by Fannie Flagg
“Please do, give me a chance to stuff my ears with cotton.”
“I will.”
The nurse left the room smiling and said to her friend at the desk, “That woman in 703 is a real character. I’m going to be sorry to see her go home. You should have heard her earlier, she was telling a bunch of us all about her seven orange cats named Sonny.”
“She has seven cats named Sonny?”
“No, not all at once. Each time she gets a new cat, she names it Sonny, and she said when she gets out of here she is sending us all fig preserves and a copy of a picture of some kind of mice jumping around in the desert.”
“Good God, she sounds nuts to me.”
“Probably, but she’s a funny nut. Good-humored at least. Quite a relief from the sourpusses I usually get stuck with.”
“Speaking of that, that jerk lawyer Winston Sprague was here earlier, throwing his weight around, talking to everybody like they are dirt. He made one of the girls cry, he was so rude snapping his fingers at her, ordering her around. Who died and made him king, is what I want to know.”
“Yeah. What a little snot he is. I just hope he gets knocked off his high horse someday and I’m there to see it.” She looked around to see if anyone could hear, then said, “I’ll bet he powders his private parts with a powder puff. Don’t you?” The other woman screamed with laughter as softly as she could, considering where she was. Then she said, “You know he does. What a jerk.”
Still Confused
6:58 PM
As Norma drove home from the hospital that night, her mind was spinning. She was still not sure whether to believe Aunt Elner or not. Mr. Pixton said that what she had described had been a very common near-death experience. She had heard about that kind of thing before, so she knew that was certainly a real possibility. And of course Macky was certain that everything Elner thought had happened had been nothing more than a dream, and he could be right, but still Norma wondered. She knew Aunt Elner’s story was insane and probably not true, but she wanted so much to think that there was something or somebody at least checking up on us from time to time, even if it was somebody named Raymond. She had worked so hard at trying to believe. The first thing she did every morning was read the card she had received in her newcomers packet at the Unity Church. She had taped it on the mirror above the bathroom sink.
GOOD MORNING!
This is God.
I am going to handle
All your problems today,
So go in peace.
Have a good day!
Every day she tried to go in peace, turn all her worries and problems over to God, but every day by nine or at least by ten, she would forget he was supposed to be in charge and she would take them back. Why couldn’t she hold out for at least one day, and if He were really there, why didn’t He just say so and quit making it so hard? It’s not like the believers in the world were all nice. They had been killing one another for years. Her own mother had been a Presbyterian and was not very nice—even now that she was dead, according to Aunt Elner. And although he didn’t believe in God, Macky was one of the nicest people in the world. “Oh Lord,” she thought, “no wonder so many people are either drunk or on dope.”
The Jerk
7:03 PM
Winston Sprague sat in his expensive condo with the top-of-the-line television, stereo system, appliances, and personal workout room, paid for by indulging in dubious ethical behavior, and stared at the wall. After Winston had taken the old lady’s deposition, he had returned to his office and had dismissed it as being no big deal. But as the day wore on and he reread the deposition over and over, something about what the old lady said still nagged at him. She had been so damn specific about that damn shoe. He knew she was probably as crazy as a loon, but he had decided just for the hell of it to go back over to the hospital and go up on the roof and take a look around. When he got there, he went up and opened the door to the roof and walked all over the entire area, checked every corner. Nothing but a dead pigeon, and just as he had expected, no shoe. He was halfway embarrassed that he had even checked. As he stood there looking out over Kansas City, he laughed out loud when he thought of the old woman thinking she had floated over the roof and back into the hospital. As he was leaving, he glanced over at the old annex building, where the laundry facilities were now located, and figured while he was at it, he might as well go over and check out that roof as well. But when he got to the top landing of the other building, the door leading up to the stairs to the roof was locked. He had to go back down and find one of the janitors to go up with him and unlock the door.
“Is this door always locked?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Have you been up here lately?”
