Cuzzle

Cuz and my Dad in the mid-nineties. Love those smiles.

The two most famous people I have met in person and talked to are James Earl Jones and George Jones. 

I met James Earl Jones at a fundraising gala my Uncle Pooch and his wife Sally had at their house in association with the local university. As I was introduced to him and shook his hand, it was all I could do not to ask him to say, “Luke, I am your father.” I’m sure he never gets tired of that. At any rate, it was a very cool experience and his voice was everything you would dream it would be. 

I met George Jones with my cousin in his front yard. His music was familiar to me, as was his storied history with women and drinking. I was not formally introduced to him, but I did talk to him and in the process I found out that No Show Jones was a dirty, dirty old man. 

To understand how my cousin and I came to be standing with George Jones in his front yard that summer morning, I need to take you back to the summer of 1990. Due to the excesses of my summer of 1989, I had been given a choice to go away somewhere quiet, reevaluate my life, and try to pass my junior year of high school or fail out and live in a van down by the river. I chose the former and that summer I was in the 4th act of the after school special my life had become. 

My cousin, who I would learn from her to call “Cuz”,was in a not unsimilar situation, except she was older and the consequences of her summers of hell raising had more real world consequences. These consequences had led her to the guest room of our old house right about the time I was coming back from my own sabbatical. 

Although we weren’t any farther apart in age than my brothers and I were, Cuz and I had not grown up together. And even though we had grown up a few counties apart, we might as well have grown up in different countries. 

She had lived a lot of her life in my Grandma Modine’s basement, which was located in a then rural and run down town outside of Nashville. Her mother had a tendency to get married and divorced and I think her love life had taken precedence over raising my cousins. Modine may not have been the snuggliest Grandma, but she kept them babies clothed and fed. 

The only memories I really have of Cuz when I was young were of playing pool with her and my brothers in that basement, or sliding her and her brother’s, my cousin Terry, Christmas presents down the stairs on Christmas morning. It was understood that they wouldn’t be coming upstairs to make an appearance. 

I, on the other hand, had lived in relative middle class opulence in suburbs of Nashville and was a little afraid of the world my cousin and her brother inhabited. It was rough around the edges and I understood just enough of it to know that I probably wouldn’t survive in it very well. 

So here we were, me 17, her about 27, living in rooms connected by a bathroom with a whole lot of time on our hands. Getting to know someone you’re related to later in life is kind of a wild experience: you both know a lot of the same people, but you know different things about them. I knew, for example, that my cousin Terry liked to smoke crack and had sold my grandma’s car for a crack rock on Christmas Eve. I did not know that he had been a cute little kid who was afraid of the dark and who Cuz fiercely protected. 

I knew her mother had been married ten times, twice to the same man. I knew from first hand experience that one of those dudes was a super creep who probably liked little kids. He never got me, but only because my aunt kept a close eye on him. I didn’t know that he had made the mistake of going after my not diminutive  cousin when she was full grown. He only made that mistake once. 

We stayed up late, talking and smoking. I learned that she had been married to a deaf guy that she had met in the bathroom at a party. She said she was always going up behind him and screaming, because she never really believed he was completely deaf. He never startled, but that didn’t deter her belief. “I fucking KNEW he was faking it, man!” 

She learned that I had had a lot of sad hook-ups, but no real boyfriends. I hadn’t lived as much as she had, but I had lived as hard as I could, and we had that in common. 

Since I was still in high school, I told her about my after school special activities and she told me about her epic high school bathroom girl fights. She demonstrated her technique to me. 

“You give them the elbow, the fist, the knee, and then, “ she would stop here and pretend to spit, “you spit in their face!” 

I’ve never been in a bathroom, or any other type of fight since then, or ever, actually, but this wisdom has stuck with me over the last thirty or so years and I like to think it would instinctively kick in if I needed it. 

She had been through a lot of things that I couldn’t even imagine. I had been through some things but I didn’t have the words for them that summer and Cuz didn’t seem to mind. 

