Patella Henley planted
only one kind of flower in her window boxes, marigolds, her mother, Eustacia
Henley’s, favorite. The boxes got a fresh coat of properly plain tan paint the
last day of March every year. The citizens of Chanceville, Indiana could set their
calendars by this. So many people admired the cheeriness of the gold flowers
with their russet tips that they began planting marigolds in their flower
boxes. And that’s how Chanceville became known as the “Home of Marigolds in
Boxes”. Once in awhile a few people would get a wild hair and decide to branch
out and plant begonias or petunias. Then they would tire of the consistent
marigold planters driving by and shouting, “What’s the matter, marigolds not
good enough for you?” That harassment would drive them right back to planting marigolds
the next year.
Marigolds were the only
flower Patella would ever plant until the day she died. After that she might be
pushing up daisies but that would be out of her control now, wouldn’t it?
On the saddest day of
Patella’s life she was attending her school graduation rehearsal. In the same gymnasium all the students of
Chanceville High had received the news of President Kennedy’s assassination. As
she walked slowly to the stage her mother, Eustacia, was visiting her friend,
Miriam at the Sunny Slopes Mobile Home Estate. They were sitting on the newly
built wooden deck that Miriam’s husband Vern had just finished. It was narrow,
but it ran the length of the trailer. There was just enough room for an
umbrella table and four chairs. The umbrella was a bright yellow and painted to
look a giant lemon, Vern’s private homage to Miriam’s sour disposition. It was
11:00 am, the perfect time for their breakfast
brew, consisting of a modest amount of strong black coffee and an immodest
amount of Irish whiskey. Eustacia
couldn’t wait to tell Miriam what she heard at the Lovely Locks Salon when she
was there on Wednesday for her weekly shampoo set.
“Misty Mae was
shampooing my hair in her usual half-assed way. Why I keep going back to her
I’ll never know.” Eustacia told Miriam. ANYway, Misty Mae was telling me what
she heard about Old Man Jeffers, who farms the land behind the trailer park
here. He’s always taking short cuts through here on his lawnmower. making the
kids duck for cover ‘cause he’s driving too fast. One day he actually…”
“I know he does that. I live here. WHAT about Old Man Jeffers?”
Miriam didn’t want the buildup. She just
wanted Eustacia, who had a way of circling around a story with unnecessary and
mostly uninteresting details before getting to the meat of it.
“Well, that Misty Mae,
you should have seen the state of her hair. I just told her straight out. Misty
Mae Morgan, I says, you need someone to give you a touch up. Your dark roots in
that bird’s nest of a hair do. What a mess! And while you’re at it, could you
do something about those claws of yours? They’re scratching rows in my noggin.
You know how she keeps those nails sharpened to a fine point. And that gaudy
purple nail polish!” Eustacia added a touch more whiskey to her coffee and
taking another sip settled back in her chair as she warmed to the topic of
Misty Mae.
“The way she dresses.
Lord, love a duck, I swear she must spray paint those Capri pants on. If she
ever looked at her behind in the mirr..”
“EUSTACIA. Just tell me
what the hell you heard about Old Man Jeffers.” said Miriam as she poured more
that a drop of whiskey into her coffee cup. It was getting harder and harder
for her to listen to Eustacia’s stories without a nice little buzz going.
“Oh, yeah. Well, Misty
Mae said she heard that Old Man Jeffers had been circling around Sheila from
the Dainty Donut Coffee Shop and the Very Dry Cleaners. You know how flirty
that Sheila Smith is, batting those fake eyelashes and pursing those pouty lips
at all the male customers. Guess she thinks men are better tippers. “
“Get to the point!”
yelled Miriam.
“Okay. Okay. Keep your
panties on,” said Eustacia, taking a long sip of her strong brew.
“Well, Old Lady Jeffers,
you know how jealous she’s always been of her husband paying attention to other
women. I never understood why. It’s not like he’s any prize, always wearing the
same greasy overalls and looking like he only shaves once a month. If you ask
me, Old Lady Jeffers could have done a whole lot better. Although, I heard he
inherited a pile of money from his daddy and that Old Lady Jeffers is just
waiting for her husband’s bum ticker to…”
“Eustacia, “ said
Miriam. “If you don’t tell me the rest of the story in about ten seconds, you
can get the hell off my deck.”
Miriam knew that would
hurry her friend along because she would never let a good story go to waste.
Besides, the sky was turning a funny color of green and that was a tornado sky
if there ever was one. They both might have to skedaddle right quick like.
“Jesus, Miriam. No need
for threats. Seems Old Lady Jeffers had got wind of her old man’s shenanigans
and was threatening to cut off his…”
“WHAT THE?” the two
friends said in chorus.
Just then a great
screeching of wheels could be heard around the corner. Miriam and Eustacia
looked up to see Old Man Jeffers running ahead of Old Lady Jeffers who was on
the riding lawnmower. He was huffing and puffing when he ran up on the deck
just as his wife caught up with him. She ran the mower halfway up the ramp that
Vern had so carefully stained and sealed. The blades were spinning and
shredding the heck out of his perfect boards. Miriam and Eustacia jumped up at
the same time, spilling coffee all over them selves.
Suddenly, a funnel cloud
dipped down and sucked Old Lady Jeffers, the lawnmower, Miriam, Eustacia, and
the perky yellow umbrella into the eye of the tornado. Vern who had been
watching The Price is Right, came out to see what all the commotion was
about and bumped into Old Man Jeffers. They both stood there looking at the
chewed up deck and, in unison, scratched their heads and uttered a low, “Well,
I’ll be.”
