The Traveling Corpse

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Double Edge Press, Scenery Hill,
Pennsylvania

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Double Edge Press

Ebook ISBN 9781938002113

The Traveling Corpse

Copyright © 2012 Betsy Hayba

Cover Artwork: Original cover design by
Rebecca Melvin/Double Edge Press includes use of the following
images in its composition:

©
Dmitriy Cherevko
|
Dreamstime.com
– Dead woman lying on the sofa –
Royalty paid for use in this work

©
Newlight
|
Dreamstime.com
– Stack of Gift Boxes – Royalty paid
for use in this work

©
Baloncici
|
Dreamstime.com
– Boxes – Royalty paid for use in
this work

©
Lotophagi
|
Dreamstime.com
– Red satin background – Royalty
paid for use in this work

All rights reserved. Except for use in any
review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in
part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is
forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Double
Edge Press, 72 Ellview Road, Scenery Hill, PA 15360

This novel is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

I dedicate my novel to my family:

To my parents, Walter O. & Anna D. Jones,
who taught me to believe the song Jesus Loves Me.

To my loving, devoted, half-Hungarian
husband, ‘Frank’ Franklin Paul Hayba, a talented, honorable
Christian gentleman who has lost his memory but has kept his hair
and his delightful sense of humor.

To our three adult children and their
spouses—Susan & Tony, Dan & Pam, and Margaret &
Milt—who continually give us their love and support. And to our
rainbow of grandchildren who are grand.

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To: Betmar Acres, Zephyrhills, Florida, for
forgiving me my flights of fancy in writing my purely fictional
story set in a manufactured home park in central Florida.

To: The Creative Writers Club of Betmar for
providing a sounding board for my writing, and to Barb Keenan for
her helpful advice in editing the first 30 pages of my novel.

To: The Betmar Little Theatre for putting my
original one-act plays on the boards each year.

To: The Florida Writers Association—your
Orlando conference of 2011 opened doors for me in the publishing
world.

To: Neal & Rebecca Melvin, Double Edge
Press, for ‘discovering me’ and publishing my first novel;
therefore allowing me to cross off another wish on my Bucket
List.

To: Michelle & Charlie Acra and their
Christmas letter with the Bible verse: James 1:2-3 “Consider it
pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds,
because you know that the testing of your faith develops
perseverance - the theme of my novel.

To: Those who shared their knowledge of
Alligators, Ostriches, Emus, and Sheriff Departments:

Owners of Little Wheels, who raised Ostriches
& Emus.

Alligator Trapper Ricky Lightsey and wife,
Bunny.

Everglades Alligator Farm, Bob Freer,
Owner.

John Brueggen, General Curator, St. Augustine
Alligator Farm. Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation
Commission.

Mickie Ramos, Sec.

Lindsey Hord, Lab.

Deputy Frank Pizzuto, Pasco County Sheriff’s
office OSTRICH RANCHING IN AMERICA. By Dub Oliver, 1993.OSTRICH. By
Michael A. Thomas. 2000.

The question is asked, “Is there anything
more beautiful in life than a boy and a girl clasping clean hands
and pure hearts in the path of marriage? Can there be anything more
beautiful than young love?

And the answer is given. Yes, there is a
more beautiful thing. It is the spectacle of an old man and an old
woman finishing their journey together on that path. Their hands
are gnarled, but still clasped, their faces are seamed, but still
radiant, their hearts are physically bowed and tired, but still
strong with love and devotion for one another.

Yes, there is a more beautiful thing than
young love. Old love.

—from an anonymous email

 

Tuesday Evening, 6
P.M
.

 

Annie and her best friend, Barb, finished
wrapping the last of the tuna fish and the egg salad sandwiches.
They'd been making them to sell to the over fifty-five crowd that
played Bingo on Tuesday evenings at BradLee Retirement Park in
central Florida. From the stage nearby, they heard Karl, the head
Bingo caller, boom out, “B-3!” Annie glanced at the clock. In a few
minutes there would be a rest break in the games and then the snack
window would be swamped with customers. She and Barb and the rest
of the kitchen volunteers would be busy selling
refreshments—sandwiches, soft drinks, candy bars, potato chips,
popcorn, and pieces of cake.

If she hurried, she could slip out from the
kitchen and into the rec room and check out the drawer with the
seasonal decorations and see what Valentine stuff could be re-used
from last year. In a weak moment, Annie had promised to decorate
the inside of the clubhouse for February. She knew she needed to
stop volunteering so much. Barb, her very practical and dear
friend, reminded her often that they had worked long and hard all
their lives. Now that they were retired senior citizens, they
needed to take time to play and relax.

