The Jesus Bully

The Dixie Classic Fair brings the most interesting combination of smells together among some of the most interesting people you may ever see. Deep Fried Krispy Kreme Doughnut Hamburgers, live animals, including their shit, and puddles of vomit circled around roller coasters and tilt-a-whirl rides bake in the early October sun while you attempt to push through masses of boon dock NASCAR enthusiast, inner city gangs, church youth groups, grandmothers competing in quilting competitions, and middle school students free from their parents with pockets full of ride tickets and dinner money sure to be spent on cotton candy and funnel cakes.

The sun was barely warming the air before the fall breeze blew the heat away. I was the third wheel on my best friends second date with Kate Cavenaugh. Kate was one of the pretty girls in our grade. She had long red hair and would be elected Homecoming Queen our senior year. The school we went to was small, so social hierarchy was everything.  Andrew, my best friend, thought himself lucky to be out with her. Andrew had stepped into popularity because he was on the baseball team, and I came with him because we were best friends. I was cool, but not very athletic. I didn’t start swimming until freshman year and compared to the friends I hung out with I was fat.

We walked in between funnel cake stands and through chicken coops to meet up with all of Kate’s friends. In eighth grade being seen at the fair without your parents was a big deal. We were supposed to be meeting two girls on Kate’s cheerleading team beside a roller coaster called The Firebolt. People with tattoos and piercings were in abundance. It was as if Wal-Mart had herded all of their customers into a field and set up rides, food stands, and petting zoos. If we had chosen to go on the first night it was open being at the fair wouldn’t have been so bad, but the fair had been open for seven days before we went and the vomit, deep frying oil, and animal shit had built up. On our way to meet Kate’s friends we passed a clown in a dunking booth yelling insults at passersby’s.

____________

 Everyone hears about bullies these days, teens committing suicide because they were called ugly, fat, or stupid repeatedly. At the university level we are not immune to bullies, in fact no matter how old we are there will always be bullies around us. UNC Wilmington specifically writes in their Academic Catalogue an Unlawful Harassment, Discrimination, and Retaliation clause to prevent such bullying.

From the Catalogue: “UNC Wilmington affirms that students and employees are entitled to an educational and employment environment free from unlawful harassment or discrimination based on that individual‘s race, sex (such as gender, marital status, and pregnancy), age, color…”

It was March 26^th 2012, more than five years after going to the fair as a third wheel with Andrew and Kate. I was sitting in the outdoor amphitheater at my University letting the searing sun slowly burn me as I sat and scribbled notes. Brother Ross, a self-proclaimed open-air preacher, was preaching to the angry mass of my peers who were shouting insults and cries of frustration. Many students were seated in the outdoor auditorium but some were riding bikes through or just walking to class. There was no one type of student listening to Ross. I noticed fairly equal amounts of men and women. There were African American students listening, friends I recognized from Greek life, professors, faculty, and staff of the university all crowded around to hear this man. “Brother Ross” is the fire and brimstone preacher who has no philosophical, religious, or even public speaking credentials of any kind. He travels to college campuses around the state publically accusing students as they walk by of being homosexuals, whores, and prostitutes, even “Masturbating Perverts” which he called UNC Wilmington freshman Austin Robertshaw.

With large anti-homosexual and anti-pornography buttons pinned to his suspenders, I approached not Brother Ross but the plain looking woman behind him in the floor length gray wool skirt and long sleeve white blouse buttoned tightly at the neck. I kept thinking about the dunking booth clown I encountered in eighth grade, and it seemed that the woman in front of me had married one of these clowns. The uncomfortably hot looking woman was Ross Jackson’s wife whom I was most interested in interviewing. When I asked Mrs. Jackson for an interview she told me I had to ask her husband.

“Anything you have to ask my wife I can say for her.” Mr. Jackson told me when I asked permission to interview his wife. The blatant sexism he showed toward his wife was shocking. I could not remember a time when I had seen a husband show such dehumanizing chauvinism with his wife merely five feet away.

