The Tannerite Funeral

From the Archives (REVISED) - Mama's dying and she's gonna haunt you forever.

Mauthe and Raymond Pepperl had been hippies of the worst sort. They’d thought it the grandest of ideas to saddle their twins with the name of their favorite soft drink.

Donny Ray thought that his name was great and forty years later he still signed official documents, “DR Pepper,” diminishing the ending letter. On the other hand, his sister Dahlin Raine, adopted her middle name as a teenager and emphasized the end of her signature so everyone would pronounce it, “Pepper-ell.”

When Raine got the message from DR that Mama was dying, she said she could be back to the old homeplace in eight hours, but the hurried packing, the drive to the airport, TSA, the flight, and baggage claim only took her about five hours.

She’d added some extra time for navigating narrow Tallatippah County, Mississippi dirt roads she hadn’t driven in two decades. It turned out she didn’t need it.

Her rental car rolled past the faded, “Cold House, Miss.” sign about two hours after her plane landed at Jackson. After only one wrong turn, she crunched to a stop in the gravel driveway. Raine leaned forward and looked up at dark clouds gathering.

The old homeplace looked just like her childhood memories; the peeling paint, the shade from the hydrangeas and magnolias, the low front porch, bare except for a couple of straight-backed chairs with sagging leather bottoms.

DR’s truck with the magnetic door sign advertising, “DR Pepper’s Stump Removal,” was parked near the house and Mama’s ancient red Ford, rusted-through in places, sat in the shade of the dilapidated barn about fifty yards off. The pond lay right behind the barn.

They’d always called it, “the pond,” but it was actually a lake – a really large lake. When a hurricane washed away the earthen dam at the old Winsome Reservoir in the ‘60s, the state never rebuilt it. Raymond Pepperl managed to buy a portion of the land, including the remainder of the reservoir. It was far smaller than the original footprint of the reservoir but their ‘pond’ was still one of the largest lakes in the state.

Raine got out of the rental and a spattering of fat raindrops chased her onto the porch where Donnie Ray waited. He handed her a can of Pabst and raised his own in salute. “Welcome home, Raine. Come on in.” The bottom fell out of the clouds and the rain drove them inside.

There was no greeting when Raine walked into the bedroom where Mauthe Pepperl lay. The first thing out of the old woman’s mouth was, “I’m not having y’all embalm me. If y’all send me off to get embalmed I’m gonna haunt you forever.”

“Come on, Mama.” Raine sat on a stool beside the bed. “You’re going to be fine.”

The old woman frowned. “I am not. I’m dying and I want to be disposed of right here where I’ve always lived.”

“Mama,” Raine said, “You really are looking great. You look just the same as when I last saw you.” She knew immediately it was the wrong thing to say.

“If you think I look the same, either your eyesight or your memory has gotten worse in the twenty-three years and one month since you’ve been gone.”

“I don’t even know why DR called me.” Raine looked at her brother standing in the doorway.

“He called because I told him to. I’m dying and y’all...”

“And we’re not embalming you. I heard,” said Raine.

She looked around the room for some way to placate, or at least distract the old woman. She saw some bright red nail polish and an emery board sitting on the nightstand. “Let’s do your nails.”

After she did her mother’s nails and superficially caught up on two decades of local gossip she’d missed, Raine kissed Mama on the forehead and said she would get a hotel in town for the night and be back in the morning.

DR and Raine paused on the porch. The rain still pounded on the roof and ran off the eaves to splash in a line.

“It’s raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock,” DR yelled to be heard over the storm.

“Yeah,” yelled Raine and leaning in, a bit softer, “Mama is a real pill. She’s got a cold and thinks she’s dying. When she does die I ought to have her embalmed just for spite.”

DR was horrified. “You cain’t do that. You heard her. She’ll haunt us forever.” Raine just grinned and DR helped her to her rental holding an umbrella.

Throughout the night, heavy rain peppered the roof and front window of Raine’s hotel room. She fell asleep with booming thunder rattling the glass and she dreamed of thunderous explosions. The next morning the rain had slowed to a persistent drizzle but gutters and culverts still gurgled.

