When I Met Crazy in the Morning: Mae’s Tale
A Short Story based on characters from
Josephine: Red Dirt and Whiskey
By Melinda McGuire
Copyright 2011
Based on the characters in the novel Josephine: Red Dirt and Whiskey
by
Melinda McGuire
When I Met Crazy in the Morning: Mae’s Tale
by Melinda McGuire
Copyright 2011 Melinda McGuire
Contact Melinda McGuire at
[email protected] Mae stepped around the cow patties. Even though it was early in the morning, it was hot. Summer time meant that it never really cooled down. At seventeen, Mae had walked through this pasture hundreds of times. Going barefoot wasn’t much of a challenge since the grass was mostly dead, and the sun was already bright, so she could see clearly where she was going.
And where she was going was straight to Miss Josephine’s car.
Mae thought that sometimes when you see things that aren’t supposed to be there, it takes you a minute to realize that something is wrong and out of place.
Seeing Miss Josephine’s car parked in their cow pasture with the downed barb wire fence behind it was a bit of a shock, certainly. But, seeing Miss Josephine with her head hanging out the side window of the Model T, well, that was something else.
Miss Josephine was a widow, even though she was only two years older than Mae. Her husband, Samuel, had died suddenly, and that was the first dead person Mae had ever seen.
During the wake for Mr. Samuel, Miss Josephine had sat up with him all night in the sitting room of their house. She just sat there and never cried. Mae’s momma said that she must have been in shock. Mae was the one who was shocked, though. It had scared her to see someone she had just sat behind in church on Sunday laid out on the table in the sitting room of her neighbor’s house, dead.
After that, Mae had gotten a little jumpy, a little squirrely, as her daddy said when she would flinch at loud noises. She’d gone with her sister and brother to town to see Nosferatu at the movie house and that had sent her right over the edge, and she had to sleep on the floor next to her momma and daddy’s bed for a month.
Just thinking about it right then as she walked up slowly to Miss Josephine’s car gave her the shivers.
She tried to be quiet and gentle when she said Miss Josephine’s name. Mae said a little prayer for Miss Josephine not to be dead, just please don’t be dead. She just didn’t think she could handle seeing another dead person, and for it to be Mr. Samuel’s widow, no, that would be too much for her. She’d never get off the floor of her momma and daddy’s room again.
Mae tried to be as quiet as she could, “Ma’am? Ma’am? You all right? You ain’t dead are you? Please don’t be dead. I don’t know what to do with the dead.”
When Josephine jerked her head up into the roof of the car, Mae stumbled back and almost fell over.
Even though Mae had tried not to startle her, Miss Josephine still jumped straight up in the car and banged her head hard enough for a knot to come up.
Mae apologized several times. She did need to check on her though. What if she had been dead? Or hurt?
From the way the fence looked and the ruts from the tires, Miss Josephine must have been going pretty fast when she ran off the road and into the pasture.
Mae tried not to stare at her, so she looked back and forth from the cows to Miss Josephine.
She figured Miss Josephine was pretty embarrassed about it because she kept changing the subject and asking about the people who were living in the lean-to next to Mae’s family’s house. Mae’s momma had told her a long time ago that sometimes when people get embarrassed or feel ashamed, they will work at keeping the subject off of them and what they’ve done.
Mae wanted to be polite, so she answered Miss Josephine’s questions and tried hard not to stare at her while she was parked in the cow pasture wearing her nightgown. Mae wondered why she had been driving around in her nightgown anyway.
Miss Josephine must have been real ashamed because she was asking questions she already knew the answer to. The man who lived with his wife in the lean-to next to Mae’s house was the same man Miss Josephine paid to do work around her house, Ethan.
Mae didn’t know much about him, other than he must’ve been pretty handy because he stayed gone working on people’s houses a lot. But, his wife, Julia, Mae liked her a lot. Julia would take in people’s laundry for them and work all day long hanging up clothes to dry outside their little shack they built out of scrap boards.
Sometimes when Julia got finished, Mae would invite her up on the porch of their house to drink some cold water from the well and listen to her daddy’s radio. They would sit in the rocking chairs on the side porch, in the shade, and listen to the music. Mae liked Kittens on the Keys. The radio station played that one a lot in the afternoons before The Lone Ranger came on. Julia always said she liked Sweets My Naughty Gave Me. The radio would play that one later in the evenings.
Miss Josephine knew Ethan since he was working for her almost every evening. Julia would sit on the porch with Mae. Sometimes Mae’s momma and daddy would ask Julia to come in and eat with them. They’d fix a bucket to take for Ethan to eat when he got home from working.
At first, Mae’s momma said that Ethan was a hard worker and that it was good for Miss Josephine to have someone help her take care of things around her house, being a widow. But, then, her momma’s expression changed to something else when Julia would say Ethan was working again for Josephine. But, Mae’s momma was always careful to keep Julia from seeing the change in her expression. She’d just smile and ask Julia if she was getting enough rest and if she wanted to sleep on the porch to stay cooler.
Miss Josephine must have hit her head pretty hard, Mae thought, because she was asking all kinds of questions about Ethan, questions like she didn’t even know who he was.
Mae remembered what her momma had told her about not drawing attention to people who may not be quite right. Mae was trying so hard not to make Miss Josephine feel bad, but she was worried she might have knocked herself crazy or maybe being a widow had finally gotten to be too much for Miss Josephine.
Mae didn’t know what to do, other than get back to her momma and tell her what Miss Josephine had said and then her momma would know what to do.
Mae did remember to tell Miss Josephine that if she started feeling sick again that she needed to come up to the house, and they would send for Doctor Pritchard. At least Mae remembered to say that. She would be sure and tell her momma that part.
When she turned around to walk back to the house, she thought that now she’d seen a dead person and a crazy person, husband and wife.
She hoped that Julia would come up on the porch this evening and listen to the radio. She’d tell Julia all about what happened. Ethan needed to know too, in case Miss Josephine got worse.
THE END
Short story based on the characters from Josephine: Red Dirt and Whiskey, also by Melinda McGuire.
Contact Melinda McGuire at melindamcguirewrites@yahoo dot com
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