Raymond Atkins: The Front Porch Prophet

A.J. emerged from this reverie and found that it was dark in the clearing. The glowing embers before him were the only remnant of the earlier makeshift crematorium. Honey and the boys had come and gone, as had Red, and only he and Rufus remained. He sighed and made for the truck. It was cold, and it was time to go. He supposed he would drive home via the beer joint and break the news to Wormy.

He stopped when he reached the truck. Something was nagging at his mind. Then he knew. He turned and looked at Rufus, formerly the hound from hell and now just another unemployed dog. He held the truck door open.

“Are you coming with me?” he asked his old nemesis. The dog looked at him a moment, then trotted over and hopped in the truck. His business in the clearing was finished as well.

A.J. SAT ON THE PORCH OF THE FINN HALL AND awaited the arrival of his employer, Truth Hannassey. From his perch on the side of the mountain, he oversaw a valley of color. It was early spring following a long winter season that had marked many transitions, Eugene’s departure chief among them. So he rocked and considered the months just past, reflecting on the changes, the endings, the beginnings.

Eugene was gone, of course, and the earth was heaped over him in superb style. His barrow was the finest funerary mound raised in those parts in five or six hundred years. A.J. thought it had turned out well considering he had built only the one. Grass was planted there now, and wildflowers had sprung up in recent days. It was a pretty spot, and Angel spent a good deal of her time there when she wasn’t keeping house for Jackie or divorcing Johnny Mack. The French are a tolerant people except when it comes to ignorant Americans, and Johnny Mack had finally gone too far when he refused to make his peace with Eugene before the end. Angel had set him adrift right after her son’s passing. Jackie still rode out to see him upon occasion, but most times Johnny Mack was an outcast. He was left with his Bible, his bourbon, and his bulldozer.

As for the estate, there actually was a will, as A.J. discovered when he was contacted by Charnell Jackson after Eugene’s passing. In his role as executor, A.J. had many loose ends to tie.

“Eugene left you his mountain,” Charnell said, his glasses down on the end of his nose. A.J. knew this was coming and had given ample thought to the inheritance.

“Deed it over to Angel,” he said. “When she dies, it goes to Diane and the boys.” Charnell was scribbling notes.

“Eugene left you the beer joint,” Charnell continued.

“Wormy gets it.” The pilot was doing well in the alcohol and poker business, and he and Rufus needed a place to live anyway.

“There’s money in a box somewhere,” Charnell plowed on. “You’re supposed to know where. Says here for you to dig it up and give Angel, Diane, and Jackie each fifty thousand dollars.” He looked pained. It was the lawyer in him, and A.J. knew it couldn’t be helped.

“Check,” he said. Charnell fumbled around and came up with a sheet of paper. It appeared to be a list of some kind.

“As Eugene’s lawyer,” he said, “I advise you that he wanted you to take care of the items on this list for him. There should be money enough in the box for it.” Charnell looked at A.J. “As your attorney, I advise you to throw the damn thing away. Some of it is illegal.” A.J. shrugged.

“Everything Eugene ever did was mostly against one law or other,” he pointed out. “Why should he stop, now that he’s dead?”

So A.J. executed the last will and testament of Eugene Purdue. When he dug up the infamous box, he found that it contained a gold pocket watch, a pistol, a pound or so of marijuana, the keys to the Lover, a photograph of Diane that featured all of her tan, and enough cold, hard cash to fund Eugene’s final requests. He loaded all of the booty into the truck except the photo, which he decently buried in the side of the mound.

There were many remembrances to be dispersed, and he tried to honor the intent of the wishes as much as possible, although the man named Sonny who lived in Memphis did not receive the pipe bomb Eugene had specified.

Thus the book that was Eugene Purdue was closed, but the world took scant notice and continued to turn.

Slim Neal suffered a small heart attack after a spare tire fell out of the lawn-mower shed and attacked him. The excitable constable managed to subdue the assailant and get three slugs into it before collapsing from the excitement of the hunt, but it had been touch and go for a while. A.J. felt kind of bad about the incident and wondered how much the second bus had contributed to the infarction. Not the original bus, which was spending eternity under the mound with Eugene. The coach in question was the replacement he had purchased and parked on Slim’s front lawn at the instruction of the departed as atonement for sins long-since committed.

Hoghead married Dixie Lanier, vowing to love, honor, and abstain from squirrel hunting. Bird Egg went to the big beer joint in the sky after being hit by a log truck bound for Alabama Southern. A.J.’s old pickup died. And Maggie was pregnant.

“We’re going to have another baby,” she had said when she broke the news. She was smiling. Of all the wonders in the wide world, Maggie liked babies the best.

“What are you reading these days?” had been the proud father-to-be’s response.

It seemed to A.J. that the season of transience had ended. He had lost a job and gained another. He had inherited a fortune and given it all away. He had acquired a brother, then killed him. A child was on the way to fill the void in the life force. He supposed he had learned a lesson that he already knew. Permanence was an illusion, and nothing really mattered but now. So he vowed to make the most of the present and let the future lie. It was a belated New Year’s resolution, one he hoped to keep. His other resolution, made late on New Year’s Day, was to avoid killing anyone during the coming year. He had high hopes for that pledge as well.

A car door slammed. He looked up and saw Truth Hannassey coming toward him. As she stepped on the porch, he noted she was wearing a simple gold band on her left hand.

“Whoa,” he said, shaking her hand. “Did Diane make an honest woman out of you?” Truth smiled and nodded. A.J. had to admit that Diane had been good for her.

“Yes, we got married.” The happiness in her voice was obvious.

“You must have gone to Atlanta for that,” he kidded. All of the local preachers were notorious for their conservative bent. “Around here, you are an abomination in the eyes of God.”

“I just hate being one of those.”

“I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over it,” A.J. responded, leading her to view a completed room. “He’s looking elsewhere most of the time.”

Raymond L. Atkins resides in Rome, Georgia, with his wife. They live in a 110-year-old house that they have restored themselves, and they have four grown children who drop by from time to time. Raymond has had a variety of occupations during the past thirty-five years, but now that the children are grown, he is pursuing his lifelong ambition of being a novelist and writer.

His hobbies include reading, travel, and working on the house. His stories have been published in Christmas Stories from Georgia, The Lavender Mountain Anthology, The Blood and Fire Review, and The Old Red Kimono. His columns appear regularly in the Rome News/Tribune and Memphis Downtowner Magazine.