Burying Shannon O'Day (Short Story)

Chapter One

The Meeting

"All right," says Wilde Otis Mather. "Then I will be for his funeral, and his tombstone, because nobody else will be"

"Ladies and gentlemen," said the lawyer, Miles C. Hoffman, and Young, Anna Belle Henry's first stand up and say and strictly Near tears, "Can you not see all, Mr. Shannon O'Day was a part of our lives, we all need to make it to a large tombstone, which is not only up to Otis, Otis, there is rich and beautiful and friendly, and was a close friend to Shannon.

"I've thought that too," said Poggi Ingway, a dear friend who had a foundry with him, and Maribel Adams, married to Shannon for a season , and lost him, Annabelle, and now was married to Earnest French, with their new name Maribel French, had traveled on the way from San Francisco to Minnesota to Shannon's funeral, "I feel," she said, "He belongs to us all , let a mausoleum, and make it look like a corn field, because he likes to drink in these areas, the whole damn time. "(and she laughed.)

" He is a war veteran, "said Judge Finley, now in his eighties," no need for this meeting to see who is to bury the drunk, let's just a funeral and a subsequent and say our goodbyes, the army is a wooden coffin, and one hundred dollars, I hear. "

, said the lawyer," He fought with the French, not the U.S. military, we have contact with them, what their rules are too this issue of the payment. "

" Hum ... mmm, "said the judge.

" Wait, wait, "said Gus' wife Mabel," Youall came to the funeral of my husband, and there was no excitement about introducing people fer his gravestone, so we should jest so far a collection Shannon FER see what we can all get. "

Old Josh, Zam Zam and Jake from" Dickey's Diner "was also on hand, along with JR ride from the bank, the owner, he knew better than Gus Shannon, and had an eye for Mabel, always had an eye for Mabel, went to high school with her, she believed then and now. I suppose, and I'm sure they assumed it was a chance for both to return, they were from another .

"But it is not" every offense if Otis will order the bulk of revenues, because it contains a rich-(and he wanted to say nigger, but the lawyer, his tongue and said) black gentleman. "

Since each deal with all others, such as large bass fish with bulging eyes, nobody paid any attention to non-like for everyone to Annabelle said: "Well, damn, you talk!"

"And what the hell you want from each one of us, someone-please take this!" Said Judge Finley.

The lawyer Miles sit calmly and quietly, with his face paper white and stiff, and it seemed to Annabelle, he hadn 't learned a lot, how to talk and fight, frightened mouse as a hermit.

"I was more Gus' Shannon's friend, "said the judge, in a whisper, waiting for someone who is an article about the amount of necessary, but it was obvious that nobody knew what they needed and wanted, and Shannon, the body needs to be buried and that was what they were, just that a Passel of amateurs who did not know how to use a hearing, or questions in a professional manner, aimed at trying to just bury someone somehow, more than now, then.

Poggi was somewhere in the group, and stood up and looked at the others, "Gertrude, Gertrude is here? "(one of his five women), and she was there, the arch of the doorway to the kitchen from a hallway, with her daughter, Cantina.

" Yes, Poggi, I'm here, why? "She asked.

" I guess we have, that your daughter signature on everything, it is the closest thing, Shannon had any law against him. And I think you have heard, as we have here as one of the recommendations, so you can maybe a few? "

" Yes: all right, that everyone here at Gus' farm tomorrow and make money, what they can, and my daughter and I will see how much it cost to convert it into ash, and buy it in an urn, and if you want to have it all cornfields, I have the urn designer, which means they quickly finish them. "Said Judge

Finley," We hold the meeting here in Mabel's Farm tomorrow then, Gus wants to and I hear, Sally-Ann and Margaret Rose will be in town tomorrow, Shannon other women, so maybe the piggy bank have more money in it for his funeral. Or his entourage or the cornfields Gertrude was talking about. "

Then it all up to leave, some laughing and talking and having fun, back and forth, Annabelle enjoying Otis' society; Judge Finley look at Otis, as if he was the Master Chief Director of the Minnesota FAQ: Old Judge Otis Finley had always treated as if he were a stranger, nor the payment and not the other, standing by him, just stared at Annabelle and Otis, to a millionaire in the meat-market companies, between Minnesota and Alabama, in the last twenty years or so with the $ 500 dollar Shannon was from a racehorse in the 1940s. And JR Ritt, with Mabel, as if he new the old flame from his high school days.

"Now are you satisfied?" said Gertrude, to Poggi. As if to say, now leave me alone. She was in the archway of the door do not want to be seen who she was - was not protected by a moat and up to the meeting, enjoy the fact they had to coordinating her ex-husband's funeral, she was in Chicago, the whole time, just doing normal business, until someone said Shannon, the lights went out, she was just setting in a small apartment, how can a woman say that to their soul to their company. It was really just time for them to see their daughter, and there is a grieving period for her, she wanted to be by her. you, himself, had already done all the grieving they do, that man over.

Chapter Two

Certificate Gertrude

To be honest, and down right honest, Gertrude, wanted to return to Chicago that night, they would not attend the meeting tomorrow, and she said that the Cantina, in so many words, and it didn 't seem Cantina their required anyway.

She was capable, but that it was not, she was weak, as if their bones and meat to be fragile, and their eyes seemed to awake, and her spirit seemed as though she could no longer dream, she told her daughter, and that she was relearning these things, since she left her father (and her ex-husband),

"your father about this, it is always a laugh, and we drank ourselves stupid and sick, and I drank with him to know I would never be woman enough for him, but he was a man or drunk enough to do me harm reduction me more mental than physical, which he never had a hand on me, just enough man to do it even if mentally, and, I might add wants, or maybe I did not know him, thank God, I have received from him. Ay, I thank God for that I am the peace in Chicago, maybe it's too late, I still have ensnared some fear, and I thought I could be brave for you. "

" There, mother, it's okay, I know you were so courageous and brave now, "said Cantina.

