Billboard on Briley

If Therese Winnington did not have witch in her blood, then she was most certainly one of those sanguivorous, imperishable types, renowned for the assortment of stupefying tricks they tend to pull in a skirmish from the sleeves of their usually velveteen jackets. Her smile said, quite simply, ‘Try me.’ 

A Rough Truth. (Journal Post)

The Aunt was on dope. All three of the women were. Had been all of their lives. In fact, of that particular generation and the generation to follow—eleven family members total—all but one did not have an addiction to an illegal substance. 

     The Aunt was not the first of them to die. The one clean family member, a girl named Jess, her father, the Aunt’s brother, had succumbed to dope three years ago. 

     It was Jess who had been with the Aunt when she passed. The other two women, the Aunt’s sister and her daughter, the Aunt’s niece, were too high to even know that the Aunt had been taken. But they found out. 

     When they did, for some reason—one would assume grief—the niece gathered a length of rope, went to the old maple in front of the women’s trailer and hung herself, not but twenty feet off the road. 

     Paul Rubert found the body. He and his wife and five year old daughter had been coming home from Wal-Mart, groceries piled into the back seat with their little girl, trying to keep things cool in the conditioned air, keep the ice cream from getting too soft. 

     It took a few seconds for it to register to Paul what he was seeing. Had he not talked with the niece earlier that morning and remembered what she had been wearing, the shorts and that glittering T, he would have figured it to be some sort of gag, kids goofing around, a dummy, clothes stuffed with shopping bags. 

     Had the nieces’ face not been nearly black, and shit and piss clearly running down her bared legs, Paul would have stopped then and there. But as it was, he directed his wife and daughter’s sight to the other side of the road, to what might have been deer along the fence row, and drove the remaining half mile to his own house. 

     Parked, Paul said that he had to pee quick. As his wife began to unload their daughter and the groceries, he went around the back of their house, dialed 911, and as he spoke to the responder, peed as he said he had to. 

     Paul came back to the car, gathered the remaining groceries and went inside. 

     It was twenty minutes before they heard the sirens. ‘That sounds close’, his wife had commented. But being accustomed to ambulances coming to the trailer every time the women ran out of dope and came down far enough into the real world to feel the pain of it, she said nothing more and went on preparing dinner. 

     ‘Ready for ice cream?’ Paul’s wife asked after they’d eaten. His daughter had let loose an exuberant ‘Yes!’ Paul had smiled. He took a big bowl, despite dairy giving him the shits. The things you do for family.