Uncle Walter

[108 fountains]

Chapter One – Uncle Walter Online

To me, the idea of Uncle Walter using an online dating service was hilarious. Uncle Walter was sixty-seven years old and had lived all his life as a small-time farmer and some-time laborer. He had been widowed for seventeen years and had no children. Since the passing of his spouse, he had lived out by himself in the eastern Tennessee countryside on a beautiful cut of seven and a half acres of land that was half forest and half pastureland. It was impossible for anyone to be more old-fashioned or less sophisticated than Uncle Walter. He raised a dozen head of cattle and collected Social Security. He watched televangelists on TV and worked jigsaw puzzles on his kitchen table. His idea of a big weekend was to stop in at the Café Jubilee in Rogersville for a dinner of spaghetti and meat balls after church on Sunday before driving the 25 miles back home.

To be honest, I had never been particularly close to Uncle Walter. I have vague recollections as a child of a young Uncle Walter and a beautiful lady, my Aunt Jessie, stopping in at family gatherings, but never staying long. As a teenager and as a young man, I had no contact with Uncle Walter at all. It was only recently, since I have been approaching middle age myself, and particularly since my father, Uncle Walter’s brother, passed away that I spent any significant time with him. And once I found that Uncle Walter could be pretty funny and had some interesting tales to tell about my father, the family, and the old days, I regretted not having spent more time with him in the intervening years.

For the past ten years, I’ve worked as a cartographer and geographic information systems specialist for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. I’m grateful whenever I get the opportunity to go out to the lakes and rivers rather than sit behind my computer in the Knoxville office. On occasion, my work would take me out to the upper Holston River where I could stop in and see Uncle Walter. A bachelor myself, I sympathized with Uncle Walter’s isolation, but because it was such a long drive out to his farm – due to the distance and the zigzag back roads over the hills – I went out to visit him only three or four times a year. Uncle Walter had two older sisters still living in the Knoxville area, but they visited him less and less frequently over the years. Uncle Walter himself never traveled to Knoxville – “Ho! That thar place is a heap too big fer me! I git lost ovah in them thar parts!” he said.

So when Uncle Walter told me on that bright, crisp, sunny February Sunday morning that he had met a woman on Cinderelladates.com, I laughed out loud. Uncle Walter was not amused, however. “What? Ye think I’m too old fer that? Why, I’ll hev ye know thar’s still sum sparks a-glowin’ undah these heah eshes!”

“Sorry, Uncle Walter, I couldn’t help myself.” I composed myself and continued, “But Uncle Walter, why after all these years do you want to start dating?”

“I don’t call it datin’. I jist call it companionship. Ye know, I reckon it gits a might lonely out ‘chere sumtimes, ‘specially in the wintertime.”

I looked at the half-finished 1500-piece jigsaw puzzle in front of Uncle Walter on his Formica topped kitchen table. It was a picture of a rural church half hidden in snow and twilight, with a warm, golden glow emanating from the windows to the snow-covered pine trees that surrounded it. Then I looked at Uncle Walter. At sixty-seven, he had lost some of the muscle tone that had once sustained him as a small-scale farmer and cattle rancher, but he had avoided the pot-belly that often plagues men of his age, perhaps because he had no one to cook for him. He was ruggedly handsome for a man of his years, and might have passed for a much younger man if his hair had not gone completely white. He was shy in every sense of the word, but could talk your ear off once you turned the key to his ignition.

Uncle Walter’s world was very small. He did not subscribe to any newspaper and never turned the TV to any news channel. He rarely had social interaction with other human beings. At church in Rogersville, Uncle Walter usually had a few words to share with the pastor; he was known to the other members of the congregation, but never attended their social events. His next-door neighbor, Buddy Ball, who lived four miles away and who did most of the heavy lifting involved with taking care of the Herefords, came by almost every day for an hour or two. Most of what Uncle Walter knew about the world originated with Buddy Ball, but Buddy himself was rather insular. While Uncle Walter kept the bale feeder clean, made sure the cattle had enough water, and cleaned out the stalls, Buddy would talk about whether the striped bass were “hittin’” in Cherokee Lake (although Buddy preferred bottom trolling for flatheads and channel cats) or whether the Murphy family would be putting in corn or soybeans on their 20 acres down the way. It was Buddy who had told Uncle Walter he needed to buy a computer and get hooked up to the Internet. Uncle Walter resisted at first, but Buddy insisted that everyone needed to be hooked up to the Internet in this day and age.

At Buddy’s urging, Uncle Walter went to the Walmart in Rogersville last December and bought a computer as a Christmas present for himself. It was anyone’s guess how he ever navigated himself onto Cinderelladates.com. Given that Uncle Walter seldom conversed with anybody anywhere at any time, I was both perplexed and amused that he had gone onto an online dating site. “So tell me about this woman, Fianna Wolff, the woman you met online, Uncle Walter. What’s she like? Is she pretty?”

Uncle Walter face broke into a great big, broad grin. He had been shy to tell Buddy about Fianna; he was grateful that I had stopped by – he really wanted to talk to somebody about her. “Wa’al, she sent me a pitcher of herself jist last week. Heah, let me show it to ye… Let me see… Mah Photographs… Nope, not thar… Let me see… Whar else would I hev saved it? Mah Documents… Nope, not ‘chere… Let me see now… Mah Computer… Nope, not thar… How about…? Program files… Ho! What is all that stuff thar? Let me git back out’o thar… Phew! Oh, yeh, I remember now. I couldn’t figger out how to save it. Let me go back an’ log into Cinderelladates.com. Buddy Ball – ye know Buddy Ball, mah next door neighbor – he showed me how to git hooked up. He knows everythang thar is to know about computers.”

Well, I spend the better part of every day on a relatively complex software system, and I doubted that Buddy actually knew all there was to know about computers, but I have plenty of patience when it comes to Uncle Walter. I waited serenely for him to make his way to the website. “Oh! Heah we go now! Usah ID… now password… let me think… what did I put fer mah password? Oh, yeh – I remembah now – mah name – Walter_Lamb. I made the password the same as mah user ID. I figgered that way I wouldn’t fergit.”

“Now we’re gittin’ thar, I reckon” said Uncle Walter. “Thar. Thar. I’m logged on. Now, let me find … Saved Conversations… Oh, heah! Heah it is! Heah’s her pitcher!”

I bent down to see a .jpg image of a lady who appeared to be in her late forties or early fifties, with long, straight ash colored hair containing a few streaks of gray. She had a small garland of tiny purple flowers tied around her forehead and wore a purple and white flower print dress. She had bright blue eyes that crinkled at the edges. Her thin lips allowed a glimpse of perfectly capped teeth in a half-smile. The photograph was pleasant enough, but I found it somehow to be superficial – artificial – and that bothered me. But then I reasoned that anyone, man or woman, who goes online in search of companionship is apt to post photos that accent the glossy lines and smooth out the rough edges. “Well, Uncle Walter,” I said, “her picture is nice enough.”

“We sent each other e-mail messages at the fust,” said Uncle Walter, “but I didn’t like that. It’s powerful hard fer me to do e-mail with all them thar passwords an’ thangs. Besides, I cain’t type. I kin only use one finger. So, I give her mah phone number an’ now she’s been a-calling me up on the phone oncet or twicet a week. I like that a heap sight better. Now, she wants me to chat online, but I cain’t figger out how to make the durn camera work, an’ like I said, I cain’t type worth a durn naryway.”

“When did all this start, Uncle Walter?”

“Ho! I cain’t remembah now. More’n a month already, I reckon. She said she’s a-gonna come down heah an’ visit me in the spring, when the weather turns a might warmah.”

“Yeah? Really? Well, good for you, Uncle Walter. Hey, where’s she from, anyway?”

“Fianna? She’s from Minnesoty.”

“Minnesota! Good God! I would’ve thought she be from around here! Minnesota! She’s going to come out here all the way from Minnesota to visit you?”

“That’s what she said. I reckon I kin believe it.”

“Well, Uncle Walter,” I said, laughing, “You must have a way with the ladies. I can’t even find one in Knoxville who wants to go out with me, and here you got one coming all the way out from Minnesota just to visit with you.”

Uncle Walter laughed, too. “Yep, it wuz jist about a month ago, I wuz feelin’ powerful lonely, an’ now it looks like I got mahself a gal. I told her to come on down now. No need to wait for the robins to come out when we kin make our own leetle nest, but she said she’s gotta take care uv sum business fust an’ she’ll come after that.”

“What kind of business, Uncle Walter? What does she do, anyway?”

“Durned ef’n I know. I nevah ast her.”


To be continued...

[AuntShecky]

I read the first chapter and definitely would be interested in reading the rest of this.
Some initial suggestions: After the opening line -- an effective one for sure -- go right to the line that begins "So when Uncle Walter told me. . ." In other words, skip the first couple of paragraphs of background material. You can "drip" this info into the narration at key points. For instance, the phrase "small-scale farmer and cattle rancher" is sufficient where it appears; so you don't really need that early paragraph explaining it.

Dripping material within the narrative, it would also give you an opportunity to "show" rather than "tell." For instance, instead of telling us that Uncle Walter regaled the narrator with anecdotes about his brother, the narrator's late father, you could quote him relating a short one,which would reveal more about Uncle W. than the background paragraph.

I'd try to scale back the regional dialect a little as well, suggest it rather than try to replicate it. It's distracting.

As I say, you're off to a good start.

[108 fountains]

Thanks, Auntie. All good suggestions. I have a habit of placing the background material in the first few paragraphs, a hard habit to break. On the dialect, I was hoping that an overemphasized dialect would add a comic effect. For now, I'll leave it in, but if you and others still find it distracting by the end of it, let me know and I'll consider scaling it back. (I'm pretty sure I already know what Calidore would have to say about it!)

Here's the next installment. It's going to run six chapters, with the last chapter being pretty short.