____________

“Hey porky, you couldn’t find a little girl to tow you around the fair?” Was he talking to me? The cartoonish dressed clown pointed at me after I turned to look at him and said, “Yeah you, sausage link, where’s your girlfriend?” I can’t remember if it was the surprise of being called a sausage link or the fact that an adult was calling me out in public for not having a girlfriend, but I froze and was completely lost.

“Ryan, why are you stopping? Do you want to try and dunk him,” Kate said. Part of me wanted to throw a ball, but a much larger part of me knew I would only embarrass myself further if I paid money to throw a baseball at the target and most likely miss. Andrew took out five dollars and walked up to the counter.

“I’ll have three,” He said. Now I wasn’t totally un-athletic but when football season came around I always auditioned for the fall play, and in the spring I would run track but usually finish second to last. It was one of the rare moments Andrew stood up for me while we were friends. He didn’t say anything to me about it, but we had been best friends and neighbors since we were born. I thought our friendship was more of an obligation, but when he pulled out five dollars to defend me against the dunking booth Clown I thought maybe, just maybe we weren’t just friends because we lived across the street.

____________

On UNCW campus, Austin Robertshaw, a nondenominational Young Life leader and member at Port City Church, sat down with me after listening to Brother Ross. Robertshaw said Ross was “Preaching as if there’s no Jesus and that we aren’t forgiven by his grace alone.” The bulk of my conversation with Austin consisted of how Brother Ross treated his wife and women in general. Robertshaw also brought up an interesting point about female equality. “God made Eve from Adam’s rib, not his head or his foot because she is not above or below him. She is his equal,” Austin told me. He was referring to Genesis 2: 19-23.

So I sat a while longer in the hot sun and interjected my questions with the shrinking crowd of students who had stayed after Mr. Jackson had finished his sermon. After rejecting any question I had pertaining to his personal life, or life when he’s not preaching, I decided to simply ask him if he thought everything the students said to him was condescending?

“Some people ask good questions, but my job isn’t to listen. My job is to tell you people what you’re doing wrong,” Brother Ross answered. Many people decided that the sermon was all an act, and Ross Jackson was simply a spectacle that stirred up talk about Christianity in hopes some people would become interested and begin to come to the Christian faith. I wondered, if this is true, if Ross Jackson calls students these terrible names because like the Circus Clown wants your money, he wants you to read your bible, maybe he isn’t really a bad guy but just someone trying to use a unorthodox way to convert people to Christianity.

Ross Jackson’s message comes across as confusing or hypocritical at many points in his speech. At one point he says, “Christians can’t go worship with sinners.” In Mark chapter two Jesus spends most of his time with sinners. In the Bible, which Brother Ross bases all of what he says on, Jesus makes it a point to sit down with many sinners and talk with them, even to pray for them.

Hearing Ross Jackson call students whores and sluts as he pointed at them and threw his bible on the ground was heartbreaking to many in the crowd. The policewoman on duty making sure Mr. Jackson stayed within the legal limitations of his public speaking said, “I can’t do anything unless he threatens someone, I hope he does do that.” But is condemning strangers to eternity in hell not a threat enough?

Many students left the sermon thinking Brother Ross may have had a hidden agenda for coming to our campus. Could the point of Ross’ spectacle be simply to get people thinking about religion? There is definitely more discussion about Christianity after Brother Ross comes to campus. What led me to believe his zealousness is genuine are his followers. Ross Jackson, like most bullies, has a posse of similarly minded individuals. This posse, made up of his wife, two men, and another wife, follow Jackson around and believe his interpretation of the Bible. While these four individuals did not speak or preach to the extent Mr. Jackson did, they backed him up when he came under attack. The younger white male who held the sign listing the many different types of people going to hell was the most outspoken of his “followers.”   

It seems Ross Jackson’s public condemning of the UNCW student body is, in fact, a spectacle only to the students. People come to see the crazy Christian man call a sorority girl he’s never met a lesbian or a whore. It’s very obvious Ross Jackson acted against the Unlawful Harassment, Discrimination, and Retaliation section of the Academic Catalogue. By condemning students to hell as they walked to and from class, and insulting female students to the point of tears on our own campus, there is no excuse for the University to continue to let this bully preach on our campus. There is no actual substance to Brother Ross’ sermon, he simply draws a crowd because like the clown in a county fair dunking booth, he is a bully and people are fascinated with bullies.