"In the morning, I have your father, if I am at home, the first thing I did was to ensure the lighting and heating, the large space heater in the living room, it was cold. Propped I closed the door to open and I picked up the bank. The second thing I did was to make money from our account, then from the city, before Her father called the police on me, looking after me, I was just running and wanted him to Leave Me Alone, I was dying of drinking, and he would never understand.

"I ran up the stairs my clothes, and I turned off the space heater before I left, and I guess, maybe your father thought it could be an intruder, but I tried to tidy to leave. I jumped here and there to do this and this, then I'm away from my home and husband, I had learned the hard way that he had the right to be where he was, and to change what I had to introduce myself and my environment, I had here, we would have fought over this and that, to flee, to run successfully. With your father, I would still have some less Baser and others who are vulnerable for him to remain silent, his drinking, and his partner to drink.

"To what? For what? What did I wish what I hope for them was uncanny at first, but what I really wanted was simply my own identity. I found the privacy to sleep and read and not in a state of despair. "

" I understand, Mother, "said Cantina" you have, because you were not satisfied so easily, and their order. "

"Shannon would not really make sense, because I can not hurt him now," said Gertrude, "I can not hurt him, not only me, no matter what someone has done, they could not harm him. The fact that he really only as soon drink and sleep and die in the maize fields, as he was and for what reason God I do not know, maybe just to show he can be violated. All right, you do not "agree to what you want Now that I am here to do? "

" I want you to stay with me until he is buried, "said Cantina.

" If you're not with your father to drink, after a while he is a nuisance, all the drunks are a nuisance, if you are sober, and they are drunk. I will not miss him, least of his drinking, maybe some of the laughs in the cornfields, because we are both in the beginning, cuckolding them. "

" mother the door, "she said." We already have a long day, its getting late, and go to bed. "

" I hope Cantina, you have nothing to what I know about your father? "Gertrude expressed.

" Mother Oh no of course not, but I can value it as highly as I value you and your coming here, that I value. Good night! "

Chapter Three

Cantina's Dilemma

Gertrude told her daughter Cantina, in a smooth manner even angry, the next morning as they prepared for the second session, "You are like your father, you know, is a dreamer and poet, women are usually only swayed by poets long, a short time, perhaps, they prefer reality, facts and truth, yes, they can be in-between, as long as they can iron out the other two, but you see your father as a hero, the facts that which is about forty years old, there is no reality, everything is squeezed like a wet rag, but you will not even believe me, he was drunk, nothing more, then as now, or just before he-I mean. "

" is no longer say, throat, I will only hate you at the end of both, especially you, because you started it. " Then Cantina hesitated, trying to calm her back, "I do not believe you," she said, wept, and thought.

"Well," said Gertrude, "there's nothing I can say."

Gertrude gave her a cigarette in his hand, motionless, as it burned down to the fingers, "bury him, with him to do."

'You see, the mother is what I am? "

"Our marriage was a fact my dear, the rest of him was that poetic romance, I was stupid enough to hide the fact that only a fool is a fool, but in the bitter end, the fool, a fool awoke. "

" Good-bye! " She said sharply, adding: "They have to bury him alone or at least not with me!"

"All right," said her mother Cantina, "I thank you for coming anyway."

∙

Cantina nothing, know everything about the women in most cases, the parts anyway, Gertrude was speaking, the things like romantic love, she only knew parental love, or mortality (death), she was too young to think of such things to them on a table and call them facts of life, they do not care about the reality of her mother, because the truth or not truth, what the real truth, that between them two, it was her life, not in a particularly her's perhaps they would not have it, quite so, but they knew little about such things, but she knew she had time to learn them in time, they only knew what they knew and felt that they loved that the man died, her father, and it was love, it was for him to take and to give her, and she was, and he has, and he and she took, and it was not always receive. If it was, it was a trade, not necessarily. And that is what they knew and felt this was their reality.

And they knew that this second meeting, it means only know that And she knew by the time all was in session, all ex-women, and the bankers, Ritt, and Poggi, and Otis, the father of her body, oh yes, the dead are ugly and smell bad, no semblance of who they really were. This was the second meeting of the devil ambush to get from her what her mother does not, it tries, the last reflex of devotion, and make it as sour milk

"All right," she said, "just me paw How would you like to be buried "and they fell to their knees, their hands over their eyes, when they opened, in his shoe, she found an envelope, opened it, and in the envelope was a letter that his will as he will be buried wanted.

Then afternoon that they are to follow the instructions. It was too simple, but the simplicity was welcomed as a gift, a slider, a stressors, from her.

In the evening, while all waited in the yard, at Gus' farm, wine cellar, emerged all know she had the instructions from Shannon are now written in plain English for her daughter to follow all of what she was going to do, she said: "Okay paw, it is your idea to go home, it is you who insist that it is in this way ..." them in their arms in two gallons ancient moonshine jug, one that Shannon for drinking moonshine and wine and corn whiskey in and out of which it roughly in the 1880s through 1910, or so.

Next, she began to walk the line the high cornstalks line one after the other, one after another, slowly and pleased that Krug was within his ashes, and they started emptying them and pours them out, as if they were fertilizing the ground with them, per his instructions, and they whispered on the way: "I hope your pleased Paw ... I hope your pleased, I am, I am, I really, really not."

No: 412; Written 6-10 & 11, 2009

 

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