Horrible Harvest

Two fellas running near full of whisky got themselves into an argument about shit that don’t matter. Whether it was about Felix or not, I can’t say, but as much drink as they had in them in a room full of folks high on sad, it probably did and didn’t have a goddamn thing to do with him all at once.

Ain’t nothing more necessary and selfish than grief. Death of another, it’s all about how it’s gonna effect your day-to-days. Whether you’re stuck reminiscing about the past or dreading the future, it ain’t about the body you just buried. It’s about the body’s absence from your life. Ain’t making no judgement. Just calling out facts. The argument they had was most likely about that without being called out by name. They just plain missed every iteration of Felix – Past, present and future. That’s a lot of one person to miss. Don’t take much whisky to get bent out of shape about such a thing.

A big ol’ cuss named Little Paul come from the kitchen to break things apart. The two drunks settled themselves quick as hiccups at the sight of him. He give warning to the rest of the room that he weren’t going to tolerate much more. They’d all be thrown out if things didn’t calm down good and fast.

“Idiots,” Allison Weaver Duffy said.

“Wouldn’t get too undone by it,” I said. “This world is built for idiots. They’s just trying to fit in.”

“That may be, but it hits you different when it’s your brothers.”

I turned to eye the two fellas who’d been yelling at one another. “They born in Felix’s living room, too?”

“Nah, they come along earlier. Daddy had a whole other life before Momma.”

“Most daddies do.”

She smiled. “What about you? Kids? Wives? What?”

“What.”

She laughed.

“That’s funny?”

“No, you’re funny. You keep secrets like they’d blow up the world if they was to get out, but at the same time you think the world’s full of idiots.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is why you protecting a world you don’t care nothing about?”

I give her question some thought. “It’s as much my world as it is theirs.”

“You forgive me, but you don’t seem like the sharing type. I’d think the whole world would be yours.”

I snickered. “Man like me – He ain’t earned the right to make claim of the whole world entire.”

She snickered back.

“You keep finding what I say funny.”

She sipped from her cup of coffee. “You forget. I know’d Felix. I know’d Miss Virginia. They shared more stories about you than anyone else. You done things, I know – Things that ain’t exactly Christian in nature, but you done other things, too. Not so much good as they were required. Felix – He used to say things required don’t always come in shades of good or bad, and most folks avoid what they can’t define. You were born different that way. You were the one in a million that done what needed to be done. He admired that about you. Miss Virginia – She loved that about you.”

“Just proves my point.”

“What point is that?”

“The worlds full of idiots.”

“Why would you say such a thing about Felix and Miss Virginia?”

“Because it was required.”

She grunted. “You are aggravating as hell.”

“I have that effect on folks.”

She absent-mindedly grab hold of the pepper grinder and turned to and fro on the countertop. I was drawn to it without knowing why at first. The more she fiddled with it, the more fixated I become. A half dozen turns in, it him me. The pepperbox.