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I was walking away from the amphitheatre shaking my head in amazement thinking about those baseballs Andrew picked up in my defense. He threw each of those baseballs as hard as he could at the little red and white target. When all three had missed he turned around, red in the face from exertion and from embarrassment and walked back to where Kate and I had been watching. I didn’t say anything to him about it, and he didn’t say anything to me. We walked away from the dunking booth, Kate tugging Andrew behind her and I trudging beside him turning left and right to avoid the huddled mass of people listening to a man in a clown suit publicly address their most personal insecurities.  It hadn’t really mattered if Andrew had dunked the clown or not, people would still huddle around the booth. Offending people is often the most effective way to get them to listen to you. 

Aging at the Aquarium

The toddlers soft pale hands were wrapped around the medieval looking shell of one of the horseshoe crabs while the crab’s sword like tail slashed about. “Philip, can’t horseshoe crabs sting with their tail?” Philip was acting as the human encyclopedia for all things nautical while we explored the North Carolina aquarium at Fort Fisher, Kure Beach.

“No, their tails are really just for steering while they swim. Horseshoe crabs don’t really crawl like most crabs, they bend their shell back and forth to propel them through the water much faster than other crabs.” Philip and I were both starring in amazement at the toddler feeding bits of squid to the upside down animal. I could tell Philip was amazed by the inner workings of the crabs feeding habits. I was more amazed at the toddler. Living on campus at college I hadn’t realized until now how long it had been since I had seen a child. It was almost like once I had left youth behind, it had disappeared from the world all together.

Philip was a biology enthusiast and was studying Zoology at Virginia Tech. We hadn’t seen each other since high school graduation, but he was in town so we both felt obligated to see each other, mostly because we had been really great friends before senior year. Philip was staying with his parents at the beach a few miles away from my college, UNC Wilmington. I think it was his parents who pressured him to tell me he was in town.

I looked from Philip back to the child as he squealed. The crab pulled the hunk of thawed squid from his fingers. His mother was now holding the shell and egging the boy to drop the food into the horseshoes mouth. There were at least ten horseshoe crabs in the touch tank, along with an equal number of rays and three or four large hermit crabs. Philip had taken the pile of frozen squid the aquarium worker gave us and was methodically flipping crabs upside down and dropping the food into their mouths.

A group of elementary school students walked into the room, where we were, squealing and jumping up and down in their single file line behind a very tired looking middle-aged teacher.  There were nine students so I assumed there was either another group of rascals bouncing around on the other side of the building, or this group of nine was special. None of the kids seemed intelligent or exceptionally unintelligent to be a part of any special education program. “I’m a rainbow fish, Mrs. Oakes! I’m a rainbow fish!” One of the girls in the middle of the line was shouting to her teacher and suddenly all of the children were claiming to be different aquatic animals.

“I’m a Shark!”

“Well I’m an electric eel.”

“I want to be a dolphin!”

“I’m the lobster! I’ve got pinchers, Mrs. Oakes, look!”

“I’m SpongeBob.”

“Ooo, I’m Patrick!”

Suddenly the children veered off from typical sea creatures and began to yell names of characters from the television show SpongeBob Squarepants. After all nine of the students had adopted a new name, either Gary, Sandy, Mr. Crabs, or Larry the Lobster, they continued past the horseshoe crab touch tank and gasped at the two story glass tank filled with sharks, giant rays, and a variety of other large fish.

The brown haired toddler ran out of squid and was now splashing his hands on the surface of the water. His mother wiped his hands, pushed back his brown curls and slid him into his stroller. In the corner of the shallow open tank I saw a horseshoe crab stuck on its back. Its legs were convulsing and it was bending its shell back and forth trying to turn itself over. Then another crab rammed the overturned one and flipped him back onto his feet. I’m still not sure if the crab realized his fellow was stuck, or if the tank was so small he had no choice but to run into him.