“No, not lately. The last time I can remember was when we had a couple of leaks and a company came and hot-mopped around that ledge.”
“When was that?”
“Three or four years ago.”
“Other than that, nobody’s been up here that you know of?”
“No.”
After the janitor unlocked the door for him, Winston walked up the narrow flight of stairs and pushed against the last door leading to the roof. It was either stuck or locked, he did not know which, but he kept pushing and shoving it until he was finally able to open it far enough to step out onto the roof. This building faced the south, and the sun was blinding as it reflected off of the light gray gravel that covered the entire roof. The afternoon heat was rising from the floor as he walked around and looked behind every chimney, but the only thing he found was an old mop handle. He walked around to the other side and glanced over behind the chimney closest to the ledge of the building. Nothing. He walked around the other side and looked. Suddenly he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up and started to break out in an ice-cold sweat. Lying on its side, wedged between the ledge and the chimney, was one brown golf shoe with cleats. Jesus Christ!
He closed his eyes and opened them again to make sure he was not hallucinating. He looked again. No. It was there, all right, exactly as she had described it. Sprague’s clothes were now wringing wet and sticking to him. He forced himself to walk over closer to it. He stood there looking down at it. Finally, after a moment, he cautiously nudged the shoe with his foot as if it were a snake that might bite. It did not move. He kicked it again. It still did not move. He crouched down and tried to pick it up, but still it would not budge. Half of the shoe was stuck in the black tar surrounding the chimney. He had to work at it for about five minutes with sweat pouring off of him, pulling it back and forth until it finally came loose in his hand. But now that he had the shoe, he stood there and wondered what the hell he was going to do with it, and how was he going to get the thing downstairs without anyone seeing him? He propped it up by the side of the door and ran down to the next floor and found a brown paper bag with half a sandwich inside in a trash can. Winston emptied the bag and ran back up and put the shoe in it, and then carried it under his arm. He went down the emergency stairs all the way to the basement, crossed over to the main building, and ran into the bathroom. He scrubbed as much of the tar off his hands as he could and hid the sack behind a door, and wondered why he was feeling like a criminal. He then ran back upstairs to Franklin Pixton’s office, ducked into the office, closed the door behind him, and stood against it, out of breath and sweating.
A surprised Pixton looked up at him. “What are you doing here? Why is your face so red? Have you been running?”
Sprague said, “A shoe on the roof!”
“A shoe on what roof?”
“In the deposition…the old lady, Mrs. Shimfissle…swore…she saw a shoe on the hospital roof.”
“So?”
“You d-don’t understand,” he sputtered. “She said she was floating around in the air up over the hospital and saw a shoe on the roof…and when I went up there, there was a shoe on the roof!”
“Are you making this up just to irritate me?”
“No. I’m t
elling you the truth, the shoe was exactly where she said it was.”
“Oh, come on, Winston, pull yourself together. It’s probably just a coincidence.”
“A coincidence? That it was in the exact spot she said it was, that it was a brown leather shoe? Not only a brown leather shoe, but a golf shoe!”
“She said it was a golf shoe?”
“Yes. A damn brown leather golf shoe and that’s exactly what it was. I’m telling you there is no way she could have seen that thing, unless she was really dead or something.”
“Oh, for God’s sakes, Winston, let’s not get crazy. We have enough real problems without adding all this voodoo-hoodoo out-of-body near-death crap.”
“Well, it may be voodoo hoodoo to you, but I’m telling you, Franklin, the shoe was there!”
Franklin got up and walked over to the door and locked it; then he walked over and poured Winston a drink.
“Here, just calm down and tell me again what she said.”
“She said she saw a brown leather shoe with spikes lying by a chimney on the roof, and that’s exactly where it was.”
“OK. Something’s not adding up, I’m beginning to smell a rat here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Who’s to say that they didn’t plan this entire thing? That the shoe thing is some sort of scam, that she didn’t plant the thing up there herself?”
