Excerpt: Life in GooseSpring

It was her inexplicable desire to laugh that had Tangie most concerned. What would people think? A forty-two year old doesn’t laugh at funerals. Along with the bubbles of giggles that rose like indigestion came cold perspiration under her arms, on the back of her neck and between her legs where the too small beige pantyhose stretched between her thighs like some kind of heat hammock.
She blew her nose one more time before throwing the much used tissue into the toilet. The flush of the commode echoed in the empty bathroom. Yanking at her pantyhose, she duckwalked to the sink, smoothing her skirt down as she walked. Tangie had the small room to herself since they’d done their best to make it look like a bathroom in someone’s home. No stalls here at Long’s funeral home. There were even cloth hand towels in a soft shade of yellow next to the sink. .
The soap smelled like roses. Tangie took a deep breath and unlocked the door. When she opened it everyone turned to look at her. Her parents eyes jumped from the conversations they were having to her face. They were assessing if she was having a melt-down or could proceed to hold down her assigned spot by the coffin.
She nodded at them, giving them permission to return to the memory or condolence sharing In the small room to her right was where her grandfather lay in his coffin. Tangie walked up and looked down at him again. She was trying to find some semblance of the man she had known. His face was caked with make-up about the color of her pantyhose. She’d never seen him so done-up before. His mustache and eyebrows were neatly trimmed. The make-up or some dye they’d used, she wasn’t sure which, had taken most of the gray out of them. Most of all he was still, so still.
“How you holdin’ up, chicky?” Charlotte said. Tangie turned away from the body and tried to force a smile but it came out more like a grimace.
“Y’know,” she shrugged. “These pantyhose are killing me.” Charlotte glanced down and widened her eyes.
“Decided to go with the George Hamilton skin color did we?”
“It was all they had at Ike’s.” Tangie said. She thought about her multiple trips to the bathroom to pull them up and the laughter threatened again. Maybe it was healthy, Tangie thought. A good healing thing, but she doubted it.
“You bought pantyhose at the drugstore? I could have let you borrow some.”
“I seriously doubt that.” Tangie was about six inches taller than her friend and much leaner. Charlotte didn’t look much different to her than she had when they became best friends at twelve. That was the age they decided they were going to hate Ginny Murphy, the town beauty queen, for the rest of their lives while simultaneously doing their hair, nails, and make-up in every way to emulate her. There was nothing like a common goal to draw friends together.
“Did you see Ginny?” Charlotte asked. Tangie looked around the room but didn’t see the woman that matched her in height but with many more womanly curves.
“I didn’t even know she was here.”
“Have you forgotten this is GooseSpring? Nobody misses a funeral.”
At that point an elderly man came to stand beside the coffin. Charlotte stepped behind her. She knew her funeral manners. The man stood and put both hands on the edge of the coffin looking in at her grandfather. A large blue handkerchief was clutched in his left hand. His other hand was shaky as he put it on Tanige’s shoulder. It felt heavy to her, as if she had been in danger of floating away before and hadn’t realized it until his hand held her down.
“You probably don’t remember me,” he said. Tangie smiled at him. This had been a parade of people who had known her when she was a little girl, none of whom she remembered. She wished he’d take his hand off her shoulder. Although worse were the people who insisted on hugging her. She didn’t fight it knowing it was more for their comfort than for hers but she was tired of having people she didn’t know touch her.
“It’s been a long time,” she said while patting the hand on her shoulder. “This is my friend Charlotte.” Her eyes pulled Charlotte back to her side.
Charlotte nodded at him. “Mr. Bales.”
“I’m Ephraim Bales,” he said to Tangie. “Your grandfather saved my life. He was a great man.” His blue eyes were swimmy with moisture.
‘We all loved him.” Mr. Bales continued to stand there.
With a jolt she realized when someone makes a statement like that they want to tell you a story. Her skills were really slipping.
“How?” she asked.
“It was during the depression. You’re family owned most everything around here.” Tangie nodded. It was part of her history but most of it had been sold before she had any real memories. ‘It was just me and my Mom and I was the one who went out and worked but it wasn’t enough. Nobody had enough.”
“It was a hard time,” Tangie said and Charlotte nodded.
“One morning when I went outside somebody had left a bag of cornmeal and some mild on our front porch. They had to have come real early before the roosters pulled me out of bed. It was like God had sent us some food. Cornbread and milk was what we had for dinner every night.”
“How’d you find out it was grandpa?” Tangie asked. The story didn’t surprise her. While her grandfather was known for hoarding his pennies he also had a heart for people in need. Some people even thought she’d gotten that from him.
“Well I was still a kid and didn’t really believe it was Angels so I waited up one night, almost all night and I saw him sneak in and sneak out. When I went around to that car of theirs, I tell you what, he had at least twelve more bags of meal with him too.”
