A Place Called Wiregrass Read Online Free PDF Page A

Sunday reporting to her Sunday school class that she had visited the ailing Claudia Tyler. Check one more visitation off the sick list for Prune Face.
    Not that I ever understood why Prune Face brought her Bible. They were in plentiful supply at Miss Claudia’s house. She kept one in every bedroom and even a small black Bible in her downstairs guest bathroom. During the end of my first week, I found her propped up on four pillows with unusually flat hair. She had her big book spread across her lap. I was dusting the antique armoire and had almost made it to the legs when I heard the voice.
    “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” For a second, I wondered if Miss Claudia had taken one too many pain pills as she sat there, eyes closed and red lips grinning. Within a twinkle of my eye, she was back onboard.
    “Isaiah 43:19,” she said and opened her eyes real big. I smiled and kept dusting.
    “Do you own a Bible, Erma Lee?”
    With my back to her, I bit my lip. I had told all I wanted to about personal business. “Yes, ma’am.” I thought of the little white Bible Aunt Stella’s church gave me decades ago when I joined Antioch Missionary.
    “I just love this verse. It lets me know that, even at my age, God’s not done with me yet.”
    I turned to face her, and she was swinging her glasses as easy as she’d swing a jump rope. “He’s got a plan for all of us. For Patricia, for Richard, and you too, Erma Lee.”
    Now don’t even start this religious mess with me, I thought. It makes you weak and pious, like that old Prune Face, who visits you just so she can go brag to the preacher what a good Christian woman she is. “Yes, ma’am.”
    Religious fanatics were all over Cross City. I was used to them. And I decided to say what she wanted for the sake of a paycheck. As I watched her painted fingernail move across the thin, white sheets, I felt sorry for her. How on earth could this woman even know what the wilderness and desert her Bible spoke of were really like? Had she gone hungry? Had she gone to the emergency room to get stitches above her eye after her old man broke a plate over her head and then worried the next day because she was missing work and couldn’t pay the electric bill? No, I know better. And no matter what Miss Trellis claims about Miss Claudia sewing at some store, this woman had it good now. I had the scars from the wilderness and the blisters from the desert, and I survived it by myself. I was the only one I could count on.
     
    By the beginning of April, Bozo’s calls dwindled down to one or two a week, most often after he’d tied one on. I could predict them. He’d call at twelve-thirty or one in the morning and either cry like a baby, begging forgiveness, or rant and rave so loud I would hold the phone ten inches from my ear and could still make out the cuss words. After the first week, I learned to hang up and unplug the phone.
    The day before the week-long Easter break, I had one of the worst days imaginable. The morning started with me running late, then the solenoid switch on my car giving me a fit. I borrowed the old man’s pliers from next door and rigged it enough so it’d crank. A trick I have Bozo to thank for teaching me. At school, a little girl threw up her corn dog right by the conveyer belt that ships the trays for us to wash. Then Miss Claudia’s leg was acting up, and I had to haul her to thedoctor’s office. After waiting two and a half hours for the doctor, I took Miss Claudia home, then cooked Richard supper, and washed his last pair of underwear.
    When I walked through the door at eight-thirty that evening, I found the trailer pleasantly still. The only sound was the popping of the metal as it adjusted to the cool night air. Cher was spending the night at a new friend’s house, Laurel Krandle, who lived in a trailer across the Westgate driveway. After checking in with