“How? When? The nurses swore she never left the room.”
“Maybe it was the niece or the niece’s husband, or maybe they are in cahoots with someone who works here and they put it up there. Maybe they hired a small plane and flew over and dropped it on the roof, or a hot-air balloon.”
“Why? For what reason?”
“Money, a book deal, or to get on Oprah.”
“Oh right, Franklin, an eighty-nine-year-old woman deliberately sticks her hand in a wasps’ nest, gets stung seventeen times, falls twenty feet out of a tree, and knocks herself out cold, just to get on Oprah? Besides, the door was locked, and nobody has a key but the janitor.”
“What other logical explanation could there be?”
“None! That’s what I’m telling you.”
“Is it still there?”
“No, I took it.”
“Why?”
“Why? Why? Because I don’t know why, it just scared the hell out of me.”
“Where is it now?”
“I hid it in the bathroom. Do you want to see it?”
“No, I don’t want to see it. But listen, if the Warrens try to pull anything, we’ll just say, be our guest, have a look on the roof if you like. In the meantime, we never saw any shoe, right? If this gets out, we’ll be overrun by every nut job in America camping out in the parking lot.”
Winston nodded. “I guess you’re right, but what should I do with the shoe?”
“Get rid of it. Forget about it.”
“Wouldn’t that be illegal?” asked Sprague.
“Good Lord, man, you’re the lawyer. No, you found a shoe…it’s trash…you got rid of it. End of story.”
After Sprague left the office, Pixton sighed. With all his other problems, now his lawyer had flipped out over some weird coincidental shoe sighting. He had no patience for that sort of thing, all the so-called miracles: statues crying, crop circles, the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, each and every one proven to be hoaxes and scams. It never ceased to amaze him just how gullible people really were. They would pray to a can of green beans if they thought it was going to cure them or get them into heaven. “God,” he thought, “when are people going to crawl out of the dark ages of ignorance?” Franklin had minored in philosophy at Yale, and if he had his way, every school in America would begin teaching kids Diderot, Kant, Nietzsche, Hegel, and Goethe. The current lack of education alarmed him. Most of the young people he dealt with nowadays could hardly string a proper sentence together, much less think for themselves. He was afraid we were going to wind up a nation of knuckle-dragging Neanderthals. Thank goodness Sprague was a Harvard man, and underneath it all, a man of reason.
A Troubled Sleep
8:03 PM
When Norma got home from Kansas City, Macky had a mushroom and chicken casserole on the table waiting for her. Mrs. Reid had brought it over with a note. “Didn’t want it to go to waste, enjoy.” Norma was glad she did not have to cook, and sat down and started eating. Macky wanted to know how Elner was doing, and after they talked for a while, Norma was so exhausted, she went to bed at nine-thirty and fell asleep immediately. But as tired as she was, it was a troubled sleep. Something that Aunt Elner had said that day was bothering her, and she kept running it over and over in her mind. Even in her sleep. At around three AM Norma suddenly sat straight up in bed and announced in a loud voice, “Oh my God. It’s a Johnny Mathis song!”
Macky was startled awake. “What? What are you talking about?”
“‘Life Is What You Make It.’ Remember?” Then she sang, “‘Life is what you make it, if you can take it, it’s worth a try.’”
Macky reached over, turned on the light, and looked at her. “Norma, have you lost your mind?”
“No, just listen to the lyrics, Macky.” And she continued singing, “‘Smile the world is sunny…your Easter bunny…when even sad turns to funny.’ Don’t you remember it?”
“No, I don’t remember. For God’s sake, Norma, it’s three o’clock in the morning.”
“Well, I do. Linda had the record and used to play it all the time. Aunt Elner is channeling an old Johnny Mathis song. And Sonny is the name of her cat. Don’t you see? And the crystal stairs? That’s right out of her gospel song. She dreamed the whole thing, Macky. She no more went to heaven than I did!”
