the seat between them. Gurdie rested her hand on the pan and looked out the truck window. She remembered when she would've carried the pan in her lap, just so they could sit closer together. "It was nice so many came to Junior's funeral," she said. Floyd didn't turn his head to answer. "They were all people I knew too." She turned the radio down to hear him better, but he had stopped talking. The pie pan vibrated to the edge of the seat and she pushed it back. "Nice of that red-haired girl to give us the rest of this pie." "It's only one piece left." "Wonder how she knew buttermilk was his favorite?" "Don't be dense." he said. "Maybe they were just friends." She pushed the button on the glove box four times without opening it. They drove another ten minutes in silence, neither one remembering to turn the radio back up. Then Gurdie said, "I need to go." "Why didn't you mention when we passed that Texaco?" "I didn't need to then." "You'll just have to wait." Floyd said. "No place near." "Drive faster." "I'm not getting a ticket just cause you have a bladder no bigger than my thumb." He slowed the truck, raised his elbows to look at the speedometer. |
Funeral Pie -- Brad D. Green
squeezed her thighs together at the burning. When she spotted a tree, she told him to stop the truck. "What for?" "I can't wait." She cranked the door handle and he hit the brakes. "I'll not have my wife pissing a tree like some dog." he said. But she was out and stomping across the field. Tall grass waved in her wake. When he called to her, she hiked her dress to her thighs, slipped out of her underwear, and squatted. He looked at her and shook his head. If she were a younger woman, it would be romantic. He was looking at the pie when she came back. "We're saving that." she said. "I'm hungry." "It's not proper to gorge yourself on your brother's funeral pie." "But she gave it to me." "She gave it to us. Besides, you already had three pieces." She moved the pie closer to her thigh. "You forget, I knew him too. Before you." He started the truck and pulled back onto the highway. "I thought you didn't want to get a ticket." she said. "I want to get home." he said. "We got to look through the box of his private things." "Not tonight." "Sooner the better. Longer you put things off, the harder they are to get done." He glanced at her and remembered what she looked like twenty years ago, before the grey had set in. He remembered the fights he and Junior had over her. Junior had her first, then grew tired of her before Floyd picked her up. Always wasteful with his women, Floyd thought. Running through redheads like stoplights. All through his life, Floyd had been second to his younger brother, always getting his cast-offs. He wondered if he'd be where he was right now, in the rattling truck driving home from a funeral if he'd had first dibs on at least one thing in his life. One thing at least. "Makes a person think," Floyd said. "About how much time he has." "That's not a thing to think on." He looked straight ahead. The dashed yellow lines on the highway converged in the distance. He didn't want to get home, to stop driving. "Gertrude," he said. "What's that?" He rolled the window down. Air boiled into the cab. He pulled at the tie he had already loosened. They drove eight more minutes before he continued: "There's a thing you should be aware of." Then he swerved off the highway and pulled into a grocery store parking lot. "Back in a minute." he said. While he was inside, she took the cover off the pie pan, puckered her lips, and allowed one drop of spit to glob onto his pie. She worked it in with the tip of her finger. Then she put the cover back on and waited for him to return. Her heart beat in the empty cab of the truck. He walked stiffly across the parking lot. She realized how much he resembled the body in the casket she had seen earlier. He got in and handed her a small, brown bag. "We need to get our minds off his passing." Floyd said. She opened the bag and looked inside at the hair dye: brick red. She touched her hair, turned toward the truck window. She had to close her eyes, squeeze them hard shut. Outside of her, the world jolted and moved past, but it wasn't till later that he started the truck. |
| Photo-- "Washington, D.C. Girl sitting alone ..." Bubley, Esther, photographer. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, [reproduction number, LC-USW3-021005-E] |