A Place Called Wiregrass by Michael Morris Page A

of her chair. “And here you are all propped up on my love seat. Are you wishing Gerald was here to share that love seat with you?”
    I bolted my feet from under the cushion. “That’s a lie,” I yelled, trying to drown out her laughter. All I could think of was how I sounded like Cher teasing Laurel over some boy she had couple-skated with. “I mean, I was just wondering why he had to…”
    “Oh, me.” She wiped a tear away from her eye. “You’re still a good-looking woman. You’re expected to notice men, don’t you know.”
    I wondered if she knew her compliments got me every time. Whenever she made such a comment, and she did often, I always wanted to run and look in the hallway mirror to see if I could see the same qualities she claimed I had. But I usually just looked down or waved my hand, believing I could shoo away her silliness.
    “To my knowledge, Gerald Peterson is still a single man. Or he was the last time I had my car tuned up.” Miss Claudia jiggled the straw in her cup. “He’s sure had some bumps along the way.”
    Oh, Lord, here it comes, I thought. Prison, crackhead, most likely a womanizer.
    “It’s probably been three years. His wife was killed in a most terrible car wreck out on Highway 431. They tell me she was coming back from prayer meeting when a drunk ran right into her head-on. Naturally the drunk survived.”
    I thought of Bozo and all the nights he went on drunks and how I stayed worried not for his safety, but for the safety of everybody else on the road.
    “After I heard about it at the beauty shop, I took a pot of chicken and rice over. That big giant man just sitting there with his hands on his head. Lord, it liked to tore my heart out.”
    “He got any kids?”
    “There’s a girl. I say girl, I think she’s married now. And a son. Gerald Peterson is a good man, Erma Lee. You like his looks, I suppose?”
    “No, ma’am. I mean, he’s attractive and all.” I felt guilty for talking like this over a poor dead woman’s husband.
    “I don’t want you thinking every man is like that Bozo person. It took me some time after Luther was lost at sea…well, before I could think of another man. Not because I mourned him, don’t you know,” she said and pointed the tip of her straw. “But because I was scared to death I was a magnet for meanness.”
    “How did you get over all that?” I suspected there were more stories of beatings and ugliness. She was like me in that way. We pulled from our memory file and shared the first that came to mind, not necessarily the worst, but the most convenient.
    She shook the empty cup and sat it by the edge of her recliner. “I have to credit the good Lord for healing those mental scars. I leaned on Him mighty heavy and Missoura for healing the physical scars. She was so sweet to me. She’d ever so lightly put the lard on my broken skin. I often think now what a terrible predicament I put Aaron and Missoura in by running to their house after I thought I’d be killed. After all, Aaron worked for Luther, and him being colored was just inviting trouble. But where was I to go? My mama was under a spell of doubting where her next meal would come from, and the sheriff left it all up to Mama. Well, there you go.” She tossed up her arms to emphasize the desperation, then looked down at her painted toenails.
    I always hated times like these, not knowing whether to speak up or let the person catch their thoughts. The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed eight times. If she didn’t speak on the tenth, I would say something.
    “To keep it from looking like he was involved, Aaron paid off Nettie, the lower quarter’s concubine. She let me stay at her place. Naturally Aaron paid an even higher price. Every day searching for oysters, Aaron had to listen to Luther tell him how disgraceful I was to live like the worst kind of trash. Like Luther was supposed to be better, mind you.
    “But Aaron knew how to keep his nose clean by playing