[108 fountains]

Chapter 2 – Uncle Walter with Aunt Lou and Aunt Sam

I had “Call Uncle Walter” down on my list of things to do for a long time, but I hardly ever get past the second or third thing on my list, even on weekends, and “Call Uncle Walter” was down there at number eight. Then, early one Saturday morning in late May, I got a phone call from my Aunt Lou – her given name is Louise.

“Gregory? Hello Gregory. This is your Aunt Lou.”

“Aunt Lou! Wow! It’s so nice to hear from you. How have you been Aunt Lou? I hope everything is alright.”

“I hope so, too, Gregory. But I’m not very sure about it. I talked with Sam, your Aunt Sam, last night.” – Aunt Sam’s given name is Samantha. I don’t know why all the women in my family end up using men’s names.

“What’s wrong with Aunt Sam?”

“There’s nothing wrong with Aunt Sam. But she was telling me on the phone last night that there’s something wrong with Uncle Walter.”

“Oh no! I’m really sorry to hear that. Does he need me to drive out there and take him to the doctor?”

“No, no. He’s not sick. He’s… He’s… crazy!”

“What? What do you mean, Aunt Lou?”

“I mean he is talking about leaving here and going out to Minnesota with his Internet girlfriend.”

“You mean he’s going to visit her in Minnesota?”

“No, I mean he is going to go out there to stay with her – to live with her – in Minnesota!”

“What?”

I was shocked, but couldn’t help smiling. Pulling up stakes suddenly on a romantic whim was unlike the Uncle Walter I thought I knew, but I secretly admired him for having the audacity to scratch at the bur that had got inside his boot. I had some misgivings about it, but felt I had no right to voice them. Aunt Lou and Aunt Sam, on the other hand, had no such qualms. They asked me to drive them both out to Uncle Walter’s so that they could “talk some sense into the man.”

“Come on in, come on in!” said Uncle Walter with a jovial grin as he opened the front door – Aunt Sam had called him ahead of time to let him know we were coming. Uncle Walter had made some coffee. It was hot, but not hot enough to take the chill out of the room.

“Walter! Have you lost your senses? What in the world are you thinking?” Aunt Lou began – she rarely minced words.

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Uncle Walter – rather sheepishly, I thought.

“Don’t you laugh at me, Walter,” admonished Aunt Lou. “I want to know what in the world you are thinking, carrying on with this woman like that.”

“What do ye mean ‘a-carryin’ on?’” pleaded Uncle Walter with an injured tone in his expression. “Fianna an’ I hev a beetiful friendship, a lovin’ spoonful. She calls me her ‘soul-mate.’”

“Fianna!” cried Aunt Sam. Aunt Sam had a tendency to speak in short little shrieks when she became excited or nervous, and on this occasion she was both. “Fianna! Oh, Walter! It sounds like a stripper’s name!”

“Sam, come on, now. Don’t be ornery like that. Be reasonable,” pleaded Uncle Walter.

“Walter, you are the one who is being unreasonable,” interjected Aunt Lou. “In fact, I declare you’ve abandoned reason altogether. Now let’s we’uns all calm down a little and discuss this like adults. Walter, are you crazy? What in the world are you thinking?”

“Now, listen heah, the two uv you,” said Uncle Walter. “I’ve been by mahself fer a long time, purt nigh seventeen yeer, an’ in all that time, I bin faithful to the memory uv Jessica.”

“Jessie!” cried Aunt Lou. “That just goes to prove my point. When it comes to women, Walter, well you…”

“Jessie!” chimed in Aunt Sam. “Oh, Walter, we tried to tell you about her!”

My ears perked up at this. Apparently there was a bit of family history that I had not heard before.

“Sam!” said Aunt Lou, “Not in front of the boy.”

I couldn’t remain silent at this, so I said, “Aunt Lou, I’m not a boy. I’m thirty-seven years old.”

“Shush, Gregory. Let the grown-ups talk.” – that was Aunt Lou again.

“Walter, Walter, well I declare, I just wouldn’t have thought it of you. I wouldn’t have thought it,” continued Aunt Lou. “Here you have been settled down on this beautiful little farm all these years. I would have thought you’d be happy here. I would have thought you’d made your peace with the Lord and been preparing for the Pearly Gates. But now you’re going to run off and marry this woman…”

“We ain’t a-gonna git married,” interrupted Uncle Walter. “You don’t need to git all riled up about that. I’m jist a-gonna go out thar an’ stay with her.”

“Oh, Lou! They’re going to live in sin!” cried Aunt Sam.

“Do you hear that, Walter? Do you hear how you’ve upset Sam?” This was my Aunt Lou speaking again. “What in the world are you thinking of?”

“Listen heah, y’all,” began Uncle Walter once more. “They ain’t nuthun’ wrong with me a-goin’ out thar whar I want an’ a-stayin’ with whoever I want. It’s not like when we wuz kids an’ y’all had to look out fer me…”

“Walter, didn’t we’uns tell you not to go near that chicken coup? Didn’t we’uns tell you?” Aunt Lou was apparently remembering an incident that happened when they were children. “Gregory, we’uns all told him not to go near it, but he wouldn’t listen to us. How old were you then, Walter – five? Six? Well, you came back running, crying and scared.”

“He was all full of scratches and feathers!” explained Aunt Sam.

Uncle Walter remonstrated, “Oh, I cain’t remember that, I wuz too yung.”

“Well then, what about that BB gun?” countered Aunt Lou. “You were older then, probably twelve years old, I’ll bet. Old enough to know better anyway. We’uns told you not to shoot that thing off in the house, didn’t we?”

“Yep, you did,” admitted Uncle Walter.

“Yes, you bet we did. But you had to go shooting it off anyway, didn’t you? I would have thought you’d have learned a lesson by that.”

“It ricocheted off the mirror and hit him in the eye,” explained Aunt Sam.

“Shucks, t’warn’t nuthun’ reely,” said Uncle Walter. “Jist a leetle scretch. It hit in the white part uv mah eye, Gregory, jist about ‘chere.” Uncle Walter leaned over toward me and pulled his eyelid up with his middle finger and the skin under his eye down with his thumb, affording me a pretty good view of his eyeball.

“Well, I would have thought you would have learned a lesson from that. That’s all,” said Aunt Lou. “Seems to me, if you would have listened to your sisters all your life, you wouldn’t be where you are now.”

“What do ye mean? Whar am I now, Lou?” asked Uncle Walter.

Flustered by this question, Aunt Lou was at a loss for words for a second, but quickly recovered. “Don’t try to be funny with me, Walter. I’ll have you know a thing or two.”

“That’s right, Lou. Tell him,” added Aunt Sam encouragingly.

“Wa’al, wa’al,” said Uncle Walter taking a breath and smiling. He thought the worst was over and that he had come out relatively unscathed. “Y’all are okay. Yep, indeedy, y’all are okay. I appreciate y’all comin’ out heah, I really do. I reckon I kind’a took y’all by surprise an’ all, an’ I’m reel sorry fer that. To tell ye the truth, it kind’a took me by surprise, too. I mean, that Fianna, wa’al, she took a powerful shinin’ to me right aways when she come out ‘chere last month. It wuz all her idea to come out ‘chere, ye know.”

“I’ll bet it was!” Aunt Lou fumed.

“No, no, Lou! Ye got it all wrong. Fianna, wa’al, she’s a reel nice gal, reel nice. She would’a bin happy to stay out ‘chere with me, but she got a job an’ all she’s gotta go back to up in Minnesoty.”

“What kind of job does she have, Walter” asked Aunt Lou.

“Oh, I don’t want to hear it!” cried Aunt Sam covering her ears.

“She got a ‘spectable job up thar, Lou,” explained Uncle Walter. “She works in a ole folks home. Nowadays they call it a Skilled Nursin’ Care Facility or sum such jabber as that. She makes good money, too. An’ that’s why she cain’t move down heah an’ stay with me.”

“Oh, Walter! She’s going to put you in a nursing home!” cried Aunt Sam.

“No, she ain’t,” said Uncle Walter patiently. “She’s got a leetle farm herself up thar. An’ it’s might bigger than this one I got heah. She’s got about twelve acres up thar an’ rents sum of it out to a wheat farmer named Cutthroat Jack Brown. She’s got a leetle farmhouse with ash trees and sugar maples in the yard. She’s got a big ole vegetable garden next to the house, she told me – grows broccoli an’ peppers an’ onions an’ pumpkins. Got a patch o’ raspberries, too. I’m tellin’ y’all, it sounds reel nice.”

Aunt Lou and Aunt Sam were somewhat mollified by Uncle Walter’s pleasant description of Fianna’s home. They appeared to relax somewhat – but only by the breadth of a polecat’s whisker. Their tone became somewhat subdued, and the stern lines on their foreheads softened slightly. They even took a sip of their coffee, which had grown cold in the meantime. They seemed almost prepared to resign themselves to the inevitable. But they weren’t through yet.

“I bet you haven’t made any preparations at all,” continued Aunt Lou. “Have you thought about your property? Are you going to sell this place or rent it? I hope you haven’t signed any papers yet.”

“Oh, Walter! What are you going to do with the cows?” cried Aunt Sam.

“Wa’al, I got it almost all figgered out,” said Uncle Walter. “Ole Buddy Ball’s gonna buy this place. He lives right ‘chere, right next door, ye know, an’ he’s happy to buy it. He’s givin’ me a fair price too – an’ he’ll keep the cows right ‘chere yet, Sam.”

I was a little disconcerted at this news. Had I known Uncle Walter was planning to sell his farm, I might have been inclined to offer a fair price for it myself.

“I don’t know, Walter. I don’t like it. I just don’t like it,” said Aunt Lou. “What do you know about this woman, anyway? What kind of family does she come from? Has she been married before?”

“Wa’al, I reckon her family’s awright,” replied Uncle Walter. “At least she nevah said nary a one uv ’em ain’t nevah been put in the pokey. Ha, ha, ha!” Uncle Walter tried his best, but Aunt Lou and Aunt Sam did not laugh at his joke. Then he cleared his throat and added, “She’s a widder. She’s bin married three time afore now.”

