Cannot Wait to Get to Heaven - Fannie Flagg [82]
He nodded. “That’s good.”
After a while she looked over and said, “Did I mention that she said she walked through a button?”
“No. What kind of button?” he asked.
“A big mother-of-pearl button with a door in it.”
Macky roared with laughter.
“Well, you can laugh all you want, Macky, but thank heavens I got to Mr. Pixton in time about the deposition. They could have carted her off and we would never have seen her again!”
“Norma, if anybody gets carted off, it will be you for believing such a thing.”
Norma looked at him with alarm. “I’m not saying I believe it, Macky, I said she believes it, and you’re right, I’m so tired I don’t know what I’m thinking…. I swear, if one more thing happens—”
There was a knock on the door. “Who in the world is that?” she said. When Norma opened the door, Ruby Robinson stood there with a gun in her hand and announced, “I tried to call, but your line was busy. I found this in the bottom of Elner’s dirty-clothes basket and I didn’t know if you’d want me to put it back or not.”
Norma thought about fainting again but was just too tired.
“Oh, come on in, Ruby,” she said. “Macky will have to deal with this. I’ve got to go lie down before I fall down.”
When Macky came into the bedroom a little while later, Norma was lying flat on the bed with a cold rag on her head.
“What fresh hell now?” she moaned.
“Oh, it’s nothing, Norma. Ruby found it in Elner’s dirty-clothes basket and got all freaked out, that’s all.”
“Just tell me that was not a real gun. If it is, don’t even tell me. I can’t handle it.”
“No, it’s not a real gun,” said Macky, unbuttoning his shirt. “It’s just a little starter pistol, like they use at the stock car races. It probably belongs to Luther Griggs. I’m sure she was just keeping it for him. Just go on to sleep.”
“I don’t care if it’s fake or not, it obviously scared poor Ruby to death! Tell Luther to quit leaving stuff like that at her house; first that truck, and now a gun. She could have hurt herself with that thing.”
“No, she couldn’t. It only shoots blanks.”
“I don’t care what it shoots, it has no business being in her dirty-clothes basket. I swear, if it’s not one thing it’s another, you have to watch her twenty-four hours a day.”
After Norma had gone to sleep, Macky lay there wideawake. He had lied to Norma. The gun was not a fake, or a starter pistol. Ruby knew it, and he knew it, and he wondered what the hell Elner was doing with a loaded .38 in her dirty-clothes basket? After a while he decided that the only possible explanation was Luther Griggs, and what in the hell was he thinking leaving something that dangerous at her house? He knew thinking was not one of Luther’s strong points, and he liked Luther, but nevertheless, he was going to kick his butt from here to Wyoming and back. Macky wished that Ruby had not brought it over, because Norma was looking for any excuse to try to get Elner into that damned assisted living place, and Elner was not helping matters. First falling out of a tree, and now the gun. Tomorrow he would get up early and ride over and throw the thing in the river and get rid of it. He was not worried that Luther had shot or robbed anybody with it. Luther was too stupid to do anything and not get caught; when he had broken into his father’s trailer, he had left a note saying that he was the one who had done it.
Another New Day
4:00 AM
Norma woke up very early, and Macky was snoring. She pushed him over onto his side and tried to go back to sleep, but it was no use. No matter how tired she was, once she was awake, she could never get back to sleep. As she lay there, she began to have anxious thoughts about what Aunt Elner had told her about seeing her mother and all the rest. True, it had obviously been some kind of a dream—walking around in the sky and going through a giant button, you would have to be an idiot to think otherwise—but still, there were certainly a lot of strange and unusual things