Jim Moore, careful to never act like a sissy or hold a hand shake too long for fear of catching an effeminate nature said, “We are having us one heated argument here.”Ĭarl Wells covered a cough that he feared might be something serious and vowed he’d see the town doctor as soon as he could, “We’re arguing about who gets to go collectīen Knight looked sad, “We’re awfully selfish. His mama said they laughed at him, but he didn’t know that for sure, so he simply laughed when they He liked Emery pretty well, despite the fact the boy was some Bible thumping religion.Įmery said hello and laughed right along with them. He would say that in the last of a lovely spring, as he kicked a can down the main street, he had run across a few of the local men who stood outside the local watering Would tell it all, although he would periodically laugh like a hyena and go blank as he told. If you asked Emery McCollough why everyone feared the night, you’d get the truth about the little spit-and-ya-miss-it town, though you’d shake your head in disbelief. No one said a thing, but when dusk came, doors closed, windows shut, and everyone went Wild bear that had torn them apart, a gas leak, or a maniac on a rampage, but you would be wrong. They are widows, who if you ask how their husbands died, will stop chattering with happy smiles and go cold as a witch’s teat. Andįinally, you find, at these female gatherings, Theresa Gant, with her cheese plates and details from the police scanner she listens to day and night. Cami Norwood likes to bring desert and complain about the disgusting Catholic perverts, and the Godless Jews, and the dreadful Methodists who are one step from demon worship. Leisa Wells brings veggies and dip and a side dish of juicy information on all the patients who go to see the doctor she Sandwiches and racist and homophobic jokes that she tells with glee. There would be Ellen Moore with her delicate finger At one of these gatherings, you’d see Marietta Knight, née Smithers with her too-tight slacks and homemade toll house cookiesĪnd vivid complaints about her simpering, lazy students and their ridiculously stupid parents who she swear are all out to get her. If it is Thursday, a women’s group meets at eight o’clock in the evening to play bridge, drink cups of herbal tea, gossip, and share the town’s collective grief aboutĪnything from the new deputy’s uniforms to possums in the trash. Fathers shut off the lawn mowers and toss beer cans into the garbage before closing the garage doors, and mothers go about, closing the windows of the house for the In Laws Chapel, things begin to happen when the sun kisses the horizon, when crickets begin to chirp, katydids chorus, and screenĭoors snap closed.

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