Poor Uncle Walter had been winning them over to his side up to this point, but now he’d separated his cavalry from his artillery, and the battle was lost. He was honest, too honest, I thought. He could have stopped at saying she was a widow, but Uncle Walter had never learned to withhold information. He was a simple, honest, trusting fellow.

“Three times!” exclaimed Aunt Lou with no less vigor than a pack of ‘coon dogs on the chase. “Three times! Walter! Walter! Haven’t you any sense? Haven’t you any sense at all?” She stamped her foot on the repetition.

Uncle Walter could only reply with a vacant smile, as if to admit that he didn’t have any sense indeed.

“Oh, Lou! He’s going to marry a murderess!” cried Aunt Sam.

“Three times, Walter! Well, did you ask her what they died of? – Was it ptomaine or strychnine?” Aunt Lou’s wit could be cutting when she wanted.

“Oh, Lou! She’s going to murder him!” cried Aunt Sam.

“She ain’t a-gonna murder me, Sam. An’ I ain’t a-gonna marry her, Lou. I’m jist a-gonna live with her,” protested Uncle Walter.

“Oh, Lou! He’s going to live in sin with a murderess!” cried Aunt Sam.

“See heah, now! She ain’t no murderess,” remonstrated Uncle Walter.

“Oh, Lord!” shrieked Aunt Sam with unmitigated vehemence, “He’s going to live in sin with Lucretia DeVille!” And then she put her face in her hands and sobbed, apparently confusing Lucretia Borgia with Cruella DeVille.

“Walter, Walter,” said Aunt Lou in a tone of extreme disappointment. “You’ve always been the same, I declare. Look here now and see what you’ve done to your sister. Poor little Sam.” Aunt Lou was the eldest of the three. “We’uns came here today to talk to you, as our duty, seeing as how we’uns are your sisters and all, and look what you’ve done.” And she pointed to Aunt Sam who was crying real tears.

“I didn’t mean to make her cry,” said Uncle Walter apologetically. He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and held it out. “Sammy, do you want a hanky?”

Aunt Sam was too moved to make a verbal reply. She shook her head and buried her face deeper in her hands.

“Well, Walter,” Aunt Lou stood up from her chair, which helped her appear as if she was coming down from on high. “I have some advice for you. But only the Lord knows if you’ll listen.”

“I’m a-listenin’, ain’t I?”

“Then my advice is this: Give up this woman. Give up this woman and run from her like she’s Satan incarnate – and she might be for all we know. Give up this woman, and turn to the Lord. But I know you, Walter. You’re too stubborn to listen to some such as we’uns here. You’re too stubborn to listen to your doting sisters who always look out for you and who always did since the time you were a little runt in diapers.”

“He didn’t listen about the chicken coup!” cried Aunt Sam between her sobs.

“That’s my best advice to you Walter, but I know you’re too stubborn to listen to it,” continued Aunt Lou.

“He didn’t listen about the BB gun, neither!” added Aunt Sam.

“And I’ll give you one more piece of advice, Walter,” continued Aunt Lou, paying no heed to Aunt Sam’s interjections. “Don’t you sign no papers. That’s all. Just don’t you go signing no papers.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Uncle Walter looking up from the stain he had been inspecting on his shirttail. “What papers? I ain’t got no papers to sign naryways.”

“Oh, you know what I mean,” said Aunt Lou. “And if you don’t, then I declare you’re a bigger fool than I think you are at this moment.”

“What does she mean, Gregory?” he asked, looking at me.

“I think she means like bank papers – stuff like that,” I answered.

“Oh, Lou! He’s going to give her all his money!”

No, I ain’t,” replied Uncle Walter. “Now see heah, Lou, Sam. Fianna…”

“Fianna, he calls her!” sobbed Aunt Sam.

Uncle Walter sounded contrite, but he didn’t waiver from his point. “But that’s her name, Sammy. Fianna ain’t like that. She ain’t no strumpet…”

“Not in front of the boy, Walter.”

“But I ain’t no boy, Aunt Lou.”

“Wa’al, she jist ain’t like that,” continued Uncle Walter. “She’s a nice gal, a real lady. She’s powerful lonely, that’s all, jist like me, an’ needs a leetle companionship. She’s got eyes that make me laugh. She’s got a smile that makes me wanna run headlong into the wind. Heah I bin fer the past seventeen years a-wastin’ mah time with jig-saw puzzles, when…” He paused for breath. Uncle Walter was not used to making speeches. In his isolated world, he sometimes went for days without speaking to anyone altogether, except for Buddy Ball. “Jig-saw puzzles!” he sputtered. “When a man an’ a woman kin be together an’… Wa’al, goin’ up to Minnesoty will be a heap sight better’n sitin’ around heah an’ workin’ on no jig-saw puzzles!”

“What about Lou and I, Walter?” asked Aunt Sam with genuine feeling. “We don’t want to lose you. We might never see you or hear from you again!” And she sobbed a little more.

“Why, ye got a telly-phone, ain’t ye? Ha, ha!” said Uncle Walter, trying to lighten her spirits. “An’ it ain’t like I see ye all the time naryway. When wuz the last time I seen ye or Lou out heah? Six year – seven, maybe eight year ago?”

“But we do talk on the phone, Walter,” remonstrated Aunt Lou apologetically. She was on the defensive now.

“Yep, we do, an’ that’s a fact” said Uncle Walter, feeling his advantage. “Oncet every month or ever couple o’ months, an’ I appreciate that. I reely like that. An’… durn it! It wuz durn stupid uv me. I nevah thought uv it.”

“Thought of what, Walter,” asked Aunt Lou.

“When she wuz out heah. Fianna,” said Uncle Walter. “When she wuz out heah a-visitin’. I should ha’ had y’all to come out then an’ meet her. O’course, I didn’t know then that I’d be going out to Minnesoty. That idea came later, when we talked on the phone a couple o’ weeks ago.”

“Walter, you’re right,” you should have invited us to meet this… this Lola Falana…”

“Fianna,” corrected Uncle Walter. “She ain’t got no Lola in it.”

“…this whatever she is. You should have invited us to come out to meet her when she was here,” said Aunt Lou, pleased to have the upper hand again.

“Wa’al, I’ll give ye all a promise,” said Uncle Walter. “I’ll give ye all a promise that when I git up thar in Minnesoty, we’uns’ll both call ye all an’ I’ll introduce ye by telly-phone. Oh, I know oncet ye git to talkin’ with her reel nice, ye’ll like her like I do. She’s a reel nice gal.”

“I’ll never like her, Walter!” protested Aunt Sam.

Uncle Walter looked from Aunt Lou to Aunt Sam and smiled, feeling he had brought the conversation to as satisfactory a conclusion as he could hope for. “Heah I am a lucky ole son-uv-a-gun. I got two uv the best sisters in the world a-lookin’ out fer me even now when I’m a droopy ole Basset hound. Wa’al, I’m grown up now an’ I don’t need ye all’s hep like I used to, but I appreciate ye. I’ll say that alright. I must be the luckiest man in the world to hev ye two sich wunnerful sisters. An’ when I git to Minnesoty, I won’t fergit ye. Why, I’ll bet I call ye on the telly-phone from thar more than I do now from heah.”

“Walter, is there nothing we can say to get you to change your mind?” asked Aunt Lou.

“Nothing we can do to get you to stay here?” echoed Aunt Sam.

“You’d heff to chain me down to the killin’ room floor to keep me heah! Ha, ha!” laughed Uncle Walter. “I’m bound fer Minnesoty!”

“Oh, Lou, he’s really leaving us!” cried Aunt Sam, her disbelief giving way to resignation.

“Walter, I have to say you’re a damned fool!” said Aunt Lou.

“Lou, the boy!” said Uncle Walter, glancing at me.

“But I should have known we’uns couldn’t talk any sense into you,” Aunt Lou continued. “You get these notions in your head. I don’t know, Walter. I just don’t know. I don’t think you should sell this place. Mark my words – in a month or three months or six months or a year from now, I declare, you’ll wish you had this place to come back to. And you better not sign no papers. Don’t you go signing no papers over to her, now, d’ya hear?”

“Yes, Lou,” replied Uncle Walter compliantly.

“Well, Sam,” said Aunt Lou with a sigh and a shrug of her shoulders. “I don’t see what more we can do here. He’s as stubborn as ever.”

“Like a mule!” agreed Aunt Sam.

The drive back to Knoxville was very long and quiet. Aunt Lou and Aunt Sam both sat in the back seat. Aunt Lou muttered under her breath the whole way. I could make out phrases like, “He ain’t got no sense,” and “He’s a damned fool,” and “He’d better not sign no papers” the entire way home. Aunt Sam punctuated Aunt Lou’s mutterings with deep sighs and occasional subdued exclamations about murderesses, Lucretia Deville, and Lola Falana.


To be continued...

[DATo]

It is such a joy to have found a website with such a plethora of excellent writers!

I am enjoying this story immensely. The dialect is so well crafted that I can "hear" the conversations while reading this story as though I were standing in the presence of the characters. It may interest you to know that I am working on a piece which also includes "country" dialect so I was particularly interested in the way you handled this in your story and it was spot-on.

The story itself is a nice mix of both comical and the serious. I don't think Uncle Walter's bout with the computer while trying to navigate to Fianna's picture, could have been described better or more realistically and the descriptions of the aunt's sentiments were masterfully crafted through their dialogue. I especially enjoyed the interjections by Aunt Samantha. *LOL*

I have absolutely no criticism to offer. I am eagerly looking forward to reading the next chapter.

