‘Over My Dead Body’

The following Friday night when the Nussbaum irregulars show up to discuss what they are going to do now that Lord Bharavi is off the air, Sarah, dressed in a beaded black satin smoking jacket and trousettes, comes down to meet them, but Laudette, brandishing a rolling pin, gets one step ahead of her to answer the door.

“There’s no witch meeting tonight or any other night, ever again,” the big woman says firmly.

“Sister Laudette,” says Keinar, well-apprised of the situation through her own inner channels, “as you well know, all along I was against Sister Bharani-Sarah calling the Leader of the Pack directly without the Irregulars present. But this was a test of Bharani-Sarah’s own mediumistic gift. Now, as her Sisters, we must close ranks and get behind her all the way.”

“I would say ‘over my dead body’ if I didn’t know what you witches are capable of. But anybody who dares come in this house is going to find herself with a broken head, and I mean it!” Laudette waves the rolling pin menacingly in the air.

What is Sarah to do? Have Miss Lord arrested?

Never. The meeting is cancelled. It is never going to be the same again anyway. The sisters know it is now time for each to listen to her heart alone.

Sarah turns to go back to her bedroom, but Laudette blocks the stairs. Ever since last Sunday, Laudette has been so disturbed that she has a hard time even facing Sarah. She addresses Sarah in the third person, with her eyes scanning the big room from floor to walls to ceiling as if she were talking to someone who might come in any way, shape, or form.

“Even though once upon a time someone was worth more to Sir Harry dead than alive, he was watching out for her and worrying about her. And now I think that poor sweet man is gone because someone was messing with something she oughtn’t. Oh, I’m burned up sick about it, while she’s la-di-da, paying extra attention to the way she’s dressed. What gets into some people?

“And it’s too bad someone got the wrong impression of Emanual X from her father. He’s the Good Shepherd, the Bread of Life, the Salt of the Earth, the Vine of Righteousness. What more could someone want? And I’m not saying that everybody should eat it exactly as I do, someone can worship what Y or Z gods she wants so long as they have good morals to their stories, and not be putting her up to pulling crazy stunts, talking in little voices, telling her to kill people for a joke as if this life were some kind of fruity Boombotzi Brothers movie …”

In the past five days Sarah has done a lifetime of growing up. Never has the fact of impermanence been more clear to her. She tries to explain to Laudette that her dressing in her finest feathers, while perhaps perverse in its origins, is now in loving memory of her husband, a fond tribute to him, her way of saying goodbye and come back soon. “When I pray for him I wish him all the best, all the Light there is in heaven. At the same time I think of how Harry enjoyed himself on this earth and I’m calling him to come back again, and have all he wants.”

“Well, isn’t that good of someone! Just dandy! Well I suppose it’s an improvement over the last time this happened when someone tried to the keep the dear departed away from the Light, when someone tried to keep the man she loved tied to her stinky little hell hole that she thinks the whole universe revolves around!”

Certainly, Sarah made mistakes mourning for Corn Dog she never will with Harry. She tries again to defend herself, saying that what happened was fate, but the big woman bulldozes her down, deploring her lack of remorse. Sarah is patient, she accepts Laudette’s condemnation. She brushes it off as she would lint from her bedjacket. A thought has become clear in her mind: soon she too will be leaving everything she knows behind.