Jenny Bucket

Cabin in the woods / 2014 / Mixed media collage / Russell C. Smith

When Jenny Bucket was a child of six, she was told she’d live forever. This was at a backyard summertime family barbecue, just outside of Lakeland, Florida. Jenny graded this bit of information on a curve, and considered what she’d overheard other relatives say about Crazy Aunt Doris. Jenny’s tip-off as to whether to partially or fully believe this intriguing bit of fortunetelling – was in her aunt’s plain-as-day first name. Crazy. She decided to grab the story by the horns, or in this case by the tilting sideways, freshly permed blue wig perched atop her aunt’s head. “Auntie, they say you’re crazy. True or false?” Crazy Aunt Doris sniffed and said, “Fuck them! They, they they! They say a lot of shit, whether you’re related to their asses or not.” Ooh, swearing. The layered, interesting kind. From an adult holding half a glass of white wine with two large clinking ice cubes in it. After standing up briefly to adjust the sun umbrella wobblily planted in middle of the round wooden table, Crazy Aunt Doris continued, “If I gave any thought about what my so-called sensible relatives thought about me, I’d be living in a mud hut beside a ditch full of snakes, instead of a top-floor three-bedroom apartment in downtown St. Pete, with a panoramic view of Tampa Bay. Thank you very much.” Jenny bit the inside of her cheek and stared at her aunt like she was a space alien with a ray gun hidden in her oversized purse. “Now, listen to me Jenny, you’ve got the gift. You’re a Seer. The women in this family tree are all long-livers. And you, I can clearly see you are one of them.” She moved her wine glass toward her heavily lipsticked lips. Jenny asked, “How old are you, Auntie Doris?” After a gulp of wine, she said, “Just turned 170, but it feels like forever. I feel like a spry 90 on some days.” Jenny peered up at her face. “You don’t look 170, or even 90, that’s for sure.” “Good of you to say,” Crazy Aunt Doris said. “Now listen, young one. Do what only one person in a million does. Be your own self. Listen to the voice in your head unless it’s saying stupid shit to you. It can do that sometimes. Don’t be led astray by time-wasting fools. Figure out what you love to do, and keep doing it as long as it fills you up.” Crazy Aunt Doris paused, grew misty-eyed. Then said, “Fills you up, and feeds your heart and soul.” Over thirty years passed since then, and Jenny never saw Crazy Aunt Doris at any other family gatherings while growing up. Rumors abounded. Crazy Aunt Doris was a stock car driver on the Southern Circuit. She’d met a modern-day moonshiner, and they outsmarted the Guv-ment in the last lost woods of the Appalachians. She lived in a treehouse in Oregon talking only to ravens. She’d emigrated to Canada and lived on the tippity-top of Vancouver Island in a train caboose. Made her home in a never modernized (bathtub in the kitchen, 1930s cracked linoleum on the floor), fifth-floor walkup railroad flat apartment in New York City and was a day trader on Wall Street, and had made half a billion dollars. Walked into the wilds of British Columbia looking for Sasquatch, and no one in the Bucket family ever saw her again. Except Jenny. Jenny who’d left Florida the day she turned 18, on an evening departure Amtrak, taking a large backpack stuffed with clothes, and an oversized leather carry bag full of books. She met up with her best friend Linda-Lou in Atlanta, and they drove Route 66 across country to L.A. Started working within two weeks – Jenny at a health food restaurant on Sunset Strip, as a greeter. Linda-Lou as an apprentice stunt-double. In six months, Jenny packed up and drove north on 101, Stopped in Big Sur, breathed in the Pacific Ocean, then kept pushing her used VW Bug up the coast until Portland, Oregon called to her. Told her to stay awhile.