“Did you see that crab turn the other one over?” I asked Philip.

“What? No, I was looking at this manta ray. What happened?”

“Nothing. Lets go downstairs to the Octopus.”
             My favorite animal was an Octopus. I loved how they could fit into almost any shape. They are extremely smart animals; great at camouflage. We walked to the tank and I saw a yellow sign that read, “Octopus temporarily not on exhibit.”

“Are you kidding me? That’s my favorite animal.” Philip was preoccupied looking at the jellyfish, which admittedly were also very cool. But, the jellyfish were no Octopus. “Hey Philip, do you want to go? I think we’ve seen everything after we walk through the fossil section.”

“Yeah I’m about ready to get some lunch. Do you know any sushi places? Looking at all of these fish has kind of gotten me in the mood.” As we were leaving, Mrs. Oakes’ class was pressing their hands and faces against the glass of the puffer fish tank attempting to get one of the fishes to puff up. Philip and I had spent two and a half hours strolling through the many tanks of fish, turtles, and sea creatures and still hadn’t talked much about high school. It was easier to talk about fish and elementary school life than everything that had happened senior year.

How to make Sweet Tea

Every Sunday growing up my family would come home from church and while we ate lunch at the kitchen bar my mother would brew four galleons of sweet tea for the week. Sweet tea was a staple of my mother. She would pour from her glass pitcher over the round half circle ice cubes the refrigerator made; it was practically religious.  During the summer my mom would cut lemon and squeeze it into her drink.

Karen, my mothers friend, would walk across the street after I got home from school and sit with my mom on the front porch in the wicker rocking chairs while they talked and sipped. When I walked outside to get my homework journal signed I would hear bits of their conversations about women in the PTA, or about who had been interviewed on Good Morning America. Karen’s son, Andrew, was my best friend and in my class until fifth grade. We stopped talking when we were sophomores in high school.

My sister never learned how to make sweet tea because she was awful in the kitchen. She was much more like my father who was from New Jersey. My sister got angry quickly, she never read a book from cover to cover, and didn’t have her first paying job until she was a senior in college. Mom taught me how to make sweet tea when I was in the eighth grade.

You can never make tea right your first time, and rarely your second or third. There’s a good bit of feel when you measure the ingredients. To start you need four cups of boiling water. The problem with measuring four cups of water is some of it will boil so you need to put about four and a half into your pot. Before your water comes to a complete boil, you need to start adding a cup of granulated sugar. The sugar needs to be added slowly while you stir the water with one hand so the grains dissolve before they touch the bottom of the pot. If the sugar touches the bottom of your pot before it dissolves it will burn and your tea will taste thick and bitter.

After you’ve mixed all of your sugar into the boiling water you need to take the simple syrup you’ve made off of the stovetop and drop in one galleon size tea bag. My mother always used Lipton tea bags because they came in a family size bulk box at the Lowes foods on the corner. After you’ve taken the syrup off heat you have to let the tea steep for at least twenty minutes. If you leave the tea bag to steep for less then twenty minutes your tea will be weak and if you leave it in for much longer than twenty minutes your tea will be strong. I like my tea a little stronger then my mother made hers.

The worst mistake you can make while brewing sweet tea is to leave your syrup on the stove while it steeps. If the tealeaves continue to be boiled the tea will get very bitter and dry. Once the tea has steeped with the lid on your pot, remove the lid and pull the bag out quickly. There will be some tea trapped in the bag with the leaves but this is too strong so do not press the teabags to drain them.

Now that you have made the concentrated tea, pour it over a galleon pitcher full of ice. The tea is only five cups but as it melts the ice the tea syrup is diluted enough to drink. Pour over ice and enjoy with lemon during the summer or mint leaves during the early spring. 

Facedown in the Crunchy Grass

The raw taste of blood and metal filled my mouth.

I leaned left into the frosty wind

blowing the tails of my jacket,

my scarf,

and the tassels of my hoodie.

The cold crept through the seams of my shoes and chilled my toes.

I plunged my hand

into my front pocket

in search of my chapstick.

No chapstick.

“Damn.”

