Entries, Featured, Wingnuts: Contest Entries
Granny is no flake…Wingnuts continues, and GRANNY GETS THORNED!
Jun
You had it comin’ Granny Clark
Literati
All of us who know and love Granny are relieved that she is the matriarch of someone else‘ family. She is not the CEO of Subtle and Somber. We might want to rethink that. Granny sent me a very private email, which I have no choice but to publish as a prelude to the Quaalude.
“Dear Mr. Sully,
I apologize for being so slow in sendin’ my story to you for this contest. I hope you’ll understand when I tell y’a why.
You see, the angels have come and taken my sainted brother, Jake, to his reward. Bless his heart, he’s earned his wings. I don’t know if you remember or not, but a few years back Jake lost his darlin’ wife, Ruby, my sister-in-law, to the fever. Pneumonia they called it. And now they’re where they always wanted to be; together.
I’m tellin’ you, it just broke Jake’s big ol’ heart and he did struggle so just to go on with his life after he lost her. Ruby was his first and only love, and now they’re restin’ in the hands of Jesus. And now that they’re both gone, I hope you’ll understand that things have been real hard around here. Even that grandson of mine is walkin’ around with his head down and his hands in his pockets. He and Catlow ain’t been to Cheater’s Bar in a long time so that’ll tell y’a what a loss it is to us all. His Uncle Jake was his hero, taught him to drive his eighteen-wheeler and how to fish and hunt. It’s gonna take a while for us to put things back in order.
So, to honor your wishes that I be one of the finalists in this contest, I’m sendin’ you the whole story about our darlin’ Sara and Jake. I hope your readers will like it.
Yours in the Lord,
Granny”
Angel’s Wings
By Granny Clark
The old man hadn’t smiled since December 1982, the night he steered his eighteen-wheeler through a blizzard south of Oklahoma City.
“Watch over her, Lord. Don’t let that fever take her before I get home,” Jake said, downshifting and plowing through another snowdrift. “It just cain’t be her time yet.” He looked up, “Would y’a check your book again Saint Peter? Please?”
Twenty miles north of Ardmore, the blizzard gentled into big, heavy, wet snowflakes. All eighteen wheels on his truck held tight to the highway, shoving him through the icy slush that covered the road. He kept one eye on the fuel gauge as the needle shuddered just above the ‘E’.
“Hang on, Ruby. I’m almost there.”
He remembered how, in the first snowfall of every year, the old woman pulled her threadbare pink sweater over her apron and ran through the field, calling back to him, “Don’t you just love the snow?”
Arms outstretched, she’d dance and twirl, and catch snowflakes on her tongue. He’d watch from the kitchen window, hands wrapped around his coffee mug, and smiled back to her.
Mile after endless mile, the diesel engine clattered as the eighteen-wheeler roared through the night. Black smoke bellowed from her rust streaked stacks and churned into the storm. “I’ll be home soon, Ruby,” he whispered as if in prayer.
Just north of Fort Worth, a bright full moon broke through and outlined every cloud in silver. An occasional snowflake blew across the hood of the truck then up past the windshield. The fuel gauge needle rested on ‘E’ and could drop no farther. “Don’t quit me now,” Jake said, gently patting the dashboard. He leaned forward, looked up at the full moon and smiled.
Then he saw it, glowing in the silver moonlight. A pink lace snowflake danced and twirled in front of his truck. It hovered, and then sat gently on the wiper blade. Fluttering in the wind, it waved to him.
Jake smiled and blew her a kiss. “I love you,” he whispered. She melted in the warmth of his love, leaving behind a pink glittery kiss on his windshield. Jake knew he was too late.
“I tried, Ruby,” he said.
At their little farmhouse, he knelt among flowers, friends and family, rested his right hand on her carved pine coffin, and whispered, “I’d flown up to heaven with you if only I had wings.” He looked up. “Would we be together up there, Lord?” he said. “I mean, Ruby and me? ‘Cause it just wouldn’t be heaven without her.”
He saw her every spring in Georgia when the peach trees erupted into bloom and again every summer in Colorado when the mountain snow melted and filled the streams with icy cold water that rushed through the valleys and disappeared around the bend. Every fall in east Texas, when the sweet gum trees morphed from yellow to crimson, he knew she was near. But in winter Jake searched for her in ever snowstorm. Along every lonely, frozen highway, he inspected each snowflake that danced and twirled across the hood of his truck, then flew quickly up and over the cab. Every one white. Never pink.
It was three o’clock Sunday morning, just west of Casper, Wyoming when he pulled onto the half-empty parking lot of Miss Ellie’s Diner, shut the diesel engine down and dumped air from the brakes.