We spent more and more time together. Our individual shenanigans had alienated us from all of the people we used to hang out with, so that left us with each other, which seemed to be more and more OK as the days went by. 

Due to her personal adventures, the state of Tennessee wouldn’t allow her to drive, but I had my license and my Honda Prelude and a tape deck. That tape deck proved to be a cultural musical exchange. Through our travels together, I learned the words to every Ratt song and a lot of Motley Crue and she learned the words to a lot of Drivin’ n’ Cryin’ and Camper van Beethoven . We both loved Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bad Company, because some things are just a given with a certain generation of white girls in the South. 

Cuz told me she had seen Bad Company in concert three times so often that it became shorthand for telling each other we were repeating ourselves. “Have I told you I’ve seen Bad Company three times?” I still use this line on my husband. It never gets old. 

My cousin had a way of jamming to songs she loved: both hands in the “rock” position – pointing her index and pinky fingers straight ahead , her thumbs straight up – articulating with both hands as  she kept time to the beat. I still imitate this move when I hear any song from 10 from 6. 

That summer I learned that she was really smart and wickedly funny, two things I never realized as we slid those Christmas presents down the stairs for all those years. We shared a dark sense of humor which wound up almost getting us kicked out of the theater when we saw the movie “Ghost” together. Something about the romantic pottery scene got us right in the giggles and we laughed so hard we couldn’t breathe. “Man, I’m comin’ back from the fuckin’ dead to make this pottery shit with you!” she loud whispered and I lost it. While other viewers were crying, we were laugh crying. 

Since we called each other the redneck diminutive, “Cuz” (“Sup, Cuz?”) we soon lengthened that out to “Cuzzle.” This, in turn, was stretched out to “Cuzzle Wuzzle.” Although we used these last two terms jokingly and ironically, it was understood that a Cuzzle was far superior to just a cousin and we were in an exclusive club of two. 

Meanwhile, life was moving right along with the rest of my immediate family. My father was in the late stages of a federal trial, having to do with his own personal hijinx, and we were about to have everything we owned seized by the federal government. I was only vaguely aware of this, such was my mental state at the time. Maybe I was in denial, but I also think my brain wasn’t fit to comprehend it. 

Because of this trial, my father had lost his financial planning business, which had built our lovely inground pool, bought our hot tub, and remodeled our 80 year old house. Not one to sit at home and feel sorry for himself, he had already started a landscaping business and was back at work and making money. I’m pretty sure this business wound up going to the government too, but he wasn’t going to sit still or have us do without while he was awaiting his sentencing, which, luckily for all of us, wound up being probation and community service. He spent a lot of years reading the driving manual to illiterate people, but I digress. 

So it was that my Cuz and I went to work for Green Leaf Landscaping together. My dad had contracts with a lot of new construction subdivisions and our job was to get up well before sunrise, and, according to my father, “go out and soak the shit out of them plants.” We decided our official titles were “Water Goddesses.”

Because getting up at 4:30 or 5 was hard, we just stayed up all night, smoking, drinking Dr Pepper, doing BC powders, swimming, and driving around. When it was time to work, we would change into our cut off jeans and tank tops and head out into the already sweltering Southern summer day. By noon, we were back home in the pool, ready to eat and sleep until that night so we could do it all over again. 

If you’ve ever had to leave your old life behind and start a new one, you will understand that a radical schedule change like this is actually a huge help in making that transition. We kept ourselves busy and sleep deprived, which kept us from thinking too much about things we had done or not done and what the future held for us. In retrospect, this was very necessary for our mutual mental health. 

I imagine we were quite the sight out in the landscaping world, which consists mostly of dudes. I am 5’10” and Cuz is about 6’1”. We are both broad shouldered and large framed, complete with not small bosoms. And there we were, standing in the predawn light, sweaty, young, and freer than we knew we were, each listening to our own music on our generic brand Walk Men. 