I needed some chapstick.

My eyes were leaking.

I spit red in the crunchy grass.

My car was about half a mile down the street

But it was out of gas,

and broken down.

I tried to scrape his skin from under my fingernails

but it wouldn’t come out.

My hands felt stained from fighting back.

I wondered if his hands felt stained?

I heard the screen door slam behind me.

I didn’t turn around to see him,

I just listened to the gunshot. 

The Kill

The Homeowner:

It was night

I heard the loud thud and screeching tires

There was a man standing over a body in my driveway

He turned to my house

I was alone

I turned out the lights quickly but he knew I was there

The doorbell

“911 what’s your emergency?”

“A man just killed someone in my driveway and he’s standing at my door!”

He left my porch and returned to his car

The cops were there

A pool of blood was in my driveway the next morning

The Driver:

10 seconds

I thought it was a person

“It was a deer, it was a deer!”

My voice screamed louder then the other three

The twitching carcass was launched ten feet away

I was still screaming

We walked to the door to tell them

A deer was blocking their driveway

The cop was there

He shot it and drug it away

It was the first thing I had killed

“Don’t look at it man. Look away.”

I looked; I saw its eyes spasm

I saw the blood pool around his head

The cop drug him to the woods

I gave my report

At home he was still looking at me

His eyes were still spasming

And they still are

The Jeep:

The Impact

I wanted to stop but I couldn’t

A brief second

I felt his matted hair pressed to my bumper

My drivers hands tensed around the steering wheel

He shattered my headlight

I shattered his rib cage

He was a reindeer for a second

Maybe it was his dream to fly

He did

He flew away from me and smacked the pavement ahead

I saw him lay there

My driver got out to check on him

There was a police car now

Its driver got out and shot the deer

The gunshot rang through the woods

My driver was in the passenger seat

My bumper was broken

I had never killed anything before

The Passenger:

“Its just a deer! Its just a deer!”

Budd wouldn’t stop screaming

Id never seen him loose his shit

Budd is a quiet guy

We got out of the car and

I could tell Budd wasn’t doing well

“Look away Budd, don’t look at it”

The buck was twitching

Budd dry heaved and I pretended not to notice

He killed it

I drove back to campus that night

The Officer:

“Is anyone hurt?”

No one was

The one boy looked pretty shitty

His buddy did most of the talkin’

Hadn’t shot a deer on duty yet

Felt bad for the thing but I was still excited

Put on my gloves and took out my gun

The thing was twitchin’ real bad

Should’ve warned the kid I was about to shoot

I didn’t even think about the blood

Drug the body to the woods but

The blood was still there

Tipped my hat

“Ya’ll drive safe now.”

The Deer:

I started across

Death hit me in a black Jeep liberty

My antlers ripped from my scalp and flew in the opposite direction of my body

I landed on smooth concrete

I was dizzy, my ribs stuck like thorns

My lungs were deflated

My legs wouldn’t get me off my side

The man stood over me and raised his gun

My blood ran out of my brains

I saw the driver starring at my carcass

I starred through my killer’s eyes

And I’m still starring

Because we love the Pain

We know how it will end but we do it anyway

Make the same mistakes

It’s the breath you hear in your ear

While you shave carrots over the garbage disposal

And try to ignore the lips on your neck

And the picture of me in the frame behind the picture of him that sits on your desk

