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Etta May saw the face of Jesus on a potato chip. It were a sour cream and cheese and chive crinkle-cut. The kids ragged her, as they always do, but she took it in good heart. "Momma’s seein’ Jesus agin!" They yelled, holding their sides. I just smiled. Etta May’s always seein’ the face of Jesus. On the side of a bus, on a Krispy Kreme donut box, once on a quilt bought at a school rummage sale.
She’s always had visitations. But she’s got a good heart – she likes to joke she has to have, to carry all that weight – and I love her for it, even if she is crazier than a loon. So I didn’t pay her no mind, and she popped it in her mouth.
Days later, she saw Gandhi on a chip. It were sour cream and cheese and chive crinkle cut again, and she showed it me. "I can’t see nuthin’." I scratched my head. "Sure, there’s a splotchy shape on it, but I don’t see no Mahatma Gandhi."
When she saw Martin Luther King, she decided to switch to ‘nother flavor. "Aint normal, seein’ dead people," she wailed. "Even righteous dead people."
After word hit the local paper that she saw Elvis on a Dorito, she stopped talkin’ to me, even tho’ I swore it weren’t me who tole them. I were dead suspicious of Billy-Bob, but he swore his new sneakers was saved up from his after-school job baggin’ groceries.
She started talkin’ at me agin after she near choked on a regular baloney and wonder bread. "What’s wrong?" I asked, never expecting an answer.
"I knew her," Etta May said, eyeing the half-eaten chip. "She were ordinary."
"So was Elvis." I coulda bitten my tongue as soon as I said it.
She paid me no mind. "No, she were ordinary. Miz Cramer, died five year ago."
Next mornin’ she whimpered.
I looked up. "Y’alright, Momma?" I could see she were real upset.
"Earl Anstruther," she gasped.
We never did know how long Earl had been dead when she saw his face on that chip. He’d been missin’ for a coupla days, and the turkey vultures hadn’t left much of him, by the time the search teams found his body.
This afternoon, as we was watching Oprah, she got that look on her face, as she tucked into her Pizza Pringles. She ate it quick.
"What’s up?" I said.
"Just me bein’ silly, agin," she said with a teary smile, and just then, she looked like her face would crumple in on itself. It passed, but I ain’t afraid to admit that I was a tad worried.
I can do the numbers; first off she sees someone who’s been dead, like, forever, then the more recent ones, ‘til it gets to the stage where maybe she’s seeing dead people before they’s dead.
I ain’t been feelin’ too good for a few days now, and all day she’s been a touch too nice.
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