[Hawkman]

Yup, I'd have to concur. This is great fun. The only tip I'd give you would be about not interjecting snippets of narrator's exposition into the dialogue, especially, when for example, you say something like, they were talking about an incident that must have occurred back in his childhood, and go on to reveal in reported speech that he was six or twelve years old. Same goes for Lucrecia Deville. Something else which jarred, even though there may be a diegetic reason for it, is the difference in tone between the narration and the narrator's reported speech. The narrator says "But I ain't no boy, aunt Lou." Even though you've given us a lovely exchange between the siblings in dialect, which, given the narrator's origins, might have led him to regress, it's so out of character with his normal narrative tone that it sticks out a bit. It would be very wearing for the narration to be entirely in dialect, so you really have to stick with your initial premise of the country boy who had his corners knocked off, probably by a college education and through living in a city. I'd recommend that you keep him to speaking in standard english. As, by your own admission, you are using dialect for comic effect, the contrast with the local boy made good and his hick relatives is probably the best course.

Very enjoyable. Keep it coming.

Live and be well - H

[108 fountains]

Thanks for the encouraging words DATo and Hawkman, and for the useful comments, Hawkman. Glad you are enjoying this. I had a lot of fun writing it. The chapter below is also strictly for fun, but the plot will take a somewhat more serious tone eventually. To help with the eastern Tennessee/western Carolina dialect, I watched several old Andy Griffith Show episodes. (That in itself was a lot of fun.) I also recently read Andersonville: A Story of Rebel Military Prisons by John McElroy, which contained some Southern dialect, as well.

[108 fountains]

Chapter Three – Uncle Walter at the Airport

About a month after his sisters’ visit, Uncle Walter called to ask me to take him to the airport. When I got out to his house, he had two big green plaid canvas bags jam-packed with clothes. Glancing at the two big bags, I asked. “Is that all, Uncle Walter? I thought you would have had more.”

I looked around and noticed that the furniture – the Formica-topped dining room table, chrome-legged chairs, the saggy yellow couch, the upholstered wingback chair, and his brown suede recliner – was all still there, the dishes and glasses were still in the cabinets, and the linens were all still in the closet.

“I’m leaving all the furniture an’ the dishes an’ the sheets an’ the blankets an’ thangs fer Buddy Ball,” Uncle Walter explained. “I don’t know what he’s gonna do with ’em. I don’t need ‘em no more. Maybe he’ll rent this old place out to sumbody. I’m even leavin’ the microwave. I nevah did use it mahself. Ef’n I’m a-gonna cook, I’ll cook with goose grease in the fryin’ pan. I ain’t a-gonna use no microwave.” Here he smiled, looked at me and said, “But I got a surprise fer you, Gregory. I’m a-gonna give ye mah telly-vision set. Ye bin so good a-takin’ me to the airport an’ all, I thought it wuz the least I could do. I took reel good care uv it over the years.”

“Oh, Uncle Walter, that’s very nice of you.” I didn’t really want his television. It was at least fifty years old. It had been one of the brand new color TVs back when he first bought it, and it still had knobs on the front to adjust the green and red tints. But I thought it would be impolite of me not to take it, so Uncle Walter and I lifted and carried the thing – it was attached to a wooden console that had cabinets on either side and weighed what seemed like two tons – out and loaded it into my SUV.

Then he took one of the big bags and I took the other and we were on our way. “Aunt Lou called me last night,” I said after we had got onto the highway.

“Did she now?” replied Uncle Walter rubbing his nose. Then after musing for a few minutes, he blinked his eyes and inquired, “Did she hev nary good jabber fer ye?”

“Well,” I smiled, “She said that if I made a wrong turn by mistake on the way to the airport, and you missed your flight, that she would forgive me. She said she knew there were a lot of exits along the way and that it would be very easy to make a wrong turn – a natural mistake.”

Uncle Walter said nothing, but tapped his finger along the side of his nose.

“You got your tickets, Uncle Walter?”

“I got sumthun’ called a ‘e-ticket,’” he replied. “They don’t make real tickets no more. Buddy Ball had to come over an’ stick his thumb in mah computer… No, I mean, uh, stick his thumb-stick in mah computer so he could print the thang over at his house. I ain’t got no printer at home.”

“Hey, Uncle Walter, what did you do with your computer, anyway? Buddy Ball…”

“Yep, I sold that to him too. He give me fifty dollars. I think I sold it kind’a cheap.”

“I would’ve given you a hundred for it.”

Uncle Walter just tapped his finger along the side of his nose.

The airport was bustling. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry. We had arrived in plenty of time – two hours early. We walked over to the check-in area where we were greeted by a tall, blonde lady in a dark blue uniform. Uncle Walter handed her the e-ticket, and she waved us over to some machines and said, “Please avail yourself of our convenient self check-in service.”

As she walked away, Uncle Walter gave her a dismissive look. “I don’t like this heah self-service shenanigans,” he said, “jist like at the gas stations an’ the grocery stores. They make ye do all the work, an’ then they call it ‘service.’ Why, all it do is put good people out o’ work. Now, what do I do heah, Gregory?”

I touched the touch screen, and a voice from the box said, “Welcome.”

“Here, Uncle Walter. You can enter all your information here.”

Uncle Walter stepped up close and read, “’Name.’ Awright. Let me see now. W. Now whar’s the A? Heah it is. I see. It’s jist like mah computer keyboard at home only it ain’t no keyboard, it’s jist right ‘chere on the screen itself. Now. L. Heah we go. T, E, an’ R. Now last name. L-A-M-B. I tell ye what, Gregory. It’s a good thang I ain’t got no name like Schumanhemmikafferschtadt or one o’ them other German or Pollock names that sum o’ these new arrivals got. In these modern computer days, it’s better to hev a short name, a easy name – like Buddy Ball. Now, let me see… What’s next heah? Ticket number or confirmation number – how do I know? Don’t they know?”

“I think it’s here, Uncle Walter. Here at the top of your e-ticket.”

“Ah, that might very wa’al be,” said Uncle Walter, “But it ain’t no use. I cain’t see it. The print’s too small.”

“Here, I’ll read it off for you – QS14589VZ.”

“What wuz after S again?”

“Uh, one. And then four.”

“One. Four. Aw, durn it! I hit three instead uv four. Now what am I gonna do? They ain’t no eraser button around heah narywhar that I kin see.”

“Let me try, Uncle Walter. There. You just have to use the ‘back’ button.”

“That’s very good, Gregory. How did ye evah think to do that? Now, whar wuz I? Four…”

“Ahem.” We were interrupted at this point by the tall blonde lady in the dark blue uniform. “Do you need any help, gentlemen?” she asked. She sounded just like the voice on the check-in screen that said “Welcome.”

“Hep with what?” asked Uncle Walter.

She smiled and led us back toward the check-in counters. “I think it will be best if you let us help you here,” she said and directed us to a short, dark-haired woman behind a counter. At first, I thought she was sitting down, but then I saw she was standing up – that’s how short she was. She looked to be around fifty years old, wore dark-rimmed, angular glasses from which a silver chain looped over both her ears. She looked at Uncle Walter and I with dark, piercing eyes from over the top of her glasses, rather than through them. Her nose was pointed, and her expression was severe. She reminded me of my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Dahlman.

“Ticket, please,” she said in a terse tone.

“I ain’t got no ticket,” said Uncle Walter, “But I got this heah.” And he handed her his e-ticket.
“This is your ticket, sir,” she said, glancing up momentarily and then entering the information on her computer terminal.

“Photo ID,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Oh, I got mah driver’s license right ‘chere,” said Uncle Walter, pulling out his wallet.

She took the license from him, examined it a moment with a sharp eye and said, “This license expired eight years ago. Do you have anything else?”

Uncle Walter opened up his wallet and flipped through a sheaf of plastic holders. “I got this,” he said, pulling out a small paper that had been folded in half. “It’s mah fishin’ license. O’ course, it don’t hev mah pitcher on it though.” He looked at it more carefully and exclaimed, “Ha,ha! It’s expired, too! Expired five year ago!”

The dark haired woman looked harshly at Uncle Walter. “Sir!” she said. “Do you have anything with your photograph on it?”

“Wa’al, let me see…” said Uncle Walter. “I know I got sumthun’ right ‘chere sumwhar. Ah, heah it is.” And he pulled out a very old, faded color photograph and held it out to the woman. “This right ‘chere, this is mah weddin’ pitcher. That’s me and that’s mah wife Jessica. She bin dead now seventeen yeer. But that’s me. That’s mah pitcher. It don’t look much like me nary a bit no more. That thar driver’s license ye got thar looks more like how I looks like now.” Then he added with a toothy grin, “I feel kind’a shy a-showin’ ye mah weddin’ pitcher an’ all, seein’ as how I’m a-goin’ up to Minnesoty to live up thar with mah new girlfriend.”

“Wait one moment, please,” said the dark haired woman. She looked acidly at Uncle Walter and picked up a telephone.

A few seconds later, a slight little man with sandy hair wearing a dark blue blazer with a huge brass badge bearing the insignia of the airline strode up, took a quick, nervous look in Uncle Walter’s direction, and whispered something to the dark haired woman. She held Uncle Walter’s driver’s license up to him and whispered back something that, while I couldn’t hear what she said, rang with a tone of disapproval. The man with the sandy hair took the license from her, looked at it, then looked at Uncle Walter and said, “Is this you, sir? Mr. Walter Lamb?”

“Ain’t nobody else heah by that name, I reckon,” said Uncle Walter with a broad smile.

“And you don’t have any other form of identification?”

“Wa’al, I got mah fishin’ license, but it ain’t got mah pitcher on it, an’ I got mah weddin’ pitcher, but it ain’t got mah name on it. She didn’t even want to look at mah weddin’ pitcher,” he said, motioning to the dark haired woman.

“You see what I mean?” the woman said to the sandy haired man.

“But this right ‘chere, this is mah nevvy, Gregory Lamb,” continued Uncle Walter. “He kin tell you who I am. Go ahead, Gregory, tell ’em who I am.”

Before I could say anything, the sandy haired man sunk his neck down into his shoulders and held up his hand in a gesture that had the effect of saying, “Please stop.”

