The Wife weren’t too pleased with how her Thanksgiving turned out thanks to Agnes’ froward mouth, and I needed to set things in order before I could mention my upcoming sojourn to the Big City. I had a five pound bag of Hawaiin Baby Woodrose seeds that I’d had in storage for about a year, plus a fair amount of DMSO that Coach Gidds had given me after I told him about the damage I’d done to my erector spinae while swappin’ out the transmission on Uncle Dave’s flatbed. He’d acquired an amount larger than what he needed for the team from our large animal vet who takes care of everyone’s heifers once they been knocked up, and who does a fair bit of business on the side with all them things a vet can get but a person can use.
A little bit of hillbilly voodoo out in the garage resulted in a dangerous amount of extracted LSA that I mixed in with all the DMSO, makin’ a highly absorbent, psychedelic topical unguent that woulda sent damn near anyone off into the wild ultraviolet yonder had they but dabbed a finger tip in that muck. Uncle Dave and I tested it out by paintin’ a couple war stripes on our cheeks out in his barn. Next thing we knew we were layin’ prone in the back of his flatbed somewhere out between Shiprock and Beclabito, watchin’ meteors tear the sky open from belly to throat, howlin’ like syphilitic rainforest monkeys, and attracting the attention of a whole gaggle of little brown kids who surrounded the truck and danced in a circle while our demons worked us over in a couple of half nelson holds.
I figured this oughta do ‘ol Agnes just about right.
Seein’ as how I wasn’t working I had all the time I needed to watch her daily business for a good 48 hours. Once I had her schedule down, I let myself in and painted everything I could that I knew she and she alone would be handlin’. She and Lloyd had a bathroom with two sinks, and I put a nice even coat all over her side of the works, plus her toothbrush, her hairbrush and her Q-tips. Then I added a healthy amount to what was surely her bottle of shampoo and finished by topping off her little hockey puck container of face cream.
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t fancy myself a good person, no sir. I know good and well that I got more than just a few right hefty fines to pay out there to the Bardo police when my time comes. But I am a loving husband. And as I said before you don’t never call my wife a whore.
I paid my first solitary visit to the McNiel’s bathroom on Friday evening. Come Sunday, Agnes was hootin’ and hollerin’ all through church about Jesus’ secret rhubarb goblins that the Germans had erased outta the bible because they came from Hollywood and sounded too Jewish for the Mormon Pope to offer the eucharist to. Or so I heard. I ain’t been to church in over a decade, but Owen and Pearly Mae filled Uncle Dave in. Lloyd got her back home, but come Monday evening around supper time, Agnes was up on the roof of the post office wearin’ nothing but a t-shirt and carrying a six foot t.v. aerial that she had acquired somewhere. Clyde and Asa pulled up in their cruiser and tried to talk her down. She tossed that aerial up and into the high voltage lines above Main Street causin’ a beautiful blue arc of plasma to find its way to ground, and takin’ out the power for everyone in a two mile radius of Mud Creek’s epicenter. And then she tumbled, snout over hoof, off that roof.
For a woman her age one woulda thought that was the end. But she came out with nothing more than an arm broken in three places, a snapped collarbone, three fractured ribs and a whole lotta bruises. Once they got everything set and secured they shipped her right off to that special hospital in Pueblo, wearing nothin’ but a white robe and handcuffs while she kept singin’, “Now the jingle hop HAS BEGUN!”, over and over and over.
The Wife didn’t get to see it, but she’d heard about it before I got home that night after feedin’ the herd. Uncle Dave caught me before I got home to tell me what was what. I walked in to find the Wife sittin’ at the table with the sweetest little smile etched across that pretty face of hers.
“So…Ollie; Was all that your doing then?”
“Well, maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t. Hard to say. Lotta variables involved when it comes to someone’s mental health, and Agnes wasn’t exactly a master portrait of sanity to begin with. Havin’ nine kids would probably drive anyone nuts. But I gotta tell you one thing for sure; I gotta get up to Denver for a while and see about them crows. I don’t know for how long, but I’ll be back as soon as I can get this all fixed.”
She looked up at me with that pretty smile still lightin’ up her face and said, “You just watch yourself up there and don’t get yourself hurt. You hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“OK then. Love you, Shit-Eye.”