Mockingbird

Paul and I were trying to get to Monroeville, Alabama before dark while listening to Sissy Spacek read To Kill a Mockingbird on CD. She sounds just like you think Scout should sound. Plus, she varies her tone of her voice perfectly for each bit of dialogue, from Atticus to Jem to Calpurnia to Dill to cranky old Mrs. Dubose, giving each character just enough variation to distinguish one from another.

As we pulled into Monroeville at dusk, 500 miles of bug-splatter on the windshield making the view just a little extra hazy, we really had to use our imaginations to envision the place when Harper Lee grew up there. It was just plain ugly, a long strip of scruffy storefronts and Dollar Generals.  Even the gas stations looked worn out. We were tired and thirsty and we took a room at the first hotel we found, even though the entryway made two shrieking beeps when you walked into the lobby and we knew, we just knew, the room was going to be shabby.

“What do they call liquor stores in Alabama?” I asked Paul, who shrugged. Throughout the South (like you don’t already know this), purchasing alcohol must be done euphemistically, and after being on the road for 12 hours, I knew I’d need an “adult elixir” just to unwind. When I typed “Three Dot” into the GPS and the little iconic sand timer just spun round and round, I started to panic. I tried “liquor” and “ABC” without success, then gulped, “You don’t think this is a dry county, do you?” “Package store” got one result, but when we drove to the waypoint, we found a Vacation Bible Camp where the booze stand used to be.

We drove back through the unsavory little town and into the Piggly Wiggly parking lot. Locals looked us over and sized us up and we got the idea there aren’t a whole lot of tourists hitting Monroeville, Alabama at 8:00 p.m. on a Thursday. It was an old grocery store, the kind that smelled like every piece of food they’ve sold since 1940, layer upon layer of milk and meat and onions, wrapped in the grease they fried the chicken with around six months ago. The place stank, is what I’m trying to say. Stuff looked dusty.

With assistance, we found the wine aisle and then the biggest, cheapest bottle, grabbing it off the shelf and marching up to the checkstand. I felt guilty and uncertain, surreptitious-like, until the bagger grabbed the bottle, looked from me to Paul and back to me again and asked, “This any good?”

Paul and I looked at each other and chuckled. “We’re not sure, ourselves.”

“You know what’s good?” the bagger said with a knowing nod, wrapping the bottle in Piggly Wiggly plastic.

“What?”

“Moscato.” His eyes grew real wide and he increased the breadth of his nodding. “Moscato, mm-hmm. Real good.”

The rest of our stay in Monroeville was comparatively unremarkable. We went to the courthouse on Friday, sat in the balcony where young Harper once watched her father, the inspiration for Atticus Finch, try cases. We watched a young couple in flipflops get married, and we went through the informative exhibits on Lee and Capote. I still haven’t plumbed the depths of meaning on the Southern Literary Trail - though I experienced outrage anew at the racism and social inequality exposed in the final chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird. 

Plus: I got some great advice from the unlikeliest of sommeliers in all of America, I'm just sure of it.