It was spring time when Shara moved the kids back to the swamp. Everything was in full bloom and had never looked better, particularly the privacy and seclusion part. Shara’s new piece of swam land even had a big body of water where she could fish and the rich swamp soil would be great for growing her own produce. She could sell the extra in town to get money for the few things she and the kids would need. She might even home school the children so they didn’t have to face the world outside the swamp. Sparkle Plenty especially worried Shara. Shara’s nose was enough to get her teased but SP was just downright ugly. Then there was poor Lester who still thought he was a girl. She blamed Jenni and the meth lab for both their unfortunate situations.
The first thing Shara did was fence in a big section of the yard. “Fur mah animals,” she said when the builders asked why she wanted it. But it wasn’t for her animals. Shara didn’t have any animals. As soon as the builders were gone, she put the children in the pen and locked the gate. “There,” she said to them. “Now you’s safe. G’on an’ play while I git to fishin’.”
Shara had taken the time to raid all of Dilly Pidgin’s hiding spots for money before leaving the grand house. She wasn’t sure exactly where Dilly had gotten the money – probably prostitution or meth – but she was sure she didn’t want to know. She used the rest of the money to buy a trailer for herself and the children to live in and had it moved out to the swamp.
Lester’s birthday was quickly approaching and he had already been potty trained, learned to talk, and learned to walk, though not without a lot of trouble. With that finished, Shara decided it was high time that Bo learned about the potty, especially considering he was only about a day younger than Lester and Lester would grow up in about three days. Bo was quickly potty trained. It only took about a day, which surprised Shara because it had taken Lester forever when Jenni had come out of her meth lab long enough to teach him.
After potty training, Shara moved on to walking because having her son potty trained wasn’t going to do a lot of good if Bo couldn’t get himself to the potty. It had taken Lester three days to learn to walk but Bo mastered the skill in an afternoon. “Yup, reckon youre a genius,” Shara told him. “That’s what comes of bein’ related to me. Still, we gots uh be nice to them other two. Ain’t their fault their mamas was dumb hookers an’ meth makers.”
Bo had just learned to walk when Shara had to run to the bathroom to vomit.
The same thing happened the next morning. “An’ I didn’t even eat any o’ Gas Station Gus’s sushi!” she wailed.
But later on that evening when she was teaching Bo to talk, Shara felt an ache begin in her stomach. She figured it was gas but just as she opened her mouth to let out the loudest burp in the history of Twinbrook –
*POP*
Her stomach expanded. Shara was pregnant.
“Reckon some fish sperm got me when I was swimmin.’ Couldn’t be that Lenny fella’s the papa. He done said he cain’t have no babies on account o’ that accident with the chainsaw.” Then Shara did a little dance at the thought of having another baby. Maybe this one would be a girl. She’d buy it a pink tutu and it could live in the pond on account of it having fins and bein’ green like its fishy papa.
(Don’t worry if you didn’t catch the Mighty Boosh reference there.)
That was the night Lester grew up. He grew up and immediately wet his ugly pants. “I peed myself like grammy Renee! I’m gonna have to be a hooker too!”
“You ain’t gonna be no hooker,” Shara assured him. “Now git on inside and git them ugly clothes off.”
Lester ran inside and took a shower and changed his clothes. Unfortunately, he didn’t change into quite the clothes Shara had hoped he would. “Thought that wantin’ ta be a girl thing was just a phase,” she said to herself. “Reckoned he’d grow outta it once he was away from Jenni.” Clearly he hadn’t.
In his pink dress and pink cowboy boots, Lester was turning out to be as pretty as his mother had been before she had gotten hooked on meth. He took a sudden liking to Possum. “Reckon we’s gonna git married one a these days when we’s growed up,” Lester said to Shara one day.
“Well, I reckon you ain’t,” Shara told him and that was the end of that.
Now that Lester was a child, Shara’s work load was lessened somewhat. Still there were times when she wanted to scream. One day when she put off her need for the toilet too long so she could put SP to bed and ended up peeing herself, she did just that.
Her scream woke the babies because they were sleeping in the house but not Lester. Shara hadn’t been able to afford a bed for Lester when he had become a child so she had bought him a sleeping bag instead. After that Lester took to sleeping outside next to the fire pit.
Shara couldn’t afford a bed for herself either so every night after she took a shower, she tossed her sleeping bag down on the bathroom floor and slept there.
Lester found an easel in someone’s garbage on the way home from school one day. He came dragging it home and set it up on the back porch where he taught himself to paint. Lester’s paintings brought in a small amount of money.
But as his painting skill grew, so too did the amount of money people were willing to spend on an original Lester Jones-Brown painting.
Lester still thought of Possum sometimes only now those thoughts were less romantic and more brotherly. Like how many times could he shove Po in a mud hole before Shara caught him.
With all the drama of being pregnant with a fish baby and Lester’s child birthday finally dying down, Shara finally found time to teach Bo to talk. “Say mama, Bo,” said Shara.
“Lester,” said Bo.
It was the beginning of a life long obsession.
And Bo used the potty by himself for the first time.
The Tolbert Legacy 