This was the state we were in the day we met George Jones. We watered his plants regularly, including a dog-shaped flower shrine to a four legged friend who had apparently crossed the rainbow bridge. We joked a lot about him, but had never seen him. I don’t know if it was because we were both wearing white T-shirts that day, or if it was just dumb luck, but as we were watering his front beds, his sprinkler system came on and soaked us. 

Now, why George Jones was paying my father to have someone water his plants when he had a sprinkler system is beyond me. We had never noticed, most likely due to sleep deprivation, but suddenly, it was impossible to ignore. As we stood there, soaked through in our now see-through t-shirts, No Show Jones showed himself in all his glory, complete with a beige one piece leisure suit. It was like the outfit that time forgot. 

I have no memory of what Mr Jones said to us that day, so horrified was I that he was looking right through my t-shirt and bra to my teenage girl bits. I didn’t even have time to be star struck as I stood before the singer of “The Race is On'' and “He Stopped Loving Her Today” and I don’t remember me or my cousin saying anything to him. I think we just stood there and waited for it to be over. It felt like being called to the creepy principal’s office. At any rate, as soon as we got in the car, we howled with laughter over his outfit, his awful hair, his obvious boob stares. George fucking Jones was just a dirty old man. 

Not long after that incident, the federal government finally came and took that house and that pool and that hot tub, but somehow not my car. My parents, Cuz, and I moved a few towns over to a model home my uncle had built, and downsized about 2000 square feet. Our quarters were tight and summer was officially over. 

Real life intruded on our world: I still, somehow, had a year of high school to complete at a brand new school and Cuz had to find a new job now that the landscaping business was defunct. 

We still hung out and listened to Free Bird and smoked, but nothing was the same. I had to get up and go to a school every day where the people had known each other their whole lives and were ready to rock Senior Year. I could have given two shits. My cousin had to get up every day and go to a job where she screen printed t-shirts with kittens and Garfield on them. Staying up late was now out of the question. 

Not long into this new life, we both met guys and fell in love, me for the very first time. I remember when my suitor made a collage for me, Cuz got super excited and said, “Dude, for a nerd like this, this is like him giving you his class ring, Cuz!” I guess she was right. 

I would go on to college and eventually, leave the country for a year abroad. My cousin would get married, move back next to our grandma, and build a house. We both had lives to live and growing up to do and we soon only saw each other at Christmas and maybe a few other times a year. 

When I fell in love for the last time and things got very strange with my parents, I lost touch with her completely. She had divorced her second husband and I didn’t know where she was. This was at a time when cell phone numbers changed and there was no Facebook. I’m not proud that I failed to contact her when my father died. I thought about it and then thought about 100 other things, but that’s no excuse for her not being able to be at the service. My father had loved her, and she had loved him too.

I keep up with Cuz on Facebook now. That’s about the extent of my family’s communication skills. She lives in West Tennessee, has a new man, and some very cute dogs. She seems happy, and for that I am grateful. 

Some people, I believe, are meant for a certain time or place in our lives and that summer belonged to us. I don't know how I would have transitioned to the next part of my life without her. I got to know her and I let her know me, and that's a lot for any two human beings, especially ones who share DNA. 

She was one of the first people I ever talked to honestly about what I was feeling and things I had done that I was ashamed of. She never judged me for anything I told her. Now that I think about it, I think she might have been my first real adult friend. 

I think of her and talk about her a lot for someone I don’t actually talk to very much. Every time Tommy Lee makes the news or I hear a Bad Company song or I hear a George Jones song, I think of her or tell a story about her. I think this is indicative of the impact she had on my life during that year. 

A lot of us have cousins, some we are close to and some we aren’t, but I am lucky enough to not only have a Cuzzle, but a Cuzzle who could kick your cousin’s ass in a bathroom fight. And if she had had to, I know she would have taken out dirty old George Jones for me on that fateful summer day.