Sweet Tea by Jl Daniels

 

Image / Ánh Đặng

Sweet Tea

My aunt Basilisk is my great-great-aunt Basilisk. By the time I was born, she was wizened as cypress, infinitely cranky and joyful, and a fabulous gossip. According to Aunt Basi, as I called her before, my mouth could fit the entire shape of her name; there was no such thing as preference. If you said you hated okra or grits, brussels sprouts, etc., she would give you a kind-hearted sideways smile, put her hand on your shoulder, and talk to you like you were just the poorest little thing in the whole damned galaxy. “Aw, honey,” she would then drawl at you, “you just ain’t had it cooked right.”

And if she had the time, she would proceed to convince you that you had been wrong your entire life about the foods you thought you knew. She’d pickle, fry, butter, or smother in cheese whatever you were having your misunderstanding about, and within a bite, you knew that you had been truly wrong, and by the third mouthful, you had a new favorite food. My parents had ruined brussels sprouts for me, boiling them to mush and serving them up with mayonnaise, and when I realized they could be pan-fried and topped with parmesan, it felt like mom and dad had betrayed me. Everyone who ate Aunt Basi’s food became her acolyte, hypnotized by her eyes and molten sheets of melted cheddar.

My first memory of Aunt Basi was of her sweet tea. My mom brought my sister and me out to visit her in her little trailer in southern Georgia. After smothering us in loving hugs, after flicking her lizard tongue across our cheeks until they grew hot and wet, she poured us a glass of sweet tea. My mother was a southerner at heart, but not a sweet tea drinker. Probably because it is just so damned bad for you. 

My little eyes lit up when I tried it. If you aren’t from the South, you do not understand sweet tea. It is not sweetened tea. It is not some Lipton abomination with a pack of Splenda dumped in, it is not some chilled bathwater with granules of white sugar floating around it. It is heaven, it is the essence of God’s contract with the southern citizen, that though there is heat, here is the antidote, this ambrosia, this liquid Mana. Which is to say, it is loaded, loaded with sugar. 

Little-me drank that glass like I had only just been allowed liquid for the very first time. With a “please” and a “ma’am,” I asked for more, and Aunt Basi was only too happy to indulge. It was only a few more minutes, and a dozen more glasses, before the entire half-gallon pitcher was utterly drained. And then I ran off to burn through the sudden rush of energy that descended on me like a bolt of lightning from the clouds. 

When my mother tried to keep me from another glass, and another, for Aunt Basi’s refrigerator held what may have been an infinity of food, Basi would bat aside my mother’s words and tell her to hush, because “he liked it, leave that child alone.” It is possible she was only trying to fatten me up, to fatten up all of us for some unknowable purpose. But never mind. 

It is an easy recipe. First, you steep 8 bags of black tea in four cups of boiling water for 15 minutes. After removing the tea bags, heat the water again in the microwave until just off the boil, then mix in 1 ½ cups of granulated white sugar. If the sugar doesn’t completely dissolve, reheat until the sugar super-saturates the liquid. When the tea is a thick, tea-flavored syrup, dilute with four cups of water and chill.

Aunt Basi had a hard life, but she never really talked about it. We only saw the husbands come and go. If she opened her mouth, it was only to gossip about others, and if you opened yours, she shoved in food, probably too fatty, too sugary, too buttered, too good to resist or deny. Unhealthy, sure, but I can’t say it’s a bad way to live, even in sorrow, surrounded by great food and an appreciative audience. Who cares that the kid is running and breaking things? Who cares about the sugar crash? Because that fattened child will remember you. We will all die, but some will be remembered. All the better to be remembered sweetly.

© Jl Daniels

Jl Daniels is the author of the novel, Mount Fugue, the short story collection, If You Can, and is an assistant professor at Clayton State University.

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