“Did he see you?”
“He did but he didn’t say a word. He put his finger to his lips, climbed in his car and drove off. I never told anyone before but if it weren’t for that food. I think we would’ve died.” His eyes got full again and he blew his nose powerfully into the handkerchief. When he looked up at her again there was a large disgusting mucussy bugger lodged on the outside of his nose. Tangie felt the laughter rising again and tried to squelch it.
She met Charlotte’s eyes but that was a bad move, they’d both seen it. As their eyes met, Tangie saw Charlotte struggling to overcome her urge to break out too. The laughter welled threatening to overcome her. She began to sweat again, not again, this happened already earlier. Tangie turned the laugh into a cough as best she could but rushed out of the room. She kept her teeth clenched against the inside of her jaw but the urge to laugh was overwhelming her, to open her mouth and bray. She hoped people would think she was overcome with grief.
Outside the laughter demon died as quickly as it had come. She wondered if she was losing her mind, hysterical. She leaned against one of the four white columns in front of the funeral home and looked up at the stars. That was one nice thing about GooseSpring, she could see the stars from here.
A large one pulsed at her and she wondered if it was light from a dying planet. Sometimes she felt like she was the one who was dying. Not physically like her grandfather inside but a slow painless death of her spirit, her sense of self.
A deep voice came from behind her. “So I hear you’re the big headshrinker now.”
“Social Worker,” she corrected. Tangie always felt it was important to distinguish her discipline. “Thanks for coming, Tug.” She was surprised to see him and even more surprised when he pulled her into an embrace. They’d never been that close in high school. His back was well muscled and still strong. She patted it and pulled away.
“Tug Gregory, how are you?” She put her hand over her mouth as if trying to pull her words back.
“Do they still call you Tug?”
“I think they’ll always call me Tug. When I die, that placard out there will say it is the funeral of David Gregory and everyone will say what the hell happened to Tug and never even know it’s me.”
“Expecting a big turnout for your funeral huh?” He ignored that dig at his high school popularity.
“So in your job, do you take kids out of their homes and stuff?” Tug asked. He pushed his blond hair out of his face. It still parted right in the middle with the sides waving down on either side of his forehead, not exactly a modern do but it still worked with his handsome face. He didn’t look much different from when he’d been the high school quarterback. She and Charlotte had secret crushes on him. Maybe maintaining the haircut was part of still living in the same town in which he was the high school football hero. So many people were stuck in this town.
“No, I don’t take kids out of their homes. I do psychotherapy. I’m licensed.”
“So I was right, a headshrinker.”
“I guess.” They were quiet for a moment and Tangie wished he would leave. It was awkward. She didn’t feel like making someone else comfortable right now. She was off the clock.
“I liked your grandfather,” he said which surprised her.
“I didn’t even know you knew him.” She knew he wasn’t old enough to have had food brought to him during the depression.
“He was a good guy, taught me to fish.” Tangie had known Tug’s dad had left when he was a kid. In a town the size of GooseSpring not much was a secret. “We used to go out in that tin boat of his and perch on the dam. He’d put his foot out of the boat and just set us there while I threw my line over into the water.” Tug made a casting motion with his arms.
Tangie smiled, “That’s how he taught me too. Those poor fish never knew what hit them at the bottom of the dam.”
Tug smiled back and nodded, “They were easy pickins.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know what you’re gonna do with the place?”
Tangie wasn’t sure what to say. She knew what she was going to do but hadn’t told anyone yet. “What do you think I ought to do?” It was more a question to stall answering than anything else.
“’What does your husband think?” he asked. A new shard of grief stabbed her in the gut with the question. If she stayed here, there would be a lot of questions to answer that she wasn’t sure she was ready for.
“This is my decision,” she said it with more force than intended which made Tug raise his eyebrows.
“Whoa, no point going all feminist on me.” He held up his hands like he was warding her off.
“Yeah, I’m a real bra burner.” Tangie almost smiled at the mental picture of whipping off her bra and setting it aflame. Especially since it didn’t really hold all that much up anymore. She couldn’t tell him she wasn’t going back to her husband, not before she told her parents and Charlotte anyway. “It’s complicated,” was what she ended up saying.
He nodded. “I can respect that.” The door opened behind them and Ginny Murphy swept out. Sweeping was the only kind of motion Ginny knew how to execute when moving from one place to the next. Her hair was up in a french braid and she wore a navy suit. She’d always said that black washed her out.
“Are you ready, Tug?” She held out her hand toward him barely passing a glance over Tangie. He nodded and took her elbow.
“See you later, Tangie,” he said as they walked off. Ginny hadn’t even given her condolences about her grandfather. Tangie had an urge to throw something at the back of her head, the sand filled concrete ash tray might be a nice choice. Instead she took a breath and went back inside. She had some talking to do.