The pale skin I notice around your finger

The distance he hears in your voice

When you threaten to hold your breath until I kiss you

And how I laugh at you and let your face turn purple before giving in

Because we are weak

And, because we love the pain

Wilmington in June

Harriett Dunnings rocked back and forth in the wide white wicker rocking chair that her nephew had brought her for Christmas the year after he married. It was worn and the strands were beginning to fray and twist away from each other and the white paint had begun to flicker and flake off collecting in small piles on the great old wooden front porch that was harsh and unforgiving in the splinters it gave anyone who decided to walk across it without shoes on their feet. These piles sat and waited for perfectly angled gust of wind to come along and blow them off of Harriett’s front porch. These gusts came often enough because the afternoon breezes that made the azalea and hydrangea bushes flutter and dance around Harriett’s comparatively unkempt front lawn came often enough to be about the only thing that made the place bearable in early June. Harriett was wearing her Sunday clothes even though it was not Sunday, with the exception of her shoes which she wore her gardening boots. The starchy peach dress was stiff over Harriett’s wrinkled liver spotted skin and made her appear both younger and tanner then she actually was. Her white hair like the chair she sat in was flickered and flaked in places unattractively collected on the stiff shoulders of her peach dress. The dress itself was not a summer dress but a conservative two-piece that was the norm for ladies her age to wear to her Moravian church. Her muddy work boots contrasted heavily with the dress but Harriett wasn’t expecting company so her appearance was not a high priority. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon and the June humidity of the outer banks made her toes sweat uncomfortably in her boots. Harriett rocked forward and leaned down to untie the dirty laces that criss crossed up her ankle and to release her feet. She wasn’t wearing socks. The breeze moved the thick Carolina air around her feet like a warm sock she snuck into the dryer with daddy’s shirts rather then on the clothes line where her mother usually hung them after she did the wash many years ago when Harriett was a little girl. Harriett heard the unexpected sound of truck tiers picking up the dry light brown dirt and spraying it into the air making little dusty clouds. About a hundred yards away she saw a familiar blue Toyota turn off the paved road and onto her dirt driveway. It drove towards her slowly and she could hear Patsy Cline on the CD player. She knew it was the CD player because no one played Patsy on the radio anymore. The truck ran over pinecones and tree roots sticking out of the sandy ground gathering more concentrated closer to the base of the pine tree trunks. Harriett loved the pine trees and live oaks in her yard because the Spanish moss would hang and droop like cheese cloth and made them look like the trees out of storybooks. Wilmington was the only place she knew that had much Spanish moss other than the bayous of Louisiana and Mississippi. The truck stopped right in front of her porch and Harriett heard the first line of Patsy’s chorus start “I keep a walkin’ after midnight…” when the engine was shut off and the singing stopped. It was Keith in the rusty blue Toyota; a smile stretched apart her lips to reveal the only thing Harriett wasn’t ashamed to show some pride in which was her teeth. While ageing had affected her skin, hair and bones Harriett’s teeth were still that of a young adults. Keith didn’t immediately get out of his truck but took a deep breath while starring at the top of his steering wheel and looking past to read the number of miles he had clocked over his sixteen years with his pick-up. He sighed again at the screeching noise his driver side door hinge made when he both opened and closed it. Harriett only had her one wide white wicker rocking chair on her front porch so Keith stood once he climbed the few steps. Harriett didn’t bother asking if she could get him a chair because her younger brother would never let her go out of her way for him even if moving a chair onto the porch was no trouble at all. Instead Keith asked if he could grab a chair from the kitchen cause he wanted to talk for a bit if she wasn’t busy. When he came back out and let the screen door slam behind him Harriett explained that she had just gone to get her picture taken for the Church directory and how she decided to enjoy her azaleas while they were in bloom after cutting back her hydrangeas. Harriett had never married and subsequently had no children so she was alone in her picture every year in the churches directory. It was far from depressing though because Keith and his wife were always right beside her on account that Keith was her brother and again she never married so she still kept the last name Dunnings. Keith’s wife Amanda was a stern brown haired woman who raised five boys to have the manners and chivalry of a well to do southern gentleman. Three of them were still living but no one counts Matthew so when people ask Amanda usually says she has two sons. Matthew was the nephew who bought Harriett her wide white wicker rocking chair. The family had grown cold toward him when he moved upstate to pursue a college degree and