Flood Plains Mark Wheaton (inspirational books for students .TXT) đ
- Author: Mark Wheaton
Book online «Flood Plains Mark Wheaton (inspirational books for students .TXT) đ». Author Mark Wheaton
âNobodyâs going to die?â
âI didnât say that. But none that wonât be done in by their own foolishness or misfortune.â Another lie.
Sineada was almost shaking by the time she finished. She was relieved when Viola smiled, signaling the end of the session.
âWell, donât get up to any foolishness yourself, and Iâll see you next week.â
A freebie umbrella with the Avon logo in hand, Viola headed back out into the rain, but not before placing a twenty-dollar bill in Sineadaâs donation box. Though this was how much she left after every visitâtwice a month going on eight yearsâSineada still felt it was overly generous. Regardless, she tucked it into her pocketbook a few minutes later and was glad to have it.
Everyone who came to Sineada brought with them a different version of what they believed her âpowersâ to be and what they could do for them. Knowing this, Sineada hammed it up for some clients, dropping words like âthe sightâ and âthe spirits.â Others wanted to hear her talk in terms of âangelsâ and the âgift God gave her,â particularly the ones who were hoping to hear something from a loved on âon the other side.â
Still others, like Viola, were just paying for someone to talk things through with, as they werenât going to trust their confidences to a shrink or a busybody pastor. They made for easy clients because they usually knew the answers to all their own questions but just needed someone to help convince them. Sineada did a lot of listening and nodding. She brought up comparative points from her own past and showed off her photographic memory of her clientâs past. With someone who had been coming for years like Viola, Sineada was able to recollect and parrot back some opinion the woman had had on this relative or that with just enough magic that she knew she had a client for life.
Setting her hat and shawl on the table, she wandered out to the porch to watch the weather. The wind had picked up quite a bit, but the skies were still gray, not the purple she associated with a lifetime of weathering Gulf Coast hurricanes. When the real thing got here, the raindrops would shoot horizontally down the street as if shot from an arrow. The wind would pick up, and suddenly anything not nailed down would come racing down the sidewalk, careening into cars and blowing through exposed windows. The trees would come down next.
If it was a bad one.
Hello? she asked the wind. Is it going to be that bad?
Worse. Worse than you know. Worse than youâve ever seen.
Chapter 5
âI was running fast, too, but that little bastard was running faster. You donât think they can haul ass with all that freight on their back, but they just book it. Yet, every time it got to a tree, it tried to dig in under the roots. Then it would see me and take off running again.â
The storyteller was a wiry, white fellow with a mullet named Scott Shipley. He was standing in front of a two-story chain-link security cage in the center of the factory floor. He peered over his Sears-brand eyeglasses to make sure his listeners were absorbing all this. The men, a forklift driver named Kyle and a truck driver with âGutierrezâ on a patch over his right breast pocket, were definitely engaged, if also amused.
âI finally cornered it at this big old oak at the back of my property, but for some reason, it kept running,â Scott continued. âI started worrying, as it was racing for the trunk at full gallop as if it hadnât see it or something and was going to crash. But just as it reached the base of the tree, it curled its tail up under its body, rolled up in a ball, and jumped straight up in the air! It had counted on me still running, so it was perfectly timed to smack me right in the face as I closed in. It was like somebody hit me between the eyes with a hammer.â
âHoly shit!â exclaimed Kyle.
âI went down like a sack of stones,â Scott continued, clapping his hands together. âKnocked out cold. I woke up two or three hours later with a migraine and armadillo shit all over my hair.â
Kyleâs mouth hung open in amazement. Gutierrezâs mouth opened a little, as if he was ready to denounce the storyteller as a fraud and a liar. He caught a look from Scott and instead merely nodded.
âIâve heard about that. They do that out on the freeway and bash in a lot of windshields.â
Listening nearby, Alan just shook his head.
âCaca Toro!â the athlete said as he slapped Scott on the back. âI call âCaca Toro.ââ
âThatâd be caca de toro, son,â Scott grinned. âGet your Mexican right.â
Alan laughed. No one got mad at Scott for telling tales, mainly because his face had a sort of permanently dazed, Wile E. Coyote expression to it. It seemed to shout out: believe a word this man says at your own peril.
âYou filling these young menâs minds with a fiction, there, Scott,â Alan said, bumping Scottâs proffered fist. Alan always thought that looked funny with a white man, which he knew was precisely why Scott did it.
âDonât know what youâre trying to say. The Houston Chronicle did this two-year study with the New OrleansTimes-Picayune that proved Crescent City are sixty-two percent more full of shit than Texans. Guess this is a case of the pot calling the kettle African-American.â
Kyle, a white guy,
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