“That won’t be necessary,” he said. “We’ll accept this.” Here he whispered a few more words to the dark haired lady, and then he looked up at Uncle Walter again. “Sir, I’ll suggest you might want to renew your driver’s license before the next time you need to fly.”

“Awright,” said Uncle Walter, “but I don’t see why nowadays ye need a blue-bellied driver’s license to ride in no airplane. Seems to me, ye ought’a hev a driver’s license to drive a car. I ain’t a-gonna fly the plane; I’m jist a-gonna sit in it.”

“Good luck!” the sandy haired man said to the dark haired woman and whisked himself away as he was, it seemed to me, in quite a hurry.

The dark haired woman looked down over her glasses at Uncle Walter’s two heavy green plaid bags. “Are you taking those with you?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t ha’ carried ‘em all the way to the airport ‘chere ef’n I wuzn’t plannin’ to take ‘em along with me.” Now it was Uncle Walter with a tone of exasperation in his voice.

“Place them here on the scale, please” she said.

“Give me a hand thar, will ye, Gregory?”

I helped Uncle Walter pick up the bags and put them on the scale.

“Sir, you are grossly overweight,” said the dark haired woman.

Uncle Walter replied, “Wa’al, I did pick up a pound or two heah an’ thar over the yeers, but I ain’t overweight by more’n a dried frog’s skin, I reckon.”

“No, no,” said the dark haired lady in desperation. “I mean your bags. You will have to pay extra for the overage.”

“For the overage, ye say? Wa’al, I hadn’t reckoned on that. How much does all that overage come out to naryhow?”

“One moment,” she said. I noticed that she avoided looking directly at Uncle Walter. She seemed to always be looking down at something on her desk or on her computer screen. “Tsk, tsk,” she said shaking her head. “It’s going to cost quite a bit, I’m afraid – two hundred and fifteen dollars.”

“Yep, I hain’t a-reckoned on that,” said Uncle Walter tapping along the side of his nose. “I only got about sixty green bones on me. Kin ye send me a bill fer it? I’ll write ye mah new address…”

“Don’t you have a credit card?”

“Naw, I nevah use ‘em.”

The dark haired lady put her hand to her head and was about to say something when I interceded. “Uncle Walter,” I said, “I can pay for it with my credit card. You can pay me back later.”

“Gregory, mah nevvy, aw, that’s good. That’s reel good. I reely appreciate that. I’ll send it to ye oncet I git to Minnesoty. I got mah checkbook in thar sumwhar,” he said, thumping on one of the bags.

I duly stepped up and produced my credit card. Once that process was completed, the dark haired lady looked once more at Uncle Walter and asked, “Would you like a window or an aisle seat?”

“Oh, I don’t know. A winder seat, I reckon. I only bin up in a airplane oncet afore now. That wuz in Vietnam, an’ thar we wore, forty uv us, an’ not one uv us had a winder seat. Thar warn’t no winders in the whole durn airplane, except fer whar the pilot wuz. I reckon he had a winder. That wuz in Danang. I went up the mountain thar oncet – the Hai Vang Pass we’uns called it. From thar, you could look down an’ see the deep green jungle on the one side an’ the blue, blue ocean on t'other. It was reel nice. It wuz like lookin’ out a airplane winder, I reckon, but I cain’t say fer sure since I ain’t nevah looked out no airplane winder.” The last half of his speech was directed more at me than towards the dark haired woman since she had turned her attention to her computer screen, and he could see she was not listening to him.

“Here you are,” she said, handing him a small, stiff, rectangular piece of paper. “Your boarding pass. You’re at Gate Twenty-Six. You board in sixty minutes.” She still didn’t look at him, but seemed instead to give all her attention to her computer screen.

“Thank’ee kindly,” said Uncle Walter. Then turning to me and grinning from ear to ear, he said, “Wa’al, Gregory. I reckon I’m all set now.”

“Well, you seem happy and excited,” I said. “But, here. Let me walk down with you to the security screening area.”

At the metal detectors, a sign said, “Passengers only beyond this point,” so I said good-bye to Uncle Walter.

“Ye got mah new address an’ mah new telly-phone number, ain’t ye?” asked Uncle Walter.

“Yes, sir, Uncle Walter. I’ll give you a call, too, in a few days, after you’ve had time to settle in some.”

“I’ll send ye a check fer the… fer the overage,” he said.

“No need to be in a hurry with that, Uncle Walter. I hope you have a good flight.”

“Thank’ee, Gregory, mah nevvy. An’ now,” he said with a hearty shake of my hand, “I’m bound fer Minnesoty.”

I turned and had taken a few steps when I heard a beeping sound. I looked back and saw a man in a blue uniform waving some sort of wand around Uncle Walter and saying, “What have you got in your pocket, sir?”

“Only a knife,” replied Uncle Walter.

“A knife!” the man gasped. “You can’t carry a knife onboard with you.”

“I cain’t?”

“Sir, it is not allowed. No sharp objects of any kind, sir. Certainly not.”

“But it ain’t so sharp,” said Uncle Water, pulling out his antler-handled pocket knife and unfolding it to reveal a rather long blade. “See? It’s reel dull. Cain’t cut worth a durn. Probably couldn’t even skin a rabbit with it. It’s duller’n a re-run uv the ole Lawrence Welk show, duller’n Preacher Jackson’s sermon about the cow an’ the mule.”

“Nevertheless, sir, I can’t allow you to bring it onboard.”

“Now, what am I gonna do with it?” said Uncle Walter scratching his forehead rather precariously with the point of the blade.

“Here, Uncle Walter,” I said, stepping up. “I’ll take it for you.”

“Eh, Gregory! Nevvy, you’re back agin, air ye? Good thang, too. This heah fella won’t let me take mah knife with me on the airplane. He thinks it’s a dangerous weapon. Mebbe he thinks I’m a Communist!”

“Yes, I know, Uncle Walter. I heard. I can take it and send it to you in a package in the mail, if you like.”

“Aw, they ain’t no need fer that, Gregory. It ain’t much use naryways. It’s only good fer scalin’ fish an’ the like. I only carry it ‘cause mah Pappy give it to me a long time ago. He give it to me the week afore he died, too. I’ll bet he shore nevah would ha’ thought it would ha’ kep me from gittin’ on a airplane to Minnesoty. Wa’al, you keep it now, nevvy, as a token uv yer grand-pappy an’ the greatest generation that ever wore.”

“Thanks, Uncle Walter.”

“Have you got anything else in your pockets, sir?” asked the man in the blue uniform as Uncle Walter turned back around.

“I got a pack o’ spearmint gum right ‘chere,” said Uncle Walter. “Ye want sum?”



To be continued...

[DATo]

108 fountains,

I can't begin to tell you how much I enjoyed this latest installment to your story. You have a gift for comedic writing. I don't know if you read my reply to Auntie in my Recipe thread but Uncle Walter's common sense responses were not only hilariously funny but exactly what I was trying to explain to Auntie about "wisdom".

Reading Uncle Walter's responses within the setting and context of our highly sophisticated, technologically modern way of living begs the question of whether or not we weren't better off before we adopted all these new-fangled ways of a'doin thangs *LOL*. I was reminded of the mean psychologist in the movie The Miracle On 34th Street by the airline employees. As you may recall this man was more neurotic than the people he was hired to interview as employees for Macy's Department Store.

Now there are those who might say that this installment was a bit too long but all I can say to that is that I totally enjoyed each and every word of it. I have no idea where you are going with this story but I am deeply interested in finding out. Looking forward to the next installment.

Excellent read in my opinion!

[108 fountains]

Thanks very much for the kind words DATo. Yeah, the last chapter and the whole story could be, and probably should be, cut back some. But I have to say I never had so much fun writing as I did while writing this piece, and I hope some of that fun carries over to the reader. Using dialect and personal quirks of expression are risky for sure, for all the reasons that have been mentioned here and in the comments to your story, too. With Uncle Walter, I'm sure I've broken all the rules. I figured, "Wa'al, ef'n I'm a-gonna throw the horse-shoe, I might as well try fer the ringer!" -- Sorry, I find I'm slipping into Uncle Walter's character a lot lately; my wife hates it when I talk like him around the house! I do hope that it does not come off as sounding condescending, though, because I really grew to love Uncle Walter as the story developed.

Here in the next chapter, we'll finally get to meet Fianna Wolff. She's a much more complex character - I'm not sure I really understand her yet.

[108 fountains]

Chapter Four – Uncle Walter in Minnesota

Almost nine months had passed since Uncle Walter boarded the plane for Minnesota, and Aunt Lou and Aunt Sam had been calling me up more and more frequently urging me to fly up there myself. “He sounds so despondent when I talk with him on the phone,” explained Aunt Lou. “He says he’s happy, but I declare I know better. He knows he made a mistake, but he’s too stubborn to admit it. I tried to talk some sense into him, but he says he won’t come back here. If you went up there to visit, Greg, I’d feel so much better about it. If you could find out how he’s really doing, see how he’s really getting along, make out what kind of woman she really is… I’m telling you, Greg. I don’t trust her. I just don’t trust her one bit. And Walter… Walter… Well, I just don’t know what I’m going to do with that man. Can’t you go up there, Greg? Just to see?”

And Aunt Sam, “Oh, Greg, he’s up there with that Fellini woman! And I heard the mosquitoes in Minnesota are as big as horse flies. And I heard that the people up there are all Lutherans. Oh, Lord, I hope she doesn’t turn him into a Lutheran!”

So, I called Uncle Walter, and he welcomed the idea. I told him I would only stay the weekend - I didn't want to overstay on a first visit and thought I could stay longer during a future visit. So I purchased a plane ticket and found myself very early one fine April Saturday morning on an airplane headed for Minneapolis-St. Paul. I rented an economy car from Avis and followed Uncle Walter’s directions about an hour’s drive northwest to a little neighborhood on the outskirts of St. Cloud. I was curious myself to meet Uncle Walter’s girlfriend Fianna and to see where they lived and what kind of life he was leading with her.

