since the cleaners had been unable to remove the swallow-tailed blue ribbon that had sort of glued itself to the mayor’s lapel, a ribbon lettered in bold, white characters that spelled out TOP FOXTROTTER diagonally. So the mayor was sent to his reward in a closed coffin and with a private ceremony that no one attended except for the preacher and, briefly, Avery Tuttle and an apprentice embalmer who entered the chapel out of sheer curiosity and joined in with the reverend on two verses of “The Old Rugged Cross” so he wouldn’t have to sing alone.
Momma said ten years and eight months, almost eleven years, and Momma never forgets a date. Momma did not suspect Miss Pettigrew as much as put her nose to a windowscreen from the April of the mayor’s death to Christmastime of 1962, and she imagined most everybody in Neely had supposed Miss Myra Angelique would not ever again depart from the Pettigrew mansion except in the horizontal. But, along with Aunt Willa, Miss Pettigrew presented herself at the Methodist church on the evening of the children’s nativity play after over a decade of pure invisibility, and Momma said it just went to show how the only thing you could know about Miss Pettigrew was that you could never know anything about her.
Of course Miss Pettigrew was not a Methodist. Momma did not figure she held by any strict affiliation but at best retained loose ties with the Presbyterians since she had received her schooling at a Presbyterian institution. Mrs. Pettigrew had been raised in a Catholic household, but Momma said she surrendered her faith when she married Wallace Amory sr. who would not sit still for Catholicism, who would really not sit still for any sort of organized spirit mongering. Daddy said Mr. Wallace Amory sr. might have been the first practicing heathen ever to make his home in Neely. The mayor attended a kind of military academy with vague attachments to a peculiar strain of Virginia Baptists, but Daddy did not recall the mayor ever mentioning anything about religious training except indirectly when he once told how his education had been overseen by the sort of men who probably thought the Spanish Inquisition was a fine thing. As far as anybody could tell, Mayor Pettigrew was pretty much his daddy’s son, and he only showed himself in local sanctuaries during his post-appointment mayoral campaign when he worked on the assumption that God-fearing people would not vote an openly faithless man into office.
Momma said it had not been the children’s nativity play that brought Miss Pettigrew to the Methodist church, though she did add that the Methodists had a reputation for putting on a truly inspiring Christmas pageant. But as Momma heard it from Mrs. Phillip J. King who got it from her cleaning woman who got it from Aunt Willa’s cousin who had not exactly gotten it from Aunt Willa but who had speculated and deducted on her own, which was her right as a relative, and had then broadcast more or less the same version throughout town, one species of which Mrs. Phillip J. King’s cleaning woman picked up and relayed to Mrs. King who relayed it to Momma who said the children’s nativity play had not lured Miss Pettigrew to the Methodist church; she had come to pray for Aunt Willa’s gums and to meditate and seek consultation upon the whole shabby business of Aunt Willa’s dentures.
Momma said Aunt Willa had always been cursed with a mouthful of bad teeth and when it got to the point where she could hardly chew meat she set her mind on a pair of plates and immediately began to accumulate whatever money she could so as to prevent herself from becoming a vegetarian. Of course Aunt Willa could not afford a regular dentist, which caused her to fall in with an old disreputable negro named Janks Alison that folks called Mr. Janks who owned a covered truck and made his money driving mostly other negroes to and from a roadside dental clinic in Sumter, South Carolina. Momma said Mr. Janks got away
Momma said ten years and eight months, almost eleven years, and Momma never forgets a date. Momma did not suspect Miss Pettigrew as much as put her nose to a windowscreen from the April of the mayor’s death to Christmastime of 1962, and she imagined most everybody in Neely had supposed Miss Myra Angelique would not ever again depart from the Pettigrew mansion except in the horizontal. But, along with Aunt Willa, Miss Pettigrew presented herself at the Methodist church on the evening of the children’s nativity play after over a decade of pure invisibility, and Momma said it just went to show how the only thing you could know about Miss Pettigrew was that you could never know anything about her.
Of course Miss Pettigrew was not a Methodist. Momma did not figure she held by any strict affiliation but at best retained loose ties with the Presbyterians since she had received her schooling at a Presbyterian institution. Mrs. Pettigrew had been raised in a Catholic household, but Momma said she surrendered her faith when she married Wallace Amory sr. who would not sit still for Catholicism, who would really not sit still for any sort of organized spirit mongering. Daddy said Mr. Wallace Amory sr. might have been the first practicing heathen ever to make his home in Neely. The mayor attended a kind of military academy with vague attachments to a peculiar strain of Virginia Baptists, but Daddy did not recall the mayor ever mentioning anything about religious training except indirectly when he once told how his education had been overseen by the sort of men who probably thought the Spanish Inquisition was a fine thing. As far as anybody could tell, Mayor Pettigrew was pretty much his daddy’s son, and he only showed himself in local sanctuaries during his post-appointment mayoral campaign when he worked on the assumption that God-fearing people would not vote an openly faithless man into office.
Momma said it had not been the children’s nativity play that brought Miss Pettigrew to the Methodist church, though she did add that the Methodists had a reputation for putting on a truly inspiring Christmas pageant. But as Momma heard it from Mrs. Phillip J. King who got it from her cleaning woman who got it from Aunt Willa’s cousin who had not exactly gotten it from Aunt Willa but who had speculated and deducted on her own, which was her right as a relative, and had then broadcast more or less the same version throughout town, one species of which Mrs. Phillip J. King’s cleaning woman picked up and relayed to Mrs. King who relayed it to Momma who said the children’s nativity play had not lured Miss Pettigrew to the Methodist church; she had come to pray for Aunt Willa’s gums and to meditate and seek consultation upon the whole shabby business of Aunt Willa’s dentures.
Momma said Aunt Willa had always been cursed with a mouthful of bad teeth and when it got to the point where she could hardly chew meat she set her mind on a pair of plates and immediately began to accumulate whatever money she could so as to prevent herself from becoming a vegetarian. Of course Aunt Willa could not afford a regular dentist, which caused her to fall in with an old disreputable negro named Janks Alison that folks called Mr. Janks who owned a covered truck and made his money driving mostly other negroes to and from a roadside dental clinic in Sumter, South Carolina. Momma said Mr. Janks got away
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