Can't Wait to Get to Heaven

Luther Comes Home

5:03 PM

That afternoon when Luther Griggs drove back into town after his Seattle run, he wondered if anybody had missed him at the funeral. He had felt terrible about not being able to go, but there had been nothing he could do about it. He thought about driving past Elner’s house before he went home, but changed his mind. It would be too sad not to see her out there on the front porch. He would go home, and after he had a nap and a bath, he would go over to Mrs. Warren’s house and tell them why he had not been at the service, and find out where she was buried. He knew where to get some nice flowers for her grave. He had seen a bunch of different arrangements the last time Bobbie Jo had dragged him through Tuesday Morning right next to the picture frames. He would get some as pretty as the ones he put on his own mother’s grave, nicer even, he thought. After all, she had been nicer to him than his own mother. But as he turned off the interstate and approached Elmwood Springs, he changed his mind and decided he would drive by her house. He realized that as fast as they were tearing down all the older houses in town, he better go by before it might be too late. As he came down First Avenue, he was relieved to see the house was still standing. He was thinking that he might try to buy the old house himself; he had saved some money over the past couple of years. He was thinking this when Elner Shimfissle walked out onto her porch with a watering can, and waved at him.

“Goddamn it, Luther!” yelled Merle. Luther had just run his eighteen-wheeler truck up over the curb, had almost run Merle over, and had taken out almost all of Merle’s prize hydrangea bushes. Merle ran up to the truck and banged it with his green and white plastic lawn chair, but Luther was so badly shaken up by seeing Elner on her porch that he wouldn’t get out of the truck. By this time Elner had walked across the street, and she stood looking up at him in the cab of his truck, which had landed in a ditch in Irene Goodnight’s yard.

“Hey, Luther,” she said. “What are you doing?”

Macky had just walked in from work when Norma met him at the door, with her car keys in her hand. “You are not going to believe what just happened. I was just getting ready to call you.”

“What?”

“That crazy Luther Griggs didn’t know Aunt Elner was still alive and ran his truck up in Merle’s yard and took out all his shrubs, and half of Irene Goodnight’s. They just called Triple A to come over and pull him out of the ditch.”

“Good God, was anybody hurt?”

“No, evidently just the shrubs. He was just scared to death I guess but we better go over there and make sure everything else is all right. What else is going to happen?”

They drove up in time to see the truck being lifted and pulled across Irene’s yard, taking out most of her rosebushes.

Irene was standing beside Cathy Calvert, who had walked down with her camera. “Dammit,” said Irene. “Why couldn’t they have pulled that truck back across Merle’s yard? His yard was already ruined. He isn’t even a Triple A member! I’m the one who called, and they take out my yard!”

Poor Luther was still shaken up pretty badly and was over at Ruby’s porch. Ruby had just brought him a shot of whisky. Elner sat with him and said, “I’m sorry to have given you such a fright, honey.”

He shook his head, almost in tears. “Whew. I had you dead and buried, and then to see you come out of your house like that…Man…it almost scared me to death.”

After Macky had walked over and surveyed the damage to both yards, he told Merle and Irene to come out to The Home Depot garden shop in the morning and he would make sure to replace what he could. Then he walked back over to Elner’s and sat on the porch.

After a while, when Luther had pulled himself together and was able to talk without bursting into tears, Macky said, “Luther, let’s take a little walk, OK?”

“Sure, Mr. Warren.”

“Excuse us, ladies,” he said. As he walked Luther around to the side of the house, Macky said quietly, “Let me ask you something, Luther. Did you leave a gun at Elner’s house?”

Luther seemed surprised. “A gun?”

“Yeah, a gun. I’m not going to turn you in or anything. Just tell me if you left a loaded .38 at her house.”

“No, sir. I’d tell you. I’m on probation. I can’t have a gun. I took a shotgun from Daddy’s trailer but they got that back.”

“Do you swear to God?”

“Yes, sir. I wouldn’t ever do that to Miss Elner, not in a hundred years. I was going to marry Bobbie Jo Newberry because Miss Elner wanted me to. I think the world of that lady, I’d never give her no loaded gun!”

Macky believed him, and if it wasn’t Luther’s, then whose gun was it?