When she got back to the old homeplace, a couple of police vehicles were parked next to DR’s truck. She craned her neck to read the decals – Tallatippah Sheriff and Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. The officers were sitting on the porch talking with DR.

Both officers stood and smiled at Raine as she stepped onto the porch. “Good morning, Miss Pepper.”

“Pepper-ell,” she corrected them. “Is Mama okay?” Raine asked.

“Oh sure.” DR said. “Craziest thing – you know she thought she was dyin’ last night. She must have rallied, ‘cause after you left, she called someone on the phone, one of her cronies I guess. They showed up a few minutes later and she run off with them.”

“In that storm? Who was it?”

“Well, I didn’t see.” DR said. “I’d had a couple of beers by then.”

Raine’s eyes widened. “Dammit, DR,” she said. “Where’d she go? Where is she now?” She looked at the two officers. “Are y’all here to find her?”

“Now, Miss Pepperl,” the Sheriff chuckled. “Your mother is a pretty... eccentric old bird, and pretty vigorous for her age. I’m sure she’ll turn up.” Raine started to protest but the Sheriff gestured at the other officer. “This here is Agent Giles with the A, T, and F. He’s here to run down some explosives.”

“But...” Raine protested.

“That’s right.” Giles said. “I’m here about that explosion last night.”

Raine shook her head and shrugged.

“You mean you didn’t hear that boom?” Giles laughed. “I figured everyone in three counties must have heard it.”

“I guess I must have thought it was thunder,” Raine said.

“Anyway,” said Giles. “We’ve got copies of receipts that DR here has been buying a whole lot of Tannerite – which is no big deal since he does a lot of stump removal business this time of year.”

“Yeah, DR is always real forthright reporting the explosives he keeps on hand,” said the Sheriff. “We just wanted to come take a look at your inventory of Tannerite after that explosion last night.”

“Well, Sheriff,” DR said, pausing. “That’s kind of another thing.”

That got the officers’ attention.

“See, two or three nights ago I had drank a couple of beers... Well, after I konked out, someone pulled up to the barn in a truck and stole my whole supply.”

“Dammit, DR! Why didn’t you report it right then?” asked the Sheriff.

“Well with Mama dyin’ and all, thinkin’ she was dyin’ anyway, and Raine showing up— it just sorta slipped my mind.”

“Someone stole,” Giles pulled a note out of his pocket and looked at it. “Forty-seven pounds of Tannerite from you and it just slipped your mind?” He snatched his hat off his head and scratched his bald spot, pacing on the porch in agitation. “Show me.”

When they got to the barn, DR pointed at a tall gun safe standing open in the back. “I guess it didn’t latch good last time I put some in there and they just took it all.”

“Dammit, DR,” The ATF agent fanned himself with his hat, unable to speak.

The Sheriff’s mustache twitched downward, “That would explain the explosion last night. Some kids lit off DR’s stash of Tannerite during the storm, and...”

“Jimmy Dale!” Giles shouted at the Sheriff. “That much Tannerite would blow a hole in the woods bigger than this barn. It’d shoot splinters through every tree for a half mile. Anyone standing anywhere near would be a red mist, nothing left but toenails – maybe. We’d be able to see the crater from a satellite.”

The Sheriff nodded thoughtfully and DR and Raine stood wide-eyed.

After a long pause, during which the ATF man paced back and forth furiously, the Sheriff said, “We could look for tire tracks, but after that gullywasher last night we won’t find anything.”

“Dammit DR,” Giles said. “Do you know how much damned paperwork this is gonna be on me?” He glanced at Raine. “Excuse my French.” The agent stormed across the soggy yard toward his vehicle.

The other three followed slowly. The Sheriff shook his head slowly. “I guess I’ve seen it all now.”

But he hadn’t seen the outline of dead grass in the shape of a canoe by the pond. None of them had seen the severed thumb that Raine stepped on in the soft grass. No one saw the brown water began to fill in her footprint, covering the bright red nail polish.

---

Which of the Pepperl twins do you think did right by their mother— DR or Raine?