Recapitulation: The people you meet in line. Barry, while waiting to pay his final respects to Gertrude Wilborough, and have her pay his final notice bill, strikes up a conversation with Hardy Wilborough, a disenchanted relative of the elder matron Wilborough. He has also learned that not a single soul in the hall, perhaps not even the minister, is there for any reason other than base avarice.
“So, what was she like?” Barry scratched his chest, trying further to engage Hardy. Open-ended, vague questions that he couldn’t answer himself. Sympathetic tones, laced with that underlying notion that it all came down to the pursuit of the almighty dollar here.
“Senile. Off. I’m sure she wasn’t always like that. She might have been playing with all of us. Sometimes, she was the sweetest woman.” Hardy’s eyes looked through Barry. Scared that somehow he’d become transparent in some fashion, he wiped his mouth.
“And the other times?”
Hardy started frowning. “I remember once, must’ve been eight or so. That was the summer I broke my leg. Never ridden a bike since, not even an exercise bike. We visited Great-Aunt Gertie that summer. This was when she still lived in
“She always got up first, around five in the morning, and she’d go into the kitchen, clatter around, knocking around pots and pans. I slept downstairs, and I couldn’t ever get any sleep. Don’t know why I didn’t sleep upstairs, it must’ve been the cast, that damn cast. She’d wake me up, and I’d go to the kitchen, and she’d make me some oatmeal.”
“That’s sweet.”
“I hate oatmeal.”
“Oh.” Embarrassed, Barry took a step backward when Hardy pointed. Closer now than ever before.
“She always made it lukewarm, because that was how she liked it. And she always included prunes because she needed them in her diet. I didn’t need the extra flow-through, but I always got it. Cold prune oatmeal at five in the morning. Sitting in darkness, because she didn’t want to waste the money when the sun would come up soon enough. That was why she clattered, it was all in the dark, and her night vision, well.
“It was Thursday I guess, after a few days of eating that cold mush in the dark. It slithered down your throat like a chopped up snake. All those chunks, that mush, that goo. She wouldn’t let me go without breakfast, but she also wouldn’t stop making noise. I tried lying there on the couch, but she just kept throwing and tossing the pots. I had to go into the kitchen and tell her to shut up, crutched in there, she ushered me to the dining room table, slopped a bowlful in front of me, took her seat.
“I had enough of it. I just sat there in the dark, my arms folded. She asked me, ‘Aren’t you going to eat your oatmeal dear?’ I told her it was horrible. She told me that if I wanted to grow big and tall I needed to eat my oatmeal. I did what any kid would’ve done in that situation.”
“You ate it?”
“I threw it at her.”
“Ah.”
Hardy’s hands were grasped together, as if he were performing isometric exercises. Through the fabric of his suit, Barry could watch the muscles writhe like mice.
“It was the damn crutch. Before I could say anything, she caught me. She was real strong, real strong. I think it was that summer I got interested in weight lifting. Wasn’t ever going to let anyone grab me like that again. She clamped her hand over my mouth, grabbed me by the arm and twisted. ‘Big boys need their oatmeal,’ she said.
“Then she made me lick it off of her.”
“Excuse me?”
“Every last prune.”
“Why didn’t you scream?”
“She told me she’d break my arm. She would have. Grabbed me by the wrists, dangled me off the ground, and I had to lick it off her face and her nightgown.” Hardy licked his lips. “Her skin was like dried prunes, and she was cold. Too cold.”
Barry glanced at the open casket, wondering what that desiccated flesh must have felt like to an eight year old.
“I had to make myself vomit in the bathroom. My finger wouldn’t stay so I used a toothbrush. Then I realized it was hers and had to vomit again. I told my parents, and they joked it off. I respect now what they were doing. They wanted to ensure my future, and they came close, if it wasn’t for her giving everything to everyone.”
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