The Funeral Bill

Chapter 5

His feet and shins were numb as they often were when he woke. He slipped on his yard shoes and tried to stand. He sat down on the bed and then stood up again. It felt as though he was walking on peg legs. He stumbled across the room. Another wail went out. He forwent his pants. He went to the closet, held to the doorjamb, his legs muscles smarting and stinging. He pulled out his pistol. He tromped down the hall in his boxer shorts and undershirt; he said a prayer that his varicose legs wouldn't give out and that he'd have sense enough to protect himself. He looked out the living room window and saw nothing. He eased his front door open, his pistol pointed in the direction he imagined the sound was coming from, his lips parted, ready to receive a breathe of cool air.

The outdoor lamp washed everything in a plaintive white or buried it in shadow. At the far end of his yard, a quaking silhouette crouched under a pecan tree. He walked slowly over to it—his face jutted trying to see what it was. His pistol lowered.

The old dog moaned as Jeffers approached. Its gut had been slit open. Blood adorned its fur in black blotches.

He heard rustling in the pine trees that flanked his property. He kept the pistol lowered and listened. He called for the cutthroat to come out. He called again. The base of the pine trees were bleached white from the lamp's light and between their trunks Jeffers could see only darkness.

He looked down at the dog. One visible eye glinted in the sparse light. Jeffers looked back at the stand of pine trees before gripping the barrel of the pistol. He brought its handle down swiftly on the dog's skull to avoid firing a bullet in the middle of the night, which would bring the curiosity and ire of neighbors. And there was the cost of the bullet to consider.

He hit it again—and then a third time. After each strike, he glanced back at the trees and saw only rib-white pine trunks and night. Jeffers peered down at the extinguished dog before limping back to the house, knowing the man in the pines was watching.

His sleep was chancy these days. Many nights he sat up, the vapors from the isopropyl alcohol rising from his feet, a subsuming numbness creeping further up his legs. He often mapped its assent, trying to sense the true direction of the numbness, what area would it covet next, whether it had or would enter his spine or some other territory. When would it be too late to ask for help? When would the numbness settle in his stomach and make it impossible to eat? Or would it skip his stomach and spine and ground itself with fresh purchase in his heart? And then what? Death.

But this night Jeffers sat at his kitchen table, puffing on his pipe, replaying the events. He figured it was RD who had gutted the dog. He imagined the two, both lean and dirty animals—RD with the upper hand only because he had sense to bait the scrawny thing and could wield a knife.

Just before light, he went out with a shovel to remove the dog from the yard. Taped to the door was a list of LaRae's burial expenses written in an untrained hand. At the bottom, beneath the tally, was the message, "You O me that much RD".

It was unlike Jeffers to befoul one of his properties and he wished he hadn't. He knew he might suffer for the considerable effort it took to carry the animal up a ladder, but he was angry and dropping the dog's gut-slung body down RD's chimney made him feel young as if he were playing some outlandish prank. He knew the dog would get stuck in the flue and create an unbearable stink. But it had felt good, his legs felt strong.

Seated on his porch, a warm breeze eased him. Numbness slowly budded in his toes. Soon it would blossom up his legs, and then like vines it would gather around his waist and approach his back. Unrelieved numbness: faintly its tendrils would furl the base of his spine. He knew paralysis would take soon. He looked up at the bags of pennies and water. Such a simple measure, and a small cost to keep the flies at bay. With lips folded between teeth, he squelched a whimper.

As the numbness grew, he pondered over the list of expenses RD had tacked to his door. He thought of his own wives. One was buried in the city's cemetery and the other was buried in North Carolina. Even though it had been almost a decade, he knew by the tally tacked to his door that he'd spent more, given more respect, to his wives than RD had to LaRae.

He saw RD coming up the driveway, gripping something nearly hidden in his hand.

"Ain't you got business?" Jeffers blurted.

"I'm here on business. I've been to the funeral home."

He gazed down at RD, who was dressed in a shirt Jeffers wouldn't have used for a rag—threadbare in the chest as if it belonged to a man who itched a lot. He noticed that RD was petting a rabbit's foot in his left hand, part of a keychain: "You bring that for luck?"

"Hell, I don't need no luck."

"You need something. You've eaten or buried the best part."

"You get my note."

"Yeah, I got your duns."

"I told them at the Home you'll pay for it."

"You kill that dog?"

"LaRae said it was your wives that haunted her. Said you beat 'em."