As I turned the final corner, I was confused. There was no mistaking the address – 901 East Waite Street – but instead of the picturesque country farmhouse I was expecting, I found a small, run down red brick building with a sign in the front that read “Ottawa Apartments.” I parked the car at the far end of the tiny asphalt parking lot, sauntered up the walkway, and pushed open the aluminum and glass front door. To the right, a cluster of eight small compartments were set in the wall for the mail. “Walter Lamb” was written over compartment F.

I walked down a dimly lit hallway over a mat carpet that smelled of mildew. I passed doors labeled A and C on my left and B and D on my right. Then I passed through a swinging metal door into a stairwell that smelled of mold and cement dust and ascended the stairs. Emerging on the second floor and to the right was my object – Apartment F.

Uncle Walter was not slow in opening the door to my sharp rap. “Gregory, mah nevvy!” he beamed. “Ye come all the way from Tennessee to see yer Uncle Walter, hev ye?”

“It’s really good to see you, Uncle Walter,” I reciprocated.

“Come on in, come on in,” he said heartily, holding the door open wide.

As I entered I saw Fianna standing behind him, peering over his shoulder, as curious to see me as I was to see her. She was extremely tall, with long, straight hair of various shades of light brown streaked with gray and white. She wore a copper colored dress with dark green and cream paisley designs that accentuated her height by running in vertical stripes all the way to her ankles. She wore brown sandals that only served to call attention to a set of rather large, ungainly feet. The sandals, the dress, the long hair – the overall appearance – gave the impression that she was some kind of middle-aged, leftover hippie, a relic of the 1960’s not quite ready for the 21st century. I took in all these details in an instant, but it was her eyes that arrested my attention. Something about those eyes gave me an uneasy feeling. The irises of her eyes were speckled with flecks of various shades of blue. They were like a kaleidoscope. They sparkled and glittered too much, and gave her an almost crazed appearance.

“Walter, dear” she said in a musical, laughing voice. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

“O’ course I am,” said Uncle Walter. “Fianna, this right ‘chere, this is mah nevvy Gregory. Gregory, this heah… this right ‘chere is mah… mah friend, Fianna.”

“Friend!” shrieked Fianna, giving Uncle Walter a playful slap on his shoulder. “Walter, my dear, how you talk! Well, this is the world we live in!” Then she held out her hand and fluttered her eyelashes at me. I felt as if she was expecting me to bow and kiss her hand, but I couldn’t do that, so I took it and shook it.

“I’m very happy to meet you, ma’am,” I uttered.

She laughed a musical laugh and fluttered her eyelashes all the more, magnifying the flickering effect of her eyes. Somehow she seemed… unbalanced.

“Come on in, come on in,” repeated Uncle Walter, leading me to a folding chair. “Sit down right ‘chere an’ make yerself comfortable. Fianna’ll fix us sum coffee.”

Fianna had already moved away and was pouring steaming hot water into two mugs. “It’s instant,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

As Fianna stirred in the crystals of Folgers Fresh Breaks Breakfast Blend, I glanced at my surroundings. The apartment was very small – a studio apartment – one not-so-large room divided into three sections. Fianna stood in the kitchen area, which boasted a refrigerator and small gas range-top stove. A large window, the only one in the apartment, opened up over the sink, its thin cinnamon and mahogany colored curtains rolled in the breeze that wafted in through the screen. The sleeping area was partially partitioned off by a two-piece, hinged, wooden screen with inlaid mother-of-pearl Oriental designs. The bed was clothed in a rust brown colored comforter with broad, variegated stripes in shades of light yellow. The small common area was devoid of furniture save for a small television placed against the wall, a card table, and four metal folding chairs, in one of which I was sitting. The surface of the table was nearly covered by the pieces of a half-completed jigsaw puzzle depicting various birds and birdhouses.

“Oh, those puzzles of his!” exclaimed Fianna as she brought us the coffee. “Pay them no mind. Just push the pieces out of the way.”

“An' yer only stayin' fer a day, ye say?” asked Uncle Walter.

“Yeah, just for the day, Uncle Walter,” I replied. “I have to fly back tomorrow morning.”

“So soon!” cried Fianna. She made a show of disappointment, but I felt there was a touch of relief in her voice.

“I couldn’t take any time off from work. This is the busiest time of year at my office,” I offered.

“This is the world we live in!” interjected Fianna.

“But Aunt Lou and Aunt Sam…” I began.

“Them thar as ye talk to on the telly-phone,” Uncle Walter said to Fianna. “They sent Gregory up heah to spy on us, I reckon.”

Here Fianna slapped him playfully on his shoulder, laughed and exclaimed, “Walter, dear! How you talk!”

“I wouldn’t call it spying, Uncle Walter. And they didn’t really send me. I wanted to come anyway to visit. It’s been nearly a year since I’ve seen you.”

“Purt nigh, purt nigh,” said Uncle Walter, rubbing his nose.

“What do you do, Gregory?” Fianna asked, leaning over towards me, fluttering her eyelashes, the glittering effect of her blue irises giving me a disconcerted, disoriented feeling. “What kind of job do you have?”

So I told her all about my job at the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. How I used mapping techniques to track the movement of animals in the forests and fish in the lakes, changes in river water depth and flow, soil conditions, the locations of freshwater springs, etc. She asked so many questions that an hour passed by, and I had barely spoken a word to Uncle Walter who looked pleasantly on, pleased that Fianna and I seemed to be “hittin’ it off.” And yet, curiously, she seemed to pay no attention at all to anything I said. During the entire conversation, she concentrated her efforts into placing the jig-saw puzzle pieces onto neat little stacks lined up in front of her.

Finally, Uncle Walter interrupted. “Fianna, I bet the boy’s hongry.” Then, turning to me, he said, “Fianna cooked up a reel nice picnic lunch fer us with her own leetle hands. We’uns bin a-fixin to take ye out an’ show ye her farmhouse out in the country. It’s a heap might better out thar than it is in heah. Fianna’ll drive us out thar.”

He got up from his chair and took a step toward the door. “Wait, Walter dear,” Fianna said opening the door to the closet. “Here. Put on this sweater and wear this jacket. It’s chilly outside. I don’t want you coming down with anything.” At this, she fluttered her eyelashes at me.

Uncle Walter and I followed Fianna to the parking lot where she opened the doors of a 1970’s era Chevrolet Kingswood Estate Station Wagon, complete with simulated wood paneling. I toppled into the back seat where a traditional wicker picnic basket had already been placed, reeking wonderfully of fried chicken. Fianna drove us about twenty minutes out of town and down a blacktop road that meandered through empty agricultural fields – it was still very early in the season. One solitary tractor’s harsh, grinding motor sounded in our ears as she turned onto a gravel road. “That thar be Cutthroat Jack a-plowin’ fer hard red spring wheat,” said Uncle Walter, pointing out the yellow and orange colored tractor. “It’ll be another few weeks afore he kin git in the soybeans. He rents the land heah from Fianna. With rentin’ the land an’ a-workin’ at the ole folks home an’ all, Fianna’s got a heap uv ways o’ makin’ money. Heah. This right ‘chere – this is the farmhouse.”

Fianna pulled the car right up into the front yard of a one-story wooden farmhouse, run down but yet picturesque. The outside walls were made of hand-hewn logs chinked with lime mortar and notched in a dovetail pattern at the ends where they formed corners. From its style of construction, I guessed that the building was at least a hundred years old. The windows were newer and were set in white frames, but their wooden frames were cracked and the paint was peeling. The roof sloped at a sharp angle, and the ancient black tar shingles had spread apart over the years, allowing gaps where mosses and grasses now flourished. The white paint on the nondescript front door peeled in the same manner as that on the wooden window frames. Several ash trees and sugar maple trees had sprouted up randomly in the front and on the sides of the house, along with a scattering of balsam firs of varying sizes like so many Christmas trees. The ash trees were as yet leafless, but the maples were covered with emergent green leaves and diaphanous pinkish light green clusters of whirligigs that floated and fluttered in the slightest breeze, carrying their seed to the ground. Bordering the as yet empty field in back was a stand of very tall and very straight eastern hemlocks. All in all, I thought the place quite pleasant, albeit a bit neglected.

Fianna carried the wicker basket, I carried the cooler, and Uncle Walter carried three lawn chairs to a grassy spot next to the tallest of the sugar maple trees. Fianna spread out a blanket on which she set down and opened the picnic basket. “Once every hundred-thousand years or so/When the sun doth shine and the moon doth glow/And the grass doth grow...,” she sang gaily. 1

“Here is a plate for you, Gregory, and a plate for you, Walter dear,” she said handing up a plastic dish with two fried chicken legs, coleslaw, and mayonnaise potato salad.

“Ye want sum sodi-pop thar, Gregory?” asked Uncle Walter opening the cooler. “I got root beer an’ orange an’ grape. I cain’t drink no cola. It lays heavy in mah belly.”

The three of us consumed our picnic under a sunny blue firmament while puffs of white clouds tumbled across the sky. The chicken, as well as the coleslaw and potato salad, tasted suspiciously like – no, they tasted exactly like – Kentucky Fried Chicken, but I didn’t say anything. I confined myself to complimenting Fianna on the taste, a compliment she willingly accepted.

In the middle of the meal, Fianna screamed a terror-stricken scream.

I was startled and stood up, but Uncle Walter continued to sit back comfortably in his chair. He smiled and asked lazily, “What is it, dear?”

“One of those things!” she panted. “One of those things fell into my potato salad!”

“Why, that thar ain’t nuthun’ to git a-skeered uv,” said Uncle Walter. “It’s jist one o’ them whirligigs. It’s that time uv year when they come a-fallin’ down off’n these heah Maple trees. See? Thar falls one, now.”

“Eeeehh!” screamed Fianna as it landed on her shoulder. She stood up and frenetically brushed the whirligig off her shoulder, upsetting her plate in the effort. Without a word, she walked off furiously and stood at the edge of the empty wheat field with her back toward us.

