Read Online Lightning Song by Lewis Nordan - Free Book Online Page B

living together in the hills, before the family broke up. They remembered an owl they saw once, in the moonlight.They recalled a Pentecostal minister who wore an Indian warbonnet. They talked about their Old Mammy’s death, the gunshot that crippled Swami Don.
    Leroy lay beneath a soft quilt on the porch glider in the cool of the evening and listened to their quiet talk.
    Swami Don said, “You sure had a way with the girls.”
    Harris said, “I felt guilty for having two good arms.”
    He said, “You could have used four!”
    Leroy could hear the laughter.
    Later, when his mama came in to say good night, Leroy said, “Tell me the story,” and Elsie said, “Oh, honey, no, not tonight, not that old story.”

7
    L eroy’s Uncle Harris was a wonder to behold, Leroy couldn’t take his eyes off him. One morning he was dressed in a brightly flowered Hawaiian shirt and white duck pants and deck shoes, and the next morning in khaki safari shorts and belted bush jacket and pith helmet. Another day he wore tennis whites; another the white Panama suit and straw hat; another a Nehru jacket and beret and double-knit bell-bottoms. Each day was a fashion statement of some demented sort. Where did all these clothes come from? How had he smuggled them into the house? Had he somehow fitted them all into his carpetbag? It was not possible. He was like Ginger and Mrs. Howell on the “Gilligan’s Island” reruns. Was this the way all divorced men dressed? This seemed impossible as well. Leroy remembered that Hannah had thrown away all of Uncle Harris’s clothes, given them to the poor. He had been cast out, naked and homeless, he had been desperate.Was this the wardrobe a man with no clothes comes up with on short notice? Did he shop each day when he went out on his rounds away from the farm, at junk stores, used-clothing places, such as Leroy had noticed, places with names like Second Hand Rose and Twice Told Tales?
    Each day Harris slept late and Leroy found himself waiting expectantly for his uncle’s appearance. Each day when Harris finally emerged from the attic he was always wearing a long silk robe with a sash. He spent long hours in the bathroom. He used lotions and colognes. Each day he came out dressed in some new outrage of fashion. No one asked him about his clothing, there were other aspects of Uncle Harris’s personality that drew similar attention. His toilette was one. His indolence was another. He did nothing, absolutely nothing. He sat, he ate heartily, he made suggestions on improving the service, he asked people to bring him things, to adjust the fan so that it blew on him without ruffling his newspaper, he made himself comfortable, no one on earth had ever been so comfortable as Uncle Harris. Uncle Harris was the laziest man alive. Anyone would have agreed. Nobody held this against him, but no one could have failed to notice. He was not depressed, he did not sleep all day, he simply relaxed, his mood stayed high, his spirits were excellent. The work on the farm went on, and he did none of it. Leroy’s mama and daddy each had part-time jobs they sometimes worked at to help make ends meet. None of this bothered Uncle Harris in the least. If his brother and sister-in-law wanted to work, well, sure, work was an honorablething, he fully approved, no need to be embarrassed, you go right on ahead, don’t let me stop you. In the meantime, he better check the sports page, that midseason pitching was beginning to heat up in Fenway, it looked like to Harris, real horse race shaping up in the American League, yessiree, go right on with your business, you ain’t disturbing me a bit, I mean it.
    Newspapers were Harris’s true love. He snuck in a dirty magazine, okay, that was true, hidden in a folded paper now and then, he had diversified interests, sure, but it was the newspaper that really captured his heart, he read as many of them as he could get his