In Memory of Junior by Edgerton Clyde

Author:Edgerton, Clyde
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 1992-08-02T16:00:00+00:00

Part Three

You’re History Longer Than You’re Fact

7

Gloria

Sunday mornings I don’t come in until ten. Relieve the teenager. Last Sunday morning, Mrs. Fuller drove up same time I did. She was on the way to church, stopping by to check on Miss Laura. Time we got in the door, we could hear Florida saying “Nut ’N Honey” over and over. I liked him better with his mouth shet. The teenager was out the door like a cat. She always that way.

While I put up my things, Mrs. Fuller, with her handful of Kleenex, kind of dawdled into Miss Laura’s room, where she stay about fifteen seconds, then she come shuffling out like a trotting mule. “Lord” she say. “Lord almighty,” she shout, “she’s dead, she’s dead! Lord gosh almighty.”

It had happened. I stopped at the phone, picked up the receiver, and pushed 911. “We got a mergency,” I said. “Somebody passed. Turner Road, first driveway on the right past the Antique Mart.”

They want to know how long she been dead and who I was.

I said I didn’t know, and that I was the practical nurse.

That teenager. Marsha What-ever. I knew it. She supposed to check in on both of them at bedtime, in the night, and next morning. I bet she ain’t done none of that.

Well, finally. This look like it mean them boys was going to get the place, when all this time it been looking like it gone be just the opposite.

I was already checking the wall list for Faye’s number.

“Miss Faye, it look like your mama have passed,” I said.

She say, “What?”

“Passed away.”

“Is this Gloria?”

“Yes’um.”

“She’s what, Gloria?”

“Dead. She just died.”

“Oh no.”

“Yes ma’am, a few minutes ago. That’s what Mrs. Fuller say. I’m real sorry.”

“Was Mrs. Fuller with her?”

“No ma’am. She was in there by herself. We called mergency and they’re sending a amulance.”

“Does Mr. Bales know yet?”

“No’um, we ain’t tole him but I imagine he heard the racket.”

Then I called Faison and Tate but neither one of them home. I was stalling, hoping Miss Wilma had gone in to tell Mr. Glenn. Lord have mercy, I hated to do that.

When I hung up, I looked toward Mr. Glenn’s room. Mrs. Fuller stood there in the door with her back brace up against the doorjamb. She start sliding down to the floor, real slow. A tissue drop from her hand, then another one. Time I got to her she was sitting in the floor, with her head tilted back. She was fully fainted, passed out. Gone.

Mr. Glenn, see, he was dead too.

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