Cannot Wait to Get to Heaven - Fannie Flagg [89]
“Oh, for God’s sakes, Winston, let’s not get crazy. We have enough real problems without adding all this voodoo-hoodoo out-of-body near-death crap.”
“Well, it may be voodoo hoodoo to you, but I’m telling you, Franklin, the shoe was there!”
Franklin got up and walked over to the door and locked it; then he walked over and poured Winston a drink.
“Here, just calm down and tell me again what she said.”
“She said she saw a brown leather shoe with spikes lying by a chimney on the roof, and that’s exactly where it was.”
“OK. Something’s not adding up, I’m beginning to smell a rat here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Who’s to say that they didn’t plan this entire thing? That the shoe thing is some sort of scam, that she didn’t plant the thing up there herself?”
“How? When? The nurses swore she never left the room.”
“Maybe it was the niece or the niece’s husband, or maybe they are in cahoots with someone who works here and they put it up there. Maybe they hired a small plane and flew over and dropped it on the roof, or a hot-air balloon.”
“Why? For what reason?”
“Money, a book deal, or to get on Oprah.”
“Oh right, Franklin, an eighty-nine-year-old woman deliberately sticks her hand in a wasps’ nest, gets stung seventeen times, falls twenty feet out of a tree, and knocks herself out cold, just to get on Oprah? Besides, the door was locked, and nobody has a key but the janitor.”
“What other logical explanation could there be?”
“None! That’s what I’m telling you.”
“Is it still there?”
“No, I took it.”
“Why?”
“Why? Why? Because I don’t know why, it just scared the hell out of me.”
“Where is it now?”
“I hid it in the bathroom. Do you want to see it?”
“No, I don’t want to see it. But listen, if the Warrens try to pull anything, we’ll just say, be our guest, have a look on the roof if you like. In the meantime, we never saw any shoe, right? If this gets out, we’ll be overrun by every nut job in America camping out in the parking lot.”
Winston nodded. “I guess you’re right, but what should I do with the shoe?”
“Get rid of it. Forget about it.”
“Wouldn’t that be illegal?” asked Sprague.
“Good Lord, man, you’re the lawyer. No, you found a shoe…it’s trash…you got rid of it. End of story.”
After Sprague left the office, Pixton sighed. With all his other problems, now his lawyer had flipped out over some weird coincidental shoe sighting. He had no patience for that sort of thing, all the so-called miracles: statues crying, crop circles, the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, each and every one proven to be hoaxes and scams. It never ceased to amaze him just how gullible people really were. They would pray to a can of green beans if they thought it was going to cure them or get them into heaven. “God,” he thought, “when are people going to crawl out of the dark ages of ignorance?” Franklin had minored in philosophy at Yale, and if he had his way, every school in America would begin teaching kids Diderot, Kant, Nietzsche, Hegel, and Goethe. The current lack of education alarmed him. Most of the young people he dealt with nowadays could hardly string a proper sentence together, much less think for themselves. He was afraid we were going to wind up a nation of knuckle-dragging Neanderthals. Thank goodness Sprague was a Harvard man, and underneath it all, a man of reason.
A Troubled Sleep
8:03 PM
When Norma got home from Kansas City, Macky had a mushroom and chicken casserole on the table waiting for her. Mrs. Reid had brought it over with a note. “Didn’t want it to go to waste, enjoy.” Norma was glad she did not have to cook, and sat down and started eating. Macky wanted to know how Elner was doing, and after they talked for a while, Norma was so exhausted, she went to bed at nine-thirty and fell asleep immediately. But as tired as she was, it was a troubled sleep. Something that Aunt Elner had said that day was bothering her, and she kept running it over and over in her mind. Even in her sleep. At around three AM Norma suddenly sat straight up in bed and announced in a loud voice, “Oh my God. It’s a Johnny