After dark.
It would be totally disrespectful, Beanie believed, to leave a golf cart parked among the graves overnight.
Doing so was an open invitation to any mischievous or golf-loving spirits to take it for a spin. Who knew what ruin a ghost and a golf cart could do from sundown until sunup?
Even Beanie realized no ghoul intent on cruising among the tombstones at all hours of the night would ever need fuel.
***
Beanie got his brush and bucket and began to busily scrub a nearby headstone.
"Beanie," Humpty said, "what are you doing?"
"I'm de-birding this stone," Beanie said.
"You're what?"
"I'm cleaning off the bird poop, Humpty," Beanie said.
"But, Beanie," Humpty said, "won't the rain do that for you?"
"Usually," Beanie said. "Unless I got me one with OCD."
"What's OCD?" Humpty asked, having never heard of obsessive compulsive disorder.
"It's somethin' Hadley says I have sometimes," Beanie said. "I think it means 'old crow's daiquiri or maybe old crow's drunk.'
Humpty looked confused.
"I don't know, either, Humpty," Beanie said. "It's what Hadley tells me when I rub her last nerve. She'll say, 'Beanie! Stop that. Your OCD will drive this old crow to drink.'
Now, I know that Hadley likes somethin' she calls a daiquiri.
She let me taste one once. I spit it right out in her kitchen sink. Nasty stuff, but Hadley swears them daiquiris is the best.
And Hadley calls herself an old crow.
I ain't never seen her pickled but maybe that sweet syrup can make you sensitive to having your last nerve rubbed. I don't know.
Anyway, I sometimes get me a crow flyin' over this cemetery with bad kidneys. That bugger will find him a favorite stone and aim for it every time.
And not just once, neither. But over and over and over and over again. If that crow wasn't such an OCD, I wouldn't have to keep scrubbing off his favorite rock.
The rain can handle a dive bomb or two from any bird, but a crow that's OCD can coat one of these babies so fast it will make your head spin. I hate it when a crow is OCD."
"Oh," said Humpty, deciding it was better to let Beanie get back to his work.
Humpty stood there in front of that headstone for a few more minutes. The sound of Beanie's brush scrubbing the stone reminded Humpty of his mother scrubbing on the old washboard.
Life was simple then, Humpty thought.
"Bye, Mama," Humpty whispered, relieved that for another year at least, he wouldn't have to stand in front of the giant headstone whose tiny two letters stared down at him making him feel like the bad little boy who had just tracked cow manure all over his mother's newly mopped kitchen floors.
ŞİMDİ OKUDUĞUN
Nobody Knows Your Secret
Gizem / GerilimIt was a heck of a shot. It was the perfect murder. Someone killed Kyle Winthrop as he lay in his bed. His mother, Claire, doesn't care much - she's too strung out on prescription pain pills. But his Grandmother cares, and she begs her good friend...