Walking slowly across the parking lot, head down and hands in his pockets, the first flakes of the snowstorm that had chased him all the way from Laramie began to drift down around him. He stopped at the front door of the diner and searched for that one pink snowflake among thousands of flakes that swirled and danced from the sky. Not finding it, he blew a hard breath out his nostrils, strolled into the diner, past the other truckers, and settled into the booth in the back, facing the wall. Jake stared down at the table to hide his red, swollen eyes from the other truckers.
An old hand, long thin fingers, joints swollen from arthritis, and nails polished pink, reached out in front of his bowed head. She placed a menu on the table.
Slowly he raised his head, pushing back the bill of his cap.
Her warm smile melted the ice in his heart and the threadbare pink sweater she wore matched the lace ribbon holding her snow-white hair in a loose bun.
She winked.
“Don’t you just love the snow?” she said.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=VRsJlAJvOSM
The tab at Cheater’s Bar is more than Granny’s poor grandson Gary can pay, and it needs to be zeroed out so he can buy the editor-in-chief(moo-which is Texan for moi) a pint later this summer. Here is a way to help him out. Dance of the Bull Rider has just been published by Whiskey Press (that is something like a Wine Press but with a higher alcohol content) Buy a copy of his book, even though it ain’t got pichhers in it.
Simply heartwarming, melancholy, and perfect. The sadness of it, the hope, the search, and the finding. Well done. “Practically perfect in every way”, as Mary Poppins would say.
I have tears in my eyes and all the way through this story – was hard at times to read the words. Beyond the scope of a well written story, this one takes you right into the heart and soul of what a love story is about. I have read many love stories in my life, but this one…well this one takes you deep into the scope of what love is. Thank you Granny…I’d be proud to walk with you one day even if the rooster tags along. Many thanks.
Thank you for such a beautiful writing of a love that is true and endearing. The tale is primarily around a broken heart of anticipated mourning, mourning and a future vision of spirits meeting once again. The spirit of those who have danced with our souls remain, so dear that even death is no barrier. I was left with the impression of a very touching country western waltz of love.
I thought the same, Parisianne.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekl3B4Ll5GA
Thank you for sharing the video pictures of Waylon and Jessi along with Waylon’s song, “Waltz Me to Heaven”. I had to check my collection and yes, sir, I did have it. Otherwise I would have purchased it asap. Their love for each other was one for the ages.
I wanted to add a thought to my previous words. The first time I read this entry was silently to myself, the honesty touched me very much, but I was distracted by my own loss of my own life partner in 2004 whom I look upon now with smiling memories. Thus I didn’t weep. The second time I read it, I did so outloud to my two best friends who were visiting. Over and over again I choked on the words with tears flowing down, because I focused on the feelings of Jake’s love for his Ruby and Ruby’s love for him. My sympathies to your family Granny Clark. Death is not as much an enemy or friend as it is an entrance into the journey onward. Sometimes, love is so great that the vow, “until death do us part” has to be changed to eternity together. Perhaps the God you believe in allows visitations until that grand next adventure together begins. I’d like to believe that. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t wish Jeanne would make such a visit to me. Thank you for touching my heart so profoundly. I’m sure my Jeanne heard the story too and agrees.
Granny, you tell brother Clark when you see him how sorry i am for the family’s loss. I recognised part of the story your nephew wrote some time ago, and I remember how heart-felt it read back then. The pink snowflake symbolizes everything i know about love, loss, and hope, and through this creative metaphor any reader with a heart and soul can connect with the universal requirements for living a true life on earth, and as with the case of Jake and Ruby, together again in the forever arms of Christ.
I think i have mentioned the honesty of Gary’e writing, and here in this entry it is obvious. As far as the contest goes, i am going to leave it up to the judge. I know he is going to have to think about this one. As for me, i am going to take a morning’s walk out to the top of the cliffs that oversee our sea, along the central coast of California, spread my arms high and wide, and praise the life force that is in us all.
Thanks, Granny,
God bless
Gary, I absolutely loved this. You have such a unique voice
as you tell a story…I know that an event must have taken place. No smoke and
mirrors for you. Your stories just sit on the fence, relaxing, watching the
passerbys on a hot summer day. That is until Granny shows up rattling her
bones, shaking her finger at you, telling you how it’s done.
You make us fall in love with your characters from the very beginning.
I have found that the hardest part
for me… is letting them go. When your story ended…I said “Oh no.” I scrolled
down to find the rest. I was so disappointed you snagged them from me so
quickly, I jumped in my four
wheeler and drove all night just to find Miss Ellie’s diner. Found out …Ruby
makes a mean apple pie!
Granny, you are something! Pulled me in, kept me there, and released me grateful as heck for this flash!