“She’s a leetle high-strung, sumtimes,” Uncle Walter explained. “It don’t take much to set her sirens a-wailin’. Don’t worry, though. She’ll come back in a minit an’ it’ll be jist like nuthun’ happened.”

Uncle Walter was right. After about five minutes, Fianna returned, sat down in her lawn chair and hummed a little tune to herself. But she didn’t eat anything more. She placed the remainder of her meal inside a tall kitchen bag she had brought along for the trash.

As Uncle Walter and I finished eating, he stood up, yawned, and stretched his legs. “I reckon I’m ready fer to take a leetle walk,” he said. “I don’t like sittin’ in one place fer long. Ef’n ye sit too long without movin’, ye never know ef’n one uv these heah doctors’ll come by an’ pronounce ye dead on the spot.”

“You two go ahead, Walter dear,” Fianna said. “I’ll clean up.” As we walked away, I heard her murmur under her breath, “I must clean up. I must clean up.”

“It’s reel nice out ‘chere,” Uncle Walter said as I walked with him toward the house.

“It’s a beautiful day,” I agreed. After a few minutes, I ventured, “Uncle Walter, how come you and Fianna don’t live out here instead of in that little apartment? I mean, with the money you got from selling your house in Tennessee to Buddy Ball, I bet you could fix this place up…”

“Ssshhh!” said Uncle Walter, putting a finger to his lips. “Look-ee heah,” he said. He led me up to one of the windows on the side of the house, and we peered in. Enough daylight entered through the casement to illuminate a large room with a hardwood floor inside. Curiously, the room was filled entirely with dozens of stacks piled high with newspapers and magazines, thousands of them.

I turned to Uncle Walter for an explanation, but he only held a finger up to his lips again. He looked back to reassure himself that Fianna was still cleaning up, and then he led me to the back of the house to another window. We peered in and saw the same thing – thousands of magazines and newspapers piled in stacks nearly six feet tall covering the entire area of the room. “The whole house is jist like that,” Uncle Walter said in a voice just above a whisper. “I said the same thang like you, Gregory. I says, ‘Fianna, why don’t we’uns throw out all this stuff heah an’ fix up this ole place reel nice.’ But she cain’t do it, Gregory. She jist cain’t throw out this stuff. An’ I cain’t talk to her about it. I found that out, I reckon. She gits a might… a might… unhappy ef’n I mention it.”

We continued our walk over by the larches. The breeze blew chill. I was glad I had thought to bring my jacket. “But that apartment you two are staying in… It’s so small!”

Uncle Walter rubbed his nose with his forefinger. “Wa’al, it’s big enough fer me, I reckon. Fianna don’t stay with me, Gregory. She has a place uv her own in town.”

I was astonished to hear this and was at a loss for words. Uncle Walter continued, “Fianna comes over to see me ever other week or so to bring me groceries and the like. Mebbe she’ll come ‘round more often now that the weather’s turnin’ warmer.”

I was even more astonished to hear this. After I moment’s hesitation I said, “She brings you groceries! Once every other week! I don’t know what to say Uncle Walter, except that… Maybe you should buy yourself a used car so you can go buy your own groceries.”

“Wa’al, I thought about that, too,” said Uncle Walter, rubbing his nose a little harder, “but when I moved up heah, I put all mah money in a joint account with Fianna, so she pays all mah bills – mah ‘lectric an’ mah gas – an’ she buys all mah groceries, too. She likes to do it that way. She even changed mah Social Security so it goes directly to her. She fixed it up so I don’t even heff to sign fer it no more.”

I remembered Aunt Lou saying, ““Don’t you sign no papers. That’s all. Just don’t you sign no papers.”

“I don’t mind,” continued Uncle Walter, “She takes reel good care uv me.”

I was about to say something – I don’t know what – when Fianna strolled up to us singing, “Crazy, I'm crazy for feeling so lonely/I'm crazy, crazy for feeling so blue…” 2 She slapped Uncle Walter playfully on his shoulder, fluttered her eyelashes and said, “So, what have you two been talking about?”

As we continued our walk around the house, Fianna pointed toward a bare spot among the grass. “I used to keep a garden there,” she said. “Oh, it’s been a long time ago, now. Walter! Let’s you and I come out here this spring and plant a garden. Oh, it will be so lovely! Let’s see. We’ll plant two rows of lettuce, a row of pumpkins, a row of beets, a row of peppers, two rows of rhubarb, and two rows of potatoes. Oh, it will be delightful to see them growing up all in neat little rows!”

We returned to our lawn chairs – Fianna had moved them out from under the maple tree – and sat and talked until late in the afternoon. Fianna dominated the conversation. She wanted to know more about my job, and she had all kinds of questions about Aunt Lou and Aunt Sam. I tried, but couldn’t learn much about her. Other than affirming that she worked as an administrative assistant at an elderly care center for the past ten years, she skillfully kept the conversation directed toward my own activities and some of our family history, for which Uncle Walter joined in.

As the afternoon waned and the air turned uncomfortably cooler, we drove back to Uncle Walter’s apartment. We decided that I would go check in at the local Super 8 Motel and meet them back at Uncle Walter’s at seven o’clock for dinner. Fianna made a point of inviting us to a steak dinner at a restaurant. At the motel, I showered and changed clothes. I flipped on the television, but could find nothing to take my mind off Uncle Walter and the mess I decided that he had gotten himself into. Aunt Lou and Aunt Sam were right, I thought – Fianna, besides being slightly off her rocker, was taking advantage of him. I wondered if she had any other elderly men – men she might have met online or at the nursing facility – tucked away in studio apartments waiting for her biweekly visits. I mulled all this over in my mind until it was time to drive back over to Uncle Walter’s.


1 Tenacious D. Tribute. 2002.
2 Willy Nelson. Crazy. 1961. (popularized by Patsy Cline)

To be continued...

[Lee]

Long winded to the point of boring.

[DATo]

The story it seems has taken a very disappointing turn. The hopes I held for Uncle Walter's happiness have been crushed by the story's recent, unfolding events.

What I found interesting about the way you "broke the news" to the reader is that it was precisely layered: each disturbing new bit of knowledge about Fianna and Uncle Walter's relationship topped the news I had just managed to digest a moment before. At first I was willing to cut Fianna some slack by reminding myself that all that's gilded is not gold, but with each successive disappointing revelation about Fianna and Uncle Walter's state of affairs my hopes dropped successively further and further into the abyss.

I think the comic aspect of the opening chapters has nicely served to make the last installment all the more dramatic by contrast, and though we desperately do not want to believe that Aunt Lou and Aunt Samantha's prejudicial damnation of the enterprise were correct we are now faced with no other option than to admit that before the truth all heads must bow.

I like the way you have constructed the story thus far. Once again I have no idea where this story is headed, but now, in addition to enjoying the unfolding of the story, I also find my attention being irresistibly drawn to the helpless state of affairs to which Uncle Walter has been reduced. You have constructed Uncle Walter as a kindly, adventurous, and trusting individual. We definitely like him and want him to be happy. But all we can do now is watch white-knuckled as the disaster unfolds.

Excellently written! Can't wait to read more.

[Hawkman]

Poor Walter... at least, apparently so. Your skilful use of a first person narrative provides only one perspective. The reader only thinks, knows and sees what that narrator thinks, knows and sees. We are presented with a picture of Walter as a gullible pet, in thrall to an alternately scheming and hysterical woman of unprepossessing aspect. A collector, yet! We are only given snippets of truth and all the other characters are filtered through the lens of the narrator's vision. We are not privy to anyone else's thoughts and feelings. This means that this story can still go anywhere, although at this juncture things look pretty dodgy for W. I won't say any more about this as I want to see what happens and where you take us. :D

Instead, I will focus on another interesting development in your narrative, the overt and systematic product placement! This episode launched me into academic mode: "Modernism and Material Culture in the Early Twenty-First Century American Short Story." I feel an essay coming on. ;) Don't worry, I'll keep it short. :D The first instance is the mention of a specific car rental firm, Avis. Do we, I ask, really need to know what company the car was rented from? Does it have any bearing on the plot? Not as far as I can see. The second commodity identified by brand is the instant coffee, "Folgers Fresh Breaks Breakfast Blend," which, I confess, I'd never heard of (I had to google it) or if I had, it had not made any impression upon my consciousness. Initially, this caused a misunderstanding on my part. Your use of the word "crystals" actually made me think you were talking about a brand of sugar. I'd probably have chosen "granules" as a descriptor for coffee, even an instant variety. Crystals, at least to me, is a word which, in context, I associate with sugar. But again, I am left asking, what is the significance of the brand? It may mean something to an American—for example, if it is a particularly cheap variety—then given the subsequent revelation that Fiannah is buying all Walter's provisions, it would be informative of the standard of care she is delivering to him using his own money. But you might remember that the forum presents you with an international audience. Apparently at variance with contemporary theory vis. globalisation, the world is not quite yet, America, consequently, this poor Brit is unable to draw anything from the product placement other than as an indicator of the conditioning of the contemporary psyche to commercialism and consumer branding. ;) Having said that, of course, one has to acknowledge the ubiquity of Coke and Kentucky Fried Chicken. :D

One is reminded of the preoccupations of the the early modernists with the demise of traditional ways of life (see uncle Walter) in the face of the rise of machines (computers, e-tickets, plastic money, mass production of consumer goods, culture shock, and the gravitation of the rural population towards urban centres, etc.) Can it be that 108 Fountains is actually Willa Cather? Will uncle Walter end up by topping himself with an ancient, obsolete firearm, symbolic of the lost status of craftsmanship and artistry? Does Gregory harbour a secret passion for a girl called Antonia? Only time will tell :D

I'm enjoying this. Keep it coming :)

Live and be well - H

[108 fountains]

Thanks again, DATo and Hawkman. I'm pasting below the concluding chapters. I'll be curious to hear your reactions. On the product placement idea - it was entirely unintentional. I used AVIS because that's usually who I rent cars from whenever I have to rent, and the Folgers Fresh Breaks Breakfast Blend is what I happened to have in the cupboard at home (I actually went and looked so I would have the name right) - it was simply a matter of wanting to be as detailed as possible to make the story more believable, but now I can see that it was probably a bit too much, or at least unnecessary, detail. In the chapter below, there is also a reference to "Cheerios." Oh well, at least it's not "Captain Crunch!"