“I told you that yesterday. Now go to sleep.”
Macky turned off the light, and Norma lay back, relieved she had finally figured out why it had sounded so familiar to her. Then a few seconds later an unexpected wave of sadness hit her when she realized that Aunt Elner’s trip to heaven had just been a dream. It had not been a sign, a wonder, or a miracle, after all. That tiny little glimmer of hope had been dashed. Now she was right back where she’d started two days ago and her old doubts came creeping in again. She felt scared and all alone in the universe without a purpose again, and tomorrow would be just another day, just another twenty-four uneasy hours to try to get through. As she lay there, tears ran down her face, and she realized that maybe Macky was right after all, and people were nothing more than an accident caused by spontaneous generation started millions of years ago. We were all just a bunch of tadpoles that had crawled out of the water and started walking around, and yet, she still hated to think that when we died we would just fall into a black hole and disappear into nothing. What would be the point of living? With her anxiety she desperately needed to believe that at least some small part of her would continue on, and if there was no heaven…Maybe she would start trying to believe in reincarnation like Irene Goodnight. Irene had sworn on the Bible that her Pekinese dog Ling-Ling was her late husband, Ralph, come back to haunt her. She said they snored exactly alike and had the same way of looking at her. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was something at least. Then another thought hit Norma. If there was such a thing as reincarnation, and she did come back, she just hoped to God she wouldn’t wind up in a third world country, where she couldn’t get fresh produce, or have access to good skin products, because if she couldn’t get her Merle Norman cold cream, she would just rather not come back at all. She reached over and got a Kleenex, wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and went back to sleep.
The Report
7:00 AM
Early the next morning, Franklin Pixton sat and listened to the entire report. No machine malfunction. All the attending nurses in ER depositions corroborated Dr. Henson’s testimony. Every fact had been checked and rechecked. According to all legal and medical requirements, the woman had been for all intents and purposes clinically dead. Franklin sniffed and adjusted his glasses. “So, Dr. Gulbranson, what is your of
ficial explanation?”
Dr. Gulbranson looked up. “Damned if I know, Franklin. I’d have to say it was just a fluke.”
Franklin slowly turned his chair around and looked out the window. “A fluke? I see. So I am to tell the head of my board that she was officially dead, and the fact that she sat up and started talking several hours later was a fluke. Or should I get up and sing three choruses of ‘It was just one of those things’? Which would you suggest?”
Dr. Gulbranson shook his head. “I don’t know what to tell you, Franklin. Sometimes things just can’t be explained.”
The Unexplained
The very first day Elner had been brought to the hospital, La Shawnda McWilliams, a heavyset woman with freckles and skin the color of coffee with cream, had been the orderly on duty on Elner’s floor. At around four that afternoon of April 1, it was getting close to the end of her shift and she was glad; she had been on duty for twelve hours, and just like every other morning, La Shawnda had gotten up at four AM and fixed her mother’s breakfast, left it on the table for her, then ridden two buses across town, in order to arrive at the hospital by five-thirty. Just as she was about ready to leave for home that evening, she had received the call to come down and collect some personal effects for a patient. A nurse in ER had gathered Mrs. Shimfissle’s clothes, which in the excitement of the moment of her sudden awakening had been thrown on the floor.
When La Shawnda got there, the nurse quickly handed her a pair of maroon felt house slippers wrapped up in a brown plaid robe, and on top was a pair of large white cotton underpants. “Here,” the nurse said, “this goes with Shimfissle.” La Shawnda took the items and inquired, “No jewelry?” “No, this is all,” the nurse said as she hurried down the hall to take care of another patient who had just come in. La Shawnda looked at the small pile, not much, and figured by the looks of that robe the patient must be a charity case, poor lady. She didn’t know that the underpants almost hadn’t made the trip to the hospital either. Earlier that morning, Elner had even debated whether or not to put them on, but figured since she was going up a ladder, she’d better.
