Morgan's Passing - Anne Tyler [127]
“Don’t answer,” Morgan said.
“What if it’s someone else?”
“It’s not.”
“What if it’s Gina? An emergency?”
“It won’t be. Let it ring.”
“You can’t say that for sure.”
“I’m almost sure.”
At this hour, in this mood, “almost” seemed good enough. She took the chance. She didn’t get up. There was something restful about simply giving in, finally—abdicating, allowing someone else to lead her. The phone rang on and on, first insistent, then resigned, faint and forlorn, rhyming with itself, like the chorus of a song.
1979
1
He was standing in Larrabee’s Drugstore, waiting for his change. He’d bought a pack of Camels, a box of coughdrops, and a Tindell Weekly Gazette. The saleslady rang up his purchases, but then fell into conversation with another customer. It surely was cold, she agreed. It was much too cold to be March. Her cat wouldn’t leave the stove and her dog was having to wear his little red plaid coat. She kept Morgan’s change in her cupped hand, jingling it absently. Morgan stood waiting—an anonymous, bearded, bespectacled man of no interest to her. Finally he gave up and opened out his paper. He liked the Gazette very much, although it didn’t carry Ann Landers. He scanned the personals. I will not be responsible, I will not be responsible …
In the Lost and Found he learned that someone had lost a rubber plant. The things that some people mislaid! The carelessness of their lives! A complete set of Revereware cooking pots had been found in the middle of North Deale Road. A charm bracelet in the high-school parking lot.
Now for the obituaries. Mary Lucas, Long-Time Tindell Resident. Also Pearl Joe Pascal, and Morgan Gower, and …
MORGAN GOWER, HARDWARE STORE MANAGER
Morgan Gower, 53, who maintained a home at the Tindell Acres Trailer Park, died yesterday after a lengthy illness.
Mr. Gower had served as manager of the downtown branch of Cullen Hardware, in Baltimore.
He is survived by …
He raised his head and looked around him. The drugstore was of old, dark wood, its shelves sparsely stocked. In some spots there was only one of an item—one box of Sweet ’N Low packets, its corners dented; one tube of Prell shampoo with a sticky green cap. It was definitely a real place. It smelled of damp cardboard. The saleslady was ancient, her skin so wrinkled that it seemed quilted, and her glasses hung on a chain around her neck.
… is survived by his wife, the former Bonny Jean Cullen; seven daughters, Amy G. Murphy, of Baltimore; Jean G. Hanley, also of Baltimore; Susan Gower, of Charlottesville, Virginia …
“Sir,” the saleslady said, holding out his change.
He closed the newspaper and pocketed the money.
Outside, a cold, damp wind hit him. It was Sunday morning. The streets were empty and the sidewalks seemed wider and whiter than usual. All the other stores were closed—the little dimestore, the grocery store, the barbershop. He walked past them slowly. His pickup was parked in front of the Hollywood Stars Beautician. The red plywood box constructed over its truckbed (MEREDITH PUPPET CO. arching across each side) creaked in the wind. Morgan climbed into the cab. He opened his pack of cigarettes and lit one. Coughing his habitual, hacking cough, he spread out the paper again.
… Carol G. Haines, also of Charlottesville; Elizabeth G. Wing, of Nashville, Tennessee …
He set it down and started the engine. Fool paper; fool backwoods editors. Even they, you’d think, would have the common sense, the decency, to check a thing like that before they printed it. Where were their standards? You call that journalism?
He drove up Main Street, puffing rapidly on his cigarette. At Main and Howell the traffic light was red. He braked, and glanced sideways at the paper.
… Molly G. Abbott, of Buffalo, New York; Kathleen G. Brustein, of Chicago …
Someone behind him honked, and he started off again. He veered from Howell into an alley, a moonscape of bleached, stubbled clay with a few empty beer bottles tossed in the weeds, and from there to the state highway. Up ahead lay the trailer park. A flaking metal sign spelled out