In any case, I was reluctant to bring this story to a conclusion since I was enjoying Uncle Walter's company so much. Maybe I'll bring him back in another story one day.

[108 fountains]

Chapter Five – Uncle Walter and Fianna at the Restaurant

Uncle Walter and Fianna were waiting for me when I knocked on Uncle Walter’s door at a few minutes before seven o’clock. Without going inside the apartment, we proceeded directly to Fianna’s Chevy station wagon, which transported us to the Timber Lodge Steakhouse on Second Street downtown. The restaurant’s tile floor was the only thing inside not formed from or carved out of wood. The walls were cedar-paneled and great blonde crossbeams of pine timber connected to columns of roughly hewn but polished pine logs. The chairs, tables, booths and cashier’s desk were made of the same blonde pinewood. It being a Saturday night and the peak dinner hour, the restaurant was crowded with a folksy home-town sort of clientele. The tables were all full, but as Fianna preferred a booth anyway, we nestled into one of those cubicles comfortably. I faced Fianna and Uncle Walter and farther behind them a huge stone fireplace on the back wall. The heads of two white-tailed deer hung over the wooden mantel. Looking at the mounted deer heads and then back at Fianna and Uncle Walter, I reflected on the vulnerability of the more gentle creatures of nature to the hunters, and I pondered even more that the hunters themselves find no offense in what they do, and in fact that they generally number among decent, upright, honorable, churchgoing folk.

I ordered The Viking – a center cut sirloin, medium; Uncle Walter ordered prime rib, medium rare; Fianna was satisfied with a Cobb salad. Fianna suggested wine. Uncle Walter said he preferred beer, and I had to admit that I shared his preference. Fianna’s glittering eyes showed disappointment, but she herself raised no objection. “This is the world we live in!” she sighed and decided to forego the Pinot Grigio for a glass of iced tea.

Uncle Walter cut his prime rib with relish, savored the morsel in his mouth, and swallowed. Then he took a sip of his ice cold beer and wiped his mouth with his shirt sleeve. “I ain’t et a piece o’ meat like that nor nary a glass o’ beer in a’most a year,” he said with feeling, holding up his glass as if in a toast. “Fianna, you an’ I ought to come out ‘chere more often.”

Fianna cast a dark look in his direction so fleetingly that it nearly passed my notice. Then she laughed, fluttered her eyelashes, and slapped him playfully on the shoulder. “Walter! How you talk! Gregory will think I never feed you. Now Walter dear, you know we must keep to our budget. A meal like this is only for special occasions.” And she fluttered her eyelashes at both of us.

“I reckon you’re right about that,” admitted Uncle Walter. “Still, I wouldn’t mind drinkin’ a beer oncet a while.”

“Then I will buy you beer sometimes,” said Fianna, smiling but through clenched teeth. “Is there anything else you want that I’m not giving you?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Uncle Walter nonchalantly. “Mebbe sum bread an’ butter pickles – yep, I reely like them thar bread an’ butter pickles. An’ sum Cheerios. Yep, that’d be reel nice. I git tired uv them durn cornflakes ever day fer breakfast sumtimes.”

Fianna’s eyes widened and her irises sparkled like cornflowers and sapphires. “Well, Walter dear, you picked a fine time to tell me this!” She set down her fork and folded her arms.

Uncle Walter kept right on eating. “Yep,” he said with his mouth full, “I reckon I ain’t et a meal come naryways close to this since I come up ‘chere to Minnesoty.”

Fianna refolded her arms and shrugged a “Hmmmph.” She took her red cloth napkin from her lap and folded it. Then she opened it and folded it again, neater than before.

I have to applaud the Timber Lodge Steakhouse kitchen staff. My steak was delicious - thick, juicy and cooked just right. Most of the remainder of the meal was passed in silence save for the chomping and slurping sounds that Uncle Walter and I made.

By and by, Uncle Walter pushed his plate to the side, leaned back in his chair, and rubbed his belly with both hands. “That wuz reel good!” he smiled. Then he glanced at Fianna’s untouched salad. “Wot’s wrong? Ain’t ye hongry?” he asked.

Fianna cast a sidelong look in my direction, then exchanged her tight-lipped expression for a pearly-toothed smile. “Oh, Walter! No, I’m not very hungry after that great big lunch we had, but I’m happy to see you eating so well. Would you like some dessert? Some apple crisp? Ice cream? How about their Bear Creek Coconut Craze?”

“No, thank’ee,” said Uncle Walter. “I et like a bar already. I bet I git sum dreams tonight. I allays git dreams when I eat much afore goin’ to bed.”

“What about you, Gregory dear?” asked Fianna, eyelashes fluttering and irises glittering. “Would you like dessert?”

“No, thank you, ma’am. I’m not much for sweets. I’m more of a meat-and-potatoes-man.”

“It runs in the family,” added Uncle Walter. “His pappy an’ me, we wuz jist the same. I’d ruther hev a second hepin’ uv meat an’ potatoes than nary no dessert – unless it’s lemon pie. I allays got room fer lemon pie – so long as it ain’t too tart.”

“Well, I’m learning so many new things about you tonight, Walter dear,” smiled Fianna through clenched teeth. “I had no idea. Beer and lemon pie. I must remember that.”

“Don’t fergit the Cheerios,” he said.

I offered to pay the bill, but Fianna insisted. I then offered to pay half since it was pretty expensive – at least to my thinking – but she insisted on paying the whole thing. I watched as she counted out the bills and coins. “There,” she said. “Seven dollars and eighty-eight cents for a tip. That’s exactly fifteen percent rounded to the nearest penny.”

“She’s purty good at countin’ an’ figurin’” said Uncle Walter. “That’s why I let her pay all the bills.”

[108 fountains]

Chapter Six – Uncle Walter in his Room

I wished I could stay longer. I should have planned for a three- or four-day visit rather than this short overnight trip. I woke up early – before the morning had yet yawned. I wanted to stop by Uncle Walter’s room one more time to speak with him alone before driving to the airport. So I took my shower, ate the motel’s rather meager Continental breakfast, checked out, and drove the eight blocks down to the Ottawa Apartments.

I found Uncle Walter by himself, cheerful as ever. “So, ye come back agin, hev ye, nevvy? To say good-bye to yer dear ole Uncle Walter afore headin’ off to the airport?”

“I’m really sorry I have to go back so soon,” I replied. But there’s only one flight per day to Knoxville by way of Chicago, and it leaves in the morning. I’ve only got a few minutes,” I said.

Wa’al, sit yerself down right ‘chere in the meantime,” said Uncle Walter pulling out a folding chair next to the card table where his jig-saw puzzle lay half pieced together.

“I’ll call you on the phone more often after this,” I promised.

“That’s good. That’s reel good. I’d appreciate that,” replied Uncle Walter thoughtfully.

“I’ll tell Aunt Lou and Aunt Sam that you’re looking happy and healthy.”

“That’s good,” said Uncle Walter. A few seconds later, during which time he rubbed his nose vigorously, he looked up at me and said, “Ye don’t heff to tell ‘em nary everthang, ye know.”

“Yeah, I know that,” I replied. Then, having found the opening I was looking for, I said, “Uncle Walter, you know, you don’t have to stay here.”

“Eh?” he said, somewhat puzzled.

“I mean, there’s nothing, really, no legal obligations or anything like that, to keep you here. You can come back to Tennessee any time. Nobody will say anything. And if you don’t have any money,” I said as gently as possible, “You can come stay with me.”

“Eh?” he said again.

“That’s right. I’ve got plenty of room. It would be fun. We could keep each other company.”

For a moment he said nothing. He moved one of the jig-saw puzzle pieces into place. Then he glanced up at me and then looked back down at his puzzle. “The way I figger it, it’s like this…” he started, and then he slowly raised his eyes to meet mine. “The way I figger it is that I come up heah – on mah own decision – an’ now I got to live the consequences. She’s a trifle… She’s got her own ways, that’s fer shore, but she needs me, I reckon, in her own way…”

“I don’t know, Uncle Walter. I think… I’m afraid she might be taking advantage of you.”

“Eh? Aw, I know what ye mean by that. No, Gregory, she ain’t like that. She might have a coupl’uv spark plugs need replacin’, but, no, she ain’t like that. I trust her. I got to. I ain’t got no other choice.”

“That’s what I’m trying to say, Uncle Walter. “You do have another choice. You can come back and stay with me.”

He thought quietly for a minute. Then he sighed, “No. No, Gregory. I reckon I’ll jist stay heah. Thank’ee kindly fer the offer, tho. I reely appreciate that. I reely do, but I reckon the best thang is fer me to jist stay right ‘chere.”

I stared blankly as he placed two more pieces of the puzzle. The morning sun streamed in through the cinnamon and mahogany colored curtains over the kitchen sink. Then I reluctantly looked at my watch and said, “I’ve got to go now, Uncle Walter. No need for you to get up. I’ll let myself out. I’ll call you in a week or so. I’d like for us to talk some more about this – once you had a chance to think it over.”

Uncle Walter remained silent and stayed seated. As I closed the door behind me, I glimpsed him sitting at his card table rubbing his nose with one of the pieces of his jig-saw puzzle.


The end

[DATo]

I was hoping that somehow Uncle Walter would be saved through some ironic twist of fate or that he had already taken some common sense precautions to protect himself but it seems that the literary muse which was on duty for this latest installment was the ghost of John Steinbeck.

A sad ending but a good story. I enjoyed reading this. As you say perhaps Uncle Walter will make a reappearance in happier times.

Thanks for sharing.