SHE WAS BORN WHITE BUT, IN HER OLD AGE, turned the texture and color of homemade beef jerky. She spent her afternoons over-exposing herself in the south Florida sun. Even her wrinkles had wrinkles. All the children in the family were terrified of Aunt Gussie, not because she was mean but because of her animated nature. Whenever she visited, she would corner every child in sight, reach down with both browned, flabby arms, grab the horrified child on both sides of the head, and plant a wet, repugnant kiss wherever her lipstick smeared lips landed. “Aunt Gussie’s here,” our mother would sing out, and we would head as fast as we could to the nearest door or window to escape the house. “She smells like beef stew,” my sister complained, and she meant the institutional, canned version. Aunt Gussie made the rounds among the family, from house to house, especially after her dear departed husband, Uncle Harry, left her alone with her Old Country memories and her dust-covered knick-knacks. “Where’s little Henry?” she would call out in her croaky voice, the last words I would hear before jumping out of my bedroom window. I never got in trouble for my escaping, except the time that I was in such a hurry that I left the Playboy magazine on my bed and my mother saw it. For that I caught hell.
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