“Happen today?” I asked.
“They found him today. Been dead two or three days. Heart attack. They got him at the LaBorde Funeral Home, pumped full of juice.”
Leonard sipped his beer and studied the barbed-wire fence on the opposite side of the road. “See that mockingbird on the fence post, Hap?”
“Why? Is he trying to get my attention?”
“He’s a fat one. You don’t see many that fat.”
“I wonder about that all the time, Leonard. How come mockingbirds don’t normally get fat. Thought I might write a paper on it.”
“My uncle’s favorite bird. I always thought they were ugly, but he thought they were the grandest things in the world. He used to call me his little mockingbird when I was a kid because I mocked him and everybody else. I see one, I think of him. Hokey, huh?”
I didn’t say anything. I focused my eyes on the floorboards at the edge of the porch, watched as a hot horsefly staggered on its disease-laden legs, trying to make the little bit of shade the porch roof provided. The fly faltered and stopped. Heat-stroke, I figured.
“I want to go to Uncle Chester’s funeral tomorrow,” Leonard said. “But I don’t know. I feel funny about it. He probably wouldn’t want me there.”
“From what you’ve told me about Uncle Chester, spite of the fact he disowned you when he found out you were queer-”
“Gay. We say gay now, Hap. You straights need to learn that. When we’re real drunk, we call each other fags or faggots.”
“Whatever. I’m sure, in his own way, Chester was a good guy. You loved him. It doesn’t matter what he would have wanted. What matters is what you want. He’s dead. He’s not making decisions anymore. You want to go to the funeral and tell him ’bye because of the good things you remember about him, go on.”
“Come with me.”
“Hey, I’m sorry for Uncle Chester on account of what he meant to you, but I don’t know him from brown rice. Fact is, him dying, you coming around upset, and me leaving the rose fields like that, I figure I don’t have a job anymore. He screwed up my income, so why the hell would I want to go to his funeral?”