The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks - Donald Harington [161]
It was a very interesting story, Hank thought, although he didn’t see any particular significance in it, unless it was just about time in general, time passing, time coming and staying awhile and going away forever not never to come back anymore. It was kind of sad, he thought. It was almost like not knowing whether or not you really existed because in order for you to have been born your mother and father had to speak to one another and go to bed together, and as far as he knew his mother and father never had. Eli Willard seemed to be a very wise old man, and Hank decided that when the old man got finished telling his story Hank would ask him for his opinion on whether or not a person could exist if his parents had never spoken to one another or gone to bed together.
It seemed to be getting late. The lightning bugs had all come out and filled the air. The old man’s voice was becoming weak and hoarse, but he seemed to be near the finish. He was at the part where he drove the first horseless carriage into Stay More and Uncle Denton sued him for it and he went away and joined a circus and didn’t come back again for twenty years.
He’s almost done, Hank realized, and then Hank could ask him some questions. He had to strain his ears to hear what the old man was saying in his weak, hoarse voice. And then he could not hear him at all. The old man’s lips were still moving, but Hank couldn’t catch a word. Hank put his ear up close to the old man’s mouth and managed to catch one feeble word that sounded like “peanuts” but then he couldn’t hear anything else. Eli Willard’s lips went on moving. “I caint hear you!” Hank hollered into his ear, but Eli Willard just closed his eyes, and his lips went on moving for a while and then stopped moving, and his chin fell to his chest. Hank gave his shoulder a shake and Eli Willard fell over.
Hank ran up the road to Doc Swain’s place and fetched Doc Swain, who came and inspected Eli Willard and declared that it looked as if he had been dead for many years. Doc Swain took his shoulders and Hank took his legs and they carried him over to E.H. Ingledew’s dentist shop, where E.H., who was a mortician as well as a dentist, carefully embalmed him. The next day the people of Stay More assembled and discussed the situation. They didn’t know where to ship the body, and even if they did they couldn’t afford it. A search of the dead man’s pockets had produced just a tiny amount of cash, not even enough for a box coffin. Hank Ingledew didn’t tell anyone about the gold wristwatch, which rightfully belonged to his future son; he wrapped the watch in flannel and put it into a tin lard pail and buried it in a place that not even I know. Eli Willard was not buried. The Stay More cemetery, after all, was for Stay Morons, and Eli Willard was not a Stay Moron. Willis Ingledew offered in place of a coffin an unused glass showcase in the rear of his general store, and Eli Willard’s well-preserved body was laid to rest in this showcase, and all of the Ingledews, at least, gathered around it and sang:
Farther along we’ll know all about it,
Farther along we’ll understand why;
Cheer up, my brother, live in the sunshine,
We’ll understand it, all by and by.
One day Hank Ingledew laboriously hand-lettered a sign, “WURL’S OLDISS MAN,” and took it into the store and, with Willis’s permission, placed it on top of the showcase. Hank brooded sometimes because Eli Willard had not lived long enough for Hank to ask him the question about whether or not Hank could exist if his parents had never spoken to one another or slept together. Sometimes when Willis was sitting out on the store porch, Hank would slip into the rear of the store and sit down beside the showcase and make believe that he was talking to Eli Willard and asking him questions. In this way, over a period of time, he came to understand the power of make-believe, and this was a consolation to him.
Eli Willard rested in peace in the showcase for several years, and people came from all over Newton County to see him, and while they were in the store they