Annie took off her apron and told Barb she'd
be back in a few minutes. Hurrying into the big hall, she stepped
on some spilled popcorn, lost her balance, and started slipping. To
keep from falling, she frantically reached out for support and
caught hold of the short canvas money apron tied around George
Jolley's extra large waist. The three pockets were all stuffed full
of five, ten and twenty dollar bills.

George, affectionately known as Jiggs, was
one of several volunteers who were Call-Back Workers. When a player
won a board and shouted out “Bingo!” Jiggs would hurry over to that
person and call out their numbers to have them checked with the
master board mounted on the stage. If they matched, he'd pay the
winner the prize money on the spot.

Jiggs, a big, bald man well over six foot
tall, caught Annie easily and gave her one of his warm, friendly
smiles. He had one arm wrapped around her back to steady her and
his other hand gripped Annie's. To her chagrin, she realized that
she was clutching a fist full of twenty dollar bills. Embarrassed,
she dropped the money back into his apron pocket and apologized for
grabbing the Bingo money as she was falling. Jiggs teased, “I never
mind having a pretty woman fall for me!”

At seventy-two, Annie was still a pretty
woman with a crown of thick wavy hair that was now pure white. She
was blessed with a creamy complexion and few wrinkles; most of
those laugh lines. People immediately noticed her violet eyes. The
first compliment that Art, now her husband of forty-nine years, had
given her long ago was about her eyes. He'd told her that they were
as amazing as Elizabeth Taylor's. She'd never forgotten his
flattering words. She couldn't forget them because Art was still in
love with her and her violet eyes, and he frequently told her so.
She was of medium height and not quite as slender as she was as a
young woman taking nurse's training, but she still stood straight
and carried herself with ease. Smiling at Jiggs, Annie thanked him
again for catching her, straightened her long, light blue denim
jumper, and moved toward the stage.

Some ingenuous BradLee resident made good use
of the space under the stage ten years earlier when Old Main Club
House was built. Ten deep drawers fitted with casters were built
in. Nine of the ten drawers were simple trolleys designed to hold
long, narrow, folding tables. The wheeled drawers could be pulled
out from under the stage and rolled around the hall as park
volunteers worked setting up the tables or taking them down. The
tenth drawer was similar, but it had sides added so it could be
used for storage. Seasonal decorations for the big hall as well as
other supplies were kept in there. Because of its size, Annie
expected to have to tug hard on its handle, but with just a little
pull, it rolled out easily. What made her glance up at the stage
she didn't know; she found herself looking right into the dark eyes
of Karl Kreeger.

Like his friend Jiggs, Karl was also a big,
tall man. But while Jiggs was completely bald, Karl's head was
covered with a shock of gray hair of which he was very proud. He
always carried a small blue comb in his back pocket, reaching for
it frequently and running it through his thick locks. Karl took
pleasure in showing off in front of his fellow seniors with their
receding hairlines.

He chaired the BradLee Bingo Committee. It
was a big commitment, for the weekly funds were an important source
of revenue for the park's treasury. With his rich, full baritone
voice, he enjoyed taking a turn at calling out the numbers.

Never losing the rhythm of his Bingo calls:
“B – 1… . O – 68,” Annie realized that Karl was now watching
her intently.

He's always kinda nosy,
she thought.
Everybody thinks he's so wonderful since he brings in so much
Bingo money for the park, but I don't like the way he treats his
own wife.
Then, forgetting about Karl, Annie busied herself.
She lifted out the first cardboard box and set it on the edge of
the stage. Opening it, she found it full of bunches of red and
orange plastic leaves: fall decorations. The next box held Easter
things.
Strange!
Annie thought.
Who jumbled all the boxes
up like this?
She had helped put away the Christmas
decorations, and they had taken care to have them all in an orderly
fashion, with Valentine's Day stuff in front as it was the next
holiday coming up. She sighed, thinking that with her luck the
Valentine cut-outs had some how been moved all the way to the
bottom, or maybe even to the back, of the big drawer.

Annie set aside the two wrong boxes and
reached inside the drawer again. This time she tried rummaging,
looking by feel for the box that held the Valentine's Day
decorations beneath the clutter of stuff on top that obviously was
not
Valentine's Day stuff. Her hand brushed against
something that she instinctively knew should not be there. Her
heart beat funny in her chest and the floor below her and the stage
above her seemed to tip in opposite directions. Her first instinct
was to jerk her hand out and away from the object that repelled it.
Instead, she gripped the object tighter.