Incomparable Fanny Barnwarmer #6

by Jay Squires

The author has placed a warning on this post for violence.

Birdseye View of Previous Scene: Fanny explains to the reporter how she was in the Tavern and just beginning her act while, outside, she knew that Juniper’s plan to kill Thurston Flourney was already unfolding and she, Fanny, was just waiting to hear the shots. The Reporter was dumbfounded because her foreknowledge made Fanny an accessory to murder.

ACT II
Scene 2

CHARACTERS:
Fanny Barnwarmer: Eighty-five-year-old woman with plenty of spark and sizzle still in her. Has been performing at the Tavern for forty-four years.
Reporter: Mid-thirties. Works for the New York Times, on assignment in Brady, Texas to write a human-interest story on the famous Fanny Barnwarmer.

SETTING: Front porch of Fanny Barnwarmer’s home. Rocking chair, DOWNSTAGE RIGHT, facing kitchen chair, CENTER, and front steps behind, which descend to street level with a flowerbed to the side. OFFSTAGE LEFT are street sounds of traffic: of vintage 1928 cars, some horse whinnying, etc., that continue as a kind stew of white-noise background throughout the scene.

PLACE/TIME: Brady Texas, 1 PM, Saturday, August 11, 1929

AT OPEN: FANNY in her rocking chair, a tray on the porch beside her, holding two glasses of iced tea. In her lap, the tray of stickyberry crullers. The REPORTER sits opposite her on a kitchen chair, tablet open, pencil poised.

FANNY:
When I heered the pip-pip-pip her Li’l Liz made … an’ with a con-foundin’ pause in t’ middle o’ each one, like pip—pause—pip—an’ then a longer pause afore the last pip … I stops me right in the middle of the sentence I’s readin’ ’loud to the audyence from the newspaper, an’ I looks up … an’ to the door—an’—an’ I knowed right then—I knowed what happened.

REPORTER:
So … you stopped your performance?

FANNY:
Nope. Not so’s they could see. I jes feeled my heart fly outen my mouth, then went back t’ readin’. The audyence ’parently din’t hear nothin o’ the pip-pip-pip on accounta they ain’t been listnin’ fer it. ’Sides, ain’t nothin’ I coulda done anyhow … e’en if’n I’d o’ wanted.

REPORTER:
Oh, Miss Fanny …

FANNY:
The next day … when the whole town knowed ’bout it … an’ they be givin’ me the commis-er-ashun hugs an’ arm squeezens—those what knew Juni an’ me was—well—

REPORTER:
Yes.

FANNY:
Well … one what hugged me an’ one what squeezed my arm was there in the street an’ heered Juni’s ack-shul words what she said to Thurston Flourney. They’s not together when they telled me what they seed an’ heered, but it near be the same words.

REPORTER:
In the … um … in the interest of—

FANNY:
I be tellin’ ya, young man. I be tellin’ ya. ’Nuther stickyberry cruller?

REPORTER:
No, no I’d better not, thank you.

FANNY:
(Setting the tray on the floor)
Well, Sir, when thet Thurston Flourney, who be all gussied up kinda like y’all is—no diserspect ’tended—

REPORTER:
(Smiling)
No, no, none taken, Miss Fanny.

FANNY:
When he climbs down from his wagon, comes ’round an’ faces Widder Juniper Brown sittin’ in a chair outside o’ the Brady City Inn, he smiles down at her all haughty-like an’ he says,
(Sitting very stiffly, head held high)
Might you be the wid-dow Missus Brown?
(Beat)
Well, Sir, Berta Cornskill—she be the woman what comforted me afterwards and who were right there—she be confused on accounta she knowed Juniper waren’t no widder, ner named Brown. So, Berta be lookin’ first at Juniper, then at Thurston Flourney, till she seed Juni smile.

REPORTER:
She smiled.

FANNY:
… but Berta, she say there be no joy in thet smile.

REPORTER:
No …

FANNY:
’Ceptin’ it be unfoldin’ like she planned it. She be cool as a cucumber, my Juni. So … Berta, she tells as how she sees Juniper smile an’ then she says …
(Looking out beyond the REPORTER and speaking in a clear voice, absent much of her broad dialect)
No, reckon I ain’t the Widow Missus Brown, but I am the one you come to Brady City to see. I warrant you don’t recognize me, Thurston Flourney.
(Brings her eyes to a clear focus on the REPORTER, and resumes her informal dialect)
At this point, Berta … she tells me Juniper innerups hersef an’ dips her head to Berta hersef an’ then to Hershel Goodman, t’other one what comforted me next day … an’ she say, Evenin’ Berta, then swings her head t’other side where Hershel stood, all perplexed-like, and she say in the same cool way, Evenin’ Hershel. An’ then Berta tells me as how Juniper stares back at Thurston Flourney with the same pwaisen in her voice an’ she say:
(Staring back in that space beyond the REPORTER and speaking in her toned- down dialect)
My true name is Juniper … Eileen … Albright. I ain’t the same nobby-kneed five-year-old on my front porch. A five-year-old don’t remember how your partner held my head ‘twixt his filthy, sweaty hands an’ forced me to watch you—watch you, Thurston Flourney, swat the horse’s rump and set my Papa, Thomas Albright, a-dancin’ in the air at the end o’ that rope. I don’t remember none of it … though sometimes the smell o’ sweat an’ dirty ’tadder sacks tries to jigger it back to my memry.

