Whitlow Gets Saved

We were never sure if Whitlow Warbungle was really going to jump or not. We do know he climbed to the top of the Harper water tank; there weren't no other structures in Harper high enough to cause more than broken bones in a fall. Seems like he was having problems with his girlfriend and saw no way to live without her love. If he was really going to make the plunge he was saved by his best friend, James Mason Grunge. James Mason was confined to a wheelchair and had been since he was a baby. He was born with two lame legs. Jimmay, that's what we called him, showed up beneath the tower and moved around so that he was right under the spot where Whitlow would land. We never knew if it was Divine Guidance or not, but Jimmay was always right under Whitlow. Whitlow was screaming for him to move out of the way and Jimmay was saying, "Jump. I'll catch you." What happened was Whitlow finally came down and him and Jimmay went down to the Do Drop In for a beer. People that were there said they came out together laughing like nothing had gone on before.
Whitlow went on to marry another girl. They have eight children. Jimmay died a couple of years after the water tank incident. Whitlow spoke at his funeral. The water tank was taken down about ten years ago. Whitlow said he missed looking at it every day as he passed by on his way to his office. It reminded him of how foolish he had been as a youth. But he still has that girl that spurned him way back then to observe. She married a man that beat her, divorced him, and married another man that drank away all their money. She has kinda let herself go and without public assistance she would not survive.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle