He was laid down in a trench and then covered head to foote with mourning flowers but not the expensive Amazonia kind that would quickly burn up the family’s meager savings. Toothpick stood back after throwing down his own bluebell blooms, picked fresh from a Meat City field behind Francis’ club just this morning, maw beside him in her Sunday finest which was actually just her everyday rags, and her hopefully soon-to-be new roommate Mr. Z beside her, complete with his continental mask laden backpack which he took most everywhere for fear of theft in this here backwoods suburb. Elberta was absent since she wasn’t suppose to see the groom the week before the wedding; Toothpick borrowed her hat to give his now sister/soon wife a type of presence.
They took one last look at blossom bedecked Uncle Luther, killed by a flu-like disease just 2 days before yesterday’s tomorrow, a stark naked Luther not wearing any overalls for the 1st time since way back in ’76 when he inherited them from his recently deceased Cousin Ferdinand, dead from a fire in the old mansion that ended the rule of the 100. Poverty: the rule of the day ever since. Some named it the Curse of the Coveralls, another word for overalls back in the day and what Uncle L. called his own, but Toothpick might have just made that up after the fact, in his head; he had an imaginative brain, almost invisible to others, or he tends to hide it behind a perpetually straw embellished mouth that he also feels distracts from his damaged teeth as he whisks it about rapidly, creating a kind of blurring effect in that area.
It was time to leave the teeny tiny cemetery next to a corner of Marwood’s scaled down Eiffel Tower and let gravedigger Big Hand Eddie do his work. Goodbye Uncle Luther. But hellooo coveralls!
Sunklands 