become a businessman. His aunt Harry was the only Dunning who still kept in touch. The others were ashamed of his lack of humility. Ambition and pride were heavy sins in the Dunning family; but Matthew had done other things to upset his parents. Needless to say Matthew and his wife were not beside Harriett in the church directory. Harry had gotten so caught up in memories about her nephew she caught herself tuned out to what her brother was saying. He was talking about getting a new truck but by the mumbling he was doing Harriett could tell this wasn’t what he had really come to speak to her about. “Keith what do you want to talk to me about, I know you’re not really going to get a new truck.” Keith didn’t hesitate but took a pause before speaking again. An extended wheezing noise from the back of his throat that gave Harry the impression that what he had come to say was painful in one way or another. “Amanda and I are talking about getting separated, Harry.” While the words set confusion ablaze in her head Harriett kept her southern womanhood about her and didn’t let one wrinkle in her face change. “Why on earth would you ever think of that Keith? Why would the pair of ya’ ever do something like that? You’re talking about your wife; Keith divorce isn’t part of marriage.” The same wheezing noise whispered out of Keith’s throat while he thought of an answer or defense to his sister’s questions. “Well Amanda and I aren’t happy together and we haven’t been for some time now.  I can't remember why we’re married Harry.” “You need a reason to be married Keith? You’ve got three sons and five grandchildren. What would the church think? Keith you’re going to be eighty-two this fall don’t you want someone to be with while you’re dying?” Harry could tell her words affected Keith. Again the wheezing noise came from the back of his throat as he tried to prepare another defense but he closed his lips and sat back against the back of the chair he had brought out from Harry’s kitchen. “Well who said anything about dying, Harry, eighty-one isn’t that old.” “Keith we both know eighty-one is old. Daddy died before he turned seventy-six.” Obviously he hadn’t thought about his father’s death recently and Keith began to put the comparisons into perspective. “What about you Harry you don’t have someone to die with.” Of course Keith’s words weren’t meant to be depressing but Harry did feel the bags behind her eyes fill up a bit at the thought. She blinked hard once and didn’t respond. The humid dusty air hadn’t been blown away since Keith pulled up and even out of her boots Harry’s toes began to sweat. Something about her body language let him know that she wasn’t going to respond so Keith ended the conversation. “I don’t know what I’ve been thinking. Maybe Gods just telling me I don’t have much longer and I’m getting antsy. I’m sorry I said anything Harry. Why don’t I cut a few of them Azaleas to take home to Amanda, I know she’d like them.” Harriett didn’t have any problem with Keith taking some of her Azaleas but something about the memories she had just gone through about Matthew made her angry and sad. “Keith you need to go sell that truck. Why don’t you call Matthew and see if he’d like to buy it. I’m sure even if he doesn’t want it he’d take it off your hands just to try and mend things with the pair of you.” Keith was confused how the conversation had turned but for some reason he didn’t argue and he left with the intention to do just what his older sister had told him to. He walked down off the porch and started over to one of Harry’s prettier bushes. “Keith, leave my flowers.” He didn’t break step but turned back towards his truck and left. Harriett stood up to take Keith’s chair back inside and felt a small stabbing pain in her right foot. When she sat back down she saw the splinter of wood sticking out of the bottom of her thick dry skin. Harriett pulled it out and flicked it out into the bushes and spit on the small puncture it left. A little drop of blood swelled up and Harry squeezed to make sure she had gotten all of the wood out. She slipped her left boot on quickly and hobbled into the house where she spit on it again and held a cloth to her toe to stop the bleeding. She sat down at the kitchen table and shuffled through a stack of old mail and recipes to find a blank sheet of paper. Harry wrote a letter to her nephew Matthew to ask him to bring the new baby to see her. She wasn’t sure if he would cause babies that young can’t travel without their mother and Matthews wife didn’t like visiting. Harriett didn’t mention Keith but thought she would be sure to say something if he did come to visit. Matthew didn’t visit because Harriett never found a stamp in her cubbord. Eventually the letter got lost in one of her stacks of papers and Harry forgot about sending it.     

       Keith Dunnings died two weeks later and his older sister laid an Azalea on his coffin during the service. He left his rusty blue Toyota to his well to do son Matthew who brought his wife and baby to Thanksgiving supper that year and was in the church directory the next. Amanda Dunnings never did say anything to Harriett about their marriage but Harry didn’t expect her to. It would be nice to say Amanda forgave Matthew but they never were very close, even after Keith passed. Harriett kept up her flowers for the last years of her life and took up listening to Patsy Cline in the late afternoons.