It was mid-morning on the second Saturday in July when a black funeral car slowly rolled down the dirt road, with the driver and the attendant looking left and right and, then, left and right again. The lettering on the side window read, King's Funeral Home. The car stopped in front of a line of mailboxes at the end of the road, raising a cloud of red dust. The men inside the car studied the names on the mailboxes. The attendant got out of the car; a half-dozen people were looking at him. He was dressed in a heavy, woollen black suit, brimmed black hat, and his shiny black shoes were collecting road dust. Heads were popping out from a couple of doorways to take in the sight. The fat man in the black suit asked nobody in particular, "Which house belongs to Mr. Morgan?", and he pointed to the third mailbox, MORGAN, as if that might help us.
Mr. and Mrs. Morgan lived in a little, sunken house which was connected by a footpath to the line of mailboxes. Mr. drove a public bus, and Mrs. worked in a bar in the downtown. I pointed to the brown house at the end of the path. "Over there."
The driver got out of the car, he had on the same black suit as the first man, same brimmed black hat, shoes collecting dust. The two beefy fellows began to push and pull a narrow bed on wheels over to the Morgan's door. I had never seen one before, but I knew that this bed on wheels was used to collect dead bodies. After a few knocks on the door, Mrs. Morgan slipped through the opened door and closed it after herself. The men removed their hats and said a few words to her. Mrs. Morgan had a "nervous condition," which caused her to be excitable. We heard her raise her voice. Mrs. Morgan was pointing her finger at the men, and she took a swing at one of them. The black suited fellows started to back away from Mrs. Morgan, who was now waving her arms wildly and cursing, and the men pulled their bed on wheels as fast as they might while in retreat.
A helpful fellow named Charlie went over to Mrs. Morgan to find out if she needed any help, and that is how he got the story: Some "son-of-a-bitch" had called King's Funeral Home and asked them to pick-up the remains of Mrs. Morgan. She did not appreciate this one bit, particularly the "remains" part because she thought it referred to her big behind, which she had heard about more than a few times growing-up. You couldn't keep that kind of thing quiet while growing-up.
By this time her nervous condition had kicked-in, and she was in a full rant. Spit had dried along the corners of her mouth, and she was throwing dirty-looks at the spot vacated by the funeral car, which is why she was the first to see Taylor's Moving Van rolling down the dirt road, heading towards the mail boxes. People looked where she was looking, and a few breathed the words, "Oh, no."
Taylor and two of his sons got out and looked at the names on the mailboxes. People made a little room between Mrs. Morgan and the Taylors. Taylor asked, "Which is the Morgan's House?" All eyes turned to Mrs. Morgan, who was silenced..., for a moment. Then she let out a string of curses, some of which had never before been heard by the women and children. Some of the mothers covered their children's ears, and some mothers told Mrs. Morgan to shut her mouth. Then the squawking got really loud, like chickens when they are about to lay their eggs--cluck-cluck-CLUCK-CLUCK-CLUCK!
I watched a truck as big as the moving van as it pulled in behind Taylor's. Two men dragged a stove and refrigerator onto the tail-gate before asking the directions to the Morgan's house. Just then, you could hear the WA-WA-WAs from the police cars' sirens, and those cars were throwing dust to the sky as they raced down the road. It had been reported to the police that Mrs. Morgan had shot off a pistol at a crowd of people. The police were not put-off by her cursing and slapping. After awhile they wrestled her into the back seat of one of the police cars. That, finally, brought Mr. Morgan out of the house, he hoped to make things better. The first thing he did was to try to pull Mrs. Morgan out of the police car. Things did not get any better until the police wrestled him into the back seat of the second police car. Then both police cars sped away.
The story was told and retold and improved and degraded for the rest of the day. For all the telling, nobody ever got closer to figuring out who was behind it all.
It was summertime, so we didn't go to bed until almost nine. The faeries arrived on my porch a short while later, and they were in rare form, rolling all over the place, each one talking louder than the next, like celebrators at a bartenders' picnic; those from the Morgan House were the jolliest and loudest of all, which should tell you something.
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