Whose Business Is It Anyway?

Oh my, let’s see, I have to get this place cleaned up so that I can be home around 6’o clock. You know, in time to change my clothes before heading off to choir practice. 

Boy, I wished that Mr. Johnson didn’t leave his cigar ashes all over the place.  Those ashes are so hard for the vacuum cleaner to pickup.  And you know that I’m a good housekeeper and I like to have my places looking spit and polished.  Besides, no one ever said that Susan Taylor Smith didn’t do a good job in cleaning their house.  Right?

But, pushing this here vacuum cleaner back and forth on these ashes really tire me out.  Besides, I got to save some of my energy for my next job. 

You know, I got to clean house for Ms. Hillary.  Boy, I just love going over to Ms Hillary’s place because that’s one lady who really loves to talk.  She loves talking just as much as I love to listen.  He, he, he. Every since her husband that old Mr. Hillary passed away a few years ago, she just sits around the house for days waiting for me to arrive so she would have someone to talk with. 

They said that old man Mr. Hillary made her a recluse by forbidding her to talk with their neighbors, relatives, or friends.  Some folks said that he was a mean old drunken man who treated her just like a slave. You know, he would beat her up to no end for no reasons at all.  Like the times, they said that he came home from his drinking and gambling binges after having been out all night with his no good drinking and gambling buddies.  Some said that they had witnessed him slapping her around while at the same time taking a swig of Johnnie Walker red label. And they said that he did all of this to her for no reasons at all.

 But you know, in spite of all his abusive and domineering ways toward her that didn’t change Ms Hillary from being a nice lady.  Well, they said that his abusive ways came to an abrupt end about two years ago when he suffered an apparent heart attack during one of them there drinking binges while out with his buddies.  And you know his drinking buddies brought him home from where they were hanging out and laid him down, right in the front porch’s swinging rocking chair.  

Huh, and I asked you what kind of friends were they?  Why, they didn’t even have the nerves to rush him to the hospital or even ring the front door bell. They just up and left him laying on Ms Hillary's front porch in a comatose state. 

Folks said that when Ms Hillary got up the next morning and didn’t find him in the house, she started singing those spiritual songs to herself.  Sort of like she was relieved that this might be one day that she would not be getting any more beatings from him.  Why, they said that she eventually found him laying out there in that front porch rocker just-a-foaming from the mouth, eyes rolled back in his head, and unconscious.  Some said that Ms Hillary took one look at him and just kept on walking without glancing twice in his direction. Folks told me that she went about her normal outside chores that morning, you know, getting her morning newspaper and feeding the dog before going back in to the house.  They even said that she went about making herself breakfast like she knew that he was too far gone and beyond any medical help.  Why, I even heard folks said that she acted that way, you know by ignoring his medical condition, as a means of getting even with him for the years he had beaten her and the way that he had forced her to lose contact with relatives and friends.  You know, by living the life of  a recluse.

Well, they said that she finally came to her senses around noon that day, and went out to help him.  I guessed she figured that sooner or later one of his no good buddies would  call on the phone pretending the need to talk with old man Mr. Hillary by using some old line like, “How’s Hank?”  “Boy he looked bad last night and did he come home last night?” Knowing full well that Hank was near death when they dropped him off and that they  should’ve taken him to the hospital. 

Well, they said that she just took her sweet time in telephoning an ambulance even though she had come to her senses.  They said that she even took time to put on her Sunday's best clothes to greet them there ambulance folks before calling them. 

No sooner those ambulance folks arrived to care for him, they said that Ms. Hillary kissed him on the lips for the very last time before he was treated by them. You know folks told me that while Ms Hillary was kissing him on his lips, old man Mr. Hillary whispered something toward her before he closed his eyes and took his last breath. But it sort of ironic, you know, in spite of how he mistreated her when he was alive, she really cared for him right up to his last few minutes on earth. 

You see, she told me that Hank had whispered to her that “I love you.”  And she told me that she looked him right in to his eyes and repeated his final words back to him.

Poor old man Mr. Hillary, to me he was a generous and kind man when he was a live. Even though, he never showed his love towards her to other folks, I guessed in retrospect folks would always believe that he loved his gambling and Johnnie Walker red label much more than he loved his confused wife.

Well word is, Ms Hillary buried him right next to her father, you know, old man Matthias, who, by the way, went to his grave pleading with her not to marry Hank Hillary.  Old man Matthias, they said that he felt Hank was a no good for nothing liar and drunken.  They said that old man Matthias felt that Hank Hillary just wanted his daughter's hand in marriage solely for the Matthias’s inheritance money. He, he, he.  Folks said that in her own way, she sort of got back at old man Matthias by marrying him.  And then to, folks told me that she never forgave old man Matthias for killing her mommy in that there tragic car accident and then to for the life style that he lived after her death.

From wha