REPORTER:
(Looking up from his tablet, pencil poised)
She meant the gunnysacks that covered their heads?

FANNY:
With Army o’ Uriel on the backs of ’em. Yep.

REPORTER:
But then I don’t understand how if they were wearing—

FANNY:
Coursen ya don’t! You’se rightly confused. But thet Thurston Flourney, he knowed … but he be doin’ his bestes’ actin’ … jes’ tryin’ to ’pear confused hissef.
(Beat)
So … my Juni, she goes on, an’ she say …
(Distantly, in modified voice)
It don’t matter none what thet five-year-old remember anyhow. What matters, Thurston Flourney, is thet you remember. An’ though Mama be fainted away, an’ me bein’ only five … there still be another witness—oh yes—you remember thet witness ’cause he be the one thet come ’round the side o’ the house in a full run to stop the procedin’s … till two y’alls men wrestles him down.

REPORTER:
What?! What!

FANNY:
Robert … you be makin’ it a might diff’cult fer Juni to finish her sentensin’ of Thurston Flourney. It ’pears Flourney waren’t too ankshus to hear his sentensin’, neither. Berta tell as how he jes’ stan’ there lookin’ from one face t’other—an’ there be five or six folk there by now—an’ with the sweat jes’ a poppin’ outen his forehead, he say:
(Adopting a pompous tone)
Evidently, there are no cattle that you have to sell.
(FANNY’S eyes grazing left to right and back again, as though she is Thurston Flourney speaking to an imaginary audience)
This. is. a. hoax ... And it is perp-pet-trated by a deraaaaaanged woman. And I have no time to listen to her rambling jumble of lies.
(Adopting Juniper’s persona again)
Then, my Juni, she say:
Well … then listen to this, exe-cu-shun-er Thurston Flourney …
An’ she stands up, my Juni does, an’ the blanket it falls to the groun’ an’ she raises Li’l Liz … and ’afore he has ev’n a chance to jump away, my Juni go on to say:
Listen to what my Daddy has to say …
Pip …
That be the first pip I heered from the tavern … Now, Berta, she tell me Thurston Flourney’s face twists up in the Godawf’lest way an’ he slaps both hands on t’ his belly, an’ Berta … tha’s all she say she ’members.
(Beat)
But Hershel … he ’membered it all. He heered Juni say:
An’ my Mama, she say …
Pip …
an’ he falls to his knees … an’ Hershel say he starts a-crawlin’ t’ord Juniper.

[At this juncture, FANNY falls silent, staring out past the REPORTER, and then she begins to hum a little tune, a smile twitching the corners of her mouth]

REPORTER:
Sooooo … that accounts for the first two shots, and the pause between each. And then there’s the longer pause … the time it takes him to crawl toward her. Is that right?

FANNY:
(Continues humming a while, then stops and directs her gaze back to the REPORTER)
I just be recollectin’ m’sef, sittin’ in the tavern. An’ hearin’ the first two pips. An’ thinkin’, Well Juni, it all be over now. Yer Daddy’s mis’ry, yer mama’s grievin’. Yer debt be paid. It all be over now.
(Beat)
Theys the time it tek me to think that … afore I heers the third pip.

REPORTER:
Oh, my God! You didn’t think the third shot could’ve been … that Juniper had turned her gun—

FANNY:
At first … maybe at first …. But then I knowed, sure as y’all be sittin’ there … I knowed my Juni’s story waren’t over. She sorely need the witnesses. An’ she need thet trial. Else the story … the whole story … it don’t get told. It die with her.

REPORTER:
But the third shot.

FANNY:
It be Hershel what tell me ’bout thet. He say …
(Beat)
Miss Fanny, thet Thurston Flourney … he start crawlin’ t’ords Miss Juniper, an’ he straitches out one hand to her wit’ the plead’nest look I’d ever seed in any man’s eyes ’afore. An’ she look down at him an’ she tell him:
“An’ you jes lissen ta this, Thurston Flourney … you jes lissen ta what thet five-year-old has to say …” an’ Miss Fanny I swon Miss Juniper, she d’liver thet bullet clean ’twixt his eyes the way a rancher do a steer ’afore the slaughter.

REPORTER:
(A loud exhale that has a whistling sound to it)
The third shot. That you heard as a pip.

FANNY:
An’ the rest be in the Brady Sentinal fer the whole town ta gawk at. It tell ’bout how Sheriff John Peckham—he be the son o’ Sheriff Clayton Peckham what died in eighty-seven—the Sheriff heered the first two shots from the jail, but ’afore he gets outen the door theys already the third shot. By the time he ’rived an seed the body, Juniper be waitin’ fer him, her Li’l Liz at her feet. An' she turn, an she say to Sherriff Peckham:
You best be tekkin’ me back to yer jail, fer I be the one what killed Thurston Flourney.

[There follows a long and profound silence without FANNY'S and the REPORTER'S eyes meeting.]

INTERMISSION

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#7
April
2022

I am sorry for the rather anti-climactic Intermission that I tossed in, but you know you want some popcorn and some sweet tea. Oh, and be sure to ask if they have any stickyberry crullers. It's worth a shot. Or a pip, as it were.

Thanks to Google Images for the picture of an elderly lady in a rocking chair.

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Eye-Witness Accounts

A chapter in the book The Incomparable Fanny Barnwarmer

Incomparable Fanny Barnwarmer #6

by Jay Squires

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