My brother weighed ten pounds at birth. He was born in the car on the way to the hospital but that’s a story for another day. My cousin Eddie, a colicky, pint-sized baby, was about four months younger. One afternoon when Billy was about five months old and Eddie about one month, Mother and Aunt Bonnie put both babies on a blanket on the living room floor while they had coffee in the kitchen. Billy cooed and played happily while Eddie wailed incessantly, as usual. When they finished their coffee, the mothers went to check on the babies. It turns out Poor Eddie was crying for a good reason. Husky Billy who was teething had maneuvered himself around where he could gnaw on Eddie’s skinny little leg. The poor baby’s leg was red from ankle to above the knee.
Aunt Essie, like all of my aunts, was a wonder of fertility, if not child-rearing acumen, raising seven of the meanest boys outside Alcatraz. Thank God, her reproductive equipment gave out before she managed more. I thought Mother exaggerated when she said they’d all end up in jail or dead before they were thirty. She was wrong. Only four of the seven did jail time, and of these, one died in a bar fight after he was released at the age of twenty-eight. Most of rest passed their time boozing it up at Aunt Essie’s house when they weren’t begetting children or needed in jail. Contrary to Mother’s unjust prediction, all but one made it past thirty and one never went to jail. The meanest of the lot turned out to be pretty boring. He opened a very successful auto body shop, married a good woman who got him in church, and became a deacon. I hope Mother learned her lesson about being judgmental.
BUY my book: 
Aunt Essie got her nose out of joint when her little guys came home bringing tales of how badly Uncle Bill had treated them, so he didn’t hear from her till she fell on hard times a couple of years later. She had married her own fella named Bill by that time, strangely enough. This Bill was an affable enough guy, though he must not have taken time to meet the boys before they married. He’d also been married before and “wadn’ payin’ no child support to that whore of a woman after the way she done me. Besides that oldest ‘un never did look anthing like me, ner that little one neither, if you git right down to it.”
In my family of “Mixed Nuts” Cousin Corwin was the winner, hands down. When he was about twelve, he and his twin Kelvin got in a little “dust up” with the police, so it seemed like a good time to get out of town. Aunt Essie called Daddy, asking if the twins could come spend a few days. Now if the image “twins” brings to mind thoughts of “barefoot boys with cheeks of tan,” think again. Kelvin to all intents and purposes, could have passed for normal, but Corwin was nuts. At five foot eight and two hundred and sixty pounds, he was physically intimidating. His pale blue eyes blazed with madness. He ripped through a fried chicken like a chain saw. Mother had to double the amount she normally cooked the minute he arrived.
Nutsrok 