hoop contest that taught me one of my first life lessons. I was a wizard with a hula hoop. I could spin it around my knees and ankles and even my neck. If I put my arms up in the air and held my hands together, I could spin that hula hoop up over my head and around my wrists. I could keep it going for hours if I wanted, and none of my friends could outlast me. So when I marched up those steps and started swinging that hoop around my hips, I was already planning my victory speech and wondering where to put my trophy. All my short life, I had played to win.
    When I was a toddler, my parents took me along to an Easter egg hunt out in the country. They gave me an enormous basket and lined me up with kids of all sizes at the edge of a lawn covered with colored eggs. Before the man who organized the hunt could say “Ready, set, go!” I was out in front of everybody, scooping up eggs. They couldn’t hold me back. I had tunnel vision in a world of eggs and I wanted them.
    One time we were visiting some family friends out in West Texas, where we’d swim all day in the pool on their big ranch. Our host would throw silver dollars into the deep end and challenge me, my brothers, and cousins to dive in after them. I was one of the youngest, but I could hold my breath the longest and swim the deepest, so I got them every time. I would let my eyeballs explode and pop out of my head before I would risk losing one of those silver dollars. I was the champion.
    So I couldn’t imagine not taking first place in the hula hoop contest in front of the county courthouse. I watched in horror as the hoop started to wobble and then dropped around my feet. I could hardly believe it. I had lost. My mother would have said, “Never count your chickens before they’ve hatched, Sissy.” I’d say: “Never celebrate before the trophy’s in your hands!”
    The event we most looked forward to was the Old Settlers’ Reunion, held in Jim Hogg Park every August since 1900. Part carnival, part county fair, it was set up on the sandy ground amid tall oak trees. The same company would come every year, and they knew exactly where to put the midway and the rides and the Ferris wheel, the colored lights draped throughout the leafy canopy and rising up above the branches, transforming the park into a magical landscape. People came streaming in from everywhere in Wood County and beyond.
    I’d load up on Cokes and hot dogs, frozen custards, cotton candy, and my personal favorite, candy apples, before getting on the rides. The scarier the better. Somehow I never got sick, which is kind of amazing for someone who couldn’t even sit in the backseat of the car without turning green. My favorite was “The Tubs”—a diabolical contraption where you were strapped into big metal buckets that spun around on huge mechanical arms, which were also whirling and dipping crazily. I’d ride the Tubs over and over, then move on to the Ferris wheel, which spun at a leisurely pace and lifted